14 | Holiday 2020
Impressions of My Father MARK ANDERSON owner, Anderson's Seed and Garden
SOME OF MY EARLIEST MEMORIES of my father are working out in the garden. Despite his long hours and continuous work at Anderson’s Seed and Garden helping other gardeners succeed, he loved working in his own garden most. For him, it was his opportunity to get away from work responsibilities, disconnect from outside distractions of the world, and find peace. It was his happy place. Potatoes, cantaloupe, and corn were his favorite things to grow, but then again, I think all vegetables were his favorite. As a young child, I would help plant potatoes and seeds, water young transplants, and definitely help harvest. I learned early on, that it was so much easier to work a little in the garden every day, than to try to do it all on the weekend, then turn around and do it all over again the next weekend. We’d work a little in the garden every night when he
got home from work. For Dad it was 20 to 30 minutes of weeding, a little watering, a little fertilizing, and a lot of stress relief. For me, it was a true lesson about how work can be fun. Dad knew how to make a hard job easy, enjoyable, and rewarding. That’s the best way to experience gardening. When harvest time rolled around, we always had 10 times more produce than we could ever use. My mother canned and froze enough food to feed three families each summer and fall, but we constantly had an abundance of everything from the garden. Dad loved to share that bounty. He’d take cases of vegetables to his friends in Montana who let him fish on their property. He shared cantaloupes with anyone who wanted a taste. No one could ever leave his house without tasting his new potatoes covered in butter, that he would painstakingly
EDITOR’S NOTE: Clyde Anderson, a well-known Cache Valley businessman, passed away last month at the age of 91. We invited his son Mark Anderson, current owner of Anderson’s Seed and Garden, to share some lessons learned from him here.
