The Garden

I bit into the kernels and first heard the crunch and then the pop of the juices bursting forth. My mouth was filled with the luscious, sweet flavor, and I could feel butter dripping on my lip as I smiled broadly. I was immediately taken back to my childhood summer days with their fresh flavorful treats from the garden, not the least of which was the corn that seemed to fill half the length of the garden plot.

It would be difficult to say which garden produce was my favorite—the tomato or the corn. And since the two complement each other, I really didn’t have to choose—both would sit atop the supper table. I liked everything else: green beans, the early peas, the sweet, dark beets, the young carrots. Even the onions and potatoes were good, especially the green onions early in the season. Lettuce, cucumbers, and cabbages were never my favorites, but I ate my share of whatever Mother prepared, whether it was during the summer season or part of what she canned, pickled, and fermented.

The garden, a thing of wonder, was a family affair. Mother and Dad did the bulk of the work, but all of us pitched in. From plowing the ground to running the straight lines for the little seeds and meticulously spacing them correctly to weeding to harvesting each vegetable or fruit at the right time, we all had jobs to perform. And, of course, that was the perfect buy-in. How could we not eat the produce that we had helped bring to the table in so many different ways?

Later, when Grandpa came to live with us, he took over some of the tasks because he had such a love for gardening. I can see him yet in his old straw hat, his blue chambray work shirt, his scruffy old jeans, and his scuffed-up, wrinkled boots, plodding behind our old hand plow, pushing it with strength and accuracy to get between the rows of new vegetables. And I much preferred his gardening to his hunting. If he came home from the woods behind us with a squirrel or a rabbit, I knew I would have to suffer through a meal that was not to my liking.

But, oh, the meals from the garden were another thing. They were bounteous—our table literally could have groaned under the weight of sliced tomatoes, cucumbers and onions in a vinegar dressing, and three kinds of corn. That’s right, three kinds of corn. At the height of corn season, Mother would sometimes take young ears and stew the kernels in their own juices, take old ears and fry the kernels where there was very little juice left, and boil or steam cobs that were in their prime. Was there meat to eat? Probably. My dad thought a meal was not a meal without meat. But who needs meat when you have three kinds of corn to eat? And you could eat all three—you didn’t have to choose just one or two.

As a young child, caught up in the bounty of the garden, I never thought beyond the fact that the delicious fresh food showed up on our table every night. Oh, yes, I had to help pick, shuck, clean, scrub—but not slice—whatever was to be served. But I never thought much about the work that went into creating the garden or about the work that had to be done to preserve the vegetables.

Mother literally slaved over a hot stove canning beans, peas, and tomatoes to last the winter. She hung the onions in our storeroom and placed potatoes in baskets to be used during the winter months. From the apple, pear, and peach trees, she canned jars of fruit, as well as canned and sealed jars of jellies and jams, both from the trees we had and from strawberries, cherries, and other assorted berries.

 And, of course, the business of making sauerkraut always fascinated me: shredding the large heads of cabbage, putting the cabbage, mixed with coarse salt, in the bottom of a crock, placing the white stoneware plate over the mixture, and then weighting the mixture and the plate down with a large rock, picked specifically for that purpose. Then, my mother picked the corner of our bathroom to store the mixture while it fermented. Day to day, the stone came off, the lid came off, and the mixture was inspected for the correct amount of juice to be formed. In less than two weeks, we had sauerkraut for the table and for canning.

As Mother got older, our family got smaller, and our budget got a little bigger, she stopped canning. Instead, she and Dad purchased a freezer to keep blanched vegetables and fruit fresh till they were needed during the winter. It also gave them a chance to store meat that they bought from a local farmer. Before that time, my mother had canned some meats for the winter, as well as the vegetables and fruit.

I’ve never canned anything, although I have made a few batches of jam and jellies and butters through the years. Most years, I freeze corn that I buy from local farm stands. On years when I get back to Indiana in July and snag some Transparent apples from our old home trees, I cook and freeze fresh applesauce—the best applesauce in the whole world—at least, that’s what I think of it. I have not, however, felt the urgency to create a garden so that my family would have food to eat during the cold months of late autumn, winter, and early spring. I’ve been fortunate to have enough money to buy whatever I need at the local supermarket where fresh fruits and vegetables are available year-round.

Looking back at my childhood years, I am grateful for parents and a grandparent who worked so hard to “set the table” for the family every night. The food, by contemporary standards, would be considered extremely plain and simple, but it was plentiful and flavorful—a good harvest from the family garden.