Garden

My Mom and Dad always had a garden. While growing up I had various responsibilities with the garden. When I was young it involved not weeding the wrong plants from the garden. As I got older it meant helping to thin the carrots and beets. We always got to help plant the garden and it was a family affair to try to map out how the garden would grow that year. Sometimes the corn would go next to the back fence and sometimes it would be planted in rows along one side of the garden. The pumpkins and squash and zucchini usually got planted in mounds close to the corn because it would not hurt them to spread out into the corn. As I got even older I was responsible for using the tiller to get the ground ready for the work. The tiller was a four bladed machine that jumped and bucked when first being used every season. The ground was hard and did not want to be chewed up. It took hours of manhandling the machine just to make the first pass. The second pass was usually easier the challenge was to get it to stay in mostly straight lines and not get stuck digging one big hole. Keeping a tiller moving smoothly and in a straight line is a lot like playing egg on a trampoline with people jumping all around trying to break you open. Once the tilling was completed we had to rake out all of the bigger dirt clods and create our rows. We also had to remove the rocks that were churned up by the tiller. I never figured out how every year there were more rocks to get out of the garden, especially when we had done the same thing the year before in the same place. I think rocks multiply when no one is looking. With the rows ready and mounds built up we planted the garden. The garden would grow and we would be asked to weed. Mom would weed and we would watch or play catch with the football and every once in a while we would help weed. It is tedious work to weed a garden. Row upon row of weeds would grow and where they came from was always a mystery. We would start weeding the furrows and let mom do the tops of the rows. As the garden grew there was less a need to weed and more a need to maintain the garden. The garden needed to be watered often. At first it was easy just put the sprinkler on and move it every half an hour or so. As the garden grew taller the sprinkler would get blocked by the leaves of the plants and the tall corn so we would have to hold the hose and spray the garden. Holding the hose and spraying the garden was the most fun mainly because it gave me an opportunity to spray my brothers and sisters. I think more water ended up on my brothers and sisters then on the garden. Water fights would break out and we would be running with buckets and hoses and anything else that held water. This could last for hours or until someone started crying. The neighbors all joined in as well. Water balloons were sought after but because it took so long to fill them up the balloons became a liability. The hose was most sought after and if one had it for too long than phrases would be yelled out about it not being fair or you've had it too long. No one ever left a water fight dry and if the adults came into the picture well they got wet too. The pumpkins the squash and the zucchini all grew with very large frond leaves and their vines would get on to the grass. As we mowed the lawn we would have to skirt around the vines so as not to damage the plants. The huge flower blossoms of these plants were always fun to see. There would be bees buzzing around the garden pollinating everything they could find. The ants made tracks and hills everywhere and the grasshoppers would jump all over the garden. The scariest thing one would find in the garden were the dreaded tomato worm. These green monsters are about a dime size in diameter and two to three inches long. They eat the leaves and fruit off of the tomato plants thus aptly called tomato worm. They are ugly and when we would come to grab them half their body would raise up off the leaf or branch they were on like a cobra snake and open their mouths at us. The tomato worm has a very big mouth and it works the mandibles in a very menacing manner. I never saw a small tomato worm. I think they just pop out of wherever they came from at two or three inches long. The growing and harvesting season come with peas and beans first then peppers and tomatoes then cucumbers and zucchini. Some of these will produce three or more times in the season so picking can be a constant thing. The pumpkins and potatoes and corn are usually the last things picked. All of the produce is used or given away to the neighbors. Recipes are used for each new thing picked like new peas and baby potatoes or zucchini bread or toasted tomato sandwiches. Some of my favorites were when the corn was ripe and we would have corn on the cob with spaghetti squash or yellow squash fried with onions and cucumbers. When the garden was done producing or after the first hard freeze it was time to clean the garden up. We would start by digging a very large hole somewhere in the garden. This hole was about six feet long by three feet wide by three feet deep. Once the hole was dug we would all take turns getting into the hole and laying as if dead. Mom would take a picture and then it would be someone else's turn. Once the pictures were taken we would pull or dig up all of the plants, except the carrots and potatoes because they can handle the cold and stay in the ground. We would throw all of these plants into our hole and as it got full we would jump on it to smash it down. The corn stalks, when stacked, were very springy and we could jump on them and get really good bounces. Once all the garden waste was in the hole we buried it. This would compost and make the garden better next year. After all of that was done the tiller was brought out again and the ground was tilled up. Dad said this would make it easier next year but it never was.