Blog Lafayette

My grandfather has been gone for several years now. He passed on in 1973. Even though I was only a child of ten when I last saw him, my memories of him are still strong even after all this time. One of my fondest memories of him is of his love of gardening and growing things. He and my grandmother worked a very large half acre vegetable and flower garden every year. It was always a vibrant and healthy garden. It was a beautiful example of the art of the green thumb. The harvest was always bountiful enough that my grandparents would can and pickle much of what they grew and would still have some left over to sell locally to supplement their income. My grandmother’s true claim to fame was the meals she cooked from the bounty of their hard work. Her meals were works of art to my taste buds.

I have always dreamed of having a similar, if on a smaller scale, garden. Up til this last year I lived in places that did not promote growing a garden, or if they did, I didn’t have enough time to devote to caring for plants as they should be cared for. Now that I live in a location that has decent soil and growing conditions I have started thinking about gardening again, especially now that Spring is starting to slowly warm up our State of Indiana.

As I think about gardening I have no choice but to compare what I know about it to how my grandfather made it look. He made gardening look easy. Is gardening easy? It should be. Mostly it is what you make of it. Gardening done well is a set of simple steps that, if followed, will make your plants flourish. You don’t just buy a flat of tomato plants, dig a few holes in the back yard and plant them and expect them to do well every time. You have to do the simple steps that make it happen.

What are those step? The following list is a great list created by the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension called 10 Steps to Success with Your Vegetable Garden.

1. Pick a good site. The best site is one that’s near the house, receives full sun all day, contains no large rocks, perennial weeds or grasses, has good air circulation and is sheltered from strong winds.
2. Start with good soil and continue to improve it. Plants do best in deep, loose, well-drained topsoil. Improve it with compost, aged manure, cover crops and organic mulches. Have soil tested every three years.
3. Plan carefully. Don’t plant crops from the same plant family in the same spot two years in succession. Consider the path of the sun, so tall crops do not shade shorter ones. Space plants so outer leaves on mature plants will just touch those of their neighbors.
4. Start small. There’s a lot to learn in a vegetable garden. Experience success with a small garden, then gradually increase its size.
5. Grow only what you like to eat. You’ll take better care of what you look forward to eating.
6. Select crop varieties with care. Look for crops bred to do well in short seasons with cold, wet springs and extremes of temperature and moisture. Also consider disease resistance, tolerance of adverse conditions, the variety’s growth habit and length of harvest season.
7. Water only when necessary, then water deeply and early in the day. Vegetables need about an inch of water a week. Conserve water by building soil organic matter and mulching crops to reduce soil moisture evaporation. When soil around plants is dry a couple of inches below the surface, soak the soil deeply, preferably with a drip or soaker hose. Water as early in the day as possible.
8. Visit your garden every day. Check for signs of pests and diseases so you can take care of problems before they get out of hand. Of course, visit also for the sheer joy of it!
9. Make sure you have correctly identified the cause of a problem before applying a “treatment”. Inappropriate use of pesticides is expensive, threatens the health of humans, pets and the environment, and may itself cause more damage than it remedies.
10. Maintain good garden sanitation. Remove diseased leaves, fruits and vines; control weeds.

I love what was said in step 8, “visit your garden each day for the sheer joy of it!” That is a truth. It should be a joy. That is probably what makes my memories of my grandfather and his garden so memorable. I could tell that it was a “joy” for him. That knowledge makes the memories even sweeter.

Sundays have long been a favorite day for me. It has always been a day for family, fun, and relaxation. There were lazy Sunday afternoons on the bank of the Embarrass River close to my grandparents home in rural Hidalgo, Illinois. I remember fish frying in the cast iron skillet on the campfire and the sound of my dad and his brothers playing horseshoes. I remember the way my grandpa would make all of us kids laugh with his sense of humor as he would tease us and tell us the way that we could have a mustache just like his. Something about cow manure rubbed in the strategic spot…

None of us kids tried it of course!

Sunday was a good day of the week to be a kid. We weren’t spending every waking hour hunched over a computer or in front of a video game. I remember one of my favorite things to do on those lazy Sunday afternoons was to pick a slender tree about 15 or 20 feet tall and climb it until I got to the point where my body weight would be more than the tree could handle and it would bend over as I clung to the upper trunk. I would be lowered to the ground and then I would let go of the tree. It would spring back up straight, ready for another go around from one of us kids.

As I sit here and remember those days I am struck by the memories that I haven’t let my mind dwell on in many years. The feeling of cool mud between my toes as I ran around the woods with my cousins. The thrill of swimming in the river and fighting against the current in order to stay close to where we were swimming. The smell of the fire and the stories from the adults around the fire. Great memories. I always looked forward to the family times on the river with my Dad’s side of the family.

Time moves on…

Those days are long gone and the business of life, work, and my own family are my main concerns now. I do not see my extended family very often. Kind of crazy the way life and time can separate people. They are a good memory though and I am grateful for the good memories. Do you have good memories that you have not thought about for some time? Is life pushing you to be too busy? Take some Sunday time today and spend a little while allowing yourself to remember. Find some memories that are good for your heart and soul.

When I was just a young boy I was privileged to know two of the best people on Earth. They were my grandparents. I have written about them before. I guess they will always be one of my favorite topics. No apologies here. They fill my mind with nothing but good memories.

Grandpa John on the far right in Kansas as a young man

Those memories are one of the reasons I love antiques. I love to walk around in antique shops with my wife and look at little pieces of the past that make me remember. My grandparents were not what I would call collectors at least in the modern sense because they were simple people without much money. But they did have a rather large collection of items that would make any antique dealer drool. All of the items that they had were handed down from family. I remember an old drum that was in one of the buildings at their farm. When I asked my granddad about it he said it was from an uncle or great uncle of his who was in the civil war. That was very possible since my grandpa was born in 1895.

Grandpa and Grandma Barber and John Jr. Probably in the 1920's

My love of antiques is easily fed by the abundance of local shops in the Lafayette area that carry antique items. There is Leaping Leopard Antiques at 2145 South 4th Street, Lafayette, Ravens Roost Antiques at 2200 Elmwood Ave, Lafayette, and there is even a decently run and stocked pawn shop which has a lot of interesting antiques and old coins called RamZ’s at 205 Farabee Drive N in Lafayette.

Bottom Line? There is not shortage of nice shops to visit in Lafayette if Antiques are your thing. One thing that you may want to know is that if you go to Leaping Leopard Antiques be prepared to see some really interesting stuff. One booth that I always really enjoy looking at when visiting their store is one that is filled with Western items. Old cavalry uniforms, pistols, a huge buffalo head and other very cool old West kinds of things.

Maybe this weekend is your time to come to town and visit our shops. All you are required to bring are your memories.