Our First Garden

Our house was built on a corner lot in a little sub- division. The land was an open field and had never been used for gardening. I loved flowers growing around the house so that was my first project. I went to my mother-in-law's house and clipped branches from her rose bushes. These branches were planted in our flower bed on the south side of the house. I placed a fruit jar over each cutting to form a hot house effect. I then watched ever day until there was new growth on the plants. I planted these cuttings in the fall of the year and by spring I had rose bushes growing in my beds. I love colorful plants, so I planted seeds around the rose bushes. My flowers were beautiful. There was a dirt road or lane that ran by our house. I don't know here it lead to, but there was traffic there every day. Usually it was wagons and occasionally and automobile. One wagon got our attention,it came by every day. The driver of the two brown mules was a very polite little old black man. When he passed our house he would lift his hat and speak to us. One day we asked him if he would plow a garden spot for us. He said he would come back next week and do that for us. Next week came and there he was. He unharnessed his pair of mules and hooked them to the plow that he carried around in his wagon. He did odd jobs for people in the neighborhood. He first had to break up the hard soil with the plow an then lay the soil into rows. He did a good job. Now we only had to plant the seeds for our vegetables. We planted corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, string beans okra and zinnias. The zinnias were for color. I love color in my garden. We kept the weeds and grass from growing in our garden by chopping with a hoe. Our garden was beautiful. We had plenty of vegetable to eat,to share and to can for later. It was hard work, but it was also fun. Our good friend who plowed the garden for us confided to us later that never would have believed that we could make a thing grow in that soil. He was proud that he had been a part of it.