Grandma and grandson, Deanne Jordan and Mike Pavlicek, share a love for the garden.

I grew up without grandparents. My wife knew all her grandparents who were wheat farmers in Kansas and the farmers wives were experts in cooking meals they harvested from their farms. Chickens, cows, pigs and a large vegetable garden provided the ingredients.

My mom taught me to open a can of green beans. My wife’s grandparents taught her to plant seeds, harvest, prepare meals and preserve the remaining for the winter months.

We have our best garden this year and as I write this my wife is canning salsa, jalapeño peach preserves and pickles. Her love for vegetable gardening and cooking is something we try to pass on to our grandkids.

Last Christmas we gave two of our grandkids gardening tools, some seeds and a bag of potting soil. At first they were not all that interested but Grandmas love for gardening was being passed to them as she spent time explaining about seeds and the coming harvest. The real joy will come when kids see the seeds pop their little heads thru the soil and later when they get to harvest and cook.

We had one more chance to work with another 9-year-old grandson before the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to our visits from the grandkids. Planning for his visit, we purchased a book on trees, leaves, flowers and seeds and spent some time paging through the book to see what would spark his interest.

I admit he was a bit torn between going back to his games on the phone and keeping his attention on the book. After about 15 minutes it was time to walk out to the garden and open a pack of green beans. He held the seeds in his hand and after watching Grandma plant some seeds, he started planting seeds. I knew we had his interest when he took a few seeds and snuck them in his pocket. He now had a keepsake. Back at home, his parents planted green beans and took a rotting pumpkin and covered it with soil. The pumpkins have taken over his garden and next year he plans to plant pumpkin, watermelon and cantaloupe and can’t wait to eat them.

Picking our garden this year is without our grandchildren to help us harvest, cook and can vegetables and the opportunity to pass on Grandmas love for cooking and preserving food.

Please forgive the pun — but the seed is planted and we will continue to grow their love of gardening and cooking next summer when they visit and help harvest our garden.

As for me, I’ve been enjoying fresh fried okra, green beans with caramelized onion and bacon, freshly made spaghetti sauce, pickles, salsa and jalapeño peach preserves over cream cheese. And my favorite is an almost daily bacon or turkey sandwich with onion, lettuce and the best slicing tomato I’ve ever had.

The Smith County Master Gardener program is a volunteer organization in connection with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service.