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Show Raising Gardens and Families V ! Y: k i Apparently our garden has become a bit of a community conversation piece. It's fairly easy to spot. If you are driving driv-ing on the East side of town between the Battle Creek and Grove Creek canyons, it's hard to miss. In fact, it's come up on multiple occasions with multiple mul-tiple people, almost always in a positive way. Which is ironic for two reasons. First, we never set up to make it an example, and second, it almost didn't happen. Both my wife and I were raised in families that had big gardens. I remember being about 14 years old when my parents decided they were going go-ing to have a garden. We ro-totilled ro-totilled 1,700 square feet. For some families that's a small garden. For our family of three kids it was huge. My dad ordered or-dered several yards of top soil and it was my job to spread it around. I then got to oversee the layout of the garden and the planting. We put in the usual vegetables; rows of broccoli and cauliflower starts, lettuce, carrots, car-rots, radishes, 10 tomato planxs and too many zucchini plants. "A beginning gardner plants two zucchini plants, because he thinks one might die. An experienced gardner plants one zucchini plant, because be-cause he knows it plenty. A master gardner doesn't plant any zucchini plants, because be-cause he knows he can get all the zucchini he wants from the beginners and the experienced gardeners." We watered our garden throughout the summer and I remember the pride that I had when we used my produce at the dinner table. Of course, I also remember my dad correcting correct-ing me when the carrots came up and the rows zig-zagged all over and were about two inches apart. But that was the point of learning. My wife's family also had big gardens growing up. They were more experienced than we were so their harvest was a lot more consistent. Being the thirteenth of fifteen children, her family was also a lot bigger than mine. Her memories are of hoeing bean rows; knowing that "Bliss" continued on Page S by Rodney Bliss "I noticed your garden is coming com-ing in well." "Huh?" "You live in the house with the big garden on the side, right? The one with the 'A Frames' holding up the beans?" This might not seem like a strange comment if it was coming com-ing from one of my neighbors, but this was a conversation with one of the business owners own-ers in Pleasant Grove. Although we've been friends for years, I had no idea he even knew where I lived. ! "Bliss " continued front Page 3 you couldn't go swimming un- i til the beans were done, j So, when we recently ! moved into the house that we j live in, we knew that at one I point we wanted a garden. This year wasn't going to be the year. I I got caught up in an unexpected j job layoff in January and strug- J gled to land a new position. Fi- i nances were tight and we didn't know if we could afford a garden gar-den this year. It's my experience that the first few years you pay j the garden. It's only after that j when the garden starts to pay I you. It was June when we finally decided one day that we would j simply do the best we could. We ! had the land. The garden would get watered by the lawn sprin klers anyway. And we had seed left over from previous years. So, we got the kids out with shovels and hoes and we cut the sod off our garden spot and used it to make a wall around the garden. gar-den. We turned over the dirt with shovels. I built some A-frames A-frames to string wire on for pole beans. We planted beans, peas, lettuce, carrots, watermelon, corn, a few tomato plants, and one zucchini plant. (Okay, we actually planted two, but with eight kids at home we knew we'd eat that much.) And then we prayed over our garden and waited to see what our efforts would yield. We were pleasantly surprised sur-prised when despite not roto-tilling, roto-tilling, and no fertilizer, and just some regular watering, the plants started to grow. Because of our late, start we're not sure we'll get any of the watermelon, but the beans are ready. We've eaten peas, and squash from our garden. But, we've been surprised at the reaction of the neighbors. We live in a great neighborhood and we get along with everyone, but the garden became a bit of a landmark. Neighbors commented com-mented that "You Bliss's seem to be able to grow anything." As I mentioned, people in the community com-munity would bring it up, "I noticed no-ticed your beans are starting to grow." And one other thing happened, hap-pened, our kids got a reputation. Because the garden is in such a prominent spot, when we were out cutting the sod, or planting, or weeding, people driving by would notice not only the garden, but our kids out there working. Since my wife and I both grew up taking tak-ing care of gardens, we didn't think anything of having our kids out working in the garden on a Saturday. But, some of our neighbors were impressed that the kids were out there. It led to several summer jobs as people invited my teenagers over to their houses to do yard work, or cleaning or occasionally gardening. gar-dening. Just as our garden was an accidental example to people around us, our family has been the same way. We have thirteen thir-teen children. While that's a big family even by Utah standards, what makes us stand out is the fact that ten of our children are adopted. We've adopted from all over the world, so we have white kids, Black kids and Asian kids. And like the garden, we never set out to be an example and our family almost didn't happen this way. Twenty-five years ago when we got married, we certainly didn't plan on having hav-ing this family. . Like all young couples considering marriage, we talked talk-ed about kids. Corning from "Bliss" continued on Page 6 "Bliss " continued from Page 5 a big family, my wife thought she would want four or five kids. I was thinking more in the two to three range. Apparently we multiplied my three with her four and added an extra for good measure. As we were considering consider-ing our third birth child, we made the decision to adopt. Our first adoption was domestic and he was three days old when he was placed with us. Over the next ten years, we found ourselves drawn to India and China, Haiti and Colombia. Co-lombia. We adopted infants, and toddlers, and older kids that were school age. We put a lot more thought into adoption than we did to planting a garden, of course. And now that our oldest daughter is expecting expect-ing our first grandchild, we are excited to move on to "grand"parenting. But, I've often thought about the similarities between our garden and our kids. Having a multi-ethnic family in Utah is not unique, but it's still unusual. unusu-al. I am, at times reminded that my kids look differently different-ly than I do. Almost always it's done in a positive way. It's the questioning look on a clerk's face, "Is this your son?" Yes. Yes, this is my son, my daughter and my family. We all have times in our lives where we make decisions deci-sions for us and our families fami-lies but those decisions are visible to those around us. We never really know when those decisions and choices will become an example to our friends and neighbors just like my garden and my children. The challenge is to make the best decision we can and hope that the example ex-ample we are showing helps others along the way. Rodney M. Bliss is an . author, blogger and IT Consultant. Con-sultant. He lives in Pleasant Pleas-ant Grove, Utah, with his lovely wife and thirteen children. |