Early rising - 6am have to beat the heat. Let the dogs out, put on garden clothes which consist of sandals, dirty shorts, a shirt with the sleeves cut off, a cotton neckerchief and a bottle of water to wet the neckerchief and pour down my chest and back - It's a Missouri swamp cooler for the garden. Turned the drippers on last night to water the pickling cucumbers, dill, zucchini and green peppers (they call them Mango's out here). Changed the hose to run the drippers on the maters (tomatoes), looked for giant cut worms, inspected the peach, apple and pear trees. Checked all the water troughs for the horses and mules. They fill automatically but have to make sure nothing has malfunctioned and there aren't any dead squirrels or frogs floating around in them. Picked one zucchini, tomatoes and 1 pickling cucumber. Need alot more to start making pickles. Still have some young tomato plants and 1 pickling cucumber plant in the window in the house which should be ready to set out when it cools off.
Went to town and looked at the fields of soybeans struggling to survive in this horrible heat. The corn is doing okay but we need rain soon otherwise the farmers will start losing their corn and soybean crops. Drove into Joplin today and it is a city busy in recovery - still lots of big tents in parking lots filled with donations, trucks with "Disaster Relief" signs on them, dump trucks full of tornado debris, thank you signs up all over the city thanking various groups for their help, signs on the doors of stores giving special discounts to tornado victims - such hope prevails.
SWEET POTATO LESSON
It was 2 years ago when Nadine (75 yrs old and my mentor) arrived one morning and presented me with 25 little twigs about 8 inches long and tied with a piece of dried grass. She announced that these were my sweet potatos and I was to plant them today.
Okay, so how do I plant them? She looked at me with the serious eyes of a teacher and said, "Stick you finger in the ground, fill it with water and put one of these sticks in it and squeeze it shut." I saluted and marched off to the garden, thanking her upon my departure. Plant them I did. They looked awfully funny - 25 little sticks sticking up out of the ground, spaced every 12 inches.
Well, they started to green up after about 2 weeks. I watche them grow and vine and grow and vine and grow and vine. After a couple of months I ended up with a thick green carpet about 8ft by 14 ft wide. Oh my!
Then one day, Nadine arrived in her little grey car, got out and did her usual inspection. "Hmm", she said, "It's time to cut their heads off!". So, after she left, I crawled around on the ground with clippers, rolling back this huge green vining carpet, foot by foot, cutting the vines at their bases until I had a great huge roll, just like an old carpet, of beautiful green vines which I rolled into my mulch pile. Nadine called me the next day to check on my progress. She then said, "let them set for 2 weeks." Yes, Mam!
Meanwhile gardening continued, weeding the garden, picking ears of corn which is a whole other adventure because you just don't fold the ear and it falls off. No, indeed. You have to first determine if the ear is ready. You develop a feel for the ears. They fatten, the silk dries up and some of the husks develop wings - yes wings. Then you grab the ear, twist and pull down very quickly otherwise you will damage the whole stock of corn which might have 2 or 3 more ears on it. I developed a good technique over time after wrecking stalks and picking ears to early. Oh well.
2 WEEKS LATER.....6AM......KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK at the door, dogs are barking, I am in my jammies just making coffee. There stands little Nadine, in her little gardening blouse and pants, with dirt all over the stomach of the blouse. She is holding a big, what I called, a pitch fork. She said, "Git yer potato fork cuz we are diggin' this morning." I blinked, looked down at my jammy bottoms, grabbed my sandals, realized that I had one of those forks but didn't know it was a potato fork. They have wider forks on them than a pitch fork. Off we go to the garden, Nadine marching ahead with all determination and me following closely thinking the neighbors are going to see me in my jammies and have a good laugh as they go off to work.
Dig we did - turning over the dirt, searching for the potatos and trying not to spear them. I got many instructions from Nadine on how to dig well and not damage them. Well, I think I got a "C" that day. After we dug all that we could, piled them into a wheel barrow, we took them to the barn and she told me to "Now, put them to bed." She told me to put down a layer of hay, then lay out the potatoes and put another thin layer of hay over them. I was then to let them alone for about 2 weeks undesturbed. After two weeks she told me, "put them in boxes and put the boxes under my bed." Under my bed???? "Why,yes, that's wher you keep yur taters." Yes, Mam. Well I didn't put them under my bed, but I did put them under my kitchen sink. They sure didn't look like the sweet potatoes in the market, lots of strange shapes and sizes but they were good.
So now you all know how to grow sweet taters!!!
OLD FARMER'S REMEDY -
Vick's vapo rub on your feet then cotton socks - when you have a chest cold. It works.
Thanks for visiting and sharing my stories.
What a kick! And your writing is good too, Mickey. Keep it up!
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