Green Acres in the Garden

My Grandpa Lashlee could grow any vegetable any where, in any soil. When he and my Grandma Lashlee lived with my parents in Gulfport, Miss., my grandpa grew the best tasting veggies in the sandy soil. Then when they moved up here to East Tennessee, my grandpa grew the best tasting veggies in the red clay hillside behind the house they shared with my mom and dad. Cucumbers, jalapeno peppers, radishes, okra, watermelons, tomatoes, grapes, blackberries, mustard greens… oh my goodness, I could go on for days listing everything in his garden! You name it, he probably grew it! He had the greenest thumb!

Every time I visited him, I would ask him to show me his garden. We would walk among his veggies and he would show me where he planted this veggie and that veggie, and he would even pluck a cucumber or a couple of okra off the vine and carry it back up to the house so we could eat them with dinner. Even though my Grandpa Lashlee passed away in November 2012, parts of his garden still grow behind my parent’s house and now my mom tends to it.

I, on the other hand, don’t have a green thumb. One time, while I was in college, a couple of friends and I decided to purchase some miniature roses. We bought potting soil, cute pots to replant them in, and spent a good couple of hours in my dorm room replanting them, tending to them like we knew what we were doing. Needless to say, within a month, my rose bush had all but perished and was just a sad little stick in the pot. I was going home to Gulfport for spring break and took my sad little plant to my grandpa. If anyone could bring that shell of a miniature rose back to life, it was him. Later that summer, when I went back to visit them again, I walked right by the fullest miniature rose bush in a much larger pot.

“What a pretty rose bush, grandpa.”

“Thanks. It’s the one you brought me in March.”

My eyes bugged out of my head! He brought that miniature rose bush back to life!

So here’s where my “country girl” side (a.k.a, “Green Acres”) comes out. A couple of months ago, when I told my husband that I wanted to plant a garden, he said ok. So I got two Goliath tomato plants, two burpless cucumber plants, and a Mucho Nacho jalapeno plant. After I bought five plants, he told me that I could only plant two veggies, that the area where I was to plant them could only hold two plants at a time. I guess I was being an over-achiever.The jalapeno plant and one of the tomato plants are in separate pots on the back deck. I did give one of the cucumber plants to my friend Dawn.

My “Mucho Nacho” plant is going to produce jalapenos that will be approximately 4-inches long. They are going to make some spicy jalapeno poppers!

This photo (above) is right after I dug up all the creeping Charlie vines/weeds. It was back-breaking work that had to be done before I could plant my tomato and cucumber plants. I put down some stepping stones, but ended up taking them out of my garden. (See the photo below to see what my garden looks like now.) You can see how much my little babies have grown!

So on Sunday, when I was tending to my mini-garden, I discovered that both of my tomato plants each had one itty-bitty tomato and that I had one tiny cucumber growing! Last night I discovered two more tiny cucumbers and one more tomato! I was so excited! I felt like a real gardener, one that my grandpa would be proud of! So here are the beginnings of the fruits of my labor.

I figure that if I make my food with love, that I can grow my veggies with love. So basically, my veggies are going to be the best veggies anyone will ever taste! Happy gardening!

Yours Truly,
Vanessa