Sunday, November 20, 2005
Granny's Garden and Fall
The small plot (about 10' x 20') behind the house has been cultivated for decades. Shortly after the house was built, Beverly's grandmother, Davie, began the garden. O'Dell and I have continued the tradition; I'm mostly tomatoes and chilis. I have been trying to build up the soil (and break down the Bald Knob clay. I've been mulching the garden with leaves and lawn clippings in the fall and tilling that in in the spring. What remains amazing, after all this time, is the number of plate-sized rocks that garden grows. Every time I till it, I get rocks. I guess that is an appropriate crop for a geologist.
Of course, I need to mention the roto-tiller. Yes, it is the same one, a YardMan. As I went through the ritual to start it, I thought back. I know that tiller was bought before 1972; I remember coming home from college and helping break up the neighbor's (Miss Pearl's) garden plot with it. To start it, I have to remove the air filter and press the palm of my (gloved) hand over the air intake; otherwise, there isn't enough vacuum to draw fuel from the tank. I don't believe it has started in less than 6 pulls of the starter in the last 10 years. Sometimes, I have to persuade it a bit with some aerosol starter fluid. One spring, that arthritic tiller was particularly reluctant to wake up after a peaceful winter. I had changed the oil, fuel, spark plug, and air filter. After what seemed an hour of yanking the cord and thinking about what to change next, Beverly said, "Why don't you just give up and go buy a new one?" In one of those, "I told you so!" moments, I decided to give it two last cranks. It started.
In the fall, mulching leaves using a lawn mower is superior to raking. The drone of the mower, however, sets one to remembering. On McLeod Lane, we had oak, hickory, sweet gum (Tupelo), and dogwood. The leaves were abundant and our job was to rake. One of my fond memories is of raking the leaves into house plans with my sisters. Our plans were pretty intricate with rooms, doors, and windows. Of course, it always ended with lots of jumping and kicking and tossing leaves. The piles would be taken down the little bank on the west side of the house to the gravel spot where Dad parked his car (or truck). There the leaves were burned carefully. Lots of stirring the pile to reduce the leaves to the bare minimum of ash. Great care was used to keep the burn pile just the right size, feeding it with new leaves. On the really cool, late fall days, the smell of burning and the warmth of the fire were welcome preludes to the coming Thanksgiving.
