Grandma and Her Garden

My grandparents had a farm. My grandpa raised pigs and was a butcher. By the time of my childhood memories, he didn’t have the pig business anymore, but they still had several animals. They always had chickens, mostly for the eggs, but they also raised some so that there was plenty of chicken in the freezer. We ate more rabbit than chicken though, because we all liked it better. My parents raised and butchered rabbits for food as well. In addition to chickens and rabbits, my grandparents usually had a couple of cows, sheep, and a few pigs to raise litters for both food and to sell meat. 

They also had a HUGE garden. I loved the garden at their house. It was a little bigger than half a football field. Half the garden was planted with corn every year and the other half vegetables. They had an orchard of fruit trees and a couple of nut and fruit trees around the property. The orchard and garden had to be fenced in with high fencing to keep the deer out. The animals had their pens, pastures, barns, and areas as well. There was a creek that ran through their property in the back of their house. My grandpa dug out an area big enough for us to swim in and then there was a bridge going across where the water ran out of the pool and downstream. 

My grandparent's house was a 45-minute drive from my house. My brother and I spent at least one weekend a month with my grandparents. We loved it! There was always something new to see, learn or do. Looking back I see that I learned so much from our time with them on their farm. Recently I’ve been remembering my grandma in her garden and all the things I learned from watching her and being with her in the dirt, growing things to enjoy.

Learning – Grandma grew lots of veggies, so from spring through early fall salad was common at any dinner. Huge, deep red tomatoes, crisp lettuce, and crunchy cucumbers. But she also gathered things in the woods surrounding their house. I remember walking with her and learning what things were edible. “Miner’s lettuce” was always part of our salads. She was cautious about mushrooms but knew enough to be confident about a few varieties.  There were lots of things she gathered. My grandma lived in East Los Angeles until my father was an adult, so all of this was learned when she moved to the small rural town in Northern California. They moved there once their youngest son, my dad, was done with high school. They were city folks starting over in the country. They got involved in the community, became good friends with their neighbors, helped and learned from one another. My grandma learned from other people and from life. She took notes, remembered, listened, and was willing to try new things. She taught me a lot by her own willingness and eagerness to learn.

Hardwork & Play – Both my grandma and grandpa had a strong work ethic. They worked hard from early morning to dusk. They expected others to work hard too; and that included my brother and I. They expected our help and would find jobs that were challenging but realistic for us. As serious as they were about chores and work, they were also serious about fun. We took breaks and my grandma would have cold lemonade or iced tea and usually some homemade cookies to enjoy. I remember one time my brother and I were with grandma in the orchard. We were helping her dig trenches around the base of the trees to fill with water. My brother and I were focused for a while, but at some point began playing around. My grandma threw a dirt clod up and hit it with her shovel spraying dirt everywhere. Pretty soon the three of us were in a dirt fight. She worked hard, but she knew how to play too. I remember her letting us play in the mud and patiently helping us clean up before coming inside. 

Tithing  -  This memory is tied to my grandpa as much as my grandma because he is the one who explained it to me. I don’t remember how many times this happened, but I distinctly remember the first time. I had seen the green baby tomatoes growing bigger and bigger. One afternoon my grandma weeded in the garden and my brother and I played, after helping her for a short time. I suddenly noticed that some of the tomatoes were ripe. I was excited because I love home-grown tomatoes; they taste so much better than the ones from the store. I showed my grandma and she helped me pick them and put them in her basket. As we walked into the house, she told me to go get a brown paper sack. She put those tomatoes in the bag and told my brother and me to go find Grandpa. I asked if we could eat one first. “No” was all she said. She told us to go show Grandpa that the tomatoes were starting to ripen. We did and he stopped what he was doing and suggested we go for a walk. As we walked he started to explain the concept of “tithing”. I knew this had to do with the offering basket being passed at church and people dropping money in. I wondered where we were going and why we were taking the tomatoes that belonged in the salad tonight with us. I learned that day that my grandpa always took the first ripened fruits and vegetables to a neighbor or friend. That was a costly lesson for me. I remember walking or driving with my grandpa with zucchini and cucumbers, or peaches and plums.  He would always add other things they had too, like fresh eggs. Part of it was generosity; they didn’t have a lot of money, but they grew a lot of food and they always shared. But this idea of the “first fruits” was just a discipline my grandpa had. He said he didn’t “have to” do it wasn’t a rule; but rather a choice. He wanted to give away the first of each and every crop to remind him to anticipate, to be grateful, and to trust God for provision. 

Getting Dirty – Mom always packed us play clothes for weekends at my grandparent's house. There would be “church clothes” too. But most of the time we wore clothes that were comfortable and that we could play and work in without being worried about getting dirty. My grandma loved to dress up for church or parties. But when I think of her at her house I think of her in her “work clothes” her “garden clothes” and her big straw hat with a brightly colored or flowered ribbon around it. We helped her in the garden and in the orchard. I don’t know how much my brother and I helped. I remember playing in the mud and digging holes. I remember finding worms and comparing their size. I remember my grandma scrubbing our fingernails with a brush before bed to get the dirt out.

Preserving – My grandparents' garden produced more than enough for the summer. My grandma and my mom canned jars and jars of vegetables and fruits every summer. They canned stewed tomatoes to use during the winter in the stews and soups she would make. They canned corn, green beans, and squash. They canned fruit too: peaches, pears, cherries, plums, and apricots. They grew all of these in their orchard, in addition to a few apple trees. We had fruit pies all summer and then in the winter, we would have yummy fruit cobblers with the canned fruit. They also made applesauce and canned it too. My grandma stored all her preserved food in a shed on their farm. It was a small barn where some of the animals' food and garden tools were stored. My grandpa built shelves along one wall for all the canned food. My grandma labeled everything, and I remember how she would comment throughout the winter about how the shelves were getting increasingly bare. “It’s a good thing that summer is coming!” she would say.

Sharing – My grandparents' house was a 15-minute drive from the town they lived in. It was a small town! The “downtown” had one stop sign, they called it “Four Corners”. The post office was on one corner, the town’s bar across the street, and on the other corner was the general store and gas station. The fourth corner was empty. There was also a church, a town park, and a meeting hall. As a kid, it seemed like my grandparents knew every single person in the town. They helped one another and shared things. My grandma often traded goods with neighbors and friends. She would get one kind of fruit in exchange for a different kind she had. I remember a few times my grandparents would take us with them to drive to a neighbor's house to deliver food because they had found out that the family didn’t have enough. I remember my grandpa not charging to butcher a deer or other game that a friend would bring by. He would ask for a piece of the meat in exchange for his work.

Waiting – For a kid, growing carrots is a lesson in patience. All that growth above ground gets a kid so excited, but it remains a mystery how big the carrot is underground. I remember pulling them too soon and having little tiny carrots. I wanted them to be bigger like I remembered from the summer before. “Wait! It takes time to grow” But kids don’t like to wait. I thought maybe we could replant the carrots harvested too soon. That’s when I learned that carrots are a root and my grandma pointed out those tiny white smaller roots that grew out the side. You can’t pull them and then think that they can reestablish themselves again, just because you put them back in the soil. So we had to wait.  I remember carefully digging around the base of the greens to see how big the carrot was getting. My grandma told me again to be patient and wait.

Surprise – Potatoes were a favorite of mine as a kid. I loved the leaves and how they spread out without any indication on top of what was growing underneath the ground. The wonder and joy of harvesting them was a highlight of the garden. Using our hands to hunt for any last small potatoes, not wanting to accidentally stab one with a shovel, I loved it. My grandma even canned potatoes. She added them to soups and stews; but my favorite was when she sliced and fried them for breakfast! 

Value – Onions taught me that everything has value and that it’s best not to judge something too quickly. As a kid, I didn’t like onions much.  I did like to see them growing though. I liked the tall straight greens standing up tall and the top of the onion bulb sometimes peeking out of the soil. My grandma green a few different kinds. But onions were spicy to me and I didn’t like how they felt slimy in food. If the pieces were big, I picked them out. But Grandma said they were essential for flavor. I wasn’t sure if I believed her. But one time when she made some kind of soup my grandpa commented that it didn’t taste the same and I had noticed this too. My Grandma said it wasn’t as good because she had forgotten to add the onion! I guess I learned that day that she was right about onions and how they are necessary for good flavor. She was never able to convince me to like collard green or Swiss chard though!  I loved the leaves and the colors of the stalk, but I was never into spinach and greens. 

Hiding in the Corn Field – Half of the big garden plot was corn; rows and rows of corn. I loved the corn! I loved to watch it grow, I loved the leaves and the sticky prickly parts. I loved watching for the ears of corn to begin to form. I loved picking corn and I loved eating fresh corn with lots of butter, salt, and pepper. My mom was born and raised in Ohio. She would tell us that they didn’t even pick the corn for dinner until the water in the pot was boiling, that’s how fresh the corn would be! Well, it could be like that at my grandparents' house too. One thing I liked to do in the late summer when the corn plants were much taller than me, was to hide in the corn rows. It was darker and cooler in there. I would lie down in the dirt and look up at the sky through the leaves. I would listen to all the sounds; the wind, the creek, the rooster and chickens, my grandma calling for my grandpa. I once hid when my parents were there and I knew it was time to leave. I snuck out there and hid in the cornfield and didn’t come when they called.  I listened to them calling for me, I imagined where they were looking. I waited quietly between the rows of corn.  After a while it got quiet and I think I became worried that they had left me… I honestly don’t remember if I got in trouble for that. I just remember how much I liked being a secret in the middle of the corn! 

Seasoning – One of my favorite things about the garden, when I was a kid, was to pick a ripe cherry tomato off the bush and pop it in my mouth!  I remember my grandpa showing me how to pick a plum and rub it on my shirt to shine it up before eating it. My mom used to pick a lemon cucumber for me and rub it in her hands under the hose to wash off the little stickers so that I could eat it. The veggies we picked and took in the house would get washed and in the case of cucumbers they were peeled, but I loved eating them right from the garden too. I used to hide a salt shaker so that while playing I could pick tomatoes and cucumbers and eat them with salt. I thought it was a secret. At my grandma’s house I hid it behind some jars in the shed. But one time, after picking something and sitting down to share it outside, Grandma told me to go grab my salt from the shed. Ha! I guess she’d seen it!  At my house one summer, I hid some salt behind a loose rock in the rock wall that bordered the garden. I remember my brother daring me to bite into an onion he had just pulled up. I took the dare, but … I salted it first!

Beauty – The garden and orchard at my grandparent's farm was beautiful. Their little house was beautiful to me. In my memories, everything about them and their property is beautiful! A big part of that was my grandma’s love for flowers and beauty. She planted lots of flowers and took care of her yard. She and my grandpa painted old telephone poles bright red and these lined the long gravel driveway to their house. There was a wood fence, painted red, that bordered the front lawn and red bricks divided the flower beds from the lawn. Their house was white, a simple farmhouse with a screened-in side porch. She had flowers in pots along the sidewalk and walkways. She had bird feeders and birdhouses to hang from the trees and porch. She put time and effort into how both the inside and the outside of the house looked. My grandma knew what she liked and she loved to show people her pretty things. She loved flowers; growing them, but also paintings and fabrics. She had flower jewelry, she loved dishes with flowers painted on them and little figurines. She was so practical and hardworking, but she was also into fashion and loved to dress up. My brother and I typically spent one weekend a month with my grandparents and would go to church with them. Sundays were special days for them. My grandma loved to dress up for church. She would plan her outfit, almost always a dress. She would iron it the night before, paint her fingernails, and put curlers in her hair. I remember as a little girl looking through her jewelry box, looking at all her dresses, shoes, and scarves.

My Grandparents sold their farm and moved into the town where my parents lived when I was in high school. They no longer had land or animals, but they kept busy. Theirs was the nicest yard in the mobile home park! My grandmother lived within a couple of months of her 100th  birthday. She was bright, independent, and spunky right to the end. She was an amazing woman and her impact on my life is unmeasurable.