An Old Man and His Garden

I’m still walking, and it does my heart good, in more ways than one.  The exercise is great, but beyond that, I get to spend time thinking and observing, and leaving behind the busyness of the day.  

Lately I’ve been watching the Amish plowing their fields with horses.   Such a peaceful scene.  If you listen closely, you can hear the metallic sounds of the plow rubbing through the dirt and hitting a stone now and then, and the clinking of the metal linkages that hook the plow to the harness.   

Hershberger boy on Zuercher Road

Up the Zuercher Road hill they’re sawing logs in the old sawmill, making beams and planks.  I watched them pull the logs out of the woods with a team of horses last winter.  They have a diesel engine for power.  This morning there was an older Amish man working together with a young man, running the saw.  

An  Amish saw mill

A few weeks ago, I visited the metal-working shop of an Amish entrepreneur, and his little boy was following right on his heels everywhere he went.  He must have been about three years old, and he was singing as he followed.  He loved his Daddy, and he was learning an ethic of work right there.  

It does me good to see these things.  It reminds me of my  boyhood working with Dad, and then again, life with my own children.

That brings me to thoughts of Dad.   His friendships extended to many places, and although he’s gone, the memories live on.  The example he left behind is priceless.   He loved cultivating the fertile soil of both relationships and gardens.

Dad was a farm boy raised on the black swamp ground of Western Ohio.  His beginnings were humble—the youngest of a family of eight children.  He was a ten-year-old boy when the great depression hit, and life was tough—so tough he went through eighth grade three times.  It had nothing to do with intelligence.  His parents simply couldn't afford the cost of high school—which at that point in time was not free.

Finally, he was able to go, and graduated the oldest in his class.  Marriage followed a year later.  With intelligence and hard work, coupled with good management and a supportive wife, he was a success.   In his 91 years, he lived a life of significance, and is remembered by many as a much-loved pastor.  That’s not how I remember him.  To me he was Dad.

He was a good Dad.  He loved his family and taught us by example.  He enjoyed telling us of stories about when he was a boy, and Grandpa still used horses in the fields.  He tells how Grandpa was a good horseman, and how he would buy rough horses, bring them back to good health, train them for working, and then sell them.  Dad himself, as a boy, worked the fields with horses.  Maybe that’s why I so enjoy my walks among the Amish, watching the dads and boys plowing the fields, and imagining a day long ago when that was Dad and Grandpa.

Amish father and son plowing.  The boy looked to be about eight years old.  This photo represents a bit of a paradox, with the horses plowing under the high tension electric wires.  Two worlds.

And Dad loved his large garden.  I suppose he learned this from his parents, perhaps because of the lean years during the depression.  The family garden was the most important source for keeping food on the table during those years of poverty.

The garden was the one thing that Dad could not give up even as his health slowly declined with age.  For a while, it was reduced in size,  then reduced some more.  At that point, we helped him with it.  He did what he could, but hoeing and cultivating was left to younger hands and hearts.  Finally, his small garden patch became a yard, and the final years of gardening took place in the flower bed beside the back patio.  There, three tomato plants grew proudly under his watchful eyes, and the rhubarb grew nicely beside them.  At least it was something.  It was still a reminder of his days as a boy on the farm, and his days of raising enough garden crops to feed his own family of six boys through the summer and winter.  It was also the annual yearning to work in the soil, and cooperate with the earth to raise some food.  It’s an itch that must be scratched.  Everyone who has been gardening since childhood understands this.

Sure, Dad could have easily purchased vegetables from the local stands—and he did.  But that’s not the point.  The point is, when you grow it yourself—when you lovingly plant it and tend to it—the flavor is better and the satisfaction is at least doubled.  Nothing is as tasty as a fresh tomato warmed by the sun, picked by our own hands, cut into thick, juicy slices, and placed between pieces of homemade bread that’s been spread with Miracle Whip or Mayo.

Gardening is a wonderful project for the family, and the finest expression of cooperating with the earth to produce food that will sustain us and bring pleasure to the taste buds.  I still remember Dad, in the summer, biting into the first roasted ears of sweet corn for the season—slathered generously with real butter—the appearance of near ecstasy on his face.  The happy sigh.  ”This is food fit for kings,” he’d say.

We lived on a farm near Elida, Ohio in those days, and owned an old Ford Tractor 9N.  We used it to plow the garden, and disc it down.  I loved to feel the cool, black earth under my bare feet as I followed the plow, picking up night-crawlers.  Then running through the freshly disked soil like a calf let out in the springtime, falling face down, and breathing in the scent of the good earth—those are memories so vivid, I can smell the soil in my mind.

Once the ground was prepared, Dad would take the old high-wheel hand-cultivator, put the row attachment on, and make perfectly straight rows.

“You choose a point at the other side of the garden,” he’d say, “and you aim for it.  Don’t take your eyes off that spot.  That’s how you make a straight row.”  

Then he’d tell us how many seeds to drop, and how far to space them, while he followed us with a garden rake and carefully covered  them.

As a boy, I always used the hoe with the broken handle.  It fit my short stature.  Dad didn’t throw things away.  He believed in repairing them—except for the old hoe.  It stayed small for small people.  And I remember the old ax.  He’d hold it up and say, “Yep, it’s the same old ax.  Only changed the head twice, and the handle three times, but it’s still the same old ax.”  And he’d grin.  I like the way he thought, and I try to live his philosophy myself.

The old Ford tractor was sold long ago, but it was my good fortune to purchase another one for my use as a family man with children who needed to experience the joy of gardening.  And it is still my practice to use the old hand cultivator, not only to make rows, but later on to put the cultivating attachment on it, and periodically cultivate the garden.  Rototillers are fine.  Most people choose to use them.  I don’t.  It’s more fun to get a good hard work-out while pushing an engineless machine.   Step, then push.  Step, then push.  Listening to the cultivator digging it’s way through the soil, and watching the small weeds give way to my progress, is a very satisfying experience.  The satisfaction is all the more pleasant when the job is finished, and I can sit in the shade of the old Hickory tree, with a Golden Retriever happily stretched out beside me, and a tall glass of cold mint tea in my hand—tea that was picked from the sizable wild patch in the pasture, down by the creek.

And that’s when I think about the goodness of life, and the many gifts that I’ve been given.  And I think about Dad.  This right here—this love of gardening—is a gift he gave me, and it keeps on giving.   Someday I’ll be the old man whose garden will be reduced to one tomato plant.  That’s alright.  That’s life, and I’m grateful for it.

From the little town in the country, Kidron, Ohio, where Dads and Moms and their children work together in the garden.  Where they plant together, harvest together, and eat together—we wish you a pleasant springtime, and a bountiful garden that produces food fit for Kings.