Living Off the Land

Not exactly.
I never have.

My mother gardened when I was in my teens and my husband had a garden
some distance from our house. I was never invited to work in them, nor did I
volunteer.

Mother raised tomatoes, green beans, and usually a few stalks of corn. She
canned tomatoes and blackberries, but wouldn't try canning green beans and
corn for she didn't have a pressure cooker. She also made blackberry jam
and jelly and once someone gave her some apples. Our old house had no
closets so she stacked the jars of food against the wall in the middle room,
supposed to be a dining room, but we needed it for a bedroom. After the
apple jelly had cooled and sealed she was putting it away as I passed
through on my way to the kitchen. She was holding a jar to the light,
admiring its amber contents.

"Look," she said, "isn't it pretty!"

I mumbled something, thinking I'd appreciate it more if she'd offer me some
for the biscuit I took from the warming oven. And someone should have
slapped me up side of the head for not appreciating her and the work she'd
done, but my head was full of school and boys and the need to polish my
black-and-white saddle oxfords for the next day.

Then I was grown and I was canning and freezing and preserving food in an
attempt to make a cotton mill worker's wages stretch to cover the needs of
six people. I was also washing, ironing, sewing shirts for the boys and dresses
for the girl, cleaning the house and attending PTA meetings, and I had little
time for gardening. We did, when the children were old enough, go berry
picking, and I made blackberry jelly, and yes, the jelly was pretty in the jars.

When Gil and I moved to North Georgia to a house with a large garden plot,
we gardened with zeal, at first from necessity, later because the food we grew
tasted so much better than any we could buy. The garden grew up in weeds
during his long illness, though we usually could manage three or four tomato
plants.

Now it is necessity again that is making me into an avid gardener. I want to
grow my own spinach and green onions and not risk death or paralysis from
buying them. And the store prices of produce continue to climb commensurate
with the price of fuel for transportation. This past summer I was able to buy
some produce for less at the flea market from local growers, or from some
who haul the produce in to sell with no store overhead, and I shall continue
to buy some there, for I won't be able to grow all I need.

This lot used to be part of the pasture that borders it, and the ground should
have been made rich from horse and cow droppings over time. But the
ground here is low, and the man who built the house didn't want to spend
the money to have good fill dirt hauled, so he filled it in a little with chert,
which is a mixture of red clay and rock, frequently used as a base for roads.
It supports a mix of grass and weeds that pass for a lawn, and that's about
all. In order to garden, I've had to build raised beds, rectangles enclosed
with concrete blocks and filled with some bought dirt and composted cow
manure, sand from the creek for drainage, compost from my two plastic
trash cans, a slow process, and some good earth from the woods when
I can get it, carrying two half-filled buckets at a time.

So far my beds are raised only by about 3 inches. When I get enough dirt in
them, I will start another one. This past summer I had tomatoes, jalapenos,
and zucchini. Squash borers got into the stalks and cut the zucchini harvest
short. But I also had basil, marigolds, and garlic chives, all in the two small
beds. And I planted sage and rosemary in two hollow slices of the tree that
fell and had to be sawed up, and oregano, thyme, pennyroyal and rue in
pots. All but the pennyroyal have been unscathed by the frost.

Coleslaw is a staple for my dinners through the fall and winter, cabbage still
being priced reasonably, certainly so compared to the so-called iceberg
lettuce, which has little taste and little nutrition. Romaine and the other good
greens have become dear. Alas for the spinach. I used to buy some for
salad once in a while, no matter the cost. No store seems to be carrying
any now, probably thinking no one would buy it if they did.

The American Cancer Institute's research showing that consumption of
cabbage as well as other crucifers decreases the risk of some cancers
helped me to resign myself to having coleslaw nightly instead of salad.
For awhile, that is. Then, just as I enjoyed the wildflowers that I didn't
grow, I began to look for food I didn't have to cultivate. There is
chickweed, it grows everywhere, dies back and gets tough in summer
but flourishes in the spring and fall. It is a good source of copper and is
sold in herb stores in mixtures reputed to aid in losing weight. Supposedly
the copper gives one added energy which causes more calories to be
burned. Years ago, my mother told me two of my great-half-aunts had
ordered some chickweed in capsules through a magazine ad. She said
she didn't think they got any slimmer from taking it. They could have
walked out the door and gathered all they wanted free if they had
known what to look for.

So now I gather a handful of the chickweed, a few of the smallest
dandelion leaves, just a bit of the wild onions, a few leaves of wild
clover, and the garlic chives that are still green around one garden bed.
This evening I found two dandelion blossoms, even after these several
frosty nights. The greens chopped into the shredded cabbage and carrots
make a delicious salad-slaw, especially with my good reduced fat dressing.

When some restaurants advertise "creamy coleslaw" it means shreds of
cabbage embedded in a blob of mayonnaise. I use half mayonnaise and half
plain unflavored yogurt, mix thoroughly, then add juice from a jar of dill
pickles (my favorite is Clausen), stir thoroughly and add more pickle juice
if a thinner dressing is desired. A sprinkling of dried Dill will make it even
tastier. I mix the dressing in a margarine cup, making enough for about a
week of coleslaw. An economical, tasty, cancer-fighting dish. What more
could one ask?