Citing Our Sources

Part of what is so appealing about gardening to me is that it’s an art born of borrowing.  Borrowing clippings or bulbs from a neighbor, picking a family member’s brain about how they build those trellises you remember so fondly, and snagging ideas from friends and colleagues.  Knowledge passed down from generation to generation, neighbor to neighbor, and friend to friend. 

So before we go too far in this adventure in gardening, I wanted to take a moment to thank the folks that are inspiring us, providing us with valuable information, and in general helping us out.

• Grampa–he helped to instill a love of gardening in my father, who in turn helped instill that love in me.  While he’s a man of few words, I think he gets a kick out of listening to our triumphs and failures, and getting “Pure VA produce” in the form of our canning efforts
• Mom and Dad–we always grew up with a summer vegetable garden and a plethora of plants in the house.  They also have coached JGL and I through quite a bit with our first few gardens and the first massacres of the Mr. Ed’s (more on them later), and I’m sure they’ll be there through this year as well.  
• JGL’s mom, who helped us remember last summer how much we love tomatoes and why we wanted to grow a small forest of them this year (and helped provide JGL with lots of canning memories!).
• Professor B.–we’ve taken quite a bit of advise about timelines, gardening plans, and general VA gardening know how from his notes from last year that he posted on Facebook.  Since I’m a VA transplant and JGL is an Amherst County transplant, our knowledge of how, when, and where was a little slim.  We appreciate his diligent documentation of last year’s harvest–it was a big part of why we decided to document our own adventure this year.

Thank you to all of you, and to those of you who will help us out this year!