Watch out. You might get weaned.
We never did plant the peat pots Monday evening. By the time we worked out our water situation down in the garden, it was getting dark and we were “plumb wore out”. I was asleep by nine. Imagine that.
Tuesday morning, my mom and Barb were off hiking through the swampy parts with a fence man so I took the liberty of jumping on the tractor. My allergies have been killing me so I’ve been wearing this creepy Michael Jackson face mask whenever I’m around grass. I drove down to the garden site and “bushhogged” (I suppose this is a tractor term… or perhaps an Arkansas term… but really it means tractor mowing) the whole plot. It felt good.
The garden is going to be in the old “weaning pen”. I’m not sure who or what was actually weaned there but we’ve always called it that. It has had two previous gardens there. Barbara planted one in the mid-seventies and my mom grew sunflowers there when I was a kid. My great-great grandmother lived in a small farmhouse there circa 1920. It’s quite a picturesque spot. Twin pear trees shade one side of the pen. I’m imagining a table and chairs between them. Or better yet, a hammock. Something to sit back and admire hard work from.
But I digress. After the bushhog I spent the better part of the morning back up at the main house scanning old photographs of the farm. I found this classic of Barb.
This is circa 1975. Not much has changed.
Around two, our new friend James from down the road arrived to till up the garden plot. I must say… I was terribly excited. Hurrying down to the weening pen, I almost crashed the golf cart three times. One doesn’t realize how fast the unassuming little electric vehicle can go. My mom, two aunts, and I sat on a bale of hay and we watched James and son Loomis tear up the ground. It is very satisfying to see the hard ground peeled back to expose such rich soil. The air was practically perfumed with the smell of dirt and humus. Then again, I was wearing my Michael Jackson mask like a weirdo.
In the afternoon, my mom and Barb slapped on some lipstick and we set up a little outdoor interview. The wind was bad so we settled in the woods near Patricia’s house at a weathered stone table. From behind the camera, I asked them nearly an hour’s worth of questions. They were a bit stiff in the beginning (Barb purses her lips, my mom touches her face) but after a half an hour, they had loosened up and were cracking jokes and telling stories.
Last night after dinner we finally knocked out the peat pots. We set up in my grandmother’s kitchen. It’s quite a curious process. First you dump these little hard discs of peat into a sink full of water. They expand into chubby little pots of soil. We set them in rows on metal trays and, with chopsticks, push seeds down into the pot and push a little peat over them. We label and chart which rows are which plants. We planted 120 pots of bell peppers, tomato varietals, cucumbers, basil, chile peppers, and pole beans.
Today, I write. Barbara will fly home to CA this afternoon. This morning I’d like to spend a little time getting manure spread around the newly tilled plot. Sounds smelly but I suppose I’ve caught some kind of gardening bug and I’m itching to head down there with a shovel. More later….
