The Family Garden | Eastern NC Now

    My mom and dad always had a garden. Growing up in Little Five Points of Atlanta, extra property was at a premium but we had a half lot next to our house that we planted every spring and summer. It was yet another lesson learned from the depression era by my parents.

    When we moved to Clarkston / Stone Mountain area in 1960, my dad bought 5 acres to build his dream home. His life ambition was to have a few acres and to be able to "piss in his own yard" without the interference of his neighbors.

    There we were able to expand his garden and we often raised more food than we could possible eat, but mom would can the food in mason jars and put in the basement for future use during the winter.

    As they grew older, it became more of a chore than a hobby but they still maintained the garden up until my mother's death at 86 and my dad's death at 99.

    Planting and plowing was always a multi month process. Dad liked to start planning in January and would often plow several times with his roto-tiller, just to be ready for spring. To the best of my knowledge, spring never came in January or February but we were ready just in case.

    One day in the early 1990s, I came over to visit and caught mom and dad, (81 & 87 Respectively) working in the garden. They were both tired and in the hot sun but the planting had to be done.

    As the arthritis set in on dad due to too many motorcycle accidents, and too many fires fought, he had some problems bending over. He solved that by devising a method to plant the seeds without having to drop them randomly or bend over to place them.

    Jim and I bought him a John Deer tractor in 1994 (he was 88) because the old roto-tiller was beating him to death in the Georgia Red Clay.

    The Deer did not relieve me of my duties as part time mule to lay the rows.

    That Garden made my parents happier than almost anything. There may have been some truty to Mr. Ohara's line in Gone with the Wind. "Do you mean to tell me, Katie Scarlett O'Hara, that Tara, that land doesn't mean anything to you? Why, land is the only thing in the world worth workin' for, worth fightin' for, worth dyin' for, because it's the only thing that lasts"

    Boy, what I would give for just one more harvest, but that will have to wait until I get Home again.