Monday, May 28, 2018

Time to Plant the Garden

Well here it is towards the end of  May.
We started thinking garden at the Old Farmer's House at the first of the month.
And we had weather cold enough to snow in Western NY.
This is why safe planting time there was mid May.


"If you plant peas on St. Patrick's Day, 
and then it snows on them; you will have a bumper crop."
Perhaps the peas and onion sets are in early, they will survive. 
Soon the carrots, beets, swiss chard, kohlrabi etc will be planted

We would eagerly go out each morning to see if any had sprouted.
Then the squashes, tomatoes,
 and the corn at the north end of the garden. 
After the tomatoes are planted we would go out the next
morning and see how they were doing.
The Old Farmer would point out where one
was chopped down like a little tree
The damage was from the "cut worm".
It would eat through the stem just above the ground level.
You would loose a few each year and if you had extra
plants you could fill in. This only happened the first few
days before they "hardened" up.


The Old Farmer had nice straight rows in his garden. 
It was a big garden, he kept a line rolled up on two sticks in the barn.
Each spring it came out and started the first row, the line must have been
100 feet long! Then each row after he moved the line over 2 feet, more
or less depending on what was being planted. 
After the line was set he would go down along it with the hoe
and make the furrow in which to plant the seeds.  


I will never forget The Old Farmer taking me out to the new garden
after a heavy shower. It had been very dry.
He said that he supposed I thought we had a good rain now
and the garden was well watered. I agreed. 
The he bent over and flicked over a bit of dirt with his finger.
Only the thinnest bit on top was set, underneath was still dry dusty soil.  


Sunday, May 13, 2018

The Old Farmer's Wife

The Old Farmer's wife was a good mother.
She cooked and cleaned and canned the produce of the garden.

The Old Farmer's children learned cooking
by helping prepare vegetables and observing.
They were sent to the basement to bring up potatoes
or the back room to get canned goods.

 
They learned cleaning with weekly chores.
Each was responsible for their bedroom and a living room
or dining room or bathroom as assigned.
These became daily chores when school was out for the summer.
Beds were made and sinks scoured daily.

They learned canning by picking the produce and washing the jars.
And watching the loading of the canner
and hearing the lids pop when the jars came out.

 

When the old farmer's back was out she got the heating pad
and made him comfortable.
When the children had the mumps and measles and chicken pox
they were babied and loved back to health.

And she had lots of favorite sayings. Mostly was "it takes two to tango".
We could not get away with saying it was the other persons fault!

The Old Farmer's wife was a good mother.