Disrupting the routines of old folks or babies isn’t a good idea. You can’t teach old dogs new tricks. Someone who doesn’t want to change – won’t. Don’t confuse me with the facts. Keep hitting yourself on the head with a hammer, soon you’ll end up with a sore head.
Okay, maybe not that last one, but the first four certainly describe some folks out there when it comes to this time of the year and their favorite pastime – gardening. Well, Dear Reader, that’s all about to change.
There was a lot of consistency during those seven years my three brothers, The Sister, and me spent growing up at 110 Flamingo Street. Down the Street Bully Brad would somehow find and pound me into the ground once a week. Goofy Steve was always funny. Bubba Hanks was always hungry. One of my three brothers was constantly getting into trouble and then blaming whatever they did on me. The Sister was annoying most all the time. And every spring, Dad would spend hours getting the garden ready for the planting season.
To be honest, I think Dad’s love of gardening had more to do with getting out of the house for some peace and quiet than it did gardening. Still, each spring and fall, the hard dirt would be tilled, amendments added, seeds and water. Soon we would have more vegetables than the entire neighborhood could possibly consume. Every spring he’d say the same thing, “It’ll take about seven years, but by then we’ll have good planting soil.”
I didn’t much care for the month of March. That’s when us boys would be dragged around the garden behind the red beast commonly called a tiller. I’m surprised I still have any teeth left as much as that thing shook.
The only fun came when I planted large rocks the night before and my brothers hit one of them. Then we all watched as the red monster jerked, sputtered, and danced its way down the hill right into the swamp. Dad didn’t much care for it, but we thought it was extremely amusing. That is until we spent the next hour lassoing and dragging the red monster out of the swamp muck.
For seven years Dad and us kids worked the soil, and for seven years I always thought there just had to be a better way to grow vegetables. There is.
It’s called using raised beds and square foot gardening. Build a wooden box at least a foot tall, no more than four feet wide and as long as you want it to be. Then fill it with the perfect soil mixture from bags bought at the giant hardware store with the blue roof. Buy plants and seeds there also.
To plant, all you need is string. Grid off one-foot squares and then fill each square with plants. In the fall replace summer plants with winter ones. No tilling, no soil amending, no digging trenching for rows, and most importantly, no weed-pulling. Less work, more harvest — it’s that simple.
Those are the facts. Enter my Dad. Last spring during his visit, he marveled about how many vegetables were planted in our raised beds. I explained how easy it was, and he assured me he would do his entire garden this year the same way. He didn’t.
When asked why, he replied, “Been gardening same way for 60 years — not going to change now.” Then he asked, “You coming down soon? Got lots of weeds that need pulling.” Using raised beds or not, at 87, I hope I’m still able to garden.
Finally, for those who thought this story was gonna be about how my brothers and me hit ourselves on the head with hammers, even we knew better than that. We first held pecans on our head and then tapped them with a hammer to crack them.
Why we didn’t just smash them on the table, I don’t really remember. But I know we used our heads. Or at least I think we did.
[Rick Ryckeley, who lives in Senoia, served as a firefighter for more than two decades and has been a weekly columnist since 2001. His email is storiesbyrick@gmail.com. His books are available at www.RickRyckeley.com.]
