Gardens

I guess it is time to take down the poetry, though I quite enjoyed it. Tim said I missed his selection and it is called "MICROBES" and it goes like this: Adam hadam.
Ok, fine, Tim. Thanks, I can remember that.

I suppose it is time to plant gardens, but you won't find one here. We don't have enough sunshine where the dirt is. We manage some flowers, but if I needed to plant a victory garden, I would be in trouble.
I don't suppose many of you know what I mean by a Victory Garden. When I was a child during the 2nd world war, we all had victory gardens. Everyone turned their yards into gardens and we grew everything we could. We canned, made tomato ketsup, jellies and jams..though you had to figure out how to do it without sugar. We would save sugar coupons for our family on the farms so they could make preserves and share with us. Since we had a sizable yard, and there was also a community garden on the half block behind us, Dad grew tobacco and cured it in the garage and made his own cigarettes and pipe tobacco. We all would go to Mother and Dad Careys farm and pick the berries and the fruit trees. It is amazing how much you can do without sugar when it comes to making deserts and jellies. Mothers had to be quite careful with their ration coupons to be sure there was enough to eat. So growing the gardens made it that much better. At least you always had vegetables. We canned corn, beans, peas, beets and carrots. But let me tell you, the carrots we grew were awful. Our ground was not sandy enough to grow them so they did not fork and break off when you pulled them. Also, we dud not water too much. Mostly carried buckets of water to the garden and watered with a ladle. Yuk...the potato beetles were a mess and the kids had to go pick them off and whomp them with a brick. But you better know the difference between a lady bug and a potato beetle. Lady bugs are your friends. Onions and potatos went down in root cellars. Onions hung on the wall of the garage if there wasn't a root cellar. Potatos were packed in sand.

That was when Dad decided to beautify the yard and planted big canna beds. Cannas are big tall and big leafed plants that produce showy flowers. He always had a circular garden full of them.

My Gran cracked the whip on the garden, though. She was in charge of canning and she said what was planted and when it was picked. When she said to go pick beans, you had better get your bucket and go pick and they had better be the right size. She was a gentle soul, but she expected to tell you once and have you remember. But she always made it fun as she was patient enough to let me 'help' do things I was not big enough to do. I did not learn patience with kids from her. I was more like my Mother, she had little patience to teach you..but Gran would spend hours showing you how. Then you needed to remember it!

Well, if you plant a victory garden, don't forget to plant some marigolds at the end of the rows. It helps keep bugs away. That's what they told me anyway. I think it just made the work in the garden a little more pleasant to have a bit of color.