Memories of a summer garden

I remember as a young girl that I was always looking for ways to earn money. I was pretty resourceful. I folded my brother's newspapers, which was a total scam. I collected cans, raked leaves, delivered flyers, but my favorite was selling vegetables from our garden.

My parents had a huge garden. My mother was raised on a farm, so it was second nature to her. I think they enjoyed the garden a lot, but it there was a financial reason as well. I am the youngest of five children. That was a lot of mouths to feed, but we grew most of it at home. We lived on an acre in suburbia. It was quite unique to have that big of a plot of land. We had many fruit trees including tangerine, apricot, orange, persimmon, almond and olive. We had a garden in the summer months that had tons of vegetables. I spent many hours canning and freezing with my mother. I can remember sitting at the table snapping beans for hours.

I asked my mother one summer if she had any ideas for me to make extra money. She loaded a cart with fresh vegetables from the garden, and I sold them to the neighbors. I had fresh tomatoes, green beans, peppers, squash and corn. I sold quite a bit on the first run, but the next weekend was even more successful. Most of our neighbors bought their vegetables from the grocery store, and had not experienced fresh from the garden. I had one lady that raved about the corn. She wanted me to call her next time, so she could have the water boiling when I got there.

I was proud of our harvest, and was excited to share it with the neighbors. I enjoyed the experience, and was not shy at all knocking on their doors. I don't remember the amount of money I made, and it now appears that the experience was more important to me than the money.