We always had a big garden at the Rock House. Mom would get one of us to plow and harrow the lot that lies on the west side of the rock house. That plot of land became our garden.
The major crop in our garden was sweet corn. The corn was planted by a two man team. One person was on the shovel and the other had the seed. The person with the shovel would dig the shovel into the ground three to four inches and then push forward on the shovel to open a slit in the soil. The person with the seed would throw two or three seeds down in the slit and the person with the shovel would pull the shovel out of the ground, take one step forward and repeat the procedure. This placed the hills of corn about thirty inches apart. If the soil was dry, then a third person was required. That person poured some water in on the seed before the shovel was removed.
Another popular crop was squash. We grew summer squash to eat out of the garden, but the majority of the squash we grew was “winter squash”. It was planted in the same way as the corn. Over the years we grew several varieties of winter squash. One of the favorites was warty hubbard squash. It was greenish in color and the skin was covered with bumps like warts. The squash was allowed to grow all season and just before frost, the vines were pulled up and piled over the squash to prevent them from being frosted. After the frost, the squash were collected and stored in the cellar or wash house. I think the cold temperature associated with the frost was suppose to make the squash sweeter. We had baked squash quite often and I liked it a lot.
Another crop we had several rows of was green beans. Mom always bottled green beans and we grew a lot of them. Most of them were bottled as green beans but sometimes Mom would let them get ripe and dry on the vine and we would pick them and shell out the not quite mature beans. They were called “shelled beans” and they were very good. Sometimes we planted real green beans but most of the time we just planted pinto beans and harvested them as green beans when the pods were not mature. They made a flatter green bean but they tasted good.
Besides the crops mentioned above, we also had a section of garden next to the house where we raised vegetables for eating as they became ripe. That garden had carrots, beets, green onions, radishes, turnips, lettuce and cabbage. Sometimes we also had cucumbers. The radishes always came off first and we used to have fresh radishes or green onions with bread and milk. It was really good.
My job and the job of my brothers was to help weed the garden, help water the garden by carrying buckets of water to each hill of corn and then in the fall, to help harvest the produce. We ate fresh corn on the cob and we always froze a lot of corn too. The squash were eaten baked or boiled. The green beans were bottled. If we had a good cabbage crop, Mom would make sauerkraut out of some of it. Mom made pickles and relish out of the cucumbers.
Mom and Dad were self-reliant and used the home grown vegetables to supplement the family food supply. We always had plenty to eat and we learned to eat a lot of different things. I like most types of cooked vegetables because that is what we ate all the time.