by Wynne Huddleston
The garden lay in back of the house place
waiting each spring for Daddy’s tractor to rip
it open like a flattened grocery bag and draw
long perfect rows upon it. Then whatever day
the Farmer’s Almanac suggested, he would take
seeds saved from last year’s yield
and illustrate onto that brown bag of a garden
his favorite saying, “Plant a straight row.”
How soon rain and wind and sun would paint
the rows into a rainbow of yellow squash and silky
corn, pink-eyed purple hulled peas, tents
of green beans, red tomatoes and swords
of silver okra! Then early, early, early
in what my parents called “morning,” they’d get up,
dress in jeans, long sleeved shirts, boots,
gloves and hats for protection from sun, ants
and stickers. Golf cart loaded
with bushel baskets and buckets they’d drive
the path to the garden with us stumbling
not far behind as soon as we could
drag out of bed, or else we would feel guilty
when they came back exhausted while we sat
in air conditioning. We would complain
that we didn’t know which peas were ready.
Mama would say, “Pick the biggest, darkest
purple hulled peas, but some are little. The hulls
will feel thinner when ready and you can feel
the mature peas inside. Throw away the dry
ones. Don’t pull up the vine.” One bucket filled
another awaited. Corn was easy to pull, but
the bush butter beans, next to peas, were a dread
to pick and to shell. Eternity
is defined by how long it takes
to reach the end of a row, but sure enough
you would get there, back aching, brow dripping,
pants soaked in morning dew. At every meal served
we’d eat every pea and every kernel of corn,
because we appreciated all the plowing, sowing,
picking, weeding, debugging, shelling, shucking,
cutting, washing, sorting, putting it up
in bags or canning in jars. You don’t waste
food you worked that hard to get,
and nothing tastes so good
as peas, tomatoes, fried okra, cornbread
and fresh dug “new” potatoes cooked
with green beans! And how wonderful
in winter to have a jar of tomato/vegetable soup
or have your pick from the grocery bag garden
laying nice and neat in straight rows in your freezer!
photo credit: Zoe Richardson, Unsplash
Wynne Huddleston is a church musician, piano teacher, and author of From the Depths of Red Bluff (Mississippi Poetry Society, Inc., 2014). Her work has appeared in numerous publications including Deep South Journal, Birmingham Arts Journal, From the Front Porch Swing, and The Mom Egg. Wynne grew up in rural Mississippi with cattle, chickens, and a large garden. Now she spends her time with her grandchildren, feeding birds, raising butterflies, and gardening.