By Wayne McLaurin
University of
Georgia
As Father’s Day approaches, I remember with fond affection my own
father. He wasn’t a big man, but was very big in my eyes. Not
educated in a modern sense, he never failed to have time to
answer my thousand questions. He was never too busy to talk to us
children.
Many of the conversations came in the garden, started by a
question.
“What plant is that?”
“Is this bug good or bad?”
“Is that ready to eat?”
“Why are some peppers hot?”
“What causes tomatoes to turn red?”
“How big can a watermelon grow?”
“Can we quit now?”
Railroad garden
We always had a big vegetable garden on land we used with
permission from the railroad.
At 10:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. a passenger train passed by going to
foreign places as far as we were concerned — northbound to
Washington, D.C., and New York and southbound to New Orleans.
We knew we weren’t going there, so we just waved at the people on
the train and showed them Southern hospitality while we went
about our chores.
Everyone had chores in the garden. One of my least favorite was
to pick squash and okra — both sticky. I was the fifth child,
and now I think this chore was passed down as the older ones got
more power and control.
Okra lessons
Little did I know then that I’d wind up getting a Ph.D. in
horticulture at Louisiana State University and do all of my
research on okra. I reckon that garden got me geared up for
life.
Daddy never was into “gadgets.” We didn’t have a tractor or even
a mule, just hand tools and a pushplow.
Having come through World War I and the Depression and having six
children to support, Daddy was somewhat tight-fisted. Why have
one of those gadgets when Mr. John Scott would come over and plow
the garden with his mule Hugh?
Besides the chores, we did everything else that was asked. Daddy
always asked. He never told us what to do. Of course, we never
refused to do what he asked.
That one time…
Except there was that one time when my older brother V.L. decided
if he stuck his foot with a pitchfork he could get out of work –
we always worked barefooted. Instead, he stuck it through his
toe.
Daddy took him back to the house, poured iodine on the puncture,
bandaged it and made him wear shoes back to the garden. All of us
learned a lesson: don’t try it, because it won’t get you out of
garden work.
We didn’t have any of the supplies modern gardeners can’t seem to
do without. We knocked pests off the plants into a coffee can
with a little kerosene in the bottom. After we were through, we
strained the bugs out and saved the kerosene for the next
onslaught of insects.
Specialized hoes
Weed control was never a problem. We just used hoes and kept them
sharpened. As the hoe heads were sharpened, of course, they
became smaller.
That was never a problem. We used the small-headed hoe to get
close around the plant. With this implement I could get right
next to the stem and cut the grass.
Woe be unto the kid, though, who cut a plant. We’d get “Son, why
didn’t you just pull the grass from around the plant with your
hands?” in the kindest of words.
The newer, wider hoes were for the middles. And we never chopped.
We “drew” the hoe along the top of the soil without disturbing
the soil, letting the sharp edge do the work. Chopping brought up
weed seeds, the exact thing we were trying to control.
Lots of lessons
We not only planted and raised each vegetable but picked it,
shelled it, helped cook it and, of course, ate everything. The
plate was never passed twice, and no one wanted to be at the
end.
Yet there was always enough to eat and share with others less
fortunate (or as we kids so selfishly saw it, too lazy to have a
garden).
As I look back, gardening with my father was one of the best
learning experiences ever. All of the formal education I’ve gone
through has only refined and enhanced what I learned in my
father’s garden.
(Wayne McLaurin is a horticulturist with the University of
Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.)
