Grandma's Garden And The Life

During the school holidays, there was always only one destination for me - Granny's house.

I could tell a lot about that time. I could rave about what it was like to spend a childhood without the internet and mobile phones, playing outside all day and roaming the pastures.

But just today, I had to think of one thing that for me is so much connected to grandma like hardly anything else. It was her large, lush garden that captivated me every time I visited her.

I don't know how big this garden was, but today I would estimate it to be about two hundred square meters. Later, as my grandmother grew older and weaker, my uncle, who lived with her, planted larger and larger parts of this garden with lawn and wildflowers. A pond was also built at some point.

But the real garden I remember was the one where vegetables and fruit were grown. When you stepped out of the kitchen onto the terrace early in the morning, you could already smell the strawberries and the dew-dampened earth.

The earth in my grandmother's garden was deep black and fertile. That was because there was also a compost heap there, where Grandma and my uncle composted all the biological waste in the house.

Once a year, the heap was restacked, and the waste that had become fertilizer was put into the earth all over the garden.

When I was there, I helped. I was a little boy, but I had strength and endurance. I didn't mind working for hours with a spade and dung fork.

In summer, we could harvest strawberries almost every day. Grandma sugared them, and in the afternoon, we had the beautiful red fruits with whipped cream for coffee.

But there was much more in grandma's garden. We harvested beans, potatoes, zucchini, and herbs.

I think I was the only one in my circle of friends who knew how to dig up potatoes.

I had lived in a big city since I was seven years old after my parents had left with me the small village that was only a few kilometers away from my grandmother's house.

The move to the big city was traumatic for me at that time. Today I am very thankful that we made this relocation, but back then, it felt as if everything that made up my life was being robbed from me.

This feeling of being transplanted against my will was also the reason why I only ever wanted to go to grandma's house during the holidays. It made me feel safe and at home.

When the beans and potatoes were harvested, and the strawberry plants were bearing less and less fruit, it was the sign that summer was slowly passing.

Although I lived in a big city, I grew up in the rhythm of nature. The progress of the year could be seen when grandmother fertilized, dug up, harvested, and canned vegetables.

But the garden became smaller as grandma grew older. My visits became less frequent when I became a teenager because I now had other interests. My life became more and more in tune with the pace of the big city and became faster and more hectic.

I noticed the change of seasons less and less. In the supermarket, there was every vegetable and every fruit at every time of year. I experienced nature less directly than before. Eventually, it disappeared from my life completely.

Eventually, Grandma died. From that day on, I never went back to her house. The most important house of my childhood is now only a memory. I will never enter it again, and I will never see the garden again.

Back then, before the world began to turn faster and faster, my grandma had a lifestyle that influencers and lifestyle bloggers today sell as minimalism. There was a garden, a kitchen, and a basement.

That was enough to provide food for half the year.

Today I look back with melancholy on this wonderful time. But I also know that it won't come back, and that's good.

I also love our world as it is today. But I am rediscovering something I had long forgotten - the changing of the seasons.

Today we buy our food again when it is harvested. We prefer seasonal and regional foods. We cook with fresh ingredients again.

And when I see the bag of potatoes and the bag of beans standing in our kitchen, I remember how I once harvested them myself. Then I smell the earth and the summer air again.