Making the Most of the Summer Growing Season

By Marie Morris

It sure is good crop-growing weather. Getting the first cutting of hay done has been tough in a lot of areas. The summer heat and recent rains also HAVE helped gardens and produce farms, my garden included!

Gardens and homegrown produce remind me of my childhood. My mom would always plant a big garden — tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, peas, lima beans, beets, cucumbers, cabbage, melons and more. I hated pulling weeds, but I sure enjoyed eating the fresh produce (except the lima beans). Mom was a master of canning and freezing, so the bounty of the garden lasted long past the killing frost of the fall.

My dad would plant sweet corn on the edge of one of the fields of corn he planted for the cows. There was plenty of sweet corn, but with only one planting, the sweet corn season didn’t last as long as we wished.

When the corn was at its peak ripeness, Grandma, Aunt Alma, Mom, my siblings, cousins and I would all head to the field with a tractor and wagon. The adults and older kids would pick the corn and toss it out to the adjacent hay field so that the rest could pick it up and put it on the wagon. When we had enough for the three households, the wagon was pulled up near the pasture fence. We would tackle the mound of corn together, throwing the husks over the pasture fence for the cows to enjoy. The corn was then divided, and we went back home to cook and cut it off the cobs in preparation for freezing. Sweet corn all winter long!