For those who do not know

For those who do not know, Yaya means grandmother in Greek. My Yaya was a master gardener in her younger days. She was one of those people who could take a clipping of any plant and start it growing by sticking it into soil. Her dementia makes it hard for her to remember how to garden and it frustrates her. I picked up a love for gardening from her but I do not have her magic touch with plants and growing things. It takes a bit of work for me to get things growing.

My fiance, two kids and I moved from Olympia, Washington to Placerville, California to live with and care for her back in 2013. With very little success, I have tried to keep up the yard with my limited knowledge. My cabbage grew nice and big but became infested with worms one year. The year before that my tomato crop was decimated by the nasty fat green worms called tomato hookworms. The best way to rid yourself of them naturally is to cut them in half with scissors. Yuck! It took losing the cabbages to them for me to get over the yuck factor and grab my gardening sears.

My goal is to surround my Grandmother with pretty green growing things. They may not be the exotics that she grew like elephant ears and birds of paradise, but it will be green. I have a lot of learning to do and I have had more success with vegetables than flowers so I decided that I am going to fill every pot and space I can with food bearing plants.

Here was my first year. I believe the only reason why it survived was because Yaya was still able to help plant and water. I wish I had pictures of last year's garden, but I can not find a single one. That was also the year either nothing grew or bugs got into them. I think the tomatillos where the only surviving plant and they where grown from the seeds of the year before. 

This year I am making it my personal mission to become a gardener. Recording my findings and failing are a part of it. That is where this blog comes into play. I plan to not only keep a written personal journal of my gardening experiences, but also share pictures and maybe help educate people about Dementia and Alzheimer and all of our elderly friends and family members.