I remember as a young child, the buzz and excitement in the spring as we talked about getting ready to plant the garden. I remember the discussions between my parents about what to plant and when to plant it. I remember the idea that we had to get the garden ready to plant. We talked about early vegetables like radishes and peas. We talked about tomatoes and growing them to make Grandma Leishman's chili and meat sauces. I remember talking about sweet corn. How I loved sweet corn! I wondered, could we plant the whole garden in sweet corn?! It was the best! As I recall of my young childhood memories, the house was abuzz with the prospects of getting out of the winter confines of the house and getting our hands in the dirt so we could plant our garden. It was exciting to plan and to prepare. It gave a hope for the new. It gave hope for the excitement of summer after the cold white and gray winter kept us inside for months on end. I liked the idea of growing the food that we would eat. It seemed proper. It seemed right. Everyone would want to grown their own food, or so I thought.
One vivid memory I have, which seems quite odd to me as I glance backward now, is a memory of sitting in the garden by the tomato plants and eating green tomato after green tomato. They were delicious. I remember sharing these tomatoes with someone. I don't quite recall whom. Was it my brother, Tim? Maybe? Was it my sister, Penny? I don't think so, she was too grown up for such antics. Perhaps was it the little neighbor girl, who was my brother's age? I think her name was Karen Cannon. My memory is foggy on that one. At any rate, I remember being scolded by my parents for eating the tomatoes before they were ripe. At the same time, I recall their thinking it quite funny that I was eating green tomatoes with gusto and lack of cultural concern for their unapproved coloring.
Other garden foods tasted delicious too. Carrots from the garden tasted both sweeter and with more of a bite than grocery store carrots. I wasn't much of a fan of lettuce at that point in my life, but I remember eating some leaf lettuce from the garden. Sometimes I would cringe at a hole in the leaf a bug had eaten. Sweet corn was the best, of course. We didn't have a large garden, but we grew a few ears of sweet corn, enough for a couple of dinners. Each and every thing was yummy.
I really don't know how large the garden was that we had, by I imagine it being maybe 30 X 50 feet. This certainly wasn't big enough for a tractor. We really didn't have access to a roto-tiller either. The solution was quite common, and reflective of an appropriate technology. My Dad turned over the garden with a shovel. One shovelful at a time. He would step down on the shovel and rock it back. He would take the shovelful of soil and flip it over and sometimes knock the overturned soil to break up any clumps of dirt. My Dad let me try. I felt successful in helping, but I'm sure it was mostly about my participating and learning the basic ideas associated with the skills. A 35 pound child doesn't have much hope in pushing the shovel into the ground very far, let alone turning that shovelful of soil over. What I didn't realize at that point is that the shovel really was the appropriate technology for the size of garden we had. We didn't need to spend hundreds of dollars on a tiller that would get used for 20 minutes a year. The shovel was just fine for what we were trying to do.
The Rose Park garden helped to build a base of memories, principles, and ideals that continued to feed my farm dreams for decades. I can grow my own food. Growing your own food can be fun. Planning the garden is an annual treasure in dreaming and experience. Appropriate technology is good and satisfying. Remember, you don't need a dump truck to go to the lumber yard to pick up a couple of 2 X 4's.
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