Well, it’s April and the air has that velvet feel that always comes with springtime.

This time of year brings back a lot of memories for me. When I was growing up, March and April were the months when my dad would start planting his garden. I say garden, but it was more like a truck-patch or a field. Of course, it looked bigger to me then than now. It fed everyone on our part of the dirt road and some people in town. It fed us all spring, summer, fall and winter.

I hated it. Where were the child labor laws back then, I would like to know? First thing in March, he would break out the plow and hitch it to the tractor. I usually rode the tractor with him while he plowed. Then, I had to walk through and pick up all the big rocks. This is Arkansas. There were a lot of rocks, big rocks. In fact, in one of his garden spots - he had several - there were more rocks than dirt. But, wow, did it grow vegetables! He had the touch.

Anyway, he would somehow make a raised bed with the plow - I still haven’t figured out how he managed that - and we would plant lettuce, green onions and radishes. When I say I hated the garden, I hated the work, not the product of the work. I couldn’t wait for the day when these early veggies would be ready to pick and we would have fried chicken, wilted lettuce with green onions and crispy red radishes for supper. Nothing better!

When it was time to plant potatoes, using a surveyor's tool, he would align the rows perfectly, not an inch off straight - not really; he didn’t have a surveyor’s tool; he used me instead. He would tie a long length of baling twine to two pointed stakes and send me to the opposite end of the garden with one of them. He would plant his in the ground, and then tell me “a little to the left, no, an inch to the right…” and so on, until the stars aligned and the row was straight.

Sometimes this took a good 10 minutes while I was standing there thinking, “What difference does it make? The potatoes will grow anyway, even if the row is a little crooked!” I actually made the mistake of voicing that thought one time, but we won’t go into that here.

Mom and I had already cut the seed potatoes into chunks with an “eye” on each piece, and now it was time to drop them in the holes he dug with the hoe. The “eye” had to be face up, so this took considerable back bending, mine. I’m not sure, but I think the potatoes would have grown whether they were face up or not, but I decided it was best not to bring it up.

As time went by, we moved on to other vegetables - same row making as before. Tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, peas, green beans and corn were all planted in perfect rows. And when we planted seeds, such as corn, it was to be spaced out just so, so as not to waste the seeds. And if he didn’t get a good “stand,” then out would come the plow and we’d start all over again!

My dad grew up in the early part of the 20th century, a grandson of German immigrants. His dad was a preacher and a farmer - neither of which made him a lot of money - so there were times when food was scarce in his home.

I say this to give my dad an excuse for the fanaticism with which he raised his garden and insisted my mother can or freeze every single thing in it that couldn’t walk or crawl.

Don’t get me wrong, “store bought” veggies never taste as good as home-canned, but water-melon rinds? Really? Yes, one summer he insisted that we save our watermelon rinds so mom could put up watermelon rind pickles.

To me, they didn’t taste any different than a sweet chunk pickle made from a cucumber. I think the point of this was if you didn’t have cucumbers, you could use watermelon rinds. But we had cucumbers running out our ears, so.... Oh, well. I think mom finally put her foot down, because she did it only that one summer.

Even though it was a lot of work to “put-up” vegetables, I have many good memories of hot, steamy summer afternoons spent stirring huge kettles of corn on the stove or watching over a whistling pressure cooker, the temperature in the kitchen a good 10 degrees higher than the 95 degrees or so outside, my hair plastered to my head, sweat dripping in my eyes, faint from lack of sustenance … well, maybe not that bad, but you get the picture.

And when the veggies began to ripen, out would come the varmints and the fight would be on. I didn’t understand why dad couldn’t just share some of the produce; we had enough to feedan army. But no, at the first sign of a coon-chewed ear of corn, he would amass his “weapons.” First, a scarecrow - one of his old shirts stuffed in a pair of overalls on a stick - sometimes two, one on each end of the garden.

No, it didn’t work. Then a radio was added to the scarecrows. It took lots of batteries and, no, it didn’t work either. The coons were still harvesting as much corn as we were.

I really don’t remember if he ever spent the night in the garden with a shotgun, but I’m pretty sure he did. That probably didn’t work either. Raccoons are very persistent, squirrels too! I watched a squirrel shuck an ear of corn one day in about 10 seconds flat. He held it in one little squirrely hand and, never taking his eyes off me, tossed it up and down as his other little squirrely hand removed the shucks. Corn shucks were flying everywhere! It was a blur and I’m sure my jaw was on the ground. He gave me a flip of his tail and up the tree he went with his prize.

Once the critters had their share, the hot summer days began to take a toll. But my dad had irrigation systems set up and I spent many hours hoeing a shallow ditch beside a row of growing vegetables for water to flow down. I remember him at the end of the day stooping to hold his hands under the cold spring water as it came out of the pipe, letting it wash the dirt from his tired fingers.

When I was grown, my kids took my place, and I know they have memories of their own of working with Grandpa in the garden, just as I had.

Daddy loved working the soil and seeing his efforts rewarded when the young plants would start to shoot up from the ground, growing taller every day as they reached for the sun - one of God’s greatest miracles. He passed that love on to me, and I am still amazed when I plant a dry seed in dry dirt and, a few days later, a tiny green plant pokes its head above the ground. Sometimes, my plants don’t get much farther than that. I don’t have the green thumb that my daddy had and my rows are never straight, but I manage to wrest a few goodies from the soil each year.

Even though he made us work hard, I wouldn’t change a minute of the time I spent with him. I am grateful for all I learned and, at this time of year, I love to just sit and let these memories flow through my mind, like that cold spring water flowing through his hard-working, calloused hands.

Tamela Weeks is a freelance writer in the Gentry area. She may be reached by email at tamela.[email protected].

Opinion, Pages 6 on 04/17/2013