"We Didn't Know There Was a Depression"

Ten years ago, I curated an exhibition exploring the impact of the Great Depression on Delaware farmers. Despite an overall downturn in crop prices that had impacted growers since the 1920s--long before the stock market crash--many rural people did not experience the bread lines of the cities, the despair of the Dust Bowl. As one woman who lived through the Depression as a child put it, "We didn't know there was a Depression." I thought this was surprising and thought-provoking, a great title for an exhibition. We announced in our newsletter that we'd received grant funding for the exhibit and the proposed title.

Soon after, I received an angry phone call from a woman I admired very much, a Quaker, a farmer, and the woman who had written THE book on Delaware Agricultural history. "How could you possibly say there was no Depression?" she chastised me. "Some poultry farmers may not have felt the Depression, but we certainly did." I brooded over her words for days, even though I had given considerable thought to the title and my director had approved it. I had no intention of trying to minimize the everyday struggles of farmers; on the contrary, I was trying to highlight their resourcefulness and self-sufficiency.

But I also understood her point. Even as prices for crops fell by almost half, in 1923 a new business opportunity began to boom in lower Delaware: broilers. In 1923, a farm wife named Cecile Steele accidentally received 500 chicks instead of the usual 50 for her home flock. She raised the chicks until they were "broiler" size and then sold them as meat to a local buyer for 62 cents a pound. By the early 1930s, the Steeles were raising over 200,000 birds a year and Delaware growers sold chickens year-round to Philadelphia, New York, Washington, D.C. and Baltimore. Hatcheries, feed mills and by 1938 a processing plant sprung up to support the new industry. For those growing broilers, the Depression hit very softly. On the other hand, average farmers marketing field crops, fruits and vegetables were often cash-strapped, land poor and unable to invest in the technology or new crops that might have brought them more success.

The lady who said "We didn't know there was a Depression," however, was NOT the daughter of a poultry farmer. Her father was a truck farmer who sold fruits and vegetables at market and to the local cannery, and kept a herd of dairy cows for some "milk money." What she meant is that her family was insulated from the privations of economic strife such as not having enough to eat or having a place to live, because they owned their own modest farm and they had the ability to grow and preserve their own food. It is a story I've heard time and time again as I've continued to interview children of the Depression. Mildred Strong of Trumpington recalled that her mother gardened and canned, and bartered eggs for staple items at the store in Rock Hall. The milk money provided cash for taxes and some hired labor. They pinched pennies: "If I had a nickel, I thought I was rich," Mrs. Strong remembers.

I never heard much pain or regret in the voices of those I interviewed who struggled through the Depression. On the contrary, I heard pride. My parents were both born late in the Depression, my father to a poor family of 10 in coal-mining country and my mother to a family who lived on tenant farms until she was a small child. Nonetheless, they felt the legacy of the Depression and growing up poor and that was passed on to my brother and me. We scrimped and saved, gardened and canned, but generally had a much more comfortable existence than my grandparents'and parents' generation. My father rose from teller to bank vice president to elected County Treasurer. Dad schooled me in balancing my checkbook every month to the penny, how to make good money decisions and eventually how to land a good mortgage. Both my parents gave me lessons on thrift.

The spending excesses I've seen since I was a teenager have remained a mystery to me. The first time I asked for a pair of Jordache jeans, my mother sat me down and explained the family budget and why there was no money left for $60 designer jeans after the bills and food were paid for. I didn't like the answer, but I understood. (I also recall receiving designer jeans as my ONLY birthday present a year or so later.) But I must admit, when I say no to my own children's requests for video game systems and cell phones, I feel a pang of guilt. Every other child their age really does seem to have all those things. I've continued to resist, and now with the current economic crisis, I'm feeling pretty wise.

Commentators on TV say that good citizens like me who don't have credit card debt and pay their modest mortgages every month should be annoyed with those who have gotten in over their heads and lived beyond their means. I supposed I started to wonder myself, so I asked my Dad if he was annoyed. After years of dealing with bank customers who had plenty of money and wealthy homeowners who didn't think they should have to pay their property taxes, I must admit I thought he had a bit of a chip on his shoulder about "rich people." I was wrong. "No, it doesn't annoy me," he responded so quickly I was a bit taken aback. "I wouldn't have lived any other way."

There it was. The same pride in self-sufficiency and living simply that I had seen in Depression-era farm kids. The difference is not so much in what people like my parents expect out of their lives as what they value in their lives. Our family was close, we loved each other and we worked together. We had food on the table, clothes on our backs and a place to live. There was even enough left over for a few family trips and to help my brother and I go to college. Today, my parents delight in giving things to us. Sometimes it makes me a little uncomfortable, even as I am grateful.

That's because I don't want my children to miss out on the lessons of the Depression, and to learn what they truly should value. Part of me hopes that our whole country is at a point where it will finally learn this lesson.

Image: "Harvest: Spring and Summer," mural by William D. White at the former Dover, DE post office, painted as part of the Treasury Relief Art Project in 1938.

© 2008 Jenifer Dolde

And When She Looked There, The Cupboard Was NOT Bare...

Is there anything more beautiful than rows of canning jars, filled with the bright goodness of the growing season? Bright red tomatoes, deep purple grape juice, brilliant green pickles, all lined up and waiting to be enjoyed. Canning is far from over for me this year. It has been nearly a month since I've blogged, and I blame canning and the start of school. Things are supposed to be returning to a "normal" school and work routine for me, yet the work of preserving the harvest still awaits me.

Two weeks ago, my parents brought me a cooler full of grapes from their prolific vines. I managed to squeeze--literally--six quarts of my own grape juice "concentrate" from my struggling vineyard this year. For this I am grateful, since I had given them up as lost for yet another year mid-summer. Gray mold or some other fungal disease has begun to infect the clusters, and each grape after promising green Concord grape turned dark, not a sweet purple but a rotten brown. But as the bad grapes dropped to the ground, I diligently picked them up and pruned off infected clusters in an attempt to forestall a total crop loss. And I had some success. The first flush of grapes were large-ish and juicy, and I just had to pick out the infected ones. As the summer and the drought wore on, the grapes became smaller and much less juicy, but I used what I could.

Mom's grapes were fat and fragrant and I was able to get eight quarts of juice from those she brought me. In fact, I revisited my childhood (as characterized in my last blog) this Labor Day, as Mom and Dad and I sat on my deck with trays full of washed grapes, picking out the good ones and tossing them into a large stockpot. My brother came out, took one look at us, and pulled up an obligatory seat to the party. The tedious job took about a half an hour; it would have taken me at least 4 times that alone. The juice tasted that much sweeter.

This year, in an attempt to keep the heat from boiling water for hours on end out of the kitchen, I invested in a "patio stove." Basically, it's a 16 x 16 inch steel frame with a burner, attached to a medium-sized propane tank. Apparently, people use it to cook enormous batches of gumbo and to fry turkeys--well, we've all heard how turkey-frying usually goes. The number of precautions and warning went on for two pages. Nonetheless, my husband helped me hook it up in the shade of a tree and I was able to boil water to scald the skins off the tomatoes and then set the 5 gallon pot to process the jars on to boil while I peeled. The water boiled in record time and I was cool (well cool-er) in my kitchen.

I'm canning more quarts than pints of tomatoes this year, and opened up two boxes of hand-me-down quart jars from a friend who owns a gift shops. She frequents yard sales and discount stores and going out of business sales in search of amazing bargains. I had a good time pulling out the jars she'd given me, all of varying ages. I know none of them are old to the point of being valuable, but they recall a time when you could find more than one style of canning jar at the local store: Kerr Self-Sealing Mason, Atlas Mason, Ball Mason and one simple "Mason" with an anchor design embossed on it. My mother still has some old blue canning jars around the house, including some with the glass lid that clamps down, which she displays but no longer uses. As a historian but not a collector, I appreciate objects like canning jars for their simplicity and their functionality, particularly when they change very little after over 100 years. I found a nice summary of the history of the canning jar at pickyourown.org.

The Delmarva Peninsula was once populated by canneries from one end to the other. The cannery provided seasonal work for farmers and laborers alike. Sixty years ago, my grandfather was manager of the cannery in Church Creek for several months out of the year, his one source of steady, guaranteed income. My mother recalls that in those early years, they canned in tin cans at home as well, and she sometimes helped to crimp on the lids. As a child, I vaguely remember visiting the cannery during its last years in operation. They were canning pork and beans for Campbell's; my only memory is that I thought it was funny that they dropped only one small piece of pork or bacon into the can before sealing it up. I don't remember hearing anything about how critical the canneries had been to the local economy, and how their decline spelled the end of an era when produce was both grown and processed on the Eastern Shore. That was thirty years ago. Perhaps the stories I've heard about the cannery, along with our family tradition of growing and canning food at home, are what lead me to continue home canning year after year.
(Workers at the Kent Packing Co. in Rock Hall)

© 2008 Jenifer Dolde

(No) Time For Canning

When I was eight, I held a position of honor in my family, particularly in the late summer. My hands were just small enough to shove a tomato all the way through the top of a regular-mouth canning jar. "Can Jenifer come down and help me can tomatoes?" my grandmother would call up and ask. I felt honored by this special position for about one season. After that, whenever I was "invited" to come canning I would wryly remark, "Yeah, my hands are small, I know."

I spent untold summer hours as a child at our kitchen table, a cake pan full of tomatoes and rows of empty jars in front of me. My much older brother and Dad served peeling duty as well, while my mother blanched old pillowcases full of tomatoes to remove their skins. Mom would regularly dump our tomato skins in the compost bucket and return full pans of steaming-hot tomatoes to be peeled. My hands would wrinkle and bleach clean from the acidity, except for my fingernails which had slivers of reddish black gunk under them. So why is it I look back on those days with such fondness? It must have been the family togetherness, the silliness we all shared, especially when a juicy tomato would squirt someone else in the face or a tomato would pop out of its skin onto the floor. It was a difficult job, but working together made it go more quickly.

Last night, I canned this year's first batch of tomatoes...alone. The kids are certainly old enough to help, but I tend to can late at night, when boiling a pot of water for hours on end doesn't make my non-air conditioned house totally unbearable. In 2006, I had such a bumper crop that I didn't can any tomatoes the following year. Now, my shelf is nearly bare and I'm longing to fill it with rows of bright, beautiful tomatoes. I didn't finish until midnight, and I'm feeling drained today. My mother used to put in batch after batch until well into the early morning, setting the timer and waking up every 45 minutes to take out the hot jars and put new ones in. No doubt about it, canning is hard work and you have to keep your mind on the reward that come from opening a jar in winter and eating a tomato that tastes almost as good a fresh one in August.

There was a time not so long ago, when everyone was busy canning this time of year. As committed as I am to growing and putting up my own food, though, I find it difficult to find the time. It was nearly dark two nights ago, when my Amish neighbor stopped by and said hello. I was digging the last few potato plants up, and she was carrying a basket with 15 bags of corn for the freezer. She looked a bit tired too. "It's a busy time of year," she said, smiling sympathetically. Leaning on my garden fork, I nodded in agreement, then related what I had put up so far this year, and talked about my crop successes and failures. It felt good to share with her, like it always does with my mother, because I know she understands that the work brings great rewards. "Don't work too hard," she said in parting. "I won't," I fibbed.

Nothing can compare to the feeling you get when that first very cool, crisp autumn day comes and you know you have a full freezer and shelves full of canned goods. I imagine I might be cooking up some applesauce, and decide to pull out a bag of June strawberries to sweeten the sauce. Or I might thaw some peaches for a cobbler to go with the beef roast simmering in a pot with onion and carrots from the basement and a jar of tomatoes from the pantry. After dinner, we might bundle up to take a short hike down to the river or start a bonfire in the backyard, our bellies full.

On late summer days, if I've spent several hours on my feet at the kitchen counter, I fall into bed exhausted, with back and legs aching and a feeling of great satisfaction. I've always been known as a planner, someone who looks ahead, prepares or perhaps over-prepares. I wonder if it has something to do with my rural upbringing, and learning to live each day connected to the growing season. Or,is it just me? Either way, I know that all the time I've invested since I first placed that seed order in February is finally coming to fruition, and I'd better find the time to preserve it now so I have something to show for my labors.

© 2008 Jenifer Dolde

Pork and Peaches

It felt like another adventure last Thursday as the kids and I set out in our truck for Conowingo, 45 minutes plus away at the far end of Cecil County, almost to the Pennsylvania line. I was off to pick up four large boxes of pork products from a locally-produced pig, which our family and three others had decided to share. We have purchased local beef several times before, and our most recent grass-fed meat from Rumbleway Farm had been the best yet. We don't eat quite as much pork, but the thought of some local scrapple, bacon and sausage was too tempting to pass up. My favorite quote about scrapple is on my 1st State Stories website: "The old saying is scrapple is made of seven different kinds of meat, all of them fit to eat."

Rumbleway uses Haas Butcher shop near Dover, Delaware, a family-owned operation that has been in business since 1955. There are not many local butchers left on Delmarva, and even fewer slaughter houses, but Haas is one that seems to be highly-regarded. To me, butchering is one of those skills that is passing away too quickly. With all of the concern about factory farms, I think we need to support and preserve the skills of the local butcher. I'm only half-joking to my husband when I say the knife skills he learned as a chef may come in handy some day. (Photo of scrapple making at the Family Butcher in Delaware)

Taken from another perspective, however, the decline of local butchers seems to directly correlate with our society's disconnect with where our meat comes from, and the fact that it once lived and breathed. In the New York Times last week, a columnist who forthrightly stated he was no vegetarian but he felt it was important for him to know his meat was humanely raised and killed before it made it to his plate, was both congratulated and vilified as a hypocrite in comments. I have never considered becoming a vegetarian and respect those who make that choice. Yet, I too want to find meat that has been produced without harming the environment,and without cruelty to the animal.

It makes all the difference for me to know how the animal lived and died. Does it make death pretty? No, but the awareness the death of animals for food used to be part of daily life everywhere in this country. On Delmarva for many generations, every fall brought family and community together for essential hard work. The animals were not treated more poorly then; on the contrary, I would say nearly all beef and pork in the late 1800s (and much more recently in some areas) was natural, grass-fed, and probably organic. The livestock were well-cared for because they were essential for the family's survival. It was only when the slaughter process moved away from the farm and the household that it became unfeeling, inhumane, and eventually unhealthful. Taking a hand in the birth, life and death of animals on the farm engendered a respect for the sacrifice God's creatures were making. That is one of the reasons I am working toward raising my own chickens, so I can truly understand that process and expose my children to it as well.

In any case, I was EXCITED about going to pick up my four large boxes of pork, but in the name of gas conservation and making full use of a trip to the other end of the county, I looked at Spring Valley Farm's ripe report to see if they had pick-your-own peaches. I had hoped to go blueberry picking earlier in the month, but just couldn't justify driving the distance. I discovered both white and yellow freestone peaches were ready, and set off with a wooden half-bushel basket and a wooden crate. My containers, it turned out, were largely unsuitable. The knowledgeable lady at the stand said the wooden crate was too heavy and I could only place peaches two deep in the basket. She gave me some useful, but less nostalgic, waxed cardboard flats.

As the kids and I followed the signs to the trees that were at their peak of ripeness, I flashed back to trips to a peach orchard with my mother and my brother when I was a kid. We always brought wooden baskets and I think our own ladder. I recall being chewed pretty thoroughly by some lower Shore mosquitos and developing an itchy rash on my forearms from the peach fuzz. Picking couldn't have been better on this day, however, with temperature in the mid-80s, fairly low humidity and not a mosquito in sight.

I had asked the Quaker woman who was one of the farm's owners whether the white peaches were better than the yellow. "Find a ripe one and taste it," she generously suggested. The white peaches were large and abundant, so we took 5 minutes to survey the orchard and find one that was perfectly ripe. I dusted it off on my shirt a little gingerly ("you can't grow peaches organically," the owner had told me) and bravely took a bite. It was like I'd never tasted a real peach before, as the sweet smell and taste collided. I beckoned the kids over and they each tried it and gushed over the deliciousness. Of course, we had to try a yellow one for comparison. Very tasty also, but the white were superior in my opinion.

I knew ahead of time that I had to control my picking. My second memory of peach-picking with my mother is that she often bit off more than she could chew, and picked so many peaches that she would be tied to the kitchen counter for the next week, peeling and pitting peaches to can and freeze. Upon arrival home, she would spread the peaches out on old canvas paint tarps on our front porch under the ping pong table, taking up about half of the porch. But eating her peaches in winter... oh, I can't even buy a canned peach in the store and forget one of those baseballs they sell in February. Mom shared some of last summer's peaches with us this past Father's Day over some angel food cake. I think that's when the burning desire to put up my own peaches started anew.

The peaches were a dollar a pound. Is that a good price? It sounded like a lot, when you're used to harvesting produce for free from your own garden. But the smell of the peaches, the sight of my children picking without being asked and my daughter's face dripping with peach juice was just too...intoxicating. After the weigh-in, the total was $72. I didn't really go overboard, did I? (Telling the story later, I related how I drove home with a whole pig and 50 pounds of peaches. "72 pounds," my daughter reminded me. "How much were the peaches?" my husband asked when he got home. "$70!" I exclaimed. "72 dollars," my daughter repeated. I think she understands me.)

With warnings from the orchardist to carry my peaches home in the front of the truck and to spread them out immediately upon getting home, we headed to Rumbleway to pick up the pork. Although the farm raises its own beef and chickens, the pigs actually come from a farm near my childhood home in Dorchester County, still local but considered natural rather than organic. The biggest challenge for most of the farmers seems to be finding certified organic grain. Pigs are almost always finished with grain, whereas beef can finish on grass. So while the pork is not organic, I still know what I am getting.

While the kids spent some time with the chickens in the barn, I asked to see where they processed their poultry. It was small, but efficient-looking. My idea of plucking and eviscerating under the maple tree in my backyard seems a little rustic in comparison. I asked if I could help with the processing next spring so I could learn how to do it, and they said absolutely, as if it were a most ordinary request. And then we were off, 150 pounds of thawing pork in the bed of the truck and 70 pounds (72 pounds, Mom) of delicate peaches in the front and the kids in the jump seats in the back. On the way home, I made my weekly stop at Locust Point Farm to pick up organic milk in glass bottles. All in all, a good day for a locavore.

© 2008 Jenifer Dolde

Summer is for Sharing

For me, one of the greatest joys of my garden successes is being able to share my surplus produce with visitors and friends. There's nothing I hate more than wasting a bountiful harvest, and nothing I love more than to take folks on a short walk around the garden and prove to them that I am accomplishing something even though I don't go off to a full-time job every day. Often, I receive something from their garden in return. My neighbor appeared at dusk one evening this week with two quarts of blackberries she had just picked (mine are still recovering from their late-winter move). Those berries, along with those my Mom gave me the week before, cooked up into a nice batch of blackberry jam.

Recently, onions have been at the top of my give-away list. I planted 75 plants each of Walla Walla (mild, sweet), Red Burgermaster (mild, red) and Copra (storage) and 25 Pikant shallot sets at the end of March. I was harvesting green onions in May and by mid-June, I had so many large onions that I began to worry how I would every use them all. Only one variety was for storage...what if they rotted before I could use them? A horrifying thought. So for the last several weeks, every visitor to my house goes home with at least one onion whether they like it or not, although the Mom of one of my son's friends is actually allergic to onions, so I had to let her off the hook. I have researched long-term storage of onions in baskets or bags on my basement steps, and am hopeful it will work. Can you image the smell emanating from a couple hundred onions decaying in your basement?

The problem with giving away vegetables--squash or tomatoes, for example--is that when you have plenty, so does everyone else. That's why it has been so much fun to share some of the summer crisp lettuce I grew for the first time this year. Whenever my Black-seeded Simpson lasted until June, I always felt grateful, but lettuce in late July is truly a miracle. Thanks to an article in Organic Gardening, I learned about this heat-tolerant variety just this year. I planted it in mid-May before the soil temperatures were too warm and by the time it was ready to begin harvesting in early June, the mesclun mix I planted three weeks earlier had bolted before I'd cut enough for three salads. My Nevada (green) and Magenta (red) summercrisp came from Johnny's Selected seeds.

I am enjoying the usual rush of cucumbers, and although I have given a few away we have had cucumbers almost every night for a couple of weeks. Earlier this week, I made a chilled cucumber soup. This was not the usual fresh puree I've made before, but a recipe which called for sauteing the cucumbers with onions in butter, then cooking them in broth for a half an hour. The mixture is then pureed and chilled. Creme fraiche was supposed to finish off the soup, but I added a cup of organic half and half that I've been trying to use up and then served it with a dollop of sour cream. Some people give me funny looks when I talk about chilled soup, but personally I crave it during the heat of the summer. See recipe below.

I derive great pleasure from making dishes for our weekend family "potluck" dinners at my sister-in-law and brother-in-law's cottage on the Bohemia River. We gather most Saturdays (and some Sundays too) for kayaking, sailing, swimming and--most importantly--eating. Not too long ago, our menu boasted grilled beef tenderloin, tuna, mahi mahi,lamb and pulled pork, all in one meal. I should probably mention that both my husband and my brother-in-law are former chefs, my sister-in-law works for a food broker and I am the self-appointed baker and produce-provider by virtue of being part of a long line of talented Eastern Shore gardeners and cooks.

Despite the extra work it takes to cook with home-grown fruits and vegetables, I have to admit it really is a selfish act. My husband's family always indulges me with compliments. "Did those ______ really come from your garden?" gives me even more pleasure than "That ______ tastes so good." So, this weekend, the family might expect some chilled cucumber soup, a blueberry buckle from the last of my berries, or some homemade fries from largest of my new potato crop, and most definitely some hand-battered onion rings...



Chilled Cucumber Soup

1 1/2 tablespoons butter
1 cup chopped onions
4 cucumbers, peeled, halved, seeded, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick slices (about 5 cups)
1 8-ounce russet potato, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch dice
3 1/2 cups low-salt chicken broth
3 large fresh dill sprigs plus 6 tablespoons minced fresh dill
1 teaspoon (or more) salt
1 cup half and half
Sour cream (for serving)

Melt butter in heavy large pot over medium heat. Add onions and sauté until slightly softened, about 3 minutes. Add cucumbers and potato; stir 1 minute. Add broth, dill sprigs, and 1 teaspoon salt. Increase heat and bring to simmer. Reduce heat to low; cover and simmer until cucumbers and potato are tender, stirring occasionally, about 25 minutes. Working in batches, puree soup in processor until smooth. Return to pot. Cool 15-30 minutes. Whisk in half and half and 4 tablespoons minced dill. Cover and chill until cold, about 4 hours. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Keep chilled.) Taste soup, adding more salt if desired. Ladle soup into 6 bowls. Place dollop of sour cream in center of each bowl; sprinkle with minced dill. (Modified from recipe on Epicurious.com)


© 2008 Jenifer Dolde

When the Gardener's Away, The Weeds Will Grow

By mid-June, most gardeners on Delmarva have everything planted that they are going to grow for the year, at least the first crop. So it was for me, as I departed for a week's vacation, high on the success of the strawberry season. My tender tomato transplants were in and established, as well as the peppers. The potatoes were already knee-high. The carrots and chard had emerged in neat, narrow rows. I had already begun harvesting thick green onions from my spring sets. The summer crisp lettuce was seeded, the mesclun crop was ready for harvest, and we were still enjoying the last of the green and red leaf lettuce.

I didn't worry about my garden during our week at the beach. The newspaper and grass clippings mulch had held down the usual early summer crop of pernicious weeds in my paths, and with less area to weed, I had kept the rows relatively weed-free. We arrived home mid-afternoon, and the garden was my first stop. The growth was amazing: onions the size of tennis balls, cucumbers winding up the trellis, baby green tomatoes hanging from the vines, a carpet of succulent weeds half the size of the tomato plants.

I don't know why I was so surprised. Delmarva's hot, sticky weather is heaven for weeds. Eleven years ago this July when my son was born, I returned home from a four-day stay in the hospital after a C-section, excited to be a mother but distressed to see that the weeds had out-grown my garden plants. My mother came to stay and help, and she and my husband pulled a mountain of weeds and revealed the tomatoes and peppers hidden below. That was a rare gift--one I have never received since. Since coming home, our relaxing summer has consisted of driving from one fun event to another, so the weeds have grown even more. Today, I am planning to remove as many as I can. Besides, they're easier to pull once they're big. I'm not kidding!

© 2008 Jenifer Dolde

74 Quarts and Counting

It has been four weeks since I picked my first, juicy red strawberry of the season. As I write now, this year's glorious, whirlwind season has almost ended. Two nights ago, I struggled to pick a little over two quarts of smallish, but still tasty berries. Rain and an unusual 90-degree June heatwave have caused the berries to ripen and soften in quick succession, but we have still enjoyed every last one.

This strawberry season has been nothing short of miraculous. I planted 50 Earliglow plants in 2006, and as I mentioned before, could not bring myself to pinch off runners and pull up baby plants. One bed is a dense mat of plants, while the other still has plenty of stepping room. Two 8x8-foot beds, 128 square feet. Is that a lot? My neighbors told me they put in 150 plants this year. If their strawberries produce anywhere near as much as mine, they better plan on going into the roadside stand business. As of today, I have picked 74 quarts of strawberries!

By May 22nd, I realized I had a bumper crop on my hands, and began writing down all I had gathered up to that point. I began measuring my take in gallons, rather than quarts. I called my mother for something and left a message, "By the way, I picked 3 gallons of strawberries today." While I think she believed me, she was not suitably impressed until they came to visit on Memorial Day weekend. That night, the kids, my parents and I picked 5 gallons. My husband had purchased a 5.5 gallon galvanized tub the night before for icing down beverages and joked, "Maybe you'll fill this with strawberries." We did...the very next day. My parents exclaimed over the size of the berries and the cache they would find each time they lifted some leaves. "You certainly do have a green thumb," my Dad said to me. There is no higher praise to me.

As the weeks have passed, I find myself more and more alone in my picking duties. Both kids dutifully helped me for the first couple of weeks, but then I had to threaten them with no more eating to get some help. I was tired too. My hands remain stained a dark purple despite scrubbing with lemon juice and some heavy-duty hand cleaner. I've put up 32 half-pints of jam, frozen 12 quart-plus bags and even put several quarts on the dehydrator as I despaired of finding more freezer room. I have probably given away 20 or more quarts, and at least 5 jars of jam. When people gushed over my generosity I said, "Please, you're doing me a favor." I've been so busy, I've only made two strawberry pies. That, my friends, is a real tragedy.

My mother put in her own raised beds a couple of years ago, but felt her crop was a disappointment this year, at least compared to mine. "We'll have to try doing what Jenifer did," Dad said as he bent over my patch, continuing to tirelessly pick a couple of weeks ago. I think he overstepped a little bit there, but Mom kept her temper. "We did! I'll have to try adding more compost," she said. I suspect a generous application of compost had something to do with it, but I also think that surplus crops are a gift from God. I couldn't hazard a guess of how many people have eaten my berries this year. While I enjoy telling people "this is what a real strawberry tastes like," the real blessing comes from being able to share a delicious, healthy treat with my friends and neighbors. Several people have suggested I sell my berries, and I suppose I could have made over $250 this year at the going price of $4 a quart. I hesitate to compete with my Amish neighbors though, and it just seems like a lot of trouble to sell them. I'll stick to hulling strawberries every night until midnight, and racking my brain for just who might want to take another quart off my hands.

© 2008 Jenifer Dolde

My Grandmother's Peonies

In the 1940s, four years after my mother was born, my grandmother Cleora moved her family from the Dorsey (pronounced Dar-cee) farm across Church Creek to the house where my aunt still lives. Cleora and Vivian (yes, my grandfather was Vivian) had "set up housekeeping" at Dorsey farm when they married in 1924. Both were relatively late in age, my grandfather 29 and my grandmother 23. In 1925, their daughter Vivian was born (Yes, my aunt. I also had a great uncle named Vivian and Vivian is my given middle name) and two and a half years later, my uncle Tyrus--both born at home. Over the next nearly twenty years, the Brannocks moved about every four years, whenever my grandfather became "dissatisfied." They were at the Dorsey farm for the second time and this was their sixth, and thankfully final, move.

My grandfather Vivian was laid up in bed, recovering from a badly broken leg which he suffered in a fall from the hay loft down onto the tongue of a piece of farm equipment. With four year old Joan (my mother) at home and no license to drive, my grandmother loaded up a skiff over and over again and rowed everything--the chickens, coops, furniture, all but the piano and the cookstove--across the Creek to the new farm. The move took place in January, by which time winter had surely come to the Eastern Shore. The farm was owned by my grandfather's sister, Willie, and she had the ramshackle house fixed up with new windows and other repairs. They still had to get water from a well, but this was their first home with electricity. It was 1943.

Cleora also carried some peonies from Dorsey farm to the Church Creek place. With everything else she had to transport, these flowers must have been special to her. Hers had been a hard, rough life, growing up second to the youngest in a farm family with four brothers and two sisters, one of whom was rougher than most men (I knew her late in her life and although she was sweet to me, she had a terrible tongue and was a full two inches taller than my six-foot grandmother). The fact that Cleora took the time and effort to transport these flowers across the river demonstrates the sentimentality I always saw in her...and her tenacity.

About 10 years ago, my Aunt Vivian was mowing down and tearing up most of the perennial plants she had tended for well over 50 years, but she did call my mother and me to ask if we wanted some of Cleora's peonies. With no idea of where I would put them, I immediately drove over with my mother and dug several boxes full to take home. Actually, as I recall, my mother dug them for me. I'm thinking I may have been pregnant at the time, but since my mother is a slightly smaller but no less tenacious version of my grandmother, she probably just did the work for me. I transported my grandmother's peonies home by car, and planted them along my driveway. I soon discovered I had also planted an insidious patch of Dorchester County wiregrass.

Two years ago, we decided to renovate our attached garage into a family room and placed a detached workshop/garage directly over the spot where I'd planted my grandmother's peonies. Like all projects, everything happened at once and I found myself in July needing to transplant some bearded iris and my grandmother's peonies, which had spread beautifully into a 2-foot by 10-foot border. With a sense of futility, I dug them from the dry summer soil and placed them in a backyard bed. A few stalks of green leaves emerged last year, but no flowers. Meanwhile, the patch of wiregrass thrived and began coming up through the stone bed on which our new workshop sat. This year, only a few more stalks appeared, and still no flowers. Late this April, I began to worry that they were truly gone, and with them a piece of my dear grandmother, who died 23 years ago on May 2, 1985.

Last week as I mowed the grass, I saw a touch of pink peeking from a fat bud at the tip of a peony stalk. I investigated and discovered three pink blooms and two white blooms were about to emerge. They were small, and the one that had already bloomed was a bit bug-chewed, but they were alive! I pray that they will continue to slowly but surely recover from their harsh, mid-summer move. After all, if they could survive a trip in January 65 years ago, they can survive anything.

With my attention focused on the vegetable and fruit gardens this year, my landscaping certainly has suffered. Most years, I have weeded and mulched by this time, my annuals are in the ground and my pots are all in bloom on their window shelves. Instead, I have come to admire rows of red and green lettuce, bright red strawberries against dark green leaves, tall onion greens and feathery carrot fronds. The practical in me has chosen to elevate food crops over ornamentals. With all the work to be done, taking care of flowers comes second. But like my grandmother, I am sentimental, and there will always be a place in my garden for things of beauty.

My grandmother, Cleora Brannock, with her hydrangeas, just as I remember her in the early 1980s.

© 2008 Jenifer Dolde

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I love strawberry season. It is backbreaking, hand-staining, delicious and all-too-brief. Anyone who has only ever had those giant, flavorless, mid-winter strawberries from the grocery store has never had a real strawberry. My Earliglow, June-bearing strawberries are in their second productive year (planted spring 2006) and I'm hoping to harvest for at least two more years before I pull them up and begin harvesting from new beds I am planning to put in next year. This time last week, I picked my first scant quart of berries, some of which were not quite all red but by the next morning had improved in their looks. The rest of the week, I saved up almost all of the berries as a special treat for my daughter's Brownie troop for our camping trip. It was music to my ears to hear all of those eight-year old compliments about how sweet and tasty they were. Right now, I have about 4 quarts waiting to be picked.

My strawberries generally have been very prolific, and although you are supposed to tame those runners the plants put out during the growing season, I have been loathe to pull out any of them. As a result, picking strawberries from the mat of plants covering my 8 x 8-foot raised beds requires a kind of acrobatics. Oh, it's easy enough to pick those tantalizing ones hanging over the edges--the birds go for those first too, getting them right through the netting--but the ones in the center can be a challenge. My technique is to work each foot in between plants to find a bare patch of soil, then bend and crouch to pick without shifting or moving my feet. It is most convenient to have my children or a helper nearby, to whom I occasionally holler and ask them to take full quart after quart and give me empty ones so I don't have to climb back out. I picked well over two gallons each day over the course of three days last year.

My back and my calves begin to complain after a half hour or so in this position, but there are just so many berries hiding that you ignore the cramps in a picking frenzy. Pull back the tops of the glossy green plants and there are three times as many as those peeking out from the edges. To let even one rot on the ground because it was left unpicked seems like a sin. Unlike asparagus, snap peas and even cucumbers, we never seem to tire of having strawberries on a daily basis. Last year, I put up over 40 pints of strawberry jam--enough to give away and still have plenty for PB & J sandwiches all year. I like to freeze whole berries on sheet trays, then bag them up to use in yogurt smoothies and to add to applesauce in the fall.

But by far the biggest treat is my mother's Strawberry Pie. It has a graham cracker crust, with a cream cheese filling, topped by whole fresh strawberries and a strawberry glaze. I remember making it for my husband on one of our first Valentine's Days together. Even though it was made with pale ghosts of real strawberries in February, I still think it helped me seal my place in his heart. Making strawberry pie requires some hard work, and a lot of patience. The crust, filling and glaze are made from scratch. You have to search for about 25 perfect, medium-sized strawberries to adorn the top in a circle or spiral design. But the hardest part is that even after all is made and put together, you have to let it sit in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours if not over night so that the filling and glaze can firm up. More than once, we have cut into freshly-made strawberry pie and ignored the filling and glaze spilling out onto the pie plate. Tastes just as good, even when it looks like slop.

Here is Mom's recipe, along with her graham cracker crust. I'll post a picture as soon as I make my first pie this weekend!

Strawberry Pie

8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 c. strawberries, chopped
1 c. sweetened condensed milk
1/2 c. confectioner's sugar
1/3 c. lemon juice (2)
1 c. water
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 c. sugar
1 T. cornstarch
approx. 30 whole strawberries

Whip cream cheese until fluffy; add sweetened condensed milk, lemon juice and vanilla. Pour
into cooked graham cracker crust. Chill 3 hours or over night.
Mix whole strawberries with confectioner's sugar; let stand. Cook berries with water; press
through sieve. Mix sugar and cornstarch; add to strained strawberry mixture. Cook until clear.
Pour thickened strawberry mixture over cream cheese layer of pie. Top with whole strawberries,
pointed end up.

Graham Cracker Crust:

20 graham squares
1/4 c. butter
1/4 c. sugar

Roll graham crackers into fine crumbs. Mix with sugar and butter and press into pie plate. Bake at 375 for about 8 minutes.

Strawberry season should be like childhood, sweet and full of simple, delicious memories. Enjoy it while it lasts, and take every opportunity to revisit it whenever you can.

© 2008 Jenifer Dolde

There's a Bog in My Backyard

"So you like an adventure," the friendly guy at the landscaping materials place said to me last week as I paid for a half a yard of sand and explained my project. He loaded my small pickup with a scant scoop and stopped to ask if I could handle more. "Sure," I nodded. My husband had put heavy-duty springs on the shocks so we could carry heavier loads. I heard a little scrape as I drove out of the bumpy yard. "Just the mud flaps," I told myself until I pulled out onto the street and the dragging sound rose to a high-pitched screech. It didn't sound like mud flaps. I stopped at the bank and looked under the truck. Nothing appeared to be touching the ground. I drove home at about 35 m.p.h. and hoped I wasn't irreparably damaging our poor, rusty 16-year old truck. Yeah, I like an adventure. The truck made it home, and I never did tell my husband.

One of the problems with ordering seeds and plants in February is that in the euphoria that comes with imagining all of the things you will eat from your garden and all the things that will bloom outside your door, you are tempted into buying the exotic and the unusual. Almost two weeks ago, a large box arrived with the UPS driver and I couldn't figure out what it could be. Too big for the sweet potatoes. How many buckwheat seeds did I order? As I opened the box, I saw lovely, dark red and green boxwood-sized leaves, and an instruction sheet on "Growing Cranberries." I was surprised, but excited. We drink cranberry juice almost exclusively at our house, and I relish (pun intended) making homemade sauce every Thanksgiving. I remember a family trip to New England when I was a child and we visited Ocean Spray Cranberry World in Plymouth. My fascination with the harvester foreshadowed my career in farm history. What fun!

Later that night, I saw my experienced gardener-friend Jim and told him excitedly, "I'm going to plant cranberries!" He looked at me a little skeptically, "Don't you have to plant those in a bog?" I had done some research, so I said, "No, I think they just grow them in low-lying areas to flood the area and make the harvest easier." Jim appeared to have full confidence that I knew what I was doing. That night, I sat down after the kids went to bed to read the planting instructions. "Replace soil with a 50/50 mixture of peat moss and coarse, sharp sand." Replace? Dig out the soil? "Add bonemeal, bloodmeal, Epsom salts and rock phosphate to the mixture and mix in well." What the heck is rock phosphate (I'm still not sure, I read that I could substitute bonemeal, so that's what I did)?

I bought the peat the next day. The next three days it rained, which might explain why by the time I picked up the sand it was twice as heavy--it was water-logged. I found my soil additives and took a trip to the pharmacy to find Epsom salts. Then, I set about building a raised bed; I was not about to dig a 4 x 4-foot 6-inch hole. I have developed what I think is a pretty easy technique for building raised beds after some experimenting. The materials include joist hangers for 2 x 6 lumber (less than $1) and 2 x 8-inch untreated boards. Whenever possible, I try to reuse old lumber, and we had a few pieces left from a garage renovation that provided my two beds for lettuce earlier this spring.

I thought I had the lumber and joist hangers on hand. Turns out, the hangers were too big and the lumber was only 2 x 6. Nevertheless, I cut two pieces of what I had to size with the circular saw and borrowed a couple of larger boards from the pallets we stack our firewood on. I gathered all of the parts and prepared to drill, only to find my husband had taken the drill to work that day. With the schoolbus due at any moment, I gave up. The next day, Carl helped me get the frame together and helped me shovel the sand as I layered in peat. There was enough sand to fill the raised bed, the sandbox and make a pile about the same size under our pine trees.

I "mixed" the peat, sand and soil amendments together as best I could, and wet it down. Did I mention that peat absorbs water about as well as asphalt? Can anything grow in this? My daughter's friend arrived to play. He has grandparents in Maine. His Mom admired the garden and asked what I was planting. "Cranberries," I admitted, not so confidently. "You can grow those around here?" I sighed. "You sure do like to experiment," she said. A costly and time-consuming experiment, perhaps.

So goes the first chapter in the saga of The Cranberry Experiment. Only time will tell if it will follow the same course as the Great Pea Failure of 2008.

© 2008 Jenifer Dolde

Rain, Rain...Come Back...

I'm really not a whiner. Really. But my poor little seedlings need rain. When I planted my snow peas (Snow Green) and snap peas (Sugar Sprint) the last of March, I was later than I should have been, but still on time. When my friend Jim--once an ag. teacher in Cecil County and later an administrator--told me he'd already planted his peas but they hadn't come up, I congratulated myself on waiting out the wet weather. Within 10 days, my peas started to sprout. First one, then two, then three, then...nothing. There may be other culprits in the Great Pea Failure. From my office window, I have seen robins scratching and pecking around. I am a big bird lover, but I've been opening my window and yelling at them almost daily, for all the good it has probably done.

Yesterday, trying to be optimistic, I scratched a shallow trench between my three sad little sprouts, and replanted. It's still early spring, right? O.k., maybe mid-spring. The weather is still cool. O.k., today it's 75. Even as I look out my window now, I see a robin hopping around one of the rows. I'm not going to bother yelling anymore. The peas will come up, or they won't. "Crops which develop in hot weather have lower yield and the peas are less sweet and tender." At this point, I'll take whatever I can manage to grow. And I so love snow peas! Oh well.

The bigger problem is the lack of rain. My nursery-grown broccoli transplants are showing signs of wilt as well. I can't remember exactly when we had our last measurable moisture, but looking back two posts ago, I figure it was about April 8th. We expected some on Sunday to Monday, but each time I looked at the satellite radar, there was a line of rain showers running from northwest to southeast in Maryland, neatly cutting off the northeast corner where we are. So yesterday, I began watering from my trusty rain barrel.

We've had a rainwater collection system for about 10 years now. Actually, it's a converted trash can with a spigot and a hole in the lid for the rain gutter. Earlier this month, in between rain showers, my husband Carl added a second barrel to catch some of the overflow. God bless him, because I've already used up the first barrel. You can purchase rain barrels for $100 and up, but I think Carl's design is ingenious and probably costs about $20: the price of a trash can, a spigot and a few other parts. See the bottom of this post for his plan; and here is ours in action yesterday.

Most of the time in spring, I am grateful for my light, sandy soil. I spent some time researching my soil type using the web soil survey tool, and learned that there are several soil types in my area, including Butlertown, Matapeake and Woodstown silt loam, and the highly-desirable Sassafras sandy loam--the State soil (yes, there is such a thing). Soil science has a language all its own, but it is clear that all of these soil types promote moderate to good drainage. Excellent for a rainy spring, not so great for a dry one. Looking at my soil, you can see a pictorial definition of another characteristic of my soil: friable. Actually, I think friable is intended to be a positive characteristic of good garden soil, but it sounds all bad to me. Loamy means good, rich, light textured soil. Friable would imply it is easily broken apart, or reduced to dust. That's what I'm seeing. I'm used to this in the summer, but by then I would have the soaker hoses down with a thick covering of straw to hold in all the moisture. At this point, every drop of moisture is evaporating into the spring sunshine. Once everything has emerged from the soil, I'll try to get that layer of straw down earlier than usual. Until then, it looks like my garden will be getting a daily sprinkling from the watering can.

© 2008 Jenifer Dolde

Asparagus (and Spring) Are Finally Here

God and nature, once again, have given me ample reason for hope. I have been shamed out of last week's pessimism about the lack of sun and warm temperatures by the emergence of a dozen or so spears of asparagus, several beautiful days and the promise of almost 80-degree temperatures by the end of the week. While I have been clipping spinach leaves from last fall's crop (we enjoyed a tasty spinach and tomato cream sauce over penne last week) and the new greens will be ready soon, the asparagus will be my first true harvest of the 2008 season. Already, I can taste it. I've found new recipes for a spring vegetable risotto and an asparagus and ham frittata that will be on my dinner table soon.

My impatience for asparagus has already gotten the best of me, however, and I purchased some less-than-local spears several times in the last month. I am using a new roasting technique that is simple and tasty. I just heat up a 1/4 sheet tray drizzled with a tablespoon of olive oil in a 400 degree oven while I wash and snap the asparagus to the width of the tray (about 6 inches). Remove the tray from the oven, tilt to distribute the oil, and arrange the asparagus in a single layer. Shake the tray gently to roll the asparagus back and forth in the olive oil. Season with salt and pepper and perhaps a little garlic or garlic salt (just be careful the fresh garlic doesn't burn and become bitter). Roast until the spears are to the desired tenderness. I like them crisp so it takes less than 10 minutes, depending on the thickness. Grilled asparagus is even more wonderful.

My 12x12-foot asparagus patch is about 12 years old. I grow Jersey Giant, a disease-resistant, all-male hybrid that is supposed to be a better producer than older varieties. I am tempted to try some heirloom asparagus, but have been loathe to break sod on another bed. Asparagus is a perennial, and it takes patience--typically you have to wait four years for a full harvest. Conventional wisdom is that a "well-maintained" asparagus bed will last 10-15 years, keeping the plot as weed free as possible and applying compost each year. But my bed shows no signs of giving up, despite a plague of wild strawberries (see picture above) and the encroaching shade from our ever-larger white pine trees.

I have good reason to be skeptical that my asparagus only has a few more years to live. First of all, the ditch banks along nearby roads produce a decent supply of pick-your-own asparagus each year. According to my husband, Green Giant used to grow asparagus for market in these fields in the 1970s. With both irritation and delight, I watch each spring as folks take their lives in their hands to stop along our narrow country freeway to snap off free spears. I'm irritated because more than once I've had to come to a sudden stop to avoid a head-on collision with a car coming from the opposite direction and because, well, that's MY asparagus growing along the ditchbank-- but apparently others feel the same way. I'm delighted because the asparagus has survived decades growing amongst brush and thorns, making my weedy bed look "well-maintained."

Another reason for skepticism is that my grandfather's asparagus bed remained productive for some fifty years. He was a small-scale "truck" farmer, growing vegetables and small fruits for the local market and canneries. The small plot I remember was behind his garage, probably about 30 by 40 feet. In contrast, at Trumpington in nearby Kent County--the case study in my book--the family cultivated about 10 acres. The patriarch of the family recalled picking, bunching (see picture of antique buncher) and packing asparagus before school for weeks to ship to Baltimore in the 1930s--a lucrative business. No one can recall the variety my grandfather grew, but I don't think it was an heirloom. About 15 years ago, my aunt who lives on the family property began to mow down the asparagus. She had retired and liked to travel, and who could blame her for not wanting to weed 120 square feet of garden! By the time she told me about it (I tried not to look horrified), she'd been mowing for several years and it had just about finally given up. Once again, my asparagus plot comes out looking pampered. I figure I have at least 40 more years.

I did make a small addition to the perennial portion of my garden: MacDonald rhubarb. I planted three crowns in a slightly raised bed at the end of the asparagus bed (hoping to deter the wild strawberries). There will be no harvest this year, and only a light one next year. Until then, I am on the lookout for recipes because I've heard it is quite tasty. Mildred Strong, the current owner of Trumpington, says rhubarb is good in pie and you can stew it much like applesauce. Seventy years ago, the nuns at her Catholic school served it to the children almost daily. I didn't get the impression she wanted me to bring her any when it was ready to harvest. So my rhubarb, like asparagus, will require some patience. According to the growing directions from Johnny's, "a well maintained patch will last 10-15 years...or longer." I'm trusting it will last longer.

© 2008 Jenifer Dolde

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

Spring is finally here...or is it? When it comes to the warm weather, I am impatient. As anxious as I am to get the garden started each year--I like to spend early January days deciding what to plant three months later--I am a wimpy gardener. Even when its in the low 50s, I'll be outside in my flannel pants, wool socks and fleece hat with earflaps. Yet, as I drove home from my parents this past misty Sunday morning, I felt like I could see the landscape bursting into green as I drove up the highway. The sun was trying to come out, and through the filter of light rain, everything seemed clean, perfect, idyllic. Fields are greening up, flowering trees are in full bloom, and daffodils and narcissus are abundant. The proof of spring is everywhere, I just might have to wait a little longer for the sunshine.

Really, I should be grateful to have soil that can be worked when everything is cold and damp, even in February. Where I am in Cecil County, the soil is a light, sandy loam. Even after a torrential rainfall, the ground drains enough in a day that I could work the soil for planting. In Dorchester County, where my mother gardens, it can be late April and her heavy clay soil is typically so mucky that she sinks down past her ankles when she ventures out into the garden. That is not to say I don't have problems with soil fertility. My yard is located on an old farm field, and while a portion of it received a good layer of topsoil when our house was built, some of it is a powdery mixture of pebbles, stones and sand. Occasionally, I remove grass for a new bed to find a layer of orange fill dirt. Trying to grow anything in that stuff is like trying to cultivate crops on the beach.

I have been working compost into my plot annually for over 10 years. While some folks I know feed everything with Miracle Gro mid-summer, I know I have to get that compost into the soil early and I have to pay for it with lots of shoveling and with cash. We are fortunate to be fairly close to the mushroom growing regions of southeastern Pennsylvania, where "mushroom soil" is readily available, a dark mixture of composted horse manure and straw used as a growing medium. It is truly beautiful stuff, and has a very mild odor that quickly goes away after it has been incorporated into the soil. For two or three years, my Amish neighbor got a tractor trailer load of mushroom soil (no exaggeration) , which she used simply to top dress her growing crops. This requires less effort than working it into her large garden, and I have no doubt it worked well in the end.

Of course, I have my own compost pile which I turn regularly, but not religiously. I had enough finished compost from last year to dress my new raised bed for the lettuce and to work into the soil when I moved all of my Hull thornless blackberries in late February. Two weeks ago, with onion sets and potatoes imminent, I made my run to the local stone and dirt lot for my first truckload of mushroom soil. After years of gardening organically, I only add about an inch of compost each year. A few years ago, I thought I could get away with neglecting one portion of the garden. My tomatoes that year were sickly and stunted, with the exception of two thriving plants. These grew adjacent to my new raised strawberry beds which had received about 3 inches of mushroom soil. Never again will I deprive my garden of its annual dose of compost!

Though the weather has been cool, the garden is on its way. I have been more on top of things than many years, but not as early as I should have been. I seeded the lettuce (green and red leaf, oakleaf, butterhead) and spinach (smooth and savoyed leaf) in the middle of March, although I could have had them in much sooner if I'd gotten the hoop house ready. This batch I covered carefully with PVC pipe topped with greenhouse film, but by the next week I threw it all off. The seeds had sprouted and although the weather was too cool for me, I knew the leafy crops liked it. I had visions of my efforts to keep my precious lettuces warm resulting in the earliest known leaf crop to bolt in mid-April. Then I'd just look foolish.

Last week, I tilled the garden and worked compost into about half of my rows. I am trying a new system of permanent rows and paths this year, so I applied all of my compost to three foot wide rows and raked the soil off the two-foot paths to make low, hilled planting areas. This is an old habit I probably got from my mother, who would use a hand pushed, wheeled cultivator to "throw up" her rows. I suspect there was a benefit when it came to drainage, and I remember her applying fertilizer in the trenches along each row. When my kids were small, it helped me explain where they could walk and where the plants were supposed to be. Now, I just think I like the way it looks. I plan to mulch my paths with newspaper and straw.

The forecast for later this week is sunny skies and temperatures well into the 60s. I pray that will be the case. There is another truckload of mushroom soil to unload and potatoes to plant. But for now on this gray, 45-degree day, I am inside huddled by my computer, looking out over my garden where signs of spring are everywhere.

© 2008 Jenifer Dolde

How I Got Here...Back Where I Started

I've never been one to journal, but anyone who knows me will agree that I have plenty to say. Mostly, I'm full of the stories I've heard from family, friends, and people I've met and interviewed during my 37 years living on the Eastern Shore. I grew up surrounded by my family's history, from the Victorian house built by my ship's captain-great grandfather in 1887, to the little Methodist church with my ancestor's names emblazoned on the stained glass, to the family graveyard(s) where I routinely played (yes, played) as a child.


My grandmother, Cleora--a powerful, loving, giant of a woman--loved to tell stories about her days on the farm, to sing songs and to play cards and dominoes as they always did during the slow days of winter. By the time I reached high school, I was bursting with her tales, determined to become a novelist. I was already an avid genealogist by this time, and found it easy to trace my family's history since they'd been in Dorchester County and on the Shore since 1659! But names on a page proved unsatisfying to me...I wanted to know who these people were, how they lived, what was important to them.

I went off to Washington College in Chestertown, and by my senior year set about writing the great American novel in a third floor studio of the Literary House--I was Jo from Little Women. My novel, ironically, was about a young woman trapped and tormented by the traditions of her Eastern Shore home. Not exactly autobiographical, but I had that desperate need to show that I was more than just a girl from the 'Shore, part of the first generation to go off to college. My writing adviser called my stories of local life "dead wood." He wanted me to write something contemporary. I didn't think I could, or wanted to.

My novel failed to win me the coveted Sophie Kerr Award , while my senior thesis about the Federalist Party in Maryland (snore) earned me a history award. So I went with my backup plan: history. In graduate school at the University of Delaware, I rejected the academic track to specialize in museum studies. I gravitated toward research and writing, even though my professors wanted me to go on to teach. But I had a strong desire to make history as compelling to the general public as it was for me. Tamara Hareven, the prestigious family historian for whom I was a research assistant, once said to me in horror, "You're going to give tours?!"

After graduate school, I landed the perfect job as curator at the Delaware Agricultural Museum & Village in Dover. I was in my element, responsible for interpreting and furnishing 17 historic buildings taken from sites throughout Delmarva, including a farmhouse and a country church. As I researched the farm implements in the exhibit hall, I gained a new understanding of the physical labor it entailed for my ancestors to till, plant and harvest the land. Their daily activity, I learned, was connected to the cycle of the seasons. Each month brought new bounty from the garden, and new work to be done.

As my mother will tell you, I hated to garden as a child. Although I remember having my own plot with carrots or radishes or some such vegetables as a small child, by the time I was a teenager I had a deal with my mother that I would clean the house or cook if she would not make me weed. These days, she receives endless delight from the fact that I'm obsessed with gardening. I'm sure she'd always wanted to share with me the joy that comes from sweating over the soil and bringing forth edible treasures. That is her heritage too, after all, and she never left it behind.

These days, as I prepare my loamy Cecil County soil for planting, it occurs to me that I never really rejected my heritage either. I've studied it, explained it, novelized it and honored it. Ultimately, I think that is my goal. To honor my rural roots by understanding it to the fullest extent possible, planting some of the crops my grandfather planted, using the tricks my mother taught me, feeding my family the fruit of my hard work. I don't think life gets any better.


Photos: My family home in Church Creek, my grandmother Cleora Willis Brannock, a walking cultivator from the late 1800s, the Willis family on their farm in the 1910s.

© Jenifer Dolde, 2008