“ Summer , there was squash , okra , cucumbers , corn and beans , plus tomatoes , which were what convinced me that he could grow anything .”
I deserved the little jab from the friend who sent it . About two years ago , the bush had been in my front yard , enduring my Darwinesque approach to gardening . Grow or die . I might add mulch or take a stab at weeding once in a while , but it ’ s up to the plant to do what it needs to do .
I gave the bush to my friend , and now it ’ s twice the size it was and thumbing its thorns at me .
My history with vegetable gardening also is littered with good intentions and , I confess , lack of follow-through .
I think of land as being permanent . Real estate ; real , as in solid . But if you ’ re trying to get things to flourish in it , it ’ s a constantly shifting target .
When I was growing up , my father had made it look so easy . He was raised poor on a small farm during the Great Depression , and first thing he did after starting a white-collar life and marrying my mother – immediately after suburban house and kids – was start a backyard vegetable garden . My mother called it the “ lower 40 ,” since it was fairly large , covering about a third of the half-acre lot .
Everything he put in the ground just grew .
In the spring , it was leaf lettuce , carrots , radishes and green onions that he ’ d pull up , wipe on his pants , cut off the roots with his pocket knife and give me to eat , standing right there . Summer , there was squash , okra , cucumbers , corn and beans , plus tomatoes , which were what convinced me that he could grow anything .
He planted full-fized Big Boy and Better Boy plants each year but never cherry tomatoes .
They just came up .
Their vines spread all over a corner of the patch , bearing tiny yellow , pearshaped pink and larger bright red ones by the quart-full . So , even his version of benign neglect reaped rewards , unlike mine , which frequently leads to a lot of brown stalks .
The Brussels sprouts he tried one fall ( none of us had ever eaten them before ) kept going so long that we knocked ice and snow off to pick them .
This abundance meant that my family was farm to table before the idea was even a gleam in a James Beard Award-winning chef ’ s eye . Technically , garden to dinner . Picked in late afternoon , eaten an hour or so later .
My mother canned and froze so much of it that we bought few vegetables during the winter , mostly potatoes , which my father tried , but decided they took up too much space , and iceberg lettuce , because my mother believed we needed salads at meals . Mine were vehicles for Thousand Island dressing , which is still my guilty pleasure , but there was a delusion of healthfulness .
If I ’ d been paying attention in the 1970s instead of looking for 50 ways to escape , like my other teenage friends , I might have noticed that all this didn ’ t just happen .
Spring through fall , my father was in his garden every evening and Saturday , pulling this , digging that , sprinkling things , hooking a hose to the well that he kept for his garden after the house got connected to city water . He would have called composting and organic gardening “ hippie talk ,” but that ’ s mostly what he did , not for philosophical reasons , but because he was cheap . Chemicals cost money . Leaves and clippings from the yard , ashes from the charcoal grill , coffee grounds , spent plants – no extra charge .
He spent the winter reading forecasts in the Farmer ’ s and Blum ’ s almanacs , and checking the best spring days to plant by the “ signs .” He anticipated the last frost date for our area the way my baseball-loving friends look forward to “ pitchers and catchers report .”
And there was never a happier man , in his mud-caked shoes , in the middle of the garden .
Each season as he got older , his garden got a little smaller , until there was a lone tomato plant in a pot about 10 feet from the back door . When I saw that , I did pay attention , and felt a cold hand to my chest . A few months later , he died suddenly from a heart attack .
I remembered all of this after I recently got a compost pail for my kitchen . My neighborhood has a community garden with a compost bin , which a competent person tends , and every few days my husband or I carry the pail up the street and dump it in . It ’ s our little effort to save waste and help a garden , since our small yard lacks the sun , soil and , honestly , talent to make a good one . Peat moss , perlite , lime , manure ; too much drainage , not enough drainage – I ’ ve tried it all .
I use a few large pots , because I wouldn ’ t be my father ’ s daughter if I couldn ’ t grow at least one darn tomato plant . But even that sometimes falls victim to mysterious forces , which my father probably could ’ ve interpreted but baffle me .
Few things are as easy as they look . �
Debbie Moose is the author of cookbooks , including “ Deviled Eggs : 50 Recipes from Simple to Sassy ,” “ Buttermilk : A Savor the South Cookbook ,” “ Southern Holidays : A Savor the South Cookbook ,” and “ Carolina Catch : Cooking North Carolina Fish and Shellfish from Mountains to Coast .” She can be reached at debbiemoose . com .
Courtesy photo
JULY-AUGUST ’ 23 � SOUTH � 23