[Minnie]

I learned that I like gardening. It will sound nuts to people, but I had a major mental block with gardening. Having a mental block about it might make sense to someone who was raised in a very abusive home, like I was. My parents planted a huge garden, every place we lived. If it wasn't weeded 100% exactly right, it would/could result in a verbal barrage of abuse, a slap or a beating/#### kicking. The same was true if we didn't pick things exactly right or get every last pea off the vine, for example. It didn't matter that we were little kids that didn't know a cucumber vine from a bean plant or how to pick anything, we got the crap end of the stick from our parents.

I left home at 18, just into my 50s now, and this is the first veggie garden I have ever tried. I planted the garden, then became paralyzed with inaction because I couldn't bring myself to weed if I wasn't weeding it bare of every little piece of green that wasn't supposed to be there. It took some help from my husband, to get past the weeding issue, which, as I said, probably sounds ridiculous to some people, but I got there.

I was careful to plant only 1 thing that grows on a vine (cucumbers) because the idea of peas/beans/other vine items unnerves me quite a lot, and I started very very small with the rest - only 6 potato plants (1 died), 6 green onions, 6 heads of lettuce (only 3 ever grew), 2 cucumber plants, 1 green pepper plant, 6 tomato plants (only 3 grew) of one variety, dill, chives & parsley. I bought 1 well established tomato plant (different variety) when it looked like the ones I started from seed, weren't going to do anything.

I have enjoyed watching things grow and am constantly amazed that anything happens. I don't really have an idea of what I'm doing, I just threw seeds in pots & in a small garden bed and waited to see what would happen. Now I want to turn my entire backyard into a garden, LOL, which won't happen because I don't know how to can & I don't have any cold storage or even enough storage to put up vegetables and I don't want to waste things.

So, I learned to garden this year and I guess I also learned I could get past another part of my abusive childhood/youth, to find enjoyment in something I never would have expected to find enjoyment in.