Phillips column 7-13-24: When is it time?

My Grandpa was somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 or so when I came along. Heck he might have been closer to 75. He lived right below one of the biggest hills in the Sandhills in Nebraska and it was sandy clear to the top. I remember Grandpa had to walk up that hill to check on the cattle where the pasture was over the hill. I’m in my 70s, and there is no way I could walk up that hill. No way! There came a day, though, when Grandpa called it quits and moved to town. The hill along with feeding cattle in the winter became too much, but, sadly, Grandpa didn’t live that long living in town. I always thought the place and the cattle and even the hill kept him going.

We have always had a garden. We had a small garden in Oklahoma and in Kentucky and even when we lived in town here in Scott City. We greatly expanded our garden when we moved out where we now live. We got serious about gardening when we purchased three high tunnels and erected them ourselves. Our boys came up and helped, or we wouldn’t have gotten them up and finished. It took a lot of time and effort. They were partially paid for by the NRCS, which really helped, but we had to foot most of the bill, so we decided to do farmers markets to help defray the cost of the tunnels.

For the next several years Marge and I sold veggies at farmers markets. We sold at one in Scott City, one in Sikeston and one in Cape. In a normal year we sold over a ton of mostly heirloom tomatoes as well as literally thousands of English cucumbers. Marge was working for Southeast Missouri State University at the time, so a bulk of this Queeny and later on Dutchess (our Dogs) and I did on our own. Marge helped in the evenings, and many times she took off a day to help at the market.

Most of those year,s I’d start and plant about 550 tomato plants and 100 pepper plants from seed. In addition I’d start about 200 cucumber plants in pots, which I’d then transplant rather than plant seeds in the garden. Most years, we grew 20-plus varieties of tomatoes and usually several varieties and colors of peppers. Maybe a half-dozen varieties of cucumbers, with most being burpless and English types. Growing the veggies and selling them ended up being a lot of work but rewarding to say the least.

But it got too much for us. Three days a week selling veggies, three days picking and preparing to sell left no time to rest. Throw in a bunch of 100-degree days, and it was more than we could do. So a couple years ago, we stopped selling at the farmers markets and cut back and slowed down. We did the same this year, and we’ll go a lot smaller next year.

My goal is to grow what we can while taking into account our age and our physical shape. We always had trouble with weeds and grass in our outside garden, so I had this brain flash to buy a 3-foot disk to pull behind our lawn mower. Worked like a charm and cut back on time spent with a Rogue Hoe.

But I can see the writing on the wall that one of these years we’ll have to rely on someone younger and physically able to grow veggies that we both love to eat. We’re resolved to buying things such as spinach or lettuce or cauliflower or collards, all of which the bugs love. The easiest things to grow are peppers, tomatoes and onions. These we will continue to grow but in smaller numbers.

My advice: Garden as much as you can as long as you can, and you shouldn’t have any regrets late on. But this applies to all areas of life. Travel when you can. Visit when you can. Get together as a family or group as often as you can. Don’t put it off! One of these days we won’t be able to!

Phillips began life as a cowboy, then husband and father, carpenter, a minister, gardener and writer. He may be reached at phillipsrb@hotmail.com.