Grandma’s Garden

Now you have to understand a couple things when you read this. First, I am reminiscing back to when I was 4 or 5 years old, so even though I think I’ve got my story straight these are some pretty old memories that I’m dredging up. Second, the reason I am running through Grandma’s garden here is to partially explain my bias against too much variety and complexity—against having too many choices.

Grandma was an excellent gardener and had a large garden, about a 100’ by 100’ square I’d say, and that doesn’t include an equally large blackberry patch. Despite the large size of her garden, Grandma grew only a handful of crops but she grew a lot quantity wise. As I recall she grew potatoes, tomatoes, pole beans, onions, cabbage and maybe a few cucumbers. There was a long row of trellised grapes along the back side of the garden and a row of asparagus along the north side of the garden. I don’t remember ever eating any asparagus but I recall their foliage reminded me of miniature Christmas trees. She also raised a lot of sweet corn but that was in a separate field. I remember that sweet corn field because I helped to hoe it and frequently failed to distinguish between corn sprout and weed. It all looked green to me. This led to my Grandfather speaking German and that was always a bad sign. I never did learn any Deutche sprache from him except for one phrase which although never directly translated for me, I am 99.9% sure meant “Get out of here!”

So there wasn’t much variety in my Grandma’s garden nor for that matter in her meals which were almost completely dependent on home produce. But no one ever complained because could she ever cook! Her recipes were so savory that she didn’t need much variety. I recall sitting next to my Dad when our family would go out to the farm for a Sunday meal and visit. He’d slip his hand under the table and undo his belt; He was ready for some serious eating. Back in those days meals centered around meat, mashed potatoes and gravy…we did not know that crispy fried chicken skin and roast beef were not healthy. Grandma made a delicious vinegar and sugar coleslaw from the cabbages. There was sweet corn with farm butter and green beans cooked with some pork fat. She made a wonderful chicken dressing and dessert was a big chocolate iced cake. These Sunday meals were always pretty much the same. The only question was whether we would have fried chicken and milk gravy or beef and dark gravy.

Sometimes we kids got to stay at Grandma’s during the week for our “summer vacation”—(read that as a desperately needed break for my Mom.) Meals during the week also had a similarity to them. The potatoes were home fried instead of mashed; tomatoes and onions marinated in sweet vinegar tended to replace the coleslaw. Meat was either ham or chicken and there were still green beans or corn. Grandma baked her own bread because Grandpa did not like the store bought bread—he wanted something that would “stick to his ribs”. He finished his meals off with bread and “schmears”, that is her homemade grape and blackberry jams. When she baked bread on Saturday or made jellies it really filled the old farm house with some nice aromas.

It was the strong aromas of frying sausage or bacon and eggs along with strong percolating coffee that awoke my brother and me for predawn breakfasts. Again, my grandparents produced the hogs and eggs and so that is pretty much what every breakfast meal was except on Sunday. On Sunday we ate Saturday- baked kuchen to hold us until the main dinner meal. (Country folks did not have a lunch; they ate breakfast, dinner and supper.)

Just as Saturday was for baking and Sunday was for church services and family visiting, so too every day of the week had its special routine and task. As best I recall, Monday was laundry day—clothes washed outdoors in boiling caldrons with homemade lye soap. Tuesday was ironing day. Wednesday was housecleaning day, no small task in a big two story farm house. Thursday was preparation for “egg and butter” route day. Vegetables had to be picked; blackberries had to be picked. Her truck route customers really liked Grandma’s blackberries but I really hated those thorns. Eggs had to be candled and cream churned into pounds of butter. On Friday, Grandma and Grandpa spent the day in the city running their “egg and butter” route from the back of a black panel truck. Every day had its purpose, its routine. It all seemed to fit together; it all seemed simpler. Not much variety. Not too many choices to fret about.