Breaking and Planting My Garden
Posted by Pete | Posted in News | Posted on 08-03-2012
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Number two son may regret moving to Albuquerque….Seems like everytime he comes over we find a ton of work for him to do. Yesterday he came over, with a load of compost that he had purchased for his yard and then he decided to give a few wheel barrow loads to me, but first we needed to dig up some turnip greens and turnips, get them ready for his mother to cook and get them out of the garden…Then, we needed to break up the garden spots, out front and in back, then we needed to turn the compost into the soil in both spots and then the soil looked so good and it was so nice out, we decided to go ahead and plant about 15 hills of potatoes and set out about 30 onion bulbs….He worked his bu…., he worked hard all morning and about the time Mom shouted out, dinner is ready, we were ready for dinner….Were those greens and turnips ever good. Mom also made some cornbread and fried up some ham and some condiments, along with some of her sweet tea….Yum, yum…..However, I am not sure his Mom’s good cooking will keep him coming back if I continue to work him that hard….All this is not exactly true as I have promised to come over to his house and piddle some also, but I don’t think my piddleing will ever equal to his working…Some of the work we did was his ideas yesterday though and I appreciate it. I was thinking after he left whatever did I do before he moved up here….I don’t really know but somehow I made out, but I am thankful he is up here nowadays. He’s a good’un and thanks son….
This was one of my biggist surprises when I first arrived in Albuquerque back in August, 1965: people in the high desert actually had backyard gardens. In spite of the dry, tumbling tumbleweed and mesquite of the high desert, the green grass and few veggies in those backyards of my friends in southeast Albuquerque sure looked good to a boy from Alabama who thought green was the color of the world while now it seems to only be the color of the Obama Administration.
I can’t close without letting you know how lucky you are. It is about time for the Filipino garden to, once again, come out of the garage. I will be digging deep holes for the guava, banana, and coconut trees so they can begin the short filipino season in Arkansas. And I once thought that gardening was planting a few rows of turnip greens, collard greens, radishes, and tomatoes. I didn’t realize that the garden must be kept alive in the garage through the winter months in order for it even to exist in the spring. That’s the thing that keeps me at the nice, eternal twenty-nine years of age.