When I was growing up, I often wondered who my mother planned on feeding with all that food we grew in her vegetable garden. My siblings were all older than me. They married and left long before I was grown and gone. Mama didn’t have as many mouths to feed, but she never decreased the amount she grew.
To say she was a gardener would be akin to saying that Noah was a boat builder. Noah built a huge boat because he had a huge group of animals to put on his boat. He had two of every kind of unclean animal known to man and seven of every kind of clean animal. Mama made sure everything we grew was clean or we cleaned it. I believe we grew far more than seven of each kind, and there were quite a few kinds in the King’s garden. So, to say that Mama had a big ole garden is an understatement. Winnie the Pooh has his Hundred-Acre Wood, so I call our garden Mama’s Hundred-Acre Garden. The vegetable garden was not the only one she had. She also had a couple of flower gardens, not to mention the flowers she planted in other places.
Mama’s vegetable garden was not really 100 acres, but to a boy who had rather be playing, swimming or fishing, instead of planting, hoeing or picking, it seemed like 100 acres. If it could be grown in our northern Alabama climate, and was legal, I think we grew it. We had rows of peas, beans, corn, squash, okra, tomatoes, carrots, cabbage, lettuce, turnips, melons, etc. I hated most of that stuff back then, so I hated working in Mama’s garden. Mama always made me take a gallon of water to garden when we went. That started after I went to the house to get a drink and managed to end up on the creek or pond with a fishing pole rather than returning to the garden. I told Mama I was doing my part by going fishing. She was supplying the vegetables to eat and I was supplying the fish. I don’t think she bought my logic.
I was always excited when we finished picking for the day, but I also knew that meant it was time to shell, string, shuck and silk. At lease we did that on the front porch where we had some shade.
If it sounds like I’m grumbling about having to do all that work, I probably am, but I would do it again in a heartbeat. Those memories put a smile on my face that’s a mile wide and love in my heart that’s 2 miles deep. I can still hear Mama saying, “Let’s get up and get out there in the garden, so we can get finished before it gets so hot.” I can still see her in the garden-wearing a dress, usually that she made, with a cloth bonnet on her head. No wonder she got so hot!
What would I give to sit on that old porch again and snap, shell, shuck and silk…even if I didn’t like some of that stuff. Besides that, I love most of it now…except the okra. These days the garden is grown up, the house and the porch have been torn down and Mama has gone on to Heaven, along with most of my family, but the memories are still there and just as precious as ever. This Mother’s Day, I give thanks for those days and even that 100-acre garden and those precious memories.
Thanks Mom, and happy Mother’s Day to all!
Bill King can be reached at bkpreach@yahoo.com.
