My Garden Descends From Mt Olympus

You've Come A Long Way, Baby!

Traveled Long And Far, too!

Back in the early part of LAST Century, my grandparents, my Yia Yia and Papou, had to escape from the Pogroms of Turkish soldiers. They literally swam for safety from their village in Alatsata, Asia Minor, as Turkish soldiers rounded up and took over entire lands. They left their homes will little but their clothes on their backs.

After traveling from the Greek Islands in the northern Aegean Sea, they landed outside Athens. There, they settled for a short time, when my Papou decided to strike out for American, to make his way. Once he had enough money, he brought my Yia Yia over to settle, too. Oh, yeah, and he brought a small Mint plant, something he managed to carry with him, out of Alatsata.

When I was a young boy, my mom took a cutting from his Mint plant, and planted it in our back yard. Decades later, I took a cutting, indoors (similar to this), into a jar of water:

Above: Note the roots starting to show

After that, when there are a few roots, then, I take and bury the roots and stem into a small pot:

Above: many more leaves are showing at week 4

Soon enough, you see more leaves coming, and eventually, a second, then more, shoots start to show:

Above: After 4 months, multiple shoots are growing.

Eventually, I transplant into a pot about this size, and give this away to one of my grandfather's descendants:

Pretty impressive for a plant that is growing from something my mom planted outside, here, in my garden:

One of the reasons for bringing in one of the Mint plants is because, I am always afraid that the freezes and colds will kill off this over 100 year old plant, that took a trip in November of 1910, on the SS Mauretania, from Greece to France, eventually to Ellis Island, in the US. No idea why I am so worried, since each spring, there it is, green and growing every year since my mom transplanted a bit of it, in 1970 at this location!