memories are made of this

I have had my memory jogged thanks to Gardengirl

I grew up in a then country town, situated on a river. I had a normal australian childhood, wonder why I grew up to be eccentric?

but I remember Thelma Turner - the lady who lived up the road and sold her fresh vegetables to the neighbours. Each day her husband would pick whatever vegetable was ripe and she would tote it around in one of those shopping trolleys that many ladies had back then. *I want one!* We would wait out the front to see her coming and race inside to tell mum. The freshness of the cucumbers so crisp and those tomatoes that she grew tasted like real tomatoes. I remember the dirty potatoes freshly dug from her garden and the beans and the parsley and chives...but the thing I remember most were her dahlias. Huge crimson dahlias. You see, she was an old fashioned gardener - she grew flowers among her vegies, all crammed in together. No pesticides. orange & lemon trees too. Glass fruit fly catchers hanging from branches (*I collect these too,now*) She lived in a little fibro house - garden back and front. The whole front yard was a vegetable and flower patch but oh ! out the back - the bean poles and pumpkin vines running rampant over the old shed and the butterflies and bees.

and that is one of the reasons why I try to garden organically and why my garden is a mis-matched hotchpotch of fruit trees, vegetables & flowers.