Well, my preserving season has suddenly hit me square in the face with “boocoodles” of bright yellow squash. So far, the squash is the only vegetable to be maturing along with some cucumbers and peppers. Not too far behind are the onions and cabbages. We will have twenty cabbages mature all at the same time. There will be cabbage rolls, stuffed cabbage, roasted, braised, simmered, and fried, or any other way I can create or concoct.
I always call back to my memory of times spent with my grandmother in Montgomery County on the piece of land that had the old barn that sat straddling Carrol and Montgomery counties. She always had an early garden and I loved to help her pick her bounty. I don’t remember eating or enjoying much of the early vegetables, but I do remember helping her prepare the abundance for eating or keeping through the winter months.
She always planted, I thought, so many onions. They were in a bunch, tiny little sprouts when planted and within a few weeks, they were flowering at the top and ready for harvesting. She would let me help her pull the many little bulbous heads from the hard dirt and there was a white onion attached to a long green shoot with long overloaded dirt roots. We would then take the many little onions to the side yard and lay them on an old, screened door to dry for several weeks before hanging them from their green sprouts in a dark shed at the end of the house so that she could pull from this abundance through the winter days. My husband tells me that is what I need to do with my onion crop as they are ready to be pulled, but out here, I’m afraid our little Emmie Jo would eat or at the least destroy my onion stash.
I learned all my garden skills from her and my daddy, not that I am proficient in the least, but I am somewhat knowledgeable. And I know a few tricks. To stop tomato worms sprinkle cayenne pepper over the foliage and fruit while it’s wet. Spray water, sugar, vinegar, and a banana peel in the liquid to keep worms out of fruit trees. Cover cabbages with nylon stockings to prevent cabbage worms. The nylon will expand as the cabbages grow so you can leave on until it’s harvested. Never plant pepper plants next to cabbage as cabbages are heavy feeders and they steal from the peppers. Marigolds will keep tomato worms away. Corn, beans, and squash are called the “Three Sisters” planting as they seem to thrive in their growing when all planted together. And plant beans and peas in the spot you planted tomatoes in last season as beans and peas naturally fortify soils with nitrogen.
As I look out my kitchen window toward my beautiful garden, thanks to my gardener, my green thumb husband, I ponder just how my grandmother, Mrs. Edna Gibson, would have changed things in the small plot of earth from which we harvest our bounty.
Here is one of my squash recipes. Skillet Squash. Begin with three slices of bacon cut into one-inch pieces and fried in a heavy skillet. Leave bacon and the grease in the skillet. Add about 5 – 6 cups of fresh yellow squash cut into small pieces. One diced onion and one diced bell pepper. Salt and pepper to taste. Pour all into the grease and bacon skillet and fry on high just to brown and then turn down to simmer and cook for about an hour, stirring frequently. When tender, enjoy.
