Garden memories
I have fond memories of our large family garden in Danvers
during my childhood. One end of the garden was tended by my grandfather, who
lived next door. My mother tended the
central part of the garden and grew lettuce, corn, tomatoes, carrots, and
squash. A small corner plot was set aside for me, and another one for my
sister. I planted carrots and radishes.
I didn’t like the taste of radishes, but they were fun to grow -- easy and
quick. Zinnias and Batchelor’s Button flowers were also easy, so sometimes I
had more flowers than vegetables in my plot. I do remember the satisfaction of
pulling up one of my carrots, wiping the dirt off on my jeans, and eating the
carrot right there in the garden. That
was a special taste!
I remember the fun of crawling through rows of corn, feeling
the moist soil with my fingers and enjoying the “forest” of corn stalks
towering over me. On hot afternoons the corn rows provided a unique environment
of green shade and dappled sunlight. I could hear the hum of insects and the
rustling of leaves. I think Mommy sent us into the rows to pull weeds she
couldn’t reach, but sometimes I just liked to sit there quietly, looking and
listening.
One distinctive sound in the garden was the
tick-tick-ticking of the tomato hornworms as they munched on my mother’s tomato
plants. She would search carefully to locate these pests and show them to us,
pointing out the spots and the “horn” so we would learn to recognize them. They
were really quite handsome caterpillars, but had to be removed in favor of
growing healthy tomatoes. My mother was proud of her tomatoes; she liked to
enter the best ones in the competition at the Topsfield Fair each year.
My mother was also very proud of her corn and insistent that
it be served as fresh as possible.
Nothing beat the taste of corn cooked within 20 minutes of picking! That was her absolute time limit; the pot had
to be ready to receive the corn immediately after picking and husking. I understand that today there are newer
varieties of corn that maintain their sweetness longer, but my mother was sure
the sugar would turn to starch if we delayed past 20 minutes – a very high
standard that no supermarket corn could meet.
At the end of the corn season we enjoyed the special ritual
of feeding cornstalks to cows pastured nearby. We pulled up the cornstalks,
shook off the dirt, piled the stalks onto my grandfather’s big wooden
wheelbarrow, and wheeled each load over across Nichols Street to the cow
pasture. My mother called out loudly, "Co' boss!
co' boss! co' boss!” The cows came
running. They hurried to the fence and pushed and shoved to get at the treats
we brought. It was fun to watch them shake their heads vigorously as they
chomped on the cornstalks. My sister and I tried to
imitate them, and discovered to our delight that chewing on cornstalks released
a burst of sweet juice. Yum! No wonder the cows liked cornstalks! This also explains why cows sometimes
wandered into our garden when they escaped from the pasture, but that’s a story
for another day.
