I come from a long line of gardeners. My great.grandfather was a sharecropper in Mississippi. I've only heard stories from my mother and grandparents, but I believe that out of their poverty grew great ingenuity, perseverance and a whole heap of other good things. Traits that I believe I have in my blood... who make me, in part, who I am today.
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My grandfather- the grand.man whose name was given to my first.born, was a master gardener himself. I grew up between long rows of tomato plants... fuzzy, green towers on either side of me. Heaps of compost mounded into tall, round.top rows with deep trenches on either side for walking- or crawling... rows strait as arrows as far as my little eyes could see.
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He had several gardens spaced over his acreage and grew everything.
Corn. Butter Beans. Peanuts. Potatoes. Squashes. Cucumbers...
But my favorite crop was his Sugar Cane. During the warm months, we'd walk to the cane and he'd let us pic out a stalk. He'd reach into the pocket of his work jumper and pull out his pocket knife and in one circular motion ringing around the stalk with his knife and thumb, he'd cut a 6" or so piece off right above the cane joint. Then with the stalk in one hand, he'd run the flat side of his blade down the cane, peeling off the tough skin in one smooth motion. He'd cut little half inch plugs off and spit them in half, and give them for us to chew.
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The taste is like nothing else. Warm. Sweet. Sort of heady like syrup or honey. The stalk would crunch beneath my teeth pressing the sweet liquid out... I'd chew and chew, sucking all the sweet out- then we'd spit the pulpy fiber part out on the ground of the pasture as we'd walk from the cane patch to our next adventure.
*Me and Tboy running back from the pond and Back40... along side of one of PawPaw's acre long gardens.
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My mother inherited his green thumb and flare for the dramatic. My mom is happiest when she is elbow deep in dirt planting, transplanting, pruning, picking... There hasn't been a year in my life that my mom hasn't grown a summer and winter garden with bumber crop yields. Except the year after my grandfather died... This is her there in the photo below.
I was a married woman before I ever bought jelly at the store. Growing up, we ate what we grew, canned, froze and put up in the freezer. Putting up our produce was a family affair--- we all pitched in scraping those corn cobs, or wiping the tops of the mason jars as they came out of their water bath. We ate the fish we caught fresh nearly every week. I have healthy habits now, because I lived them all my life.
As newlyweds, we bought our first little house nestled deep into my Favorite Forest, I was determined to grow something... Even in my apartment years, I never went without container herbs. My established yard was covered in dappled shade most of the day, but still, I was able to grow tomatoes and peppers along my fence line and fell into raising 82 monarch butterflies from eggs. I grew generations of sunflowers, saving seeds from the spent heads each year.
Even though it was minuscule in the grand scheme of what my mom and grandfather could do- My mom raved over my pesto and laughed over my landscaped beds turned vegetable gardens.
And now... OH! Two summers have gone by in our new house and no garden. It's just so intimidating. First of all, I live in a new construction with minimal landscaping. The majority of space is just sodded ground on top of river clay and other uninhabitable stuff. I hate the idea of having to cut in new beds and amend the soil. It would take so much just to get the soil conditioned enough to support life. And our neighborhood restrictions limits vegi gardens to raised beds only. SOooo that's what I'm thinking!
James loves gardening and growing things. Bugs. Butterflies. Vegis. He's always been underfoot exploring as I planted our garden each summer in Texas. He's raised ladybugs and monarch butterflies from eggs/pupas.
*He's 2.5 years old here...
And besides all that- I believe, I want to believe that part of that grand.man lives inside his little soul. That maybe... somehow... they share more than a name. And I want Jax to share the same experiences, too.
*James chewing on a freshly picked Purple Hull Pole bean from NaNa's garden... he's almost 5 months here.
*One and a half years old...
*Three years here after James pulled a bucket full of turnips.
So with all of my reservations aside, I've researched raised bed gardening... and my mom threw an idea at me: Lasagna gardening. She picked the book up for a dollar on one of her thrift/junk/antique shopping trips. It's an organic method of gardening that utilizes a sheet composting method. Basically, I won't be tilling down into the soil, adding amendments to the soil to make it usable--- but rather composting in layers, building my own dirt upwards. I'm very familiar with composting... and having unlimited supply of Black Gold from my mom's pile--- but I've never composted for myself, other than simple stuff like using grass clippings and leaves to mulch in existing beds.
SOOOO... James and I are working on the areas that we want to put our raised bed or three. We are shooing for a small vegi garden with Tomatoes, peppers, pole beans, and maybe if we have space- squash, and cucumbers. And a hefty herb garden... with flowers mixed in. We've got a few blackberry and blueberry bushes that are patiently waiting to get out of their pots and into the ground...
***We've got so much going on at our little house--- our boys are growing up! I hope I can get this together before too long. It would have been better for me to have built my beds in the fall- and let them 'cook' and break down all winter--- BUT I didn't do that. *sigh* So I may just press on and see what happens...
Anyone with barn litter, leaves, and other high carbon materials to compost? I'll totally come and pick them up!!!
Peace, love, and peat.moss.
xo
lmkw
