One of my favourite garden memories

I am the insanely proud father of 4 wonderful children - and when they were growing up on the farm, we always had a rather large vegetable patch that meant we were pretty self-sufficient in veggies. With one exception.

I could never grow enough edible podded peas to keep us going all summer. No matter what I did - those flowers never seemed to produce peas. We grew 'Sugar Snaps' at that time and these were very sweet and were a family favourite. I did all kinds of things to try to boost the productivity of those vines but nothing seemed to work.

What did solve the problem one day was seeing my 5-ish year old daughter slipping out of the pea patch - her shirt pocket and pants pocket jammed full of peas. The floppy hat on her head was stuffed with peas and jammed back down so the theft was "disguised" and her already voluminous and father-adored cheeks were stuffed so her voice was inaudible. Those big brown eyes were so happy to have all these peas that I couldn't get mad. I had to chuckle inside in a big way - particularly at the hat jammed full and pulled down to the ears.

I remembered the look I got from her that day when I had my first edible podded pea of the season this afternoon. I had to smile as I crunched through what will be the first of a bumper crop of peas.

The only problem of course is that she's all grown up now and moved away to the city so I'm going to get a bumper crop and I have to eat it all myself. What I do have though is indelibly printed on my mind - the look of those peas in that hat and those big eyes staring back at me. I might not have had the peas that year - but I've been feasting on that memory for a long time now.

Thanks for the memory dear and thanks for the tears of happiness this afternoon.