Gardening with Dad

I always wanted a green thumb, but it just wasn’t in the cards for me. Back in Texas, I tried growing vegetables and herbs and potted plants and roses. But I only had success with aloe vera and ivy, both of which are very difficult to kill. I know. I tried.
So imagine my excitement to be living here in the nation’s salad bowl and fruit basket, where someone like me has a chance to successfully grow whatever my heart desires.
I come from a long line of ancestors who could raise bountiful vegetable gardens in rocky deserts. My grandfather was a peanut farmer in South Texas, toiling successfully through years of drought, pestilence and disease. When he retired from farming and moved with my grandmother to the big city in the 1950s, he turned their large backyard into a lush oasis of flowers, vegetables and fruit trees.
My mother was also blessed with the green thumb gene. She grows the most beautiful potted plants and can nurse any dying foliage back to life.
My father, on the other hand, did not grow up on a farm. His father was a railroad conductor, and they lived in a small city outside of San Antonio. He grew up poor during the Great Depression, but he never picked cotton or peanuts, like my mother and her siblings, or plowed fields to earn extra money.
But somehow, someway, he, too, was born with a green thumb. When I was growing up, he spent many hours tending his large garden plot in the backyard, lovingly planting and nourishing vegetables, honeysuckle, cannas, roses and peach trees. He also planted pine trees, which he despised in later years when he realized how annoying those sticky needles could be when they covered the front lawn.
Every day after work he’d change into his shorty-shorts and white tennis shoes and head out to the yard. Grabbing the hose, he’d go from flower to flower, plant to plant, watching the water stream out and quench the earth below. It was a routine I took for granted—just my dad doing his thing.
He’s been gone for almost six years now. Alzheimer’s Disease took him from us when he was 83. On Sunday, I’ll celebrate my sixth Father’s Day without him and, as always, it will not be easy. I wish I hadn’t taken so many things for granted when I was younger. I wish I had cherished more the time I had with him. But because of my loss, I try harder to find ways to connect with him every single day.
Several months ago, my husband and I planted some tomatoes, peppers, basil, cilantro and sage in our backyard flower beds. With my history, I didn’t expect the garden to come to much and thought they would die in two to four weeks, just like the ones back in Texas.
But to my surprise and great joy, California sprinkled its magic. Our garden is lush and flourishing and I have herbs running out my ears. Now when I get home from work in the evenings, I can’t wait to change into comfy clothes and head out to my garden. When I get there, I turn on the drought-friendly hose and (according to mandated watering regulations, of course) go from one plant to another, watching the water fall like rain showers on the bright green leaves. Soft cool breezes caress my cheek as birds and squirrels twitter and chatter. In that moment, I can feel my dad standing right there with me. He’s helping my garden grow. He passed his green thumb on to me, finally, after all these years.
Thanks, Daddy…happy Father’s Day.
Email Kristi Parker Johnson at

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