My family always had a huge garden growing up. Our house sat on 5 acres of land and we used at least ¾ of an acre for the gardens. There was always one to the south of the house. That’s where Mom had some of her flowers. They always seemed to get first dibs on the yummy kitchen scraps she would throw out there. No compost pile for us. We just threw the leftover veggies and fruits directly on the garden. What the cats and dogs didn’t eat got left for the flowers, watermelons and beans to munch on later, after they finished returning to the black earth from whence they came. It was an easy way to compost, and it worked. I guess raising 8 kids doesn’t leave much room for carefully grooming a compost pile.
Our front yard, except for a patch of trees and flowers that ran down the middle, was reserved for football games, playing catch, or making “houses” out of the grass mulch. We would each make the outline of a house using the mulch and then say “here’s the bathroom, here’s the bedroom. I think I’ll put the couch right here.”
A healthy portion of the back yard was always dug up to reveal lovely brown dirt, until the 80’s when Dad decided to abandon that plot in favor of the flat area in front near the mailbox. Most people don’t have gardens in their front yards next to their mailboxes, but we lived in the country and didn’t care what people thought, so it worked for us. I was always puzzled about why he moved the garden though. It had always been in the back yard. That’s where it belonged. But there was no stopping him. Oh well, let him have his fun. At least the football field was still intact. I don’t think any of us would have let him dig that up.
We had a fair variety of fruits and vegetables, but mostly I remember the corn, tomatoes and green beans. The corn was usually ready by my birthday in mid-July, so I considered that part of my birthday present. “Is the corn ready yet?” “No.” “Will it be ready by my birthday this year?” “Yes. It should be.” Mom seemed to never run out of patience for my endless questions, sometimes the same ones over and over and over again, whether it was about corn harvesting, how to spell a word, or how to sew on a button.
All summer our kitchen counter would be covered with tomatoes of all different sizes and shapes. The ones that didn’t get eaten ended up in the large black vat which seemed to never stop bubbling. I never completely learned how to can tomatoes, though I watched Mom do it countless times. It always seemed so serious, like if you messed anything up you would poison the family, so I was content to just watch.
We ate endless quantities of corn, green beans and tomatoes every summer. I don’t remember ever getting tired of them. For lunch it was tomato sandwiches (Miracle whip and tomatoes on white bread) and corn on the cob. What’s for supper? Why, tomatoes and corn of course! Maybe some green beans and mashed potatoes and hamburgers too. I had no notion that most “normal” people didn’t not consider a tomato enough material for making a sandwich.
We also had a cherry tree, a couple of apple trees, a grape vine, and raspberry bushes. The raspberries were my favorite. Mom knew this, so for my 2nd birthday, she made me a bundt cake with a circle of raspberries on the top. I would have been content to eat the raspberries and forget the cake, which is exactly what I did. We have a picture of me at 2 years old, standing on a chair, precariously leaning over the table to pick the raspberries off the cake. In the background I heard a conversation between Van and Mom. “She’s eating all the raspberries off the cake!” “ That’s ok, it’s her cake.” With this sanction from my mother, I kept eating.
The cherries and grapes were sour, and the apples were never all too sweet either. Why the obsession with sour fruit? I’m not complaining, just curious. They were still fun to pick and eat, or throw (or spit) at each other. The grapes were sweet enough to suck on, but the center was bitter and had a rubbery texture that you wouldn’t want to eat, so after you were done sucking out the sweetness, you would spit that part out…at the nearest sibling.
I don’t remember eating very many of the cherries. They were pretty to look at though – a very bright red, and made great pies, though they would make you pucker up a little, even in a pie. As an adult, when I found out there were varieties of cherries that were actually sweet, I thought I’d died and went to fruit heaven. Every year when they appear in the grocery store, I can’t stop buying and eating them, even though they are expensive. I’m also addicted to sweet grapes, which I eat like candy.
So yeah, Mom made lots of pies out sour fruit. You can make a pie out of anything if you add enough sugar - even rhubarb and gooseberries! Yum, yum! We would go pick gooseberries at Brother Stapleton’s patch. I never understood the purpose of gooseberries. Why not just make a pie out of bark or cardboard? Anyhow, Mom and Dad liked them. On the way home, Van and I would dare each other to try one raw. Once you tried one, you didn’t eat another unless there was a reward involved.
I think my parents took great pleasure in offering food that us kids wouldn’t eat. I was never forced to eat anything. Instead, my parents opted for reverse psychology. “That’s ok. If you don’t want any, there’s more for the rest of us.” [Chuckle, chuckle, wink, wink] Even though I knew they were trying to trick me into trying it, I could never shake wondering what I was missing.
Most of what Mom made was delectable and got gobbled up quickly. But every once in a while she would make something that made the whole house stink, like oyster soup or homemade sauerkraut. This must have been her way of getting some alone time. The house would clear out in a flash, simply because we had an affinity for breathing. I couldn’t help noticing the smirk on her face as we raced out the door.
Morel mushrooms was one of those things I held out on for a long time, content to let there be “more for the rest of us.” I remember Noretta encouraging me to try them. “They’re gooood. You don’t know what you’re missing!” “Yes, I do. They smell funny and look squishy.” But of course I eventually gave in, and now consider morels one of the finest delicacies to ever hit the human palate. I’ve never tried caviar but I’m sure it can’t compete.
Most kids remember not liking peas. I don’t remember any problem with the vegetable, but I do remember Tom (and several others) trying to get me to say “peas” to trick me into saying “please.” I caught on quickly though, and didn’t fall for his trickery. I was a very stubborn child, and I had this thing about not wanting to say “please” and “thank you.” I don’t mean that I was impolite and wouldn’t use them appropriately. I literally had an aversion to uttering the words. I don’t know what I thought would happen if I moved my lips and tongue into those dreaded syllables… “pull – eez,” … “thank yuuuu” but at some point I made up my mind that it wasn’t going to happen. And then it became a game, that I was determined to not lose.
Noretta also tried to trick me by getting me to read a book that had those awful words “thank you” at the end. I never slipped. Eventually, after everyone had forgotten about it, I started saying the words and have adjusted into a fairly normal adult. Even as a child, I knew deep down that I would adjust eventually, and wondered what all the fuss was about. But I enjoyed the attention, and felt loved that they cared enough to try to help me.
I don’t remember being required to do much of the gardening, I guess because I was the baby. I got out of a lot of work. Mom would say, “She can’t do such and such. She has to practice her cello.” I do remember being involved to some degree in all aspects of the process, though it was rarely required that I “go hoe a row.”
I especially remember helping to plant the seeds. “How far apart do they need to be?” “Oops. I put those too close together. Do I need to break up this clump of dirt? Is this row too crooked?” My meticulous nature was already starting to show. Maybe that’s why they didn’t ask me to help much. “That’s fine. Don’t worry about it. It will be ok.” We would take sticks and string to make the rows straight, plant the seeds, then cover the rows up by pushing the dirt back with our feet or the hoe. I don’t remember starting seeds indoors. Most plants went straight into the ground as seeds.
Mom would get up early every morning and go work in the garden while it was still cool. She took great pleasure in this activity. I would not understand this until years later when I planted my own garden.
The decision to get a pet is not one to be entered into lightly, but worrying too much about everything that could go wrong puts you in danger of missing out on a great thing. I knew I was on the verge of talking myself out of it this time, so I didn’t let my mind go there. Somewhere deep inside I knew this was the right thing to do, even though I knew it would add complexity to my life.