Pap tilling his garden
We’ve all been staying at Granny’s more since she’s doing so poorly. Mostly we sit around and talk when we’re not caring for her.
In a recent video Matt and I were wondering how Pap got the tree stumps out of the big garden when he started making a garden on the new ground.
I can remember what the area looked like when there was no garden, no road, and no houses. But I can’t remember when Pap actually made the garden. I remember the before and the after, but not how it came to be.
The other day while we were sitting around talking I asked the person who knows all the details about the big garden’s birth—my oldest brother Steve.
Steve is five years older than me and he’s the reason I’m called Tipper.
When I was learning to walk he was afraid I would tip over and get hurt. “Tip over” quickly became Tipper.
I told Steve what I could remember about the big garden and asked him to fill in the gaping holes.
He said “That place had been cut over before. Daddy said Frank and Papaw Wade cut the timber. By the time Daddy wanted to make a garden it was all grown up with bushes and the biggest trees only being about six or seven inches in diameter.”
My next question for him was how did he get the stumps out?
I wish you could have heard the inflection in Steve’s voice 🙂
“With a ax, a old tiller, a mattock, and our bare hands that’s how!”
Steve went on to tell me in the beginning it was just a strip of a garden. Every year Pap would increase the length until finally it reached the size it is today.
He said “I reckon times got real hard because up till then we never had no garden. Course that could have been cause Daddy was awful busy and gone a lot driving a truck. And he helped Mamaw and Papaw with their garden so we could eat from it before he made that one.”
Last night’s video: Lunchroom Pizza.
Tipper
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Hi Tipper,
It is still cold here in the Blue Ridge. We are fine. I am glad you did the story today about the garden. It makes a cold day warmer! My family always had gardens and there is nothing like fresh vegetables from the garden. My fondest memory is how my mother would plant extra onions and lettuce in the garden. I loved eating onions and lettuce fresh from the garden. I would take several onion blades and wrap them around a handful of lettuce. So good. Mommy always laughed that I was the reason her onions didn’t grow– I ate them.
She never told me to leave the onion patch. And, most importantly, when I ate to many I would always come to the house for a cold glass of milk. KAthy Patterson
oh i remember when it came time of the year, daddy would cut us some small pine saplings and then we go and set the garden spot on fire as it was full of broom straw and dead weeds…if the fire started towards the woods we would beat the fire out…then he go borrow a brothers tractor and plow it up good…then get a tiller and till up the rows… then hoe, hoe, hoe off to work we go…:) stay warm ms tipper as we suppose to get more weather this weekend in nc
Wouldn’t Pap just be so tickled that you and Matt have restored the big garden and are planting it every year again? This extremely cold snap has me dreaming of garden season and I can’t wait to see your gardens come to life this year. Thinking about you all as you sit by Granny and share memories and stories. A sacred time. My prayers continue for you all.
Loved your vlog today. Wonderful, sweet stories and memories for y’all. All the videos and vlogs and histories you record will give the younger family members a great reference to refer to for finding information about their families. I’m sure they will truly appreciate all the hard work y’all do on these. What a blessing.
Due to the deer, we had to give up on the garden that Mama and Daddy developed years ago. It was a fine garden spot with rich soil. Instead, we have some strips inside our fenced in back yard that we have managed to make into a nice growing area by adding compost and keeping the crabgrass pulled out. The space provides more than enough for us to freeze and can and we give a lot of fresh produce away during the summer.
I know I don’t need to tell you to treasure every moment you have left with Granny. My prayers are with her and your family.
Pray that Granny is comforted and do her journey home to be with the Lord and Pap. And pray for y’all. It’s one thing to know the earth will lose a a great woman, and another to know Heaven will gain by Mrs. Louzine there.
I can hear Steve explaining to you how the stumps were removed from the garden!
Continued prayers for your sweet mother.
Happy Day Tipper!
Pap’s garden story is so telling of how people in southern Appalachia worked and respected their land. It touched my heart. Gardens fed families and communities year round. I am very familiar with sweat labor using an axe, mattock, shovel, and a rickety tiller if you could get it running. And then there was the rock pile we’d have of big rocks, we’d dig up and have to get out of the way. We’d manage to find a use for them too somewhere later in a pond or drainage ditch line. My prayers go up for Granny and your family. Sitting with our loved ones breaks our hearts that we know they are leaving us soon, but fills out hearts with love that we have been blessed to have them and know that they will always be a part of us. God be with each of you.
I loved that. When I helped my parents make their big garden it was with pure strength and hard work too. We couldn’t afford a tractor or to hire someone. It was hard work but we all worked together. We were so dirty that Mom would make a lunch and we’d sit under the apple tree and share spring water from a jar. So now the sore muscles and callouseds are forgotten and it’s fond memories! 🙂 My Mom planted mint by the spring when she added it to our water it was very special and seemed colder. Prayers!
Praying for Granny and for all of you.
Yay for Steve being able to tell you the rest of the story on how the garden began! Back in the day it was called ‘grunt labor’ when ‘plowing’ new ground, especially where there were tree roots to be dug out, using just an ax, a mattock and a shovel. because it was such hard work and a slow process. ‘Where there’s a will there’s a way’ as the saying goes, and back then when a body had a mind to ‘do’ they found a way. Dear sweet Granny. I pray she, and you all, will feel the sweet Presence of the Lord, as He is there, filling that room with His Spirit, waiting to carry her home. My hugs, love and prayers are with you all.
What wonderful memories! I’m so glad Steve could tell you about the garden. I love the picture also.
I think it’s precious that you have such a loving and close family and you all can be with Granny. That’s the best medicine in the world for her right now. Praying for all of you.
Grit and determination will take you far♡ I think knowing just how hard it was to get that lovely spot prepared for your family to enjoy the rewards from it, makes it even more special. I’m sure the corn tastes even sweeter as you think of Pap and the others. My news wasn’t great, yesterday and I start back on treatments next week. I’d appreciate any positive thoughts and prayers and as always I’m sending them your way. My main prayer today is for Granny to feel good enough to eat something nourishing and not hurt as a result♡ I love reading about people’s gardens, especially how they came to be. My little spot has lovingly been called “my yarden” for over 20 years. I “lost” the tiller in the divorce & to be fair, I didn’t use the monstrosity lol so I was as happy to see it go as the man attached to it!!! But I still wanted to grow my maters and whatnot, so I just dug holes in my immediate yard(I have…yes, I HAVE about 12 acres and still live happily here by myself) I started with 6 holes that year and had tomatoes, peppers and squash. I’ve continued to expand and since I use compost, pine needles (free!!) and weed free straw. It’s no longer just holes in the ground but a sweetheart little patch I just can’t wait to dig into!!
Kim, I’m sorry. I will keep praying for you!
My parents worked in a garden at either their parents’ home or their own since they were old enough to hold a hoe. When they left their home to move closer to their children, they were both looking for a new house with enough ground for a big garden. I will never forget Mom saying, “Raising a garden in this ground is like playing in a sandbox. I guess it was easy compared to the rocky land she tended nearly all of her life, which was wedged in between two mountains. God bless Granny, and God bless her family that allowed her to make her own decisions about treatment and at-home care.
I’m so thankful you can all share visits as a family with Granny. These are indeed moments to treasure.
Like Quinn said in her comments, you’re making memories, sharing memories of days gone by while taking care of someone you love.dearly. I know, I’ve been there.
I enjoyed reading about the garden stumps and how you all are spending time with granny. We were one of those families hat were not too demonstrative. We didn’t hug much or say we loved each other but there was a lot of love! I never got a chance to tell my mom I loved her as she died in a fire. As a matter of fact, we were fussing at each other cause she didn’t approve of me dating a man who was not of the same faith. but she knew I loved her. My dad died about 10 years later. I lived out of State at the time of his death but my company sent me to my home city on business and so when I got off work I would go home. My wonderful sisters and my brother were taking care of him. I went to see him before I went to the airport. He was in bed and I said, “I love you Poppy”. He said, “I love you too”. I cried all the way home. He died two weeks later. By the way, the guy I was dating broke up with me two months after my mom died and I married the best guy in the whole world! 45 years together now. As always, my mom was right!
I understand how much you miss your dad. I must say, the song Katie wrote while sitting in his chair was beautiful. Think how happy your dad will be when the Lord brings your momma to meet him. Bittersweet isn’t it? God bless your family
Praying for the Pressley’s, Wilsons and Austin’s.
As always praying for dear sweet Granny.
*sorry I don’t know Austin & Korie’s last name.
Steve’s memories of the making of the garden are priceless. Every little piece of family history will be passed down from you to your girls & grandchildren and will be kept alive for years & years to come.
Granny is in my daily prayers. In the sadness of the time, I know you feel very honored to be able to take care of your dear momma in her time of need. God bless the Wilson/Pressley/Graddick family!
Continued prayers for Granny and you all.❤️
My precious friend, who I can STILL see smiling!, Virgil, asked me many years ago, the year he passed, if I’d like to grow a garden with him. He had MS, no feeling from the waist down, and was UP! and you’d never have known except when he’d walk UP stairs, he grabbed his britches to help “pull” his right let up . Well, he knew I was a pitiful farmer; barely able to get a few tomatoes off those store-bought plants. We planted several rows, looked about the same size at Pap’s garden!, and then he planted things by himself. He called me one night, and said the potatoes were leaning over and we needed to “hill them up.” I went over and he had 3 rows, probably 60 or 80′ long; the garden wasn’t flat, just maybe a 10 degree incline. I got on the top row, hoeing up, pushing down. Virgil couldn’t stand doing that, so he was on his knees (and boy, could he squat!) with a short hoe, hoeing down and pushing up. We got to the end of the first 2 rows and we were about even. The 3rd row, I hoed up and Virgil hoed down. We were only 15 or 20′ into it when our hoes hit. He started rolling and asked, “You know what that means?” I didn’t. Virgil said, If you can work so close together your hoes hit, it means you will be doing it again together NEXT year. Virgil passed before the garden came in. I went over and harvested cabbage plants and we made his Mom’s salt-cured sauerkraut with his sister, Wilma. And you know what? I’ve been hoeing every year with Virgil ever since! See him and his BIG smile everywhere, even today.
Paul, that’s such a precious story. Thank you for sharing. I’ve heard that about clanking hoes together.
Well good morning, Tipper and I’m back after losing power since Sunday at about 4 pm and just getting it back on yesterday around 1 pm. It was no big deal and I just put all the refrigerated and frozen and prepared foods in plastic bins and set them outdoors. I only lost some frozen rolls and frozen bananas so I feel very fortunate. I spent yesterday washing clothes, washing floors and putting food back. It seemed like all day long. I guess I’m a survivor, for a few days with no power wasn’t too bad. We made coffee on the grill and heated water to bathe in a wide wash tub by candle light. We even got along good. Tipper, I’m so glad dear granny has you all there to keep her company and watch over her. MAY ALL YOUR CUPS RUNNETH OVER IN LOVE, BLESSINGS AND GOOD THINGS MONEY CANT BUY!!! Know in your heart there’s prayers going up for you all at this difficult time. I still hurt today just as bad as I did the day mommy and Bobby left us to go back home. As my time shortens here, I get plumb excited thinking about seeing them again and them being about 30 years old and me too. I guess heaven is full of skipping, laughing, running, dancing and holding hands together in complete well being and grand health we cannot imagine. Anyway, everybody there is about 30 and looks terrific-I mean terrific like in your VERY BEST dream!!! I can’t wait….
The Big Garden was made the hard way. I have heard that called “by main strength and awkwardness”. Heaven help you doing that if you have any white oaks. All the oaks start life from the acorn putting down a taproot. Because it is so hard one recourse way back when was to leave big stumps and ‘plow around them’. The way Steve describes it, there must have been a lot of work with a ‘grubbing hoe’ as well on those little stems. That’s why their blade is so heavy, to chop roots. Pap’s patient way of gradually expanding it was the best fit with available time when it had to be done by hand. It’s great that y’all have “saved” it from going back to woods again. Now it is once again “Pap’s (and Steve’s?) Big Garden”.
nanny used to say, sheer will and determination and sometimes stupidity lolol
Ron, my grandpa did everything on his one-man, one-horse farm by hand. I remember his “grub hoe,” which I was too young to wield, but I helped him in other ways. On the subject of stump removal, some farmers were adept at blowing them out with dynamite, and I remember seeing a “recipe” for homemade explosives in an old Farmers Almanac. I have that clipping somewhere.
I’m so glad Steve was able to tell you how the big garden was cleared. I can’t even imagine how hard Pap had to have worked to get that garden. He would be so happy to know yall are growing corn and other food there again. I’m keeping Granny and all of you in my thoughts and prayers.
Our parents and grandparents must have been stronger than we are today, having to do everything manually.
My little mama could dig with a mattock in her late 80’s . She would make a small garden without a tiller. If we said, you’re going to kill yourself out in that yard in the heat, she would say, I can’t think of a better way to go than in my garden.
My sisters and I and other loved ones were at her bedside as she passed away on her 94th birthday.
My prayers are with you and your brothers and your kids as you spend precious moments with your sweet mama. Love and hugs
Good morning Tipper, Matt and Acorns. It is 10F this morning and partly cloudy. We had a very windy night. I’ll have to go out after the sun comes up over the mountain and see it ant tree limbs are down in the yard. I’ll wash a load of towels today and hang them up in the living room/kitchen to dry. They may have to hang there till tomorrow. It is ok though. I mostly stay in my room. 648 sq ft ain’t much and it’s even less when it’s hanging full of wet laundry. I’m glad the washer still works. Today is My Ed’s Birthday. He is 43 now. His sister Ann is gonna be 49 in August. I loved watching the School Pizza video. The hamburger version is like my school days pizza. We mixed the sauce with the beef to spread on the crust and there was a lot more hamburger. The cheese was grated american cheese. It came in the 5 pound blocks (goverment cheese). I still buy that cheese today, It is sold at Pay Less Foods in the Kraft brand. It is anywhere from $18 to $28. It lasts a couple of months or longer. It makes great stove-top Mac n Cheese. I love hearing about the big garden. When did the house get built down there? Did it take art of the garden or was more land cleared? I love y’all’s place. I keep everyone here and up Wilson Hollow in my prayers. I love y’all.
Barbara, the house was built in the early 90s and it didn’t take any of the garden 🙂 Hope Ed has a Happy Birthday!!
My mother in law’s family would sit around with her when she was dying in 2020 and talk about anything. She was aware of us and would sometimes “chime in” too. Doing this seemed to help her be more peaceful, maybe by her knowing her family was with her. I reckon my family and many other native families in my neck of the woods were always poor, I can never remember a time from my youngest years until I was well up into my adult life any of us not having large 1 acre or more size gardens. My father in law always had a large garden, and would work in it until dark after working 8-10 hour day in a machine shop. The only day he wouldn’t work in his garden or do other work was Sunday, Sunday was reserved for Church. He did this until about a year before he died. The field corn was grown on different land. At 4-5 years their children began being taught to work and help with these gardens. A large garden was the difference between having something to eat or going hungry through out the year. Just like I wrote yesterday if we couldn’t grow it we didn’t eat it. There were no deer back then when a garden was so important but I feel safe in saying if there had been they would have been a permanent solution in the form of lead poisoning to stop them from eating up their gardens. It wouldn’t and couldn’t have been allowed. I have noticed small stumps will soon rot depending on the type of tree. I am saying this in a humorous way, the trees in Pap’s garden were not sweet gum by the time sweet gums are 6 inches in diameter, they will have had a tap root half way to China. It would be easier to dig a well than dig a 6 inch sweet gum stump up. Sweet gum will soon rot above ground but I have doubts if the roots ever die, in my area sweet gum along with pine are usually the first thing to sprout up in an unworked spot of land. I believe either of them would soon sprout up in a paved Walmart parking lot. I have got to hurry up, go and try to beat the crowd this morning, I need to get my milk and bread and be ready for the snow this weekend! The stores will soon be empty of these items.
Isn’t that a sweet gum in the lower right hand corner of the picture?
Ed, it is 🙂 We have them everywhere in this holler.
Just wanted to say and that I started watching you a couple of months ago. First I want to tell you that I feel for you and your family and I have been praying for Granny, and you all. It’s hard I know, I took care of my sister. It’s just hard. Also I love your garden, how do you keep the deer and squirrels from eating everything, I tried i have tried everything to detour those beautiful creatures from my tomatoes peaches and grape and berries! I live in the mountains in Southern California, a town called Idyllwild, I drove the school bus for 32 years, in the snow. Sleet Rain and some mud slides, I retired but I loved that job. But my passion is cooking, I love watching you guys!! I am just Rambling on, just wanted to say Hi❤️Rachel
Rachel, thank you! So glad you are enjoying what we do!! We appreciate your support 🙂 There are several dogs that roam our holler so that helps a lot with keeping the animals at bay.
Rachel, until sometime maybe in the 80’s students would drive the buses when they turned 16 years old in South Carolina. I got my bus license and started driving as soon as I turned 16-1970. I think the requirements were about 6 months of driving experience and a clean driving record in order to apply for the bus license. We could get our regular license at 15. Most of the country kids, especially the boys, had several years of driving experience by the time they were 16 but only 1 legal year. I wanted to drive the bus again when I retired but my precious daughter (now dead) told me, Daddy you can’t drive a bus, you will get in big trouble driving a bus, you would yank one of those kids up when they cussed you, wear his butt out and be in trouble. I told her I would only be teaching them what they should have been taught at home. I guess home was where they had learned to cuss. I made a whopping $5 a day at $1.65 an hour. I fudged a little and claimed 3 hours a day and paid for all of my senior year school expensives, I just wanted to help out my parents.My bus ran a little bit faster than the supposed to speed of 35 mph.
Your post reminds me of two memories of my mother and father. When my parents both retired they sold their house to their son-in-law and moved to a plus 50 community. My dad loved tomatoes so the first thing he did was plant about 10 tomato plants next to his living space. He got the most beautiful tomato plants you have ever seen but not one tomato. Not enough sun. My parents had an opportunity to move into a senior citizen community and they did. My dad had a space with plenty of sun so the first year he again planted about 10 plants. He had so many tomatoes he gave them away to any who wanted them. The last year he lived their he had about 20 plants and wad supplying the entire community with tomatoes. After my mother passed he went to live with my sister in Charlotte and taught her how to grow tomatoes. We are a tomatoes family. Unfortunately where I live in Murphy I have maybe 5 to 6 hours of sun a day so my tomato growing is limited to tommy toes.
When my mother was getting ready to go home to the Lord my sister who lived near them contacted her two brothers and other sister that we needed to come home. My mother’s four children and her husband of over 50 years spent a wonderful day with her telling wonderful stories of our growing up. Mom laughed and joked with us. It wad the best family reunion. It wad the first time in 24 years that all of us had been together due to where we lived. When the day ended I wads the last one to leave her room. I told her I would pray for her and she cried. I told her that it was her prayers that had saved me from the life I had been living. That night she went into a comma and the next day we sat with het and talked with her until she left us to go home to the Lord. We were all holding her and praying as she went home to glory. As she did one single tear ran down het cheek. I had the honor of doing the eulogy at her service. Bless you and love every second with Granny. Still praying.
Ron, I read your comment about your father and his tomatoes. I wrote in my comment about my father in law and his garden. I think the greatest joys of his life were somewhat in this order- God and church, his family, singing and playing his Gibson guitar, his garden, rabbit hunting, fishing and hopefully me. He could not wait each year to plant him a small “frost garden” at the earliest sign of spring before planting his main garden. He would say “I know frost will kill it but I can’t wait to get started.” From what I have read about Pap, he and Pap would have been a lot alike. There are no words to describe the love I had for him and my mother in law. They were just like having another mother and daddy.
When I was little we lived in a cabin, then moved to a trailer park. So there wasn’t a garden aty house. However, both sets of my grandparents had one. it wasn’t as big as your big garden, but about a third of it. My Daddy’s parents had plum trees, grape vines and muscadines. They had about 23 acres. It was pure heaven for me. I was their only grandchild and my mind goes back there often.
My Mama’s parents had a garden too, but it was on the neighbors property. It yielded wonderful things as well.
How good that you are able to turn to your brother for memories about recent family history.
I’m keeping your whole family in my thoughts every day, Tipper.
precious memories, I have requested prayer for granny, I have prayed, God bless Granny, God bless the family
I love that picture of your daddy in the garden! I’ve spent a lot of time with my momma and daddy in the garden. The memories still pull at my heart and cause my eyes to leak. Thats what our granddaughter calls it. I reckon they always will. The garden is my favorite place to be. I feel close to the Lord when I’m in it. I talk to Him a lot there and cast my burdens and worries on Him there. It’s getting harder to do each year as my back is wore out. I’m not very old, but have a lot of miles on it. I pray I can always have one even if it’s just a few plants of something.
Our real temperature is -10 and the windchill -28. We have a few more days to go before it comes up a little. It’s just bitter out.
Praying all y’all are safe, warm, and fed. I hated to hear some had died from exposure. That’s truly heartbreaking. God bless y’all and God be near to Granny. I remember sitting up with our parents as time drew near and like y’all we spoke of our growing up years. It was comforting. Little did we know we’d give up our brother just over a year after Momma. I still can’t hardly talk about it and March will be 3 years.