Response 5: Working on the Farm

Working on Eden Hall Farm, I felt right at home shoveling dirt, pushing wheelbarrows and enjoying a country view. Throughout my childhood, I lived near farmland on which farmers raised cows, sweet corn, alfalfa and various crops, so visiting a farm again felt like a typical day. And at my own home, I assisted my parents with their own vegetable garden and flower beds. My mother jumpstarted our gardens. As the eldest daughter of a farmer, she knew how to cultivate vegetables from seeds, plant fruit trees, and tend to flowers. By age four, when we planted our first garden, I helped cover seeds lightly with freshly tilled soil. First, we grew rows of strawberries, rutabagas, peas, tomatoes, green peppers, rhubarb, green beans, sweet corn, carrots, broccoli, and red potatoes. Years later, we added zucchini, yellow squash, cantaloupes, watermelons, cauliflower, snow peas, dill, basil, asparagus, red raspberries and fruits trees including apples, pears, peaches and sour cherries.

Needless to say, summer was a busy time of year. My sister and I were required to pick produce, the most consuming of which were green beans. Early in the season when plants were still small, picking beans was a relatively quick chore because pods were more visible. Toward the end of the bean season, though, as plants grew taller, pods blended in with thick stems and were difficult to see beneath large leaves of the same green hue.

Because gardening meant work, as a young child I didn’t always appreciate my garden. It wasn’t until I entered high school, after we built raised beds, that I assigned chores to myself. I would like to claim that I finally understood the importance of pesticide-free food. However, the reason for my renewed interest was based on the fact that raised beds resulted in fewer weeds and less crouching. All in all, a more positive and comfortable harvesting experience. As a result, I also took greater interest in my parents’ flowers. I volunteered to water all of the native and non-native varieties bordering our one-acre plot using water we collected in rain barrels. Roses, lavender, tulips, ferns, yellow lady slippers, blackberry lilies, black-eyed Susan’s, jack-in-the-pulpits, daffodils, hibiscus, and dozens more bloomed at various intervals through late fall. I could easily spend an hour watering, which allowed me to develop a type of relationship with flowers. When you spend that much time on a specific activity repeatedly, you begin to remember which plant grows in which location, where it thrives best, and how it changes from spring to fall. You create an intimacy caused by close contact rather than simply admiring blossoms from a distance. I took joy in hauling buckets and watering cans, a feeling I felt again at Eden Hall Farm holding a spade in my hands.

I have always admired my parents’ yard, and admire it more every year. They strive for diversity and organize plants in a way that works with the existing landscape as much as possible. The resulting effect is a colorful yard that appears semi-natural; not fully wild, but not so tame as to seem landscaped. My ideal garden would be very similar. I prefer an assorted combination of vegetables, fruits, flowers, shrubs and trees that are primarily native to the area; preferably plants that support butterfly and honeybee populations as well as attract beneficial insects in order to control destructive pests naturally. Unfortunately, considering that I currently do not own my own land or have space available, I will not plant this garden for several years. The class trip to Eden Hall Farm has been the most gardening I have done in a year. Hopefully, our efforts will prove successful and next summer I will have the opportunity to see flowers in full bloom.