A few weeks back I sent a note to an elderly aunt, N., who has lived in Kentucky her entire life. I wrote to tell her about the blog and hoped to learn what she and my great uncle, B.--now deceased, used to grow in their garden. This was all part of my armchair historian/journalist endeavor to capture the the first-hand accounts of our home gardens and farms, hoping to record some things for posterity and perhaps draw inspiration for our own garden.
Also, having written so much about my maternal garden roots, it seemed time to spend some time on my dad's side of the family.
Although I have only a few memories of B. & N.'s homestead (they typically traveled to Texas to visit our family rather than the other way 'round), what I do recall of their life is sweet, humble and simple. Am I risking idealizing their lives? Perhaps. Yet, having never heard complaints from either of them for the lives they opted to follow, am pretty confident that a certain amount of praise is in order for lives well-lived.
Receiving N.'s four-page letter reminded me of the many letters that I received from my late grandmother as a child. With her family spread out across the country and telephone charges pricey, my grandma and her immediate kin wrote one another regularly, a habit she continued well into her own old age. Receiving this letter in the mail was a "blast from the past."
N. writes:
I think it is very rewarding to grow something and be able to gather the harvest.You asked about some of the things Uncle B. and the rest grew.Well, you remember [he] raised a big garden. He grew green beans, lima beans, purple hull peas, tomatoes, sweet corn, yellow squash, cucumbers, okra and potatoes. Sometimes a few melons and cantaloupes. Also beets.I always froze and canned enough of all these vegetables to get us through the winter. We stored our potatoes and they lasted 'til spring.I made green catsup out of some of our green tomatoes. I also made my own Kosher dill pickles out of the cucumbers.We had blackberries on the place, so I made lots of jelly and froze berries for cobbler pies. It was hard and very demanding to get it all gathered and put up for winter but we had to purchase very little at the store.I canned lots of tomatoes and made 60 or 80 quarts of juice as all of us loved tomato juice. Uncle B. also sowed a row in the garden for me a row of old-fashioned zenias [sic]...Well, honey, I hope this has given you an idea of what Uncle B. grew each year. And in mid-August he would sow turnip greens. Eat the greens, then later turnips on the bottom of the greens.People may have to start growing food again if it gets much more expensive.Your "seeds of hope," tell the story. Keep writing....P.S. After we were through, we sold some of the produce but mostly we gave it to the elderly or those who had no place to grow a garden
Nothing much to add but that it's nice to know the zinnias my son sees growing in the garden right now are a reflection of horticultural interests in both sides of my family.
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