Sweet Taters

The latest addition to my garden are sweet taters.  This hardy and super-nutritious root crop has always been a standard on the mountain.  I wanted to share my love for the root and took to the internet to find some history on it.  I have read in the past that sweet potatoes were introduced to the southern United States by African slaves – we have these good folks to thank for many of our delicious foods, you know.  The more I read, the more confused I became.

I read an article here that made a great point that slave trader wanted to protect their profits by delivering healthy men and women so they fed them foods they were accustomed to – including yams, okra and black-eyed peas.  So that isn’t too hard to understand how the leftover portions of those foods were planted in the US and soon enjoyed by all Americans.

I always kind of used Sweet Potatoes and Yams interchangeable.  It seems like yams are what you find in a can while sweet potatoes are sold fresh throughout the year (because they keeps so well).  While the canned yams are not as sweet, topped with marshmallows we eat them just fine. 

Well, it turns out that they are very different plants!  The Yams take 10 – 11 months to mature and they are a perennial, meaning you plant them once and enjoy them indefinitely!  It was yams that were native to Africa.  Yet, I’ve never seen a yam plant that I know of, and certainly never knew of anyone cultivating one.

The sweet potatoes that I know were actually native to South America where Christopher Columbus first enjoyed them and took them home to Spain.  By the 17th century, the exploring and conquering Spanish had spread sweet potatoes through Asia, Latin America and Africa.  So, the food brought from Africa could very easily  have been either yams or sweet potatoes.

Sweet potatoes are easy to grow, easy to keep over winter and very flexible to cook.  I grew up enjoying them fried, and now I love them about anyway I can get them.  I’ve been excited in recent years that sweet potato fries are more widely available in restaurants!  Whether it be mashed in a casserole, topped with marshmallows or baked with butter and cinnamon, I can eat sweet potatoes almost everyday.   Check back in the fall and I hope to show you an abundant harvest

Preserving the Plants

Did I mention to you that one of my summer projects is propagating a bunch of heirloom seeds?  In my capacity as a professional product reviewer (what kind of title is that?) I received a package of Suvival Garden Seeds.  This included some carrots, tomatoes, lettuce and spinach.  There were also several different kinds of pepper, Swiss chard and cucumbers. 

Now, seed banks and survival seed kits are kind of in-vogue right now, boosted in popularity by the media and politicians’ assertion that we are facing a food shortage.  I have some questions about the validity of these kits because seeds require weeks and months of preparation before they can satisfy your hunger.  However, I was thrilled when I was asked to review this particular product, and I thought I really had a brand new thing in my hand.

I was wrong.

Saving seed and using heirloom seed is as old as the earth.  I wonder, was Adam able to carry any seed with him from the Garden of Eden?  Don’t you think he would have carefully guarded those plants and taught Abel, Seth and any of his other sons and daughters who would listen, to perpetuate these plants and treasure the fruit (and vegetables) God had given in that first garden?

I’ve planted two separate gardens, one with hybrid seeds and the other with heirloom.  As I planned the heirloom garden and gathered my seeds, I realized that I already have a number of vegetables that have been handed down to me and saved for many years.  Conard Atkinson had a variety of okra he told his daughter, whatever you do, don’t ever let this get out of the family.  Christine Key Atkinson saved seeds that her son Bennie has shared – we now call those Bennie Beans.  He also tells me he has some Padgett beans, shared by Earl England, who got them from Herbert Ashburn who we think got them from an old man of the Padgett family, hence the name.

I’ve added many of these varieties to the 2022 garden and as the year progresses, I’ll try to share pictures and a little evaluation of their hardiness, disease resistance and especially their taste.

A Healthy Legacy

Above all, I long to leave my children a godly legacy; to have them think of verses of scripture and remember me teaching them about it, to have them repeat my salvation testimony as well as their own to their children.   And I have those memories from family members that have gone on to their heavenly home.  I also have the very healthy legacy of learning to garden alongside my grandparents.

Learning how to raise fresh, healthy food; to pull from the dark soil food for the winter, this is the healthy legacy they have left for me.

Today I’ve worked out my tater patch and that chore always reminds me of my Grandpa Livesay.  Now, I’ve talked about Grandpa many times in The Stories – I just learned so much from him that his wisdom comes thru on countless subjects.  But taters were his specialty – well, that and fattening hogs, we’ll have to talk about the hogs another time.

Raised in the leanest years and hardest of situations, Grandpa no doubt learned early what would and would not work on potatoes.  He would have followed his mother’s tracks through the garden as soon as he could walk – and get away from the oversight of his older sisters.  Here on the mountain, that generation felt that a good crop of potatoes guaranteed a good winter.  In fact, many a’ mountain family wintered on corn pone and Arsh’taters.  Perhaps it was their Scots-Irish roots, perhaps it was the best crop for our thin, mountain soil.  Certainly, the ease of keeping potatoes and corn lent those crops to the early years on the mountain.  Kept cool and dry, potatoes will feed you from late summer till late spring.  And hard dried corn will keep nearly indefinitely if you can keep bugs and water away from it. 

A pretty garden is a source of pride, and I confess as I hoe and pray over my own little plants I’m having to regularly remind myself that while I can plant and I can water, God must give the increase.  (Yes, I realize the Apostle Paul spoke of spiritual fruit in 1 Corinthians 3:6, but I’m claiming that promise on the whole of life and I don’t think I’m out of place doing so!)

You’ll be hearing a lot in the coming weeks and months about my Great-Great Grandmother’s diary.  She made many entries about what the garden produced, how much her daughters canned and preserved.  It’s startling, really to read those numbers.  Then there is the statement that her husband is just like his mother, he just walks through the garden and it grows!  Ah, to have inherited that trait.

Spring Starts

Springtime is a time of renewal and new life. (Perhaps that’s why God timed the Crucifixion and Resurrection of our Savior at this time of year!)  From a brown, dead landscape the earth bursts forward with greenery and blooms.  I recently drove to The Smoky Mountains and the change is so clear as you climb up to the Cumberland Plateau with deep green leaves in the valley fading to the pale green of earlier development the higher up I drove.

Well, I’ve been enjoying the newness of life around my mountain home too.  We have baby chicks and we’re watching them transform from fuzzy babies to feathered fowl. 

A visit to a friend’s house allowed us to enjoy baby goats.  We are hoping to add goats to our farm soon so you’ll be hearing more about that soon.

Then there’s the garden!  I keep trying to hold back – it’s prudent to wait until May before really starting the garden on the mountain.  I’ve got plants started and have dared to transplant broccoli.  I’ll keep you updated on whether they survive these cold spring mornings. 

As I planted my ‘Arsh Potatoes, I was reminded of my Grandpa Livesay whose specialty was potatoes.  In the Victory Garden article I quoted the president’s warning of food shortages and I can imagine Grandpa’s question if I show up in heaven after starving to death, “Buddy, didn’t I teach you how to grow taters?”  I tried an early patch that never even came up; now the main patch is looking a little better.

The only cure for Spring Fever is warm, summer sunshine.  The weather forecast is showing high 70’s and 80 degrees in the coming week

Modern Victory Garden

If you’ve been with me the past few weeks, you know I’ve got my eye on the thermometer, my garden is turned and little tomatoes, broccoli, and cabbage plants are started.  Springtime, I’m ready and waiting.

Now, the president of the United States has announced that food shortages are “going to be real”.  Please allow me to remind you of The Victory Gardens.

You see, the world has known famine almost from the beginning.  America has seen food shortages before.  In Egypt, Joseph prepared for famine by building barns, planting extra and storing up for the coming drought.  In America, Charles Lathrop Pack organized the National War Garden Commission in 1917 when European farms were covered with trenches, palisades, artillery pieces and mud.  Where crops should have been yielding food for a nation, enemies clashed and destroyed themselves and the land.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the Victory Gardens and I’ve been talking back to my TV asking why, in the springtime, we would just resign ourselves to hunger?  I wonder, does no one remember Eleanor Roosevelt’s Victory Garden on the White House lawn?  That first lady wasn’t going to be the first one starving, she was going to do something to prevent it!  And she was going to lead a nation.  According to History.com, in 1942 15 million families planted gardens; 5 million more joined that number by 1944.  (For comparison, there were 35 million heads of household on the 1940 census – that means that half of all American homes had a garden!)  In 1942 Victory Gardens produced 8 tons of food which accounted for 40% of the fresh fruits and vegetables Americans ate.

On April 1, 1944, President Franklin Roosevelt said, “I hope every American who possibly can will grow a Victory Garden this year…[they] made the difference between scarcity and abundance.”

I asked my daddy if he were in charge of America, would there be anything he could do to prevent a food shortage.  His answer was immediate – cut the cost of diesel for farmers and find a way to get them fertilizer.  I can’t argue with him, nor could I come up with a better answer.  I’m going to tag this article #HowToPreventFoodShortage and hope some bureaucrat resorts to Google in their policy-making. 

Neither Daddy nor I have any control over fuel prices or availability of resources.  However, I can remind you of what our ancestors did and encourage us all to be at least as smart as they were.  Can lids are a little hard to find – and that may get worse as the season progresses.  Bagged fertilizer is very expensive and may be harder to find – although you can raise something without it.  Seeds are pretty easy to find, so get them early. 

If fuel prices continue to rise, none of us will be able to afford to go on vacation this year, so your Victory Garden may rescue your sanity as well as your pantry.

I’m no expert gardener – despite a lifetime of instruction.  I often make a good start and fall short later on.  I’m hoping you will all hold me accountable since I’ve given you this rousing reminder! 

While God himself controls the harvest, He will surely find me with hoe in hand, waiting for a blessing.