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There were plenty of gardeners in my family tree! My mother's parents had a large garden behind their house; between their house and their younger son's house was a huge garden! And her older brother, who lived about a mile away from the two of them, also had a large garden. My father's younger sister had a garden that would rival my Uncle Roy's (the one near Papa), and his brother also had a fairly large garden. So our garden, although large to me, wasn't much compared to some of the ones in the rest of the family.

Our garden was on the east side of the house, which was a little lower than it. The house was actually a little on the side of the hill, and the garden was on the top of it. It was about twice as long north to south as it was east to west, so the rows were always put in east to west. We usually began getting the garden ready in the very early spring. Mother would fix a small bed for tomato seeds, with a thick layer of pine straw over them. When they sprouted, and the weather began to warm up, she would start removing layers of the straw, little by little, until the plants were tall enough and healthy enough to set out in the rows.

By that time, my brothers had the garden plowed and disced and rowed. Mother and Daddy would decide exactly when to begin planting. Daddy always went by the moon's phase, so Mother always asked him what to plan on planting. They already had the seeds, because they kept seeds from year to year. Sometimes, if a new type of pea or bean had been introduced to them by someone they knew during the year, they would try to get some seeds for it. Mostly, though, they relied on the seeds they had stored through the winter.

When it came time to plant, everyone got into the act. One of older ones would walk down the rows making holes for each "hill" for seeds to go into. The next person would drop no more than three seeds into those holes, and the one behind him or her would cover them up with a hoe. The next person had a bucket of water and a dipper; one dipper of water went on each hill of seeds. Another person usually kept the buckets full; when a bucket was emptied, a full one was waiting to be used. The empty one would be carried back to the pump and refilled.

I think I must have been about seven or eight when I finally got the privilege of dropping the seeds. I was proud as punch! I would carefully count the seeds out and maybe line them up before going to the next "hill". And when I got to lay the tomato plants out for them to be put into the soil and watered, I really was thrilled!

When my ex and I lived on the farm, we had a fairly small garden at first. Then he got ambitious and plowed up enough ground to plant peas, beans, and corn to feed a small army! And one summer, we had so many peas that the kids and I couldn't keep up with them. We weren't canning them, either, like my mother did; we were shelling them and putting them in the freezer! We had so many peas that my middle brother brought his family of five and my mother and father one day, to help us get the garden picked; they wanted us to come to the lake for a couple of days, and we couldn't leave if the garden wasn't taken care of first! So they surprised us one morning, about nine, and started picking and shelling. By the time my ex made it home about three or four, we were almost finished with the entire garden, but we hadn't stopped, even for lunch-we had eaten in shifts!

We never had that large a garden again, that I remember! It was simply too much for us to have to take care of by ourselves.

Learn more about this author, Barbara A. Black.
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