All over the world, people raise small gardens beside or near their houses growing the fruit and vegetables that the family likes, sharing seeds and harvests with neighbors, carrying on traditions and passing knowledge from generation to generation.
In Shawsville, Donnie Richardson and his granddaughter Shaylee, who turned 11 in June spend time together in the summer vegetable garden between their houses.
In Shawsville, Donnie Richardson’s summer garden is bountiful, mounds of beans and squash and the first planting of corn is as tall as he is, shining green. The second is as tall as his granddaughter, Shaylee, who’s just turned 11, helping her grandfather and romping with their dogs, Raven and Ebbie up the hill by the grape trellis.
At sevety-two years old now, Richardson learned to garden on this land from his mother and father and also grandmother.
“We’ve had a garden here in various places,” he said, his big hands full of zucchini and cucumbers. “My father had a garden up close to the house. At various times, this has been cultivated for…Lordy…years and years,”
He’s slowed down some he says, about a quarter of the garden he’s kept in a buckwheat cover crop he’ll turn under to improve the soil fertility. In winter, he’ll put in wheat and a legume.
“We’ve got two different kinds of beans, squash and zucchini, green peppers and tomatoes, of course,” he said, stepping over the low rabbit wire onto the deep grass clipping mulch.
Asked whether he would recommend growing a garden to others he said a no-nonsense, “Well, certainly.”
Then, standing in his bountiful garden, he gives laid-back advice as his granddaughter and the dogs play in the grass.
“Unfortunately, what I’ve noticed is that they might think too much about it. It’s not as bad as they might think. I don’t get embarrassed about some weeds. I don’t worry. We’ve got some rabbits, you can see right over there on those beans. But I don’t worry.”
Gardening tells so much about a gardener, a family, a community. The News Messenger and Radford News Journal is always looking for vegetable gardening stories and pictures. To talk about your garden, call Liz Kirchner at 540-382-6171 or send her and at email communitynews@ourvalley.org.
