Mother was never one to let moss grow under her feet. She was always busy with something. Even when "relaxing," she was busy, even if it was nothing more than reading the Knoxville News-Sentinel or doing the crossword puzzle (using an ink pen, no less). Her entries in the diary I gave her for Christmas in 1969 attest to that fact.
Perhaps nothing showed her constant energy and activity more than her work in the garden. In gardening season, she was either planting, weeding, harvesting, or preserving something. It was hard work, of course, but for her it was also refreshing, and she took great pride in her garden and what she could coax it to produce.
I, on the other hand, didn't enjoy gardening. To me, it was more than hard work; it was a form of punishment. I would much rather be playing baseball than weeding, shucking corn, stringing beans, or shelling peas. But it was a large garden and required a lot of work. Misbehavior provided the available workers.
"If you and Dale have time to fuss and fight, you have time to work," Mother declared more than once. "Get to the strawberry patch and start weeding!"
Or Daddy: "Dennis, as soon as you get home from school, go to the garden and pick up all the rocks I tossed to the side while I was tilling. Use the wheelbarrow and dump them in that low spot behind the chicken house. And pick up all those grapevines I pruned, and throw them back there too."
But the garden and what it produced were Mother's pride and joy. Her diary entries reveal the many kinds of things she planted. And her diary provided her a private medium for boasting of her garden.
Friday, May 1, 1970: "Planted peas, onions, beets, radishes."
Friday, May 8, 1970: "Planted corn."
Monday, May 15, 1971: "Planted peas."
Friday, June 4, 1971: "Planted 200 sweet potato plants."
Saturday, April 29, 1972: "Planted corn, beans, onions, cantaloupe."
But it was what and how much those plantings produced that please Mother most. That, too, meant hard work, but it also kept our family fed all year, fresh in season and canned or frozen the rest of the time.
Friday, May 15, 1970: "Picked 1/2 crate strawberries."
Monday, May 18, 1970: "Picked strawberries; let Lexie have 14 qts. I made 8 jars jam."
Monday, May 10, 1971: "Picked 4 qts. of strawberries today."
Wednesday, May 12, 1971: "Picked 5 qts. of strawberries."
Monday, May 17, 1971: "Picked 12 qts. of strawberries."
Wednesday, May 19, 1971: "Picked 30 qts. strawberries & worked in them all day."
It was the same with every crop Mother harvested, whether corn, peas, green beans, peaches, apples, blueberries, or whatever. She canned some, froze others, and made all sorts of jams, jellies, and preserves. And tomato and grape juice, too. One entire wall of our basement was filled floor to ceiling with shelves stocked with Mother's canned garden produce.
So prolific were her preservation efforts that we had not only the freezer compartment of the refrigerator in the kitchen but also two large freezers, one chest-type and one upright, in the utility room, and both of them were filled with the work of her hands.
(They also contained boxes and boxes of chocolate drops that she had bought at Miller's department store. They once even held a surprise for Mother: bread bags containing the bullfrogs that Buddy Coomer and I had gigged and tossed there, thinking that someone might one day want frog legs. You can imagine Mother's reaction when she, wondering what on earth was in the bags, dumped out the contents and was greeted by bullfrogs frozen in a ready-to-leap pose.)
Our garden produced not only enough to meet our own family's needs but also an abundant surplus to share with neighbors and church friends. What it didn't produce, Mother obtained from others' gardens and orchards or bought at one of the two markets in Knoxville. Her blueberries and apples she got from Aunt Madge and Uncle Wallace Farmer, who were expert gardeners and lived only half a mile from us. (Daddy often went to ask Uncle Wallace for gardening advice, and Wallace introduced him to Organic Gardening magazine.)
The market we most frequently visited for the produce we didn't grow ourselves or get from others (things like peaches and watermelons) was located in a huge old tobacco warehouse in Knoxville. The other, which we visited less frequently, was the row of produce vendors set up along Forest Avenue.
We used to visit the market late on Saturday afternoon, when farmers were eager to get back home to Georgia or South Carolina. We'd get some great deals on bushels of peaches (sometimes as low as $1.25/bushel). When we got home, we performed a sort of triage, separating the "must-do-tonight" peaches from the "can-wait-till-Monday" peaches. Then we'd stay up till past midnight washing, peeling, slicing, and canning or freezing those that absolutely, positively had to be done before morning. We knew that early Monday morning we'd have to tackle the others. (Mother never worked on Sundays, other than cooking our meals.)
But the gardening season--from the start of planting in the spring to the beginning of fall, when all the crops had been harvested and preserved in some way--left Mother plenty of time for other things, and she was never idle. We were, however, well fed!
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