Grandma's Old Fashioned Flower Garden

 When I was a small girl, we used to sell seeds for our school. All the kids had little cardboard boxes with several packages of seeds, both flower and vegetable. The people living near the school were the first to "welcome" us little sales people to their door. The seeds must have cost just a few cents, but money was tight in those war days so we really had to do a selling job. This was the era of the victory garden. Everyone had a garden in their backyard. They were needed in order to eat for many families. 

 Women not only worked outside the home...they came home and canned the produce from their gardens for the coming winter. Some moms didn't work outside the home...they were the caretakers for other women's children. My mom worked at a department store and she worked so hard to keep things going for our family while Dad was gone. We rented our house and I think that we paid maybe $35 a month. 

 When the men came home from the war it was such a happy time. I remember my dad looking at the backyard and saying that he would plant a garden.I think that this was his first attempt at growing anything. He didn't have any really good tools, but he had "elbow grease" I remember seeing him dig up that hard soil with a spade. I tried to help by picking up the rocks and sticks that were in his way. The garden was to be huge. Enough for the three of us and my grandma.

 I knew that we didn't have much money then, so I hesitated asking Dad to buy some seeds from me. I thought that maybe he would buy a packet or two. When I showed them to  him...he was delighted and bought almost all my vegetable seeds. 

The flower seeds were left. I used to fan them out on my bed and look at all the pretty flowers.....wishing that we could grow flowers instead of yucky old vegetables. There was one packet called "Grandma's Old Fashioned Flower Garden" a mixture of pretty old fashioned annuals. I wanted it so badly, but the day came and I had to turn in my money and leftover seeds. No flowers for our garden that year or any other year as I remember...maybe a few marigolds was all. 

I saw the packet of "Grandma's Old Fashioned Flower Garden" seeds on Amazon.I needed a few things to get free shipping...so I ordered a package. I planted them in a big container in the back garden. It took me from the time I was 6 years old until now in my 70's to finally see what comes of a mixture of seeds in a packet. I was really surprised...they were quite pretty and quite a variety. I finally had my wish...no yucky vegetables in this container...just delicate, beautiful, flowers....like Grandmas used to grow.

Balisha

Thought I'd share something else this morning. Remember back on Oct. 7th...I said that I was bringing in my Christmas cactus? I did bring it in and yesterday it started to make those big fat buds. Here's a picture of it this morning...sitting in the garden window in my computer room. I told you so :)