Matt haring the garden
When we first bought our place, what was once a large garden spot had grown up in brush and little saplings. We bought in August so my husband found a distant neighbor to come along with his disc.
He cut deep into the ground and broke up all the saplings, berry, honeysuckle and weedy overgrowth. The big lumps turned up like rows of little mountains with all the brush sticking root up.
Over the winter it froze, thawed, froze again and got drenching rains sometimes…Very early when it first dried the farmer showed up with his plow and har…He cross plowed the disked ground and let that new turned ground dry a day or two…By that time we were chompin’ at the bit to plant a garden on our new place…Finally the day came.
He had left his har laying by the garden…here he come attached his har and went over and over going crosswise and row wise…back and forth and so on…Seemed like he done that for hours…Finally I heard the engine on the tractor turn off.
The better half was just patiently waiting napping on and off in the shade to the hum of the tractor…When I went out there, he said that we “ort-er” have a great garden since he worked it over real good…and he did….and we did have our best first garden, the plants grew by leaps and bounds and just kept producing all summer…..Maybe because in some way it was considered new ground….or maybe because this wonderful Christian farmer said it would and blessed it many times with his plow and har….
—B. Ruth 2018
1972 Graham County 50 With the first stages of early clearing, the farmer did “patch” farming near the cabin. Many farmers today still speak of a “patch” of corn or other crops. The farmer gradually and systematically extended the patches into wider fields by each year extending his farming into a new area known as a “new ground.”
—Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English
Last night’s video: Picking the Last of the Blackberries & The Best Dill Pickles Ever (I Hope!).
Tipper
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