Seems like all folks can talk about these days is their gardens and how this or that are doing–and that’s just fine with me. I don’t watch many movies and the only TV I watch are Nick-Jr shows with my granddaughter and Chip Foose when my husband is playing with the remote as I try to go to sleep. That sort of limits my topics of conversation, but talking about gardens is something to get excited about. So anyway, a few of us decided to organize a little garden tour of sorts. Now my understanding is that in many places a garden tour is when a group of people dress up in fancy clothes and go around to “o-o” and “ah!” about well landscaped lawns and flowers. That ain’t how we do it here on Big Ugly. We climb into a pickup truck and go visiting to see how everybody’s vegetables and fruits are doing and if we can get any ideas on how to improve ours at home.
First stop was at the Toney’s. Amy and her kids grow the biggest garden they can and put up as much as they can.
Amy’s son (about 10–12 years old) showed us around. He was obviously proud and confident when he told us that he bet this was one of the best gardens on Big Ugly.
Next stop was at Jessie’s sister Roxie’s garden. That garden is way down the bank, off the road beside the creek. Roxie and her husband don’t have children so they have to do all the work themselves.
Next we visited Dale Kennedy’s garden. We saw some of that in the last blog. Dale’s disability makes it impossible for him to garden in the traditional way, so a bit of homemade engineering allows him to continue gardening.
Dale always end a conversation with “Have a blessed day.”
We had to stop by to see Jimmy and Darlene Workman. They are already getting new potatoes and summer squash. They gave us some zucchini that we took home and sauteed with a bit of olive oil. Oh my goodness–nothing tastes as good as something really fresh! My granddaughter loves to play with the chickens there.
No Big Ugly garden tour would be complete without stopping to see General Peyton. He has been gardening his entire life here on Big Ugly and he will always share some wisdom from his experience.
General says that since it is just the two of them they have really cut down on the size of the garden
And of course General says nowadays he doesn’t put in a big garden like he used to. Still looks pretty fair sized, if you ask me.
So that concludes the first annual Big Ugly Garden Tour. When I started writing this I figured it would be brief. But it has turned out to be pretty extensive. At each stop on the tour we had to “set a spell.” Consequently, visiting this small sample of gardens took most of the day. And there are still more to visit and more opportunities to “set a spell.”
Leave A Comment