Dexter Iowa Community Site

Consider this quote from Abe Lincoln

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

All it takes is one sunny warm weekend to change a persons outlook on life. After spending the last few weeks walking around like a wet cat shivering the sun came out and warmed up my little corner of heaven and made being outside without a hat, gloves and coveralls somewhat enjoyable.

I finished planting the garden with the addition of a few tomato plants. The peas and lettuce and spinach are just now peaking out of the ground, and the rhubarb is starting to bush out. It reminded me of the garden we had growing up on the farm, although on a much smaller scale now. My mother was a gardening fool. I don’t know if it was the fact that she was trying to feed three growing boys, one of which had to be force fed peas…literally they had to hold my brother John down and force the peas into his mouth! 

I think though that it wasn’t really Mom’s fault that our garden growing up was the size of a football field. In the spring Dad would take the tractor and the old Allis Chalmers 8 bottom plow and turn over the dirt in the garden. I suppose he had to make the furrows long in order just to have enough space to turn around in. The garden then was disked a couple of times and before long there was planting to be done.

Mom never was the kind to get all exotic with the vegetables. It was mostly onions, peas, green beans, radishes, and sometimes beets. There were always green peppers and tomatoes and the occasional squash and lots of cucumbers. They all took time to grow and the garden was never weedy, which I am sure was because Mom would spend lots of time in the garden, mostly to get away from us I would suspect.

We boys helped out from time to time as well, but mostly the garden was a place for discovery. There were funny bugs and the creepy black and white spiders that made great webs amongst the plants and scared us boys when we would bump into them. But our love was the rich black dirt. And as any farm kid would do we played in it. With our farm toys and a Tonka Road Grader we got as a Christmas present one year we would till and grade roads and dig holes all over Mom’s garden which drove her absolutely insane I am sure.

Just to the south of the garden was a small patch of strawberries. I don’t know that we had them for many years. There are only a couple that stand out in my memory, most likely because boys can’t be trusted to bring in strawberries when they are tempting and tasty right out of the garden, so I am sure we had convinced Mom in her own mind that we just were good strawberry growers.

Even today when I am out poking around in the garden, trying my best to battle the young weeds now beginning to poke through soil, I am taken back time and again to that garden on the farm and the image of my mother stooped over pulling weeds and harvesting the things she grew.

See you next week. Remember, we’re all in this together.