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Gardening Memories: Petunias, Potatoes and Purple-Hull Beans - Page 2

© Kathryn Morse

Near the vegetable garden in the back yard, were flower beds for petunias, four o'clocks and old-maids (zinnas). Most years we had purple, white and pink petunias. Our four o'clocks were pink and Mama would get a "color variety pack" of old maid seeds. There was the annual argument over the color of the old maids. I always asked if we could buy a package of seeds with only one color that would coordinate with the petunias. I was always out voted. Mama liked to see all the different colors and Daddy would side with her.

These annual flower beds were located near the vegetable garden which made maintenance easier. You could hoe the garden and walk just a few feet and do the flower bed on your way to return the hoe to the shed. And you could water both at the same time.

I liked helping with the flower beds, but did not care for most of the vegetable garden chores, especially picking peas and squash! Getting on your knees to pull up grass around flowers seemed like fun. I like the smell of disturbed soil. You get close to the beauty of the blossoms and feel like a part of their little world close to the ground. Its like entering a world of butterflies and lady bugs. On the other hand, pea and squash plants make me itch and its very hard to pick peas and squash without touching the plants. And I have always been more comfortable squatting or kneeling rather than bending over.

One chore that involved bending that I didn't mind was picking the potatoes up early in June. I got to smell freshly disturbed dirt and feel its coolness on my bare feet. Our soil was almost white and sandy and the area would have a "beach-like" quality. In fact, I thought potato digging day was fun! Daddy would pull up the vines and expose the potatoes and my job was to pick them up and put them in buckets. And I'd dig around in the dirt to make sure we had them all. Mama would help whomever seemed like they were having the "slowest" day.

Our family introduced to the neighborhood purple hull "green" beans. These drought resistant long producing beans are now available commercially, but in the sixties they were an oddity. Everyone would want to see our "green" beans with the purple hulls. They'd come to the house to see them on the vines because after they were cooked or canned, they would turn green with no evidence that they had been purple.

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