A Rowful of Memories

Piles of seeds. They were spread all over Katherine's dining room table and underneath seedlings growing beneath florescent light. They were also in the kitchen in this container and under that stack of paper, in that drawer over there. Some were in the car or out in the barn. They were everywhere, and they all needed to go into the ground. Ideally within the next week or two. My first week on the farm, Katherine explained the various ways to plant this seed and that bulb, how far apart, how often, and when to harvest. I focused on a few packets of vegetable seeds that I thought were practical, easy enough to plant, and tasty. In short, radishes, arugula, which I had grown on Maui, mesclun, collards, kale, rainbow chard, and lots and lots of green beans.

Baby green & red leaf lettuce

Pockets full, hoe in hand, I headed out onto a patch of tilled soil that was larger than my backyard growing up. Katherine showed me how to hoe the earth in short rows about three feet wide all the way down the length of the garden, making a larger row to plant the seeds. After she left I hacked away, hands blistering, until I had made what resembled a row. I went back to the top of the row, picked a packet of seeds and began reading the instructions on the back... "2 inches deep, 4 inches apart in rows 1 foot apart..." and so I began. I marveled throughout the days in that garden at the different sizes and characteristics of the seeds, some no bigger than a needle point, others the size of my thumbnail. Somehow these little seeds would grow big enough to feed us.


As I planted the green beans memories of harvesting out in my grandmother's garden played with me. Out, in the damp humidity of central Alabama, my cousins and aunts and me would choose a row and start harvesting the beans, tossing them into the outstretched skirts of our summer dresses as we went. That evening, Nanny would store some in her Ball canning jars. The rest she would pour into several large bowls and we would each pick one to carry out to the porch. In the fading light, we shelled peas late into the darkness, my cousins and I listening to my aunts gossip and Nanny tell stories. I listened, wondering about times long ago and if one day I would have a patch of land bigger than my back patio in San Francisco to plant on. I wondered, doubtful, if I would have a garden with enough rows for each of my grandchildren to run through and if they would ever sit beneath me, listening, while I shelled peas.

Planting these green beans now, hundreds of miles away from where I first stuck my hands in the soil, gave me some pride and a new sense of patience. Like Nanny, I would learn how make something grow out of a naked patch of dirt. I would sweat in the sun for days, bent over, dropping seeds into finger-made holes, water seemingly bare ground, and then wait days, even weeks to see if the baby sprouts would emerge. I would be patient and eschew my city girl need for instant gratification. Some things I held nostalgia for, but I would not be nostalgic for shelling peas. Shelling peas was not lost. Shelling peas was not forgotten.

"Shelling Peas" by Carl Larsson

Full grown green leaf lettuce & scallions 

It took ten days to plant that garden and it took two weeks for the first seedlings to emerge. That was a week into June. Today we can go into that garden and pick arugula, surrey greens, mesclun, red and green leaf lettuce, scallions and radishes to make the most fabulous salads I have ever eaten. And it has been so for the last two weeks. Solid Rock Farm now has six gardens planted by fewer than ten pairs of hands. We have everything planted from strawberries to sunflowers, broccoli to tomatoes, gladiolas and asparagus to thyme and artichokes, and we still aren't done.