As I mentioned in my very first post, I come from a long line of gardeners, mostly on my mother's side. My grandfather in particular was especially gifted in the yard and his tidy wooden home, which my cousin L. and family now reside, was known for its abundant grounds. It's in Pearland, Texas, and although it's been a few years since I visited, I just know that Larry's green thumb has kept the remaining small parcel of land that surrounds the house looking lovely.
Figuring that the launch of this web site would present my mother, Audrey (aka "Audey"- a childhood nickname that my son now uses for her rather than "grandma") the opportunity to reminisce, I asked her if I could do a series of interviews to capture and share her memories with the world. At first she shied away...Victory Gardens were, after all, primarily the domain of city folk. But when I assured her that her family's commitment to sustaining themselves would be both interesting and relevant, she relented. The experience was so satisfying for us both that I intend to devote a bit of time from here on out to tapping her memory bank to learn more about my gardening roots. Thus, "Bloggin' for Audey #1".
I transcribed this first interview with her this morning.
On Victory Gardens:
What I remember is hearing about the Victory Gardens…woulda been on the radio, because we didn’t have television and I wasn’t old enough to read a newspaper, though we got one every day. We were aware of what was going in the world. We already had gardens…two gardens that supplied our food. We had the garden close to the house, called the little garden. That was fenced. We had a garden that joined that and went over the easement into the next lot. There were very few roads that were mapped out, but you could use that area, at that time, for planting or for a cow, it was all okay. In the little garden was always a row of zinnias that were selected every January from Burpee’s catalogue. Daddy always got multi-colored and very large flowers. They always had to be fresh seeds. That was at the front of the garden, as you turned into the driveway. It was an intense, tighter, compact garden. Then came the rows of strawberry plants…like four double rows. And then the pepper plants went in…bell peppers and some sort of hot peppers which I don’t recall…and then we came to where the pink, double poppies were, which reseeded themselves every year. And then came the green beans, but before them were the lettuce and the greens…mother only raised “tender greens”, a cross between mustard and spinach. And occasionally, now, in this area closer to the back door, this area could change. Like when it got too warm for the lettuce, you could plant something else. He would turn it under. Sometimes, some years he would see…I remember the year we raised kohlrabi, that was a one year thing. No one liked it. Every two years or three years, the strawberries were moved to the opposite end. You rotated your crops even in the small garden. And the potatoes were raised in this garden, which when dug where put on…never washed…and put on screen racks on top of sawhorses…they were taken up into the loft of the barn, where they stayed dry. Probably when the lettuce came out the beans went in. We did butterbeans a few times but they were too intense to shell. We did a lot of green beans. Pretty much that garden was producing much of the year, from strawberries starting to ripen at the end of February on around until your winter crops of the greens and on to early lettuces…the greens were into the fall and into the winner. Pretty much year ‘round you had something growing in there.
On Tomatoes:
Where the cold frame where the tomatoes were raised first was on the South side of the house…as we got into more flowers, we planted it near there…where there was also a mimosa tree, that was very beautiful. The ground was rich, I guess from the chicken manure and such. Those tomatoes were hardy when they came out of the cold pen. Those things were sturdy…not like what you get out of a six pack. They aren’t ready. I’ve tried. Maybe the plants were hardier. I don’t know. They had good stems. And Daddy did give away a good many of them.
On Pests:
N.B. I promised mom that I'd post this bit, even though the perpetrators--her nephews--were born years after the VG movement had died off.
The biggest garden pests were four little boys. And Daddy did not like them in the garden. At all. [Laughter]For future related posts, see the "Family" label below.
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