Sweet Peas

Magoo’s Garden

Mother Nature celebrated April Fool Day in the Northland by dumping another 12 inches of snow on the ground. This wet snowy atmosphere doesn’t exactly inspire gardening thoughts so I dug deep into my supply of childhood garden memories and came up with a heart warming memory— Jessie-and-Susan’s garden—my favorite aunts and my all time favorite garden.

My maiden aunts, Jessie-&-Susan, (we always referred to them in hyphens) kept a huge garden in their back yard.

Everybody in their small South Dakota town, in the 1950ies, had a garden. The gardens were mostly utilitarian, rectangular plots in back yards and almost always enclosed with mesh wire fences, to keep out pests. Every garden also had a section devoted to flowers.

It was how most people lived. The yearly cycle of planting, tending, harvesting and eating fruits and vegetables was a normal part of their lives. For my aunts to live without a garden would have been unthinkable.

But I was a little kid and to me, their garden was only a source of and enchantment and good eating.

And the sweet peas that covered the garden fence every spring were one of my favorite enchantments.

I loved to sit on the sun warmed earth, in one of the corners where the garden fence posts met. Here the sweet peas bloomed profusely and the vividly colored blooms entwined with the green vines to form a hidden bower.

In this little delightful corner, I pretended to be a princess and the beautiful sweet pea blooms were my ladies-in-waiting, gently swaying in the warm South Dakota breezes.

The enchantment didn’t stop even when Aunt Susan, strode purposefully to the fence, sturdy scissors in hand to snip long stems of sweet peas as cutting flowers. When she finished and walked back to the house, I stayed in the sweet pea bower and played.

Later, when the aunts called me in for a mid-afternoon glass of Kool-aid, the scent of sweet peas filled their house and a beautiful vase of brightly colored sweet peas sat atop a crocheted doily on the dining room table.

Nice memory to have.