In the picture, I’m a little girl. A little girl in her grandmother’s garden.

Yellow hair, shining in the sunlight. My head tilted slightly down to avoid the glare that surely was coming from behind the camera. Light colored shorts and a sleeveless top. What look to be dirty white boots, left over from winter and repurposed for gardening or playing.

Behind me, towering nearly three times my height, are sunflowers. Giant heads, turned to the sun. Some tip down, already heavy with seeds. The lower leaves and stalks are starting to yellow.

Behind the row of sunflowers, the tops of trees are visible, beneath a blue Wisconsin sky, tinged with clouds.

I am perhaps 3 in the photo.

I don’t remember the day, but I’ve had the photo long enough, it seems I should be able to recall it.

If I had to guess, I’d say my grandmother took the photo, lining me up by the sunflowers, which perhaps I helped plant. As I grew older, I better recalled helping in the garden. For several years, we’d plant hundreds of tomato plants in an evening, her digging the holes, me squatting or kneeling down to get them in the dirt.

It’s quite likely, though, that she took my picture because they were “my” sunflowers, planted by seed in a row under her direction, watered and nurtured to full glory. Somehow spared by the rabbits and deer.

I dreamed of growing sunflowers like those with my children. We had a couple years when our sunflowers came up and actually grew into full-fledged plants. But they never rivaled the sunflowers of my grandmother’s garden.

Grandmother’s garden

She had a green thumb, that’s for sure. For years, she planted a huge garden out of necessity. It was the only way she could make ends meet to feed her family. She planted, harvested and preserved all manner of vegetables and fruit. I recall roasting pans of green beans, peas, pinto beans and lima beans. At certain times, flats of peaches and pears filled her house, purchased to be canned in glass mason jars and stored with on basement shelves. Even recently, there still were jars in the basement room, left over from the bounty of many years ago.

Strawberries, blueberries and sweet corn were frozen. Winter squash and pumpkins would last quite a while after picking. Produce was consumed fresh or put away for winter meals ahead.

Most years, she planted the same things in roughly the same spots. I recall one year when she tried peanuts – that might have been during the Carter administration. I don’t think they were terribly successful.

She knew which tomatoes grew best, which varieties of squash had the best yield and where to plant for optimal growing and easier harvesting. When seed catalogs arrived in late winter, she would pore over them. Weeks before she could plant outside, she’d begin seeds inside, moving them to the plant room off her garage when they got big enough and finally into the ground when the time was right.

My garden attempts

Throughout my adult years, I grew different things inside and out: green plants, blooming flowers like violets, varieties of roses and various gardens. Often, I’d have grand plans. Despite trying to start plants inside, I never had the skill that my grandmother did. For several years my gardens were successful, yielding enough tomatoes, onions and peppers to share with others. Most years, however, I’d be lucky to get enough for a few salads.

Unlike my grandmother, I didn’t need to have a garden to feed my family. It was a hobby more than anything. A hobby that required real work of turning the soil, planting, watering, weeding and harvesting.

Gardening always will remind me of my grandmother, just as the picture of me by the sunflowers does. Standing somewhat shyly near the towering giants. A little girl in her grandmother’s garden. Growing up, growing like the sunflowers, all those years ago.

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How to Be a Better Writer Tip

Sentence fragments

I used sentence fragments heavily today when describing the picture that sparked this post. Both the opening and closing paragraphs were written this way.

I wanted to capture the feeling I got looking at the picture. In describing it, I found I was just using fragments, not full sentences. A little blond girl. Tall sunflowers. An aged photograph.

Yet, when I switched to talking about my grandmother and gardening, I shifted to full sentences. This was to make it easier to read and understand. A full post of just fragments would be challenging to read and to hold together. Sentence fragments are just that — fragmented. It’s hard to hold them together.

But they worked perfectly for the fragments of memories and thoughts elicited by the photograph.

You can use sentence fragments in a similar fashion. Give it a try and see how it changes the feelings you evoke and the thoughts you share.