Planting By the Signs: Mountain Gardening: The Foxfire Americana Library (10)

by Edited by Foxfire Students

  Peas

  R. M. DICKERSON: [Plant] five or six rows of garden peas. You know nothing but a hard freeze’ll hurt garden peas. The frost don’t bother them, and then in May we’ll be gettin’ peas from th’garden.

  LON DOVER: You plant a row of peas on th’new moon, an’ cover’em up good with dirt, they’ll just crawl right on top of that dirt. I go by th’calendar; you can see what phase th’moon is in, and where th’signs are. I go by th’moon and th’signs.

  We had what we call English peas—that’s all they called’em back then. We’d let th’peas dry an’ save’em for seed from year to year.

  HARRIET ECHOLS: We’d plant garden peas, also called them English peas. You have to plant them early, February or March, because they like cool weather. They don’t need a real rich soil like, say, corn does, but a pretty good soil. They do best if you can stake them up, but you don’t have to. They’re harder to pick if you don’t, though.

  We also planted crowder peas and black-eyed peas, which are really more like a bean in the way they grow. Now they like the warmer weather, and you can plant’em in your corn, and they’ll climb the corn and you pick’em after they’re mature and all dry.

  Turnips

  FLORENCE BROOKS: We raised great big turnips—people don’t raise turnips like they did then. Old people had great large turnips back then, and they had’em all the winter. Lot of times they’d have t’plow those old turnips up and push them aside to plant again in the spring. And my father went to th’field with a big basket [to gather the cast-aside turnips], and we’d put on pots of’em t’cook for the hogs. We used the same turnips for greens that we used for the turnips themselves.

  HARRIET ECHOLS: The turnips, you saw them early in the spring, ’bout like peas or lettuce. We usually sowed them in late summer, too, to have the greens through the fall and winter. Turnips’ll grow in a fair soil—now if you want the turnips instead of the greens, you have to thin’em out some so they’ll have room to grow. People used to bury turnips to keep over the winter just like they buried potatoes.

  ESCO PITTS: The turnips [we grew] was the purple-topped gold. And I’ve seen them get as big as six inches through.

  Carrots

  EDNIE BUCHANAN: I plant carrots just about the same time I do beets, early spring. I dig a little ridge, then sow the seed along in that ridge. They do the best in a loose kind of dirt, but it doesn’t have to be too rich.

  HARRIET ECHOLS: Carrots like the cool weather—you can plant’em in early spring and you can plant’em again in the summer for fall carrots. Now y’can’t plant’em too deep, because they’ll not come up too well, and you have t’cover [the seeds] with fine dirt. You have to thin’em good and keep’em weeded, too, in order to get big carrots.

  Beets

  AUNT ARIE: Now I’ll tell you when to plant beets … the twenty-sixth, twenty-seventh, and twenty-eighth of March. If you plant beets on them three days, you’ll sure have beets. But you have to keep right after them. If you let the weeds get a little bit ahead of you, they’re hard to raise.

  HARRIET ECHOLS: Beets should be planted in February—if they’re planted later and along comes a dry spell in late spring, they may die if they’re still real small. They like th’cool weather, and want a fairly rich dirt, but nothin’ like corn. Sometimes they’re bad to not germinate, so it’s good to sow’em pretty thick. You have to thin them out if they’re real thick though, or they won’t make much beet. You can store’em, but they taste the sweetest right out of th’garden.

  Mustard

  FLORENCE BROOKS: We planted mustard [in March] about the same time as turnip greens. We mixed th’seed together most of th’time. Then we’d plant’em both again along in August an’ have late greens.

  ESCO PITTS: You plant your mustard early in th’spring—it can stand frost an’ it’s th’first greens that come in th’spring.

  MARINDA BROWN: My mother used to sow mustard from early spring, all through the summer. It likes cool weather, but it did all right through the summer. We’d eat it into the late fall. It likes a good rich garden soil.

  Cabbage

  LIZZIE LOVIN: My mother always planted her cabbage seeds in between the onions, in certain intervals—she didn’t put’em thick, but she put’em where there’d be skips in the onions or where she’d pulled out the onions to eat. Then she’d have a row of cabbage where the onions was. [Onions, having a strong smell, can help in repelling the cabbage moth, which lays eggs on the leaves, which turn into cabbage worms which eat the leaves—Ed.]

  ESCO PITTS: Seems to me we grew a Flat Dutch [cabbage] back then. The head would get as big as a half a bushel. Cabbage likes a pretty rich dirt to grow in, and they need cool weather t’do their best growing—the best times are spring and fall, but here in some of these mountains we can grow them all summer long. We’d usually plant’em in March. Some folks’d plant seeds right in the rows, and some would start’em in a small seed bed and then transplant’em into th’rows when they got up about four to six inches. Now the early cabbage we’d eat or make into kraut, but the late cabbage, we’d dig down a ditch, pull the [mature] cabbage up by the roots, and bury them [head down] in the ditch—instead of putting them straight up and down, they was slanted up at an angle. We’d cover the heads, and leave the roots sticking out. That was the best cabbage you ever eat. Any time of the winter you could go out and dig some out.

  LON DOVER: At that time we grew what we called late Flat Dutch [cabbage]. I don’t believe I’ve seen any of that lately; it had a big old head. And another smaller-headed one called Copenhagen Market. We had t’buy our cabbage seed. But if y’take a cabbage that’s been buried all winter, and set it out again in the spring, it’ll put up a stalk and make seed. You’ve got t’go th’second year t’get cabbage seed.

  ILLUSTRATION 12 Cabbage just beginning to head.

  Corn

  LIZZIE LOVIN: Back several years ago, people grew yellow prolific and white prolific and Indian corn. The Indian corn, sometimes Dad would take it down yonder to the mill [and have it ground] and us kids wouldn’t eat it because it was too red. We didn’t have any sweet corn back then, though.

  Corn likes a really rich soil, and most of the time, people would put it on the newly cleared ground, and plant it there for a couple of years until it didn’t make good corn anymore.

  To harvest the corn we just hitched the mules to the sled and went through there and pulled the ears off and leave the stalk standing. But then they’d usually fall over before Dad plowed and he’d plow them under. Then we’d take the corn and put it in the crib.

  R. M. DICKERSON: Our old rule for planting corn back then was the last week in April and the first week in May. That was when the ground began to get warm enough for the corn to come up. That was as late as you could plant that old field corn and it mature in the fall.

  ILLUSTRATION 13 Margaret and Richard Norton planting corn.

  LON DOVER: Up in June, we’d plant a patch of corn, and it’d be in good roastin’ ears till frost. We’d cut th’stalks off before th’first frost, stick’em down in th’ground and shock it. Th’frost wouldn’t hurt it and you could pull roastin’ ears a good while after th’frost. Stick th’stalks down in th’ground, y’know, and just shock it up. Make a big year of corn—y’get it in roastin’ ears what y’want now, but what you don’t use for feed or for bread, you wait till after it comes two’r’three good frosts in th’fall of th’year and then y’gather your corn and put it up. They say [the frost] helps t’dry th’sap out of th’shuck. I plant corn in March and harvest in fall.

  In plantin’ corn, you want to cover it, early corn, about that [two inches] deep. But now if th’ground’s gettin’ warm, it’s gettin’ late, you don’t cover it deeper than three-quarters inch an’ it’ll come up quicker. But if you plant it too deep, it won’t come up.

  KENNY RUNION: They’ve changed from th’old way, and th’best corn I ever raised was when I planted it in March and it’d get up an’ get frostbi
t, and then it’d come back out. Of course, if it’s barely picked up out of th’ground, if it bites it down into th’bud, why it won’t come out. As long as it don’t bite it plumb down t’th’ground into that bud, your corn’ll come out. It’ll come out and make th’heavy corn earlier.

  ILLUSTRATION 14 This corn has matured and dried and is ready to bring in and store for the winter.

  HARRY BROWN: To harvest the corn we were going to keep over the winter, we waited way late, till after several frosts. That’s so the corn would get good and dry. If it didn’t, when you gathered it, it would rot. We’d go in an’ pick the corn and heap it up, and then somebody would come through with a wagon, loading up and carrying it to the barn. Sometimes we’d pile it out in the yard, and have a corn-shuckin’ with twenty-five to thirty men and have a great big dinner.

  Sweet potatoes

  LAWTON BROOKS: You take y’potatoes for seed, an’ you got to fix you a good bed, an’ keep it where it won’t rain in it—keep it covered—and use good, rich soil. Plant your seed potatoes, lay’em in there whole, bury em side by side till you get your bed full. When they come up, you just slip one [sprout] off, an’ another’ll just come on. Tater’ll just be covered up with slips. Y’start your bed in th’spring, an’ you have t’keep it warm. You plant your slips along in June. We always just grew them in a corner of th’corn patch close to th’house. You want clay land, not rich soil. Them roots have to have hard soil t’push to or they won’t make. They’ll get real long an’ not be any bigger than my thumb. You harvest them long about frost. Sometimes a frost’ll hit’em, an’ you cut your vines off. If it rains on’em after a frost, they claim th’frost goes in’em, an’ causes th’taters t’rot. We plowed’em up—they’re hard t’dig up without you cuttin’ a lot of’em diggin’em.

  ESCO PITTS: My father always, when he dug his sweet potatoes, let ’em dry in th’sunshine. Then he’d bring’em in th’kitchen an’ put’em back of th’stove. He’d sort out all th’small, long, stringy potatoes that weren’t big enough to try t’eat, [and he’d save them for seed]. He stored th’sweet potatoes over the winter in the smokehouse. Early in the spring of th’year, he’d take those little ones and make him a cold frame with a cover to start his plants.

  Tomatoes

  HARRY BROWN: To make seed beds for our tomatoes, we’d burn [organic] trash in a pile. Then just took a shovel and hoe, and just turned it all up, and mixed it all in the ground. Then we’d sow the seeds, and when they got up several inches, we’d set’em out in rows.

  EDNIE BUCHANAN: I sow the seeds in April and sometimes I sow them the first of March, but you can’t set them out without keeping them covered until the middle of May.

  LAWTON BROOKS: People didn’t always stake up their t’maters, but they do just so much better than when they just crawl over th’ground. Now, t’maters is a thing that does best in the new ground—even if you put lots of manure or fertilize to [the old] ground, there’s still somethin’ about th’new ground—they do best in it. The dirt needn’t be too rich, but it can’t be poor neither. And, sun—t’maters need sun or they’ll grow taller and taller lookin’ for light, and not make many t’maters.

  ESCO PITTS: I never saw a tomato till I was ten or twelve years old. My daddy wouldn’t hardly go to the table if there was a tomato on there. He said they wasn’t a hog would eat’em and he wasn’t going to eat’em. Tomato was something we never saw in our young days.

  Peppers

  ESCO PITTS: Mother used to grow a lot of hot pepper—we didn’t have any bell pepper in those days—none of these big sweet peppers. She sowed th’seeds right in th’garden usually, but sometimes she’d plant’em in a box an’ set’em in th’kitchen, an’ they’d get up an’ then she’d transplant’em. Y’got t’wait till frost is over t’plant or set’em out—latter part of April. It takes quite a while. They don’t start making peppers till July or August. She used pepper in her sausage; rubbed pepper on th’cured meat t’keep th’flies away. She used it in her relishes, too.

  FLORENCE BROOKS: [The peppers were] just like they have now—all but th’banana pepper. We had bell pepper and hot pepper. We planted them early, about April, I guess. Planted th’seeds right in th’row—didn’t ever thin’em out because pepper’ll make pretty thick.

  Okra

  ESCO PITTS: We planted okra just as quick as warm weather gets here after th’last frost. It can’t stand cold weather. Mother sowed’em in th’row; then thinned them if they was too thick. She had th’green kind of okra.

  FLORENCE BROOKS: You don’t put any in till after frost—I guess May. We always put th’seeds in a cup of warm water one night, let’em sprout, an’ take’em out an’ plant’em th’next day. We always made sure we put chicken manure around—chicken manure will really make okra. Th’okra was just like th’one we have now, an’ we used t’have a white okra—it’s just so pretty and smooth, an’ it was good too. Okra takes a while before it starts bearin’, but once it starts bearin’, it just keeps growin’ taller, and keeps bearin’ till frost. It’s best t’pick it ever’day, when th’pods are around four inches long. It gets tougher the longer it grows.

  Squash

  ESCO PITTS: I don’t remember seeing these yellow crookneck squash when I was a boy. [My mother] planted hubbard and butternut squash, [the kind that can be stored over the winter]. My daddy had a smokehouse where he put his meat, and that’s where he stored the squash. He’d pile them in there and cover them with shucks or sacks to keep them from freezing. Squash likes any good garden soil and pretty much sun. It’s not a hard thing to grow. We’d just plant them in hills, several feet apart, and give them room to crawl.

  HARRY BROWN: Old people always—any vine, th’tenth day of May they called Vine Day—that’s when they always planted them—squash, Kershaws, and hubbard. Kershaws are pulp-filled an’ grow great long, an’ they’re white, have a neck to’em kind of like crookneck squash, only great big. They were really good t’fry like sweet potatoes, or slice up an’ put butter an’ sugar on’em, an’ put’em in th’stove an’ bake’em.

  Cucumbers

  ETHEL CORN: You put cucumbers out just as quick as th’danger of frost gets over—frost kills’em—along in May, unless you just put out a few that you can cover from the frost. Plant’em in hills an’ give’em plenty of room to crawl.

  EDNIE BUCHANAN: We usually plant cucumbers around the tenth of May, Vine Day. I just plant them in hills, several seeds to a hill, and they just run out on a vine on the ground, and the cucumbers come on the vine. Like most everything else, they like a good soil.

  Melons

  LON DOVER: We’d plant watermelon an’ mushmelon—y’always planted them th’tenth day of May—Vine Day. I’ve known that as far back as I can remember. Poppy always’d step off about a half a acre that we’d put in watermelons.

  EDNIE BUCHANAN: We used to grow whole patches of melons, but we didn’t have a certain time to plant them, just early enough in the late spring or early summer so they’d have enough time to grow. We’d have watermelon and cantalopes, and the whole family would come over to eat watermelons. We never did sell them, but I think we sold a few cantalopes. My husband just loved to raise’em, I don’t know why.

  MARINDA BROWN: We grew watermelon and mushmelon, which they call cantalope, now. We grew them in the field, in good bottom land, because they like a more sandy soil, not in the garden. We’d plant them in hills, and work’em until [the vines] started to run out, then we couldn’t weed’em any more.

  Pumpkins

  ESCO PITTS: We had pumpkins all in th’cornfield. We’d plant it by hand, and plant a pumpkin hill here, another one there, another one yonder.

  FLORENCE BROOKS: We’d put’em in th’corn planter an’ plant it with th’corn. An’ just let them drop out whenever they wanted to. An’ boy, did we have pumpkins! Never did plant’em till ’bout th’time blackberries go t’bloomin’—that’s th’best time. We had a old mule that got scared of a pumpkin vine one time, an�
� tore down ’bout half a field of corn! We raised some great big’uns, an’ we ate’em in pies, and cooked and fried in grease.

  MARINDA BROWN: Pumpkins like a good rich soil, and they seem to grow best in cornfields, possibly because of the shade the corn gives them. I’ve planted them just out by themselves, and they don’t seem to do as well. My parents used to grow the big field pumpkins—we’d store them in the shuck pen, buried under the shucks to keep them from freezing. We’d also peel, slice, and dry some of them. Those we didn’t eat, we’d feed to the cattle and hogs.

  Beans

  FAYE LONG: We like to plant our first beans on Good Friday, which is just before Easter. Some of the time they’ll get frostbit, and part of the time not. I can keep going with fresh beans all summer, as long as I keep planting them two weeks apart, until I don’t think there’ll be enough time for them to mature by the first frost in the fall.

  FLORENCE BROOKS: There’s altogether a difference—people ain’t got none of th’old-fashioned bean seed they used t’have. The beans ain’t near as good as they used t’be. We had what we called greasy-black beans—I’ve not seen any of’em in years—little white beans in a white pole bean. Th’greasy-black bean, you can either eat the green bean or a dried bean. For a dried bean, after they get dry on th’vine, y’pick’em an’ put’em in a sack an’ beat’em out with a stick. The beans fall out of th’pod.

  We planted green beans and cornfield beans. We always planted th’cornfield full of them, so we’d have beans that’d dry up an’ we’d have our own soup beans. When they got dried up, we picked’em an’ shelled’em out. They’re th’same as green beans, only we let’em dry.