A Field Of Onions

Growing up in southeast Mississippi, a common occurrence about this time of year was the planting of the garden. My Dad was known throughout our county for having the biggest green thumb around. If someone's harvest didn't produce as well or much, people came over to find out if "Pete", as he was called, had any for sell. He usually did and insisted they "take what you need" without receiving a penny from anyone.

Daddy was a handsome man. Jet black hair and blue eyes just like mine. He was about 6'1 and played basketball in high school. I often thought in his younger years that he looked a little like Andy Griffith. He had an easy smile and a personality that drew you to him. He was always ready with some joke or funny yarn he had heard down at the Co-op.

His days were full of business things. Over the years he held many different types of positions; he was co-owner of a Buick dealership when I was very small; owned a small grocery store with a butcher shop, and at the time of his death in 1979, was a top-selling insurance salesman. I always knew that if there was anything about me that I inherited from him, it was his need of adventure and excitement. Dad never really seemed "settled" and was always looking for the next big thing to try.

At the end of the day, the suits were hung in the closet and traded in for his old jeans and work boots. Gardening was his true passion. If the rich Mississippi soil would yield it, he could grow it. Our land was divided into tracts behind our house and virtually, other than a fair size "back yard", the rest really was a HUGE garden as far as your eyes could stretch.

The "small garden" directly behind the house held the smaller plants that were lower to the ground and easier to navigate and harvest. The farther fields were reserved for the broader crops such as sweet corn, field peas, watermelons, cantaloupes, honey dew melons, green peanuts and for the fall, pumpkins. The side garden was for the "vine growers" such as climbing English peas, pole beans and the winter crops of turnips, collards and mustard. The back "lower 40" was for potatoes. I'm amazed at how much I remember about planting and growing vegetables. While I do not have a garden of my own, I do have a green thumb with plants. If any of us inherited his green thumb, it would be my sister Jill. She can nurse a dead weed back to life.

Our summers were spent harvesting all of these vegetables for canning. As a child, I hated it with a passion. Number one, I was allergic to everything that grew outside and within two minutes of stepping foot on the soil, I would be sick with hay fever symptoms. Number two, mosquitoes LOVED me and would eat me up. After a couple of summers spent back and forth to the doctor, Daddy finally banned me from the garden and instead put me in a rocker, with a huge metal pan of something to shell, shuck or snap on my lap, sitting with my Granny by the box fan on the carport. This was fine by me! I knew I was a Diva, even then. We both especially enjoyed having the radio going at full blast with a nice glass of fresh lemonade while we worked. I would sing for her all day and even take special requests. (My sisters hate me to this day that I was banned to the carport while they slaved in the MS heat.)

Looking back, I cherish those memories now. Some of my best days as a kid were spent with my Dad in the garden. My favorite memory of all was the planting of onion sets in late to early April. For you city slickers, onions sets are tiny little onions that you plant for green onions. Dad would walk ahead of me with his hoe and post digger and make a small hole for me to drop the onion in. Being a family that loved onions, he planted several long rows. Up and down we'd go until my basket was empty. It had a certain rhythm. Make the hole, drop the set, cover the hole, move forward - and on it went. I remember the earth smelling of this pungent odor that I sometimes still smell as I travel through a country side. Instantly, I'm transported back to the "small garden", walking behind my Dad, feeling proud that this was something I could to with him - just me, by myself.

By early May, you could see the bright green stalks sprouting up from the earth. Each day after I got off the school bus, I'd run to the back garden to see how much they had grown. The best part was being able to pull them up later in May to see how white and pretty their bulbs had grown. It was like pulling up a hidden treasure which each stalk. You never knew how big the onion would be until you pulled it free.

We kept an old wheel barrel behind the house near a facet with a garden hose. Whatever vegetables we gathered were deposited into the wheel barrel and washed first before being carried inside to Mom for preparing. After the heat of the garden, washing your face, hands, and feet under the hose was so refreshing. I'd usually end up getting soaked from head to toe and have to strip down in the laundry room before bolting inside to my bedroom.

I hate that kids today really do not get to see that side of life. Growing vegetables, whether for a living or personal use and enjoyment is hard work but oh, what satisfaction you get when the harvest is made!

I miss my Dad the most this time of year; he passed May 14, 1979 at the age of 52. He had so many gardens still left to plant. I like to think he is in some grand garden enjoying a lifetime of plantings and harvesting. If I'm lucky enough, maybe I will one day be able to walk behind him again, dropping that tiny little onion in the hole and anxiously watch for another field of onions to grow.