Ralph's lavatera

My lavatera

Two weeks ago, I returned from walking the dog to find my 93-year-old neighbour, Ralph, standing in my back yard, checking out my garden. I was delighted to see him.

He'd been out on an errand, and decided to stop by since he hadn't seen me for a while (we took our summer vacation). "I rang the doorbell, but nobody answered," he said. "What's the name of that flower you gave me?"

When I visited Ralph and Lidia back in May, the day he gave me his amazing squash plant, I gave him a tiny potted lavatera plant that I had started from seed.

"It's big," he said when he visited. "Did you plant any in your garden?"

I told him I had, and after we toured my vegetable garden and I showed him how his amazing squash was climbing our greenhouse, we went to the front yard and I showed him my laughable lavatera.

To be fair, my front gardens are competing with several large elm trees, so it's a real challenge for bedding plants to get enough nutrients to even bloom.

This afternoon I went for coffee with Lidia and Ralph, and took a picture of them with their lavatera bush, promising not to put their picture on the internet, and laughing about how small my lavatera are in comparison.

I told Ralph that his green thumb is much greener than mine.

It made him smile like he makes me smile. I can't help but love my Italian neighbours.

Ralph and the six-foot squash

Last week I paid a visit to my wonderful Italian neighbours whose plum and apple trees I help pick in the fall, Lidia and Ralph. I found them in excellent spirits, though 93-year-old Ralph had a fall and banged his head in his greenhouse the week before.

Lidia doesn't want Ralph gardening alone now, so the day after his fall, Ralph called up his 88-year-old friend, and the two of them planted tomatoes together. Lidia laughed and laughed about it, and said she woke up laughing in the middle of the night because the friend wore his best leather shoes for the job. I'm simply amazed by these people. I hope I'm still able to plant tomatoes at their age!

Lidia poured us all a shot of Bailey's Irish Cream while she was making her wonderful espresso coffee. She also served a delicious cake she had baked just that morning. Her cousin, Mario, was visiting. The three tried their best to keep the conversation going in English, but it often reverted to Italian, and I had moments where I imagined I was in Italy with beloved grandparents. That's the kind of people Ralph and Lidia are.

After our little snack, we went out to the garden and greenhouse where Ralph grows hundreds of tomato plants, peppers, and his most famous plant, a long, thin, zucchini type squash. A few years ago, he made the papers and local TV news with a seven-foot squash that hung from the roof of his greenhouse. He brought its seeds with him when he came to Canada in 1956. When I exclaimed over the idea of growing something so big, he made Mario and me follow him to the basement. On the counter behind his 1970s wet bar was a squash from last year that was at least six feet in length, saved for its seed!

When we went back outside, I planted two rows of onions for Ralph, and he gave me a squash plant to see if I would be able to grow it as well as he does. I've managed to grow Ralph's roma and banana tomatoes successfully in the past.

So now my happy little "Ralph Squash" has a garden box all its own for this summer, and I'm hoping to grow one that, though it may not get to six feet like Ralph's, will at least give me some seed for years to come to always remind me of Ralph and Lidia. One squash is probably more than enough!