Why We Garden

I have always loved vegetable gardens. For as long as I can remember, my Mamaw and Papaw have kept a large garden in their back yard. There was never any shortage of strawberries, cucumbers, lettuce, onions, beans, peas, or my personal favorite, tomatoes around their house during the summer. Oh, and the okra! Mamaw still fries and freezes enough okra to last the entire year. It is, without a doubt, the best okra that you’ll ever eat! In fact, all of those homegrown vegetables were far tastier than any of their store-bought doppelgangers could have ever dreamed. Looking back, I realize that Mamaw and Papaw weren’t just planting seeds in a garden; they were helping cultivate a set of values in me that would later blossom into a fascination and love of all that nature has to offer.

There are a ton of other childhood memories associated with that garden aside from the edible produce. Just about every fishing trip that I can remember taking as a kid began with a swing by Mamaw and Papaw’s house to dig up worms from their garden. My dad would use a pitch fork to turn over the loose, dark soil; the shovel always tended to leave too many wiggling worm parts in its wake. It was always my job to catch the little red wrigglers before they could bury themselves back under the dirt. We always tried to avoid the giant nightcrawlers, many of which could have passed for small snakes. They had a strong tendency to secrete a sharp stream of slimy yellow mucus the second they anticipated a fish hook. I can recall more than one close call while baiting a hook with my mouth open. They stayed on the hook better, but they definitely weren’t worth the mess.

I remember how on any given night during the summer, it seemed as if we could stop by Mamaw and Papaw’s house and find them snapping green beans or shelling purple hull peas by the 5 gallon buckets full. My sister and I always loved jumping in to help, and I ‘m sure Mamaw and Papaw loved letting us! I especially enjoyed shelling the purple hull peas. I liked the way they stained my fingers. I think that my parents would sometimes visit for an extra long time, just to let us have fun and help. Not only were these great ways to bond as a family; but, in retrospect, I see how much work that it takes to put food on your own table. In today’s society, we walk into a grocery store and walk out with two weeks worth of food without a second thought given to the work that it took to get it there or the impact that it might have made on our environment.

These days, I am blessed to have found a wonderful, Godly woman who shares my interest in trying to be more self-reliant. In fact, Mommy Maxwell may be even more determined than I am. We are awaiting our newest addition to the family, and she has me talked into cloth diapering! It’s going to be a brand new experience for me, so there will definitely be more to come on this particular adventure in baby land in a couple of months.

Well, I had planned on talking about our own garden in this post; however, after a quick read-through of what I have down so far, I have come to realize that I might have gotten a little bit side tracked. Only, by might have, I mean definitely; and by little bit, I mean completely. That’s okay, though. I like what I have down, and I have enjoyed digging into old memories and realizing how those seemingly small things that happened when I was a kid have helped to shape my personal values, today. It has further inspired me to make a more conscious effort to provide the same types of experiences for our children, so that they may grow up with a more healthy perspective on life and nature. We still have lots to share about our garden, so we will probably be posting more about it in the very near future. Thank you for reading, and we hope that you’ll stay with us as we continue Homesteading The City.