I remember as a child breaking the pea pods off the vine and eating them raw and helping grandma to shell them ready for freezing.
We would visit Grandma's house every Sunday after church and there was always produce from her garden on the menu. Her root cellar was always fill to brimming.
My Grandfather on the other hand always gave away to others out of the abundance and there was always a sense of how proud he was when he would see the recipients faces light up with gratefulness.
My parents too have always had an abundant garden and mother has always canned and stored preserves for the winter months. It is shameful to admit but I never learned how to do preserving either.
Having been raised in a Christian home the concept of this type of gardening appealed to me and I set out in September of 2015 to create my own Garden of Eden in our backyard.
Finally we put our first garden together from scratch on top of very hard clay stony soil and the results have been spectacular.
The layers to the garden consisted of newspaper, dried fern fronds, compost, a layer of non producing soil, grass clippings, manure, pea straw and lastly the woodchips on top. I left the garden to sit for approximately six weeks watering every day or so to help with the breakdown process before planting kale (which the hens ate), three different tomato varieties, pumpkin, zucchini and white butterfly beans.