Slave labor: mulching, weeding and canning

When I was growing up, we had a huge garden. Why not, my parents had slave labor: my younger sister and myself. Taking care of the garden was a months long project beginning in the spring and ending in late fall.

The garden started in the spring, after dad had rototilled the whole thing. My sister and I would be assigned the chore of going through all the bags of recyclable newspapers (which we had spent all winter collecting.) Our task was to separate all the color pages from the black and white pages. You can't use the color pages in the garden because the ink is bad for the soil. After we had all that paper separated, we started on the garden. Mom would have already planned the layout of the garden and purchased all the necessary seeds. We were required to participate in the planting. Slave labor never volunteers. We planted a lot: corn, potatoes, indian corn, tomatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, yellow beans, green beans, cucumbers, pumpkins, mini pumpkins, gourds and sometimes watermelon.

After we planted all the rows and hills, we had to mulch around everything. That's when we used all the newspaper, and this part was actually a lot of fun. First, we filled a wheel barrow with water. And, sometimes, the hose got a little out of control and someone might get sprayed. But, hey, that wasn't our fault. Once the wheel barrow was full of water, we started carefully soaking the sheets of newspaper, one piece at a time. Then we placed the wet newspaper along the garden path between the rows. Except, you couldn't do this with the potatoes or corn, so those paths stayed clear. We made sure to carefully overlap each sheet of newspaper. The point was to prevent the growth of weeds, so you didn't want them sneaking through the newspaper. Once the newspaper path was done, we had to cover all that with straw or hay. Then we were done for a few weeks.

Throughout the summer it was necessary to weed constantly. We were encouraged to weed early in the morning before it go too hot. We couldn't weed in the evenings because we would get carried away by mosquitoes. Unfortunately, beans could only be weeded during the middle of the after noon when all the dew had tried. You can't touch beans when they're wet, or they will get all rusty. (Yes, I know, it sounds weird and crazy but it's true.) I hated (still do)weeding, and weeding beans was probably my absolute least favorite chore.

During late summer, the harvest began. Over the course of several weekends we would pick the beans, carrots, cucumbers, and tomatoes. All those required canning, which was a whole other project. For canning we had to wash, and cut up all the vegetables. Canning jars had to be gathered from the cellar and washed. Canning lids and bands found. The canner dug out of it's hiding place in the back of the cupboard. I hated canning almost as much as weeding. We always ended up canning on the hottest weekends, and we had to spend all day in the kitchen near the hot stove boiling canning jars. And the endless screeching of the canner to signify the latest batch of whatever was done. It was beyond tedious.  

We harvested and ate the corn all summer, so all we had to do about that in the fall was pull up the stalks to use for decorating. Mom sold the pumpkins, mini pumpkins, gourds, indian corn, and corn stalks. We had to help pull all that stuff out of the garden and lug it up the hill to our front yard. Then we had to help oversee the money collecting. And it wasn't unheard of for us to be forced to carry a heavy pumpkin for some little old lady. It seriously cut into our leaf-pile-jumping time.

If you're keeping track, the only things left to be harvested were the potatoes. That was the funnest part of the whole garden. Dad or mom weilded the pitchfork. As each hill was turned, it became a contest between my sister and I to find the most potatoes. And worms. Dad figured we might as well harvest fishing worms if we were digging in the dirt.

About the time we were finished harvesting our own garden, we would go apple picking. This brought about another bout of canning. Canning applesauce wasn't as bad as the rest of the canning, and it tasted the best in the middle of a February Nor'easter.

Looking back, I'm amazed at how much food we put away to help us get through the winter. We never bought any vegetables at the store until March or April. Usually the apples and potatoes ran out first. There were quite a few years when we never ran out of beans or carrots. We always had our own tomatoe sauce and applesauce. To this day, I will not purchase applesauce at a grocery store. It just doesn't taste right.

I miss the whole garden process now. There is such a feeling of accomplishment when the harvest is over and you go down to the cellar and just look at the shelves and shelves full of canned goods. All home grown. This year, I plan to can applesauce. It will feel good to hear a canner boiling and clanging and screeching in the kitchen again. It will taste even better when I get to walk down to the cellar in the middle of winter and bring up a jar of yummy applesauce. Maybe next summer I'll even plant some beans and carrots. Don't tell my mother though, she might have a heart attack from shock.