🥕 The Garden That Fed Us: Growing Up in the '60s

🌻 Some of my favorite memories from the '60s started in my dad’s garden.
Long rows of vegetables, the warm smell of dirt, and the sweet snap of peas fresh off the vine — it was a simpler, sunnier time.
If you’ve ever known the joy of pulling a carrot straight from the ground, dirt and all, you’ll feel right at home here.
Pull up a chair. I’ve got a story for you…

🚜 Life on the Farm

Being a girl on the farm — and one from the '60s at that — was a whole lot different than life today.
Have you ever sat down in a pea patch and eaten peas right off the vine?

I have.

I can still picture myself — a little barefoot girl, sitting in the dusty row between the peas, plucking them off the vine one by one. I don’t remember if I was supposed to be pulling weeds or if I was just being a little brat that day. What I do remember is how sweet those peas tasted, fresh and warm from the sun.

Maybe we were supposed to be saving them for canning, but honestly, the temptation was too strong. Those peas barely stood a chance against a hungry kid with dirty fingers and no supervision.
We learned young how to pick them properly — no yanking! You had to hold the vine steady with one hand and pluck the pod with the other. That vine was our food for the winter, and it mattered.

🌽 The Great Pea Heist

Of course, when winter rolled around, I noticed something — there weren’t many frozen peas to be found.
I guess now I know where they went. (Spoiler alert: right into our mouths before they ever made it to Mom's canning jars!)

Dad’s garden was massive — the kind you don’t see much anymore.
It was fenced in tight to keep the deer and critters out, and we kids knew better than to leave that gate swinging open.
From the gate to the back fence, there were rows that stretched 200 feet or more. Corn and potatoes grew farthest from the house, saved for late summer and fall harvests. Closer to the house were the summer treasures — peas, carrots, cucumbers, lettuce, and broccoli — the very same ones I couldn't resist.

📚 Dad’s Garden Experiments

All winter long, Dad would pour over seed catalogs like they were adventure novels. There are dozens of varieties of every vegetable, and he would go over them with Mom, picking out old favorites and new experiments.

One year, he planted something called kohlrabi — a German turnip — and it was love at first bite for me. To this day, it's hard to find in a regular supermarket, but every time I do, I grab it and think of Dad’s garden experiments.

Some days, I’m pretty sure Dad had kids just so he’d have free labor for weeding. (Just kidding... sort of.)
It sure felt that way when you were knee-deep in weeds that seemed to grow twice as fast as the vegetables.
I didn’t mind pulling the big ones though — they were tall enough that you didn’t have to bend over! Small victories, right?

🛒 A Different Kind of Grocery Store

Dad wasn’t just a gardener; he was a vegetable man. Every time we went to visit family, he made a pit stop at the garden first — picking a couple dozen ears of corn, digging up a sack of potatoes, grabbing heads of lettuce and cabbage, handfuls of peas and carrots. He'd throw them all into a burlap sack and off we'd go.

It was like our version of going grocery shopping — only everything was fresher and a whole lot dirtier.

🧤 The Work Behind the Feast

Food doesn’t just grow out of the ground and hop into your fridge — there's a whole lot of work between seed and supper. You have to till the dirt, mark out your rows, plant the seeds, pull the endless weeds, and water it all (weeds included).

I remember pulling weeds that had been missed for a couple of weeks — they were up to my knees! Those were the easiest ones to pull though. No bending required!

But in the end, all that work paid off.
No grocery store vegetable could ever compare to what came out of Dad’s garden. Not even close.

🥕 Fresh Will Always Be Best

These days, I live in Montana, where you can forget about growing much when the snow flies.
I've never had a big garden of my own, but I sure do appreciate a good farmers market when summer rolls around.

It’s not quite the same though.
There’s just something about pulling a carrot straight out of the ground, brushing off the dirt, and crunching into it right there in the sun.

💬 What about you?
Did you grow up with a big backyard garden too? I’d love to hear your memories — drop them in the comments!

💬 Wanda-ism

The best things in life don't come from a store — they come with a little dirt still clinging to them.

🌟 Have you checked out my other stories?
Click on Wanda’s Stories — they’re all hanging out there!
You’ll see the newest ones first, so just keep scrolling if you want to go way back. Or click a category and poke around.
There’s a little something for everyone — happy reading!