August 20, 2025
The last
few days have been much cooler than the blazing heat of just a few days before,
and it’s been a bit rainy, as well. I’m glad to see the rain, as the grass has
turned that parched shade of brown it gets this time of year but will now soon
be green again. Of course, the rain is appreciated for gardens, and in our case
for the tomatoes and the green beans. Yesterday, I had my second lettuce,
tomato and sweet onion sandwich of the season. The first step, of course, is
going out to the garden and choosing a tomato. Ah, the sweet memories from my youth. Strolling
out to the garden to pluck a ripe tomato for lunch was forever permissible and
actively encouraged.
When I was
a child, my mother always had a thriving veggie garden. One that was big enough
to warrant paying the farmer down the road each year to come by with his
tractor to first plow and then disc the empty patch. My garden memories are all
from after my father’s death, when there were four of us in the “big house”, a four-bedroom
story-and-a-half farmhouse on a country road. We had three-quarters of an acre,
which even now I consider huge.
In those
days, the vegetable garden wasn’t just trendy. It fed us. We grew some corn. Of
all the veggies we grew the corn was perhaps the most whimsical. One couldn’t
grow enough in a couple of rows in our garden to garner more than a few meals into
the freezer. The corn was just for us to enjoy in the moment. I know my mother
froze some, but she also supplemented what we grew with a few dozen ears from
another farmer, farther down the same road so that there could be several side
dishes of the veggie to grace our fall, winter and spring table.
We grew carrots
and radishes, green and yellow beans, and plenty of cucumbers. We had tomatoes,
squash, potatoes, zucchini a few times, and sweet green peppers. We grew
cabbage and Brussels Sprouts. But not cauliflower, as Mother said it was too
fussy. We also had dill planted, so that in the fall, when it was time to
harvest and process, we had all we needed, grown on our own land to make dill
pickles.
All of us
worked that garden, weeding, hoeing, and watering. Picking here and there to
supplement our supper through the summer. When it was time for a full harvest, that
time Mother would deem to be the day when it was clear that the colder
weather was on its way? It was a matter of all hands on deck, to pluck everything
or risk good food being spoiled by the frost.
My mother
never could abide wasting food, and neither can I.
On “harvest
weekend” it was my job as the youngest was to wash all that came out of the
garden (except the cabbages). Not that we used chemicals because we didn’t. But
just to have the veggies clean, and dried and ready to use. We had a set of
laundry tubs that we would pull out of the house and into the back yard. One
tub was filled with water from the garden hose.
My most
vivid memory is of ice-cold water and red, painful hands. I was about ten at
the time.
After the
harvest, there was the freezing and the canning. Potatoes which had been washed
and then dried in the autumn sun and fresh air would be gently stored in paper
bags and put into what we called the cellarway. This was a small, darkish room
that resembled a cellar in that the walls were made of huge stones cemented
together. This room had a five-foot-two ceiling, and contained our freezer, our
water pump, and our hot water heater. The back of the narrow room held wooden
shelves that we used for storage—a pantry, if you will—of goods both bought and
made. On the bottom shelf went our potatoes, where it was the darkest and the
coolest.
My mother
always made sweet green relish, chili sauce (not spicy like chili. Not sure
where the name came from), dill pickles and sweet bread-and-butter style
pickles, too. She tired her had a time or two at making sauerkraut, but she
found that to be a long, drawn out and frankly too smelly an endeavour. And she
would also always make jam, but for that confection, she turned to other area
farms for their pick-your-own strawberries and blueberries.
I do
recall she made crab apple jelly once, from our own two trees—trees we gifted
her for Mother’s Day one year and that she had planted, one each in two round flower
beds she dug in our front lawn.
And I
would be remiss if I didn’t mention the large rhubarb patch that thrived close
to the garden. Each year we looked forward to that stewed rhubarb which, of
course, we made in our large aluminum saucepan.
One always
knew when the sweet green relish was being made. I recall the way our eyes
would run a bit as mother added the “bouquet garni” to the huge pot that
contained ground up cucumbers, onions, vinegar, and sugar. Her process was to
bring the mixture to a slow simmer and keep it cooking for a few hours, and
over the course of a couple of days, before declaring it ready to be put in
jars and sealed.
I swear
that smell even worked its way into the woodwork.
In my
career as wife, mother, and chief procurement officer of all things edible, I
tried my hand at all my mother had made, save the sauerkraut. My canning days
are over now, but I did what I could while I could and in that, I have no
regrets.
My oldest
son is the one who took up the mantle of sowing and reaping. And he’s added to
his repertoire by learning how to “smoke” meats as well.
Traditions
may be adjusted and modified. But the thread of them connects us, generation to
generation. It’s a kernel of who we were and what we did instilled into the
hearts and minds of those who come next. A very basic and lovely form of
immortality.
Love,
Morgan
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
