There is a special delight in getting up early and taking a basket to the garden. Yesterday I searched out enough green beans for a cooking, picked through the corn rows for a few barely ripe ears and found a ripe tomato. There is always squash and zucchini – how on earth does it grow so fast?
As I sit on the porch breaking beans, I always think about how many people have done the same thing in the 130 odd years this porch has been here. As far as I know, the garden has always been in the same spot – just steps away. So my path is the same path followed by a long line of feet and my hands follow the motions of four previous generations that have enjoyed the bounty of this garden. I wonder sometimes if my great-great grandmother ever thought about the descendants that would sit on this porch and break beans.
I imagine Lucinda, my great-great grandmother, telling her children and grandchildren how she hid her horse from the Yankees during the Civil War, while her husband was away. I can remember my great grandmother Kizzie, who lived here when I was a young child, breaking beans and telling about her family growing up in Whitfield. My grandmother broke beans and shelled peas in the swing on the porch and told me of growing up with four sisters in Centerville and how they used to have parties, rolling up the rugs so they could dance. And my mother carried on the tradition, shucking corn and breaking beans as she talked about her childhood in Leatherwood and how they used to ride in a horse drawn wagon to church.
Those first few meals from the garden are a delight. The first tomato, dripping juice down your chin. The first corn, covered with butter. The first mess of beans, simmered in bacon drippings. Then comes the deluge. Tubs of corn pulled in the morning and shucked under the shade tree, then prepared for the freezer. It takes about 60 ears of corn to make 6 quarts of creamed corn. I know that because I counted the ears as I cut the corn off! Where do all those green peppers come from? And always the squash, with the warning to lock your car doors in town because someone is trying to get rid of their surplus. The okra grows faster than you can eat it, and the corn matures overnight. Did I mention the squash overload? I only put out two plants, but I knew a man once who planted an entire row. I’m glad I didn’t live close to him! Everyone who lived in his town knew to lock their doors.
Nothing beats a fresh cooked dinner straight from the garden. Green beans with potatoes cooked on top, steamed squash and zucchini, corn on the cob and the first homegrown tomato. Add some purple hull peas and what else do you need? Every time I think about a meal straight from the garden, I think about a lady in the county years ago who was having “the club” for dinner (lunch to the city folks). They drove up to her house and found her in the yard killing the chicken. Now that might be a little fresher than I want! Then there was the time I cooked a garden dinner for a group of friends. Squash (of course), cream peas, fried okra, corn on the cob and tomatoes, with home raised pork chops. We were joined unexpectedly by college friends of one of the guests. They were from New York and they didn’t recognize any of the food. What do people in New York eat? I thought everybody ate corn. My good friend Allen tried to help by explaining that all the food came from my farm. “She even grew the pigs that the pork chops came from,” she explained. I think they ate a roll and some fruit salad, which were the only things that didn’t come from the farm. At least they didn’t have to watch me kill the pig.
