Sue Kinsella: Stories in the past few weeks about Gladys's and Kathleen Henderson's
gorgeous flower gardens got me thinking about gardens in general. They combine
so many facets of life — nourishment and beauty, of
course, and also family, friends, nature, science, business, health, history,
simplicity, complexity, generosity, continuity, love, awe, dreaming,
inspiration and so much more. I, myself, don't seem to have the farming gene.
So I admire all the more those who do.
I asked a few Taylor Baker
Cousins who are avid gardeners to write up a paragraph or so about their
gardens and I promised I'd weave them together. I knew we'd get a lovely bumper
crop! Let's hear their stories - and notice how many more family members appear
in them, as well. Nancy Taylor starts us out with a walk through some of the
gardens in her life.
Nancy
Taylor: When
I was growing up on large properties and a farm, my parents always had really
big gardens. On the farm, I remember the days of tilling the garden with the
tractor and watching the birds waiting for the worms that were tilled up from
the rich soil. We had also planted a large strawberry field that we were able
to sell strawberries in season by the roadside, along with all of our pears and
other fruits. So getting my hands dirty in God's soil was always good for me
and I consider it therapy now.
In
North Carolina around the Raleigh area, with my kids growing up, we had a
medium garden in back of our mobile home. We had 1/2 an acre of land with the
place we rented, and a hilly cow pasture in back of us to round up some
"fertilizer." I remember the corn we grew — 6 feet tall and we could
get lost in the couple of rows of it. Tried Jerusalem artichokes instead of
potatoes, which was good. The clay there is a bit rocky and hard to till up, so
I had a friend from church till it with his TroyBilt tiller. (He was like the
kids' surrogate grandfather as he was just like my dad and had a huge organic
garden on 6 acres in town.)
In
Florida I started my garden when I first moved down here again in 1990 and had
green beans, tomatoes, cukes, and all sorts that I would go out in the middle
of the day when the sun had ripened everything to perfection and eat from the
garden. That to me is the best part of having a garden.
Most
of my gardening since then has been more in containers and raised beds in front
of the porch to the house I had for 16 years. Those gardens suffered from a lot
of the weather and conditions that are present in Florida, so even though I got
to eat some good food from the plantings, there were some frustrations from the
extreme heat, heavy rains, and bugs.
In
my present situation, I only have room for a few containers on the open patio
outside the back door of where I am staying, but I have managed to eat
tomatoes, green beans, have cukes coming, romaine, spinach, green bell peppers
and yellow banana peppers, a few pumpkin plants, and watermelon plants. Because
the patio is more shaded, the plants have fared better — and the eating has
been good.
But
I can't wait for the day when I get a piece of land for myself back again so I
can get out my little tiller and actually start growing some good food in the
same place year after year. It is so much good therapy for me to be working
with the land, and I really miss being outdoors as much as I used to be. Hopefully,
one day soon. Keep those dreams alive and dreaming!
Sue Kinsella: My memories of that strawberry farm are so vivid! One time when I was
probably 7 or 8 or so, I spent a week with Uncle Arnon's family, including several
hours picking strawberries with Bob, Jim, Jack and George. When we came in, all
sticky from the smushed fruit and itchy from the vines, Aunt Alice dumped me
right into the bathtub. Later, I visited Nancy in her room and felt so
privileged when she allowed me to peel the sunburned skin off her back!
When I was older, in my
20's, I despaired because I seemed to kill any plants I touched. But then one
day I decided to try again with some coleus seeds in little pots on my
windowsill. I planted and watered and waited. And waited. And waited. Every day
I checked them, hoping to see green sprouts but there were none. The best
explanation I could come up with was deciding I must have planted the seeds
"upside down" and those shoots were growing down instead of up. (Yeah,
you can see what an astute farmer I am!)
But then even this simple
gardening taught me to trust in life. At last, one morning when I checked the
pots, I was thrilled to find tiny shoots and leaves that had appeared
overnight, reaching for the sun and bending like elegant diminutive ballerinas.
Tom Kinsella writes about that same kind of awe.
Tom Kinsella:
I
have some early memories of gardens – Grandpa Taylor’s and Pop Kinsella’s. Mom
tells me that when visiting Grandpa T, the first thing I would do is take his
hand and say, “Come on Grandpa, let’s go look at the garden.” When I was 11 or
12, I planted my own patch, about 2 feet by 2 feet right outside the back door
of 2846. Thinking about it now, it was probably pretty poor soil with not much
sun. I tried to grow a field of sweet corn, and managed about half a dozen
stalks. The prize winner was a 3 inch ear. I dried it, hanging on string in the
fruit cellar; left it there for several years.
After
that, I didn’t garden or have much to do with gardens until I moved into my
current house in 2001. I have a good friend from college, Todd, who had been gardening
for several years and talking about how fun it was. He convinced me to plant a
10 by 14 foot plot. “Give me your best tip,” I said. “Arugula,” he answered.
Todd
was right about the arugula, and more fundamentally right about gardening. It’s
a lot of fun for many reasons – many of you know these reasons. Let me share
one. It is something that I experience year after year, although over time the
sensation has changed.
I
live in South Jersey – way down south to Mom and Dad and folks in Upstate New
York. This means I plant potatoes quite early. This year I planted on March 6th,
a Tuesday. I went out before classes – I had prepared the ground – and I
planted my usual heavy crop. Then I waited, and it froze a few nights, and I
worried that this year I had finally planted too early.
Interrupting
this story for a bit, let me begin a parallel tale. Last fall, following my
Uncle Harold’s advice, I “cut the crap” out of my blackberry bush. I cut that
full, flowing, monstrous plant – at least 5 feet in diameter – back to 14 inch
stalks. Then I tied them in a bunch with a loop of cotton rope. When I told Mom
about the rope, she said, “Daddy [my grandpa Taylor] used to use stretchy
material to tie up his cut-back raspberries, like an old undershirt – you could
use pantyhose.” Don’t have any pantyhose, I thought.
Here
the stories come together. Right around the time that I was worrying about
whether I had planted my potatoes too early, I was entertaining vague fears of
having finally overcut my blackberry canes. But then in about the second or
third week of April, I saw some buds on the canes and the tops of several
potato plants peaking out of the ground. On the same day!
And
that’s one of the wonders of gardening. You know that the plants should grow,
you expect that they will grow, but seeing is believing, and if you harbor a
worrisome mind, be it ever-so-slight, you can’t be sure that they really will
grow, until one morning, by golly, there they are looking up to the sun. They
grow not on my schedule but their own, and for that independence I love them.
Sue Kinsella: As Tom says, Spring comes later to Upstate New York, even in such a
weird weather year as this one. In April, Kathy Taylor Mills wrote to me about
how her husband, Gordie, was chomping at the bit to get going on his garden.
Kathy Taylor
Mills:
It is that time of year again, when Gordie gets wired up for spring planting.
He is anxious to get started this year because of the nice weather we had in
March BUT it is way too early.
We
never try to plant before Dad’s birthday May 20th and even keep some things to
plant in June to keep down the bug population (potato beetles).
He
had a cover crop this year on the garden — Rye. He wanted to keep the snow and
rain from washing down from the neighbor’s field. Funny, though, we did not
have much of that this year?
He
has a complete rotation system for our whole garden that he has kept going from
20 years of records on what we have planted and where. He keeps comments on the
good and bad produce we get each year. This helps for us to decide what we
plant the next year.
We
started getting plants from the Mennonites down the street from us for the last
few years. We are very happy with their plants. We had a year with no tomatoes
because of blight from Country Max produce one year so we are very careful
where we shop now. All our seeds come from Sauders Store so they are always
fresh.
One
big issue we have is we do not sell our extras. We give to family or neighbors.
We enjoy planting and harvesting our vegetables and fruit. We try to plant
enough to have extra always but it is up to Mother Nature if we get to share.
We
plant corn, potatoes, zucchini, yellow summer squash, cukes, green peppers,
cabbage, lettuce, eggplants, radishes, onions, beets, green beans, red, yellow,
and cherry tomatoes. We have an asparagus bed that has been going for years too.
Gordie had tried watermelon last year but with seeds. This year we will try
ones without seeds, I hope. We have pumpkins and gourds for decorations.
We
have two kinds of apples, two kinds of pears, grapes and elderberries. We want
to try red raspberries and blueberries this year. We always get black berries
from Dad for our jam.
GOD
willing we will have another good year of produce to freeze and enjoy all year
long. But of course we have to hope Mother Nature will give us some rain to
help us along too. Plus we have to pray that all the raccoons have heard about
the world famous raccoon relocator that lives with me. Gordie moved along about
13 little critters last year, along with a few squirrels and an opossum.
Sue Kinsella: I was drooling
just reading Kathy's list of all they grow. I asked her how the two of them
could possibly keep up with managing all of it, especially because she's also working
full time. She answered, "Gordie spends all summer in yard and garden. It
is his pride and joy. I am slave labor after work and weekends. Freezing and
canning whether I want to or not lol. That is one good reason to pass to
neighborhood. He does seem to understand 2 people can only eat so much in one
season. But both of us love fresh vegs so it is easy to eat them during
summer." How I wish I lived close enough to stop by for some of those
extras! I'm especially impressed with how dedicated Gordie has been to keeping
decades of records and working out rotation plans.
There's so much that goes
into a garden's success — the hard work of gardeners and farmers and then all
the constants, mysteries and whimsies of Nature. While there often — although not
always — are beginnings and endings to growing seasons, many aspects of gardens
are continuous cycles. One of the most important is — bees! As Eve Taylor says, "If it were not for bees, there would
be no gardens!!!!!" And all those exclamation points are well deserved.
Eve tells a three-generation and two-continent story about when her family started a family beekeeping business they called Honey Acres Apiaries.
Evelyn
Taylor: It
all started when a swarm of honeybees took up residence at Floyd Taylor’s home.
A beekeeper was called to take care of it, and when he saw the interest of Floyd
Taylor’s 12-year-old grandson, Mitch, he gave him the swarm and his first hive.
From that moment, Mitch immersed himself in the nature of bees and their production
of honey.
Since
we had 10 acres of land just outside the village, we had the hives lined up along
a fence line to the west. After much expanding, the Taylor family was into the
honey business. We all had a part in the process in some capacity.
When
it came time in the fall to extract the honey, we were busy. The hives were
opened, the bees sedated by smoke, and the frames of honeycomb were removed. These
then had the thin coating of wax removed by an electric hot knife, before being
put into the extractor where the honey was spun out by centrifugal force. Then
began the process of straining, heating to a certain temperature, and bottling.
Labels were pasted on and they were ready for sale. We had a stand out in front
where we had a self-service set-up. Only once did anyone steal the money, and
we knew who that was — a neighborhood boy.
We
also cut out squares of the comb to sell. Many older people liked it this way.
What was cut off the frames we sold as cappings, which people with allergies
bought to help them get through the allergy season.
In
the time we had the bees, numbering many hives eventually, their location was
changed several times. The first time was because a neighbor on Keeney Rd.,
which ran along the side of our property, complained that their white house was
being spotted with the yellow droppings of our bees, flying over.
This
was a unique learning experience for all of us. The boys had an observation
hive as a Science Fair project which intrigued everyone. Bryant had some of his
own hives after we came back from Australia, and Mitch worked for a commercial
beekeeper in New Zealand at one time.
Now he still maintains 3 for his own use and as gifts to friends.
Sue
Kinsella: I was
fascinated by Eve's reference to "cappings" and wondered what that
was. I learned that the capping is the wax the bees use to seal a honey cell.
When the beekeeper opens the hive and harvests the honey, one of the first
steps is to cut off these cappings, which form the top layer of the comb. People
with allergies start eating the cappings around January, months before the
trees and flowers leaf out, so that they can start building up their immunity
to the local pollens. In addition to being an essential part of the
agricultural system, the bees that spent the spring and summer pollinating all
the local plants then also become part of the health system, helping to prevent
illnesses.
Eve sent
another story, as well, about A Garden to End All Gardens. I love it because it
combines beautiful flowers — my mother carried an
armful of gladiolas at her wedding — with the hilarity of an I Love Lucy show,
spiced with vignettes of the lengths that parents will go to in order to help
their beloved children. Obviously, there are many things that are attempted
only by people who have no idea what they're getting into!
Evelyn
Taylor: When Rex
Taylor and Bryant Taylor came home from service in WW II, we two couples lived
at The Greystone, which was a house made into two apartments. These were owned
by Floyd Taylor. The previous owner had had a business of raising and selling
gladioli flowers. He offered to sell them to Dene and me. So, naïve as we were,
we bought them.
We
had 3000 glad bulbs which we planted in rows in a patch behind and at the side
of the house. As they grew, the weeds grew, and we found it very difficult to
keep up with them. Floyd, who was a perfectionist, watched our progress and
finally gave us an ultimatum: if we couldn’t keep the patch weeded, we could
not have it.
One
hot Saturday my dad came down from Rochester to help. He worked so hard and
long in the heat and sun that he got heatstroke and ended up in bed upstairs.
The fellows had their new jobs to learn and work at (both under their dad as
boss), so they did not have much time to help us.
Well,
we managed to squeak through that first planting and sold a lot of gorgeous
flowers for 50 cents a dozen. As winter approached, we learned that all the
bulbs had to be dug up and stored in the basement to dry. What a relief when
that was done! But another stage
was to come. After all were dry,
the little corms (baby bulbs) had to be rubbed off, saved, and planted in a
separate area in the spring to grow large and increase our number. We had Dene’s
father to help us with this phase when he was here on a visit.
Spring
rolled around again, but we had still another operation to do. This time we had
to soak the bulbs in a big galvanized tub of a solution to prevent thrips (insects
that attack glads). Then on to the
planting, weeding, etc. cycle once again!
When
we both became pregnant, our flower business had to end. I cannot say that we
were sorry to get out from under that load. We never made any money, as we had
to pay for the glads in the beginning. All this was a
learning experience for us. So many money-making ideas just don’t pan out!
Sue Kinsella: One of the things I love about stories like these is all the people who
come back to us through them. I feel like not only did I get to visit with the
cousins who wrote up these wonderful descriptions, but also I got to see Aunt
Gladys, Kathleen Henderson, Uncle Arnon and Aunt Alice and their boys, Grandpa
Taylor, Pop Kinsella, Aunt CB and Uncle Jack, Uncle Harold (twice!), Floyd,
Bryant, Mitch, Rex and Dene, Eve's and Dene's fathers — what a great family reunion!
Thank you so much,
everybody! May all the Taylor Baker Cousins have abundant and delightful
gardens this year!
