We’ve had a wet summer this year — especially in the south half of Mississippi.
The rains have been so hard, it seemed like one morning we got an inch and a half while I was pouring my coffee. But then it turned sunny for a few days; so out came the garden hoses. The only thing predictable about the weather is you can’t predict what it’s going to do over the long haul. So, always keep up with your umbrella — and hose.
You’d think with a less-than-dry summer we’d have some good-looking gardens. We probably do in many cases. But my agricultural skills so far continue to prove the wisdom of my choice of vocation — anything but a farmer.
I saw a cartoon on Facebook of a man standing in a withered vegetable patch, saying how much his family needed this garden in case of a national emergency. That way, they could survive off the one tomato and three peppers he’d managed to grow.
Back when I was a kid, we had some spectacular gardens. Grandaddy Grayson was the prime gardener. But all of us youngsters were the prime weeders. My older brother Dave said he could never get his hoe to make the same sound that grandaddy’s made chopping weeds. I could never get mine to chop weeds like grandaddy could. Depends on the technique, I guess. And dedication. My friend, chair maker Greg Harkins told me that his business was always best to him when he was best to his business. That probably works with gardens, too. I bet it works with everything else as well.
I have told this story before, but it’s been a few years. After dad retired, he and mom bought the house right across the road from the house where mom grew up in Fulton. My oldest aunt and uncle still lived there. Another aunt and uncle had built a home right down the road. In between them — in an open area — the three couples always maintained an impressive summer garden.
There was a year with a drought of biblical proportions. (Not uncommon for north Mississippi.) That’s when the oldest aunt began to admonish the others. “There’s sin in the camp.” Now, no doubt it was dry as a bone over all of northeast Mississippi and northwest Alabama and adjoining parts of Tennessee. But for her, the reason it was so dry was that one of the six of them (well, five because it wasn’t her) had done some back-sliding, and God was punishing them by taking it out on their garden.
Then, one weekend my aunt and uncle went to Birmingham, and it rained three inches while they were out of town. There was never another word about “sin in the camp” again.
God might smite, but he also has a sense of humor.
Good luck with your garden. Work it with diligence. Keep a hose handy and keep prayed up, just in case.
