Father Feared No Early Frost

Green thumb, according to Webster, is an apparent skill or talent for growing plants. It is probably safe to say Dad had a green thumb although frost, sub-freezing temperatures, insects, rabbits and other vermin would—from time to time—result in his thumb being somewhat off color.

Immediately after New Year’s Day my dad started looking forward to planting a garden. He began to order seed catalogs, then seed, then red Solo cups which he used as planters. We did our best to caution him that he was perhaps a bit early, that Jack Frost did sometimes visit very late in the spring. “What’s the latest date you remember having a big frost,” we asked?

“Sometime in June,” came the reply. He then proceeded with preparations for planting as if we had never asked the question. All he needed was a “warmish” day and a piece of dry ground in late February and he would plant potatoes and cabbage, explaining that they were cold hardy and if they did make it he would be considerably ahead of everyone else.

Generally he was a bit more cautious with other vegetables because he was always in competition with his brothers to have the first tomato of the year. The aforementioned Solo cups were brought out and the tomato seeds planted. They were kept inside until it was mostly warm enough to set them in rows outdoors.

Without fail, within a day or two of planting, the weatherman called for a killing frost during the night. Thus the family was enlisted to take a stack of old newspapers to the garden and teepee them over the tender plants to protect them from the frost. We anchored the papers down with a handful of dirt to keep them from blowing away in the wind. The system worked but Dad’s garden sometimes took on the look of a newspaper printing press.

The competition for that first tomato was so intense that no effort was too great to save a plant. One morning when Dad walked out to survey the garden he noticed that one of his tomato plants was leaning over on the ground. It had been halfway broken by either a worm or perhaps a careless step by the gardener himself. Either way, the plant was still green so he put a Band-Aid on it to hold it upright. I’m not making this up! I honestly don’t remember if the plant survived or not but the effort was made.

By now, February’s potatoes have grown into a gardener’s dream of lush green vines. The problem was that no one, or thing, enjoyed potatoes more than the lovely, striped potato beetles and their ugly little larvae. Hesitant to use insecticide around his plants, Dad would often go hand-to-hand with the beetles. Carefully walking down each row he would pluck them off the vines and drop them into a jar for later disposal.

The Latin name for these pesky little beetles is Lema trilineata.  Dad, however, used much more colorful language to describe them.  It was the first time I realized that he was bilingual.

While not technically a part of the vegetable plot, Dad nurtured a pair of fruit trees that had sprung up as “volunteers” alongside the garden. One was a peach tree and the other was a cherry tree. The two trees often shaded whatever was planted near them. The cherry tree was the first to bear fruit and in truth it did provide a number of cherry pies as well as the occasional batch of preserves.

Pies and preserves, however, came with their own unique set of problems. Every year Dad had to battle the birds to get his half of the cherries. Having read that a rubber snake would scare away most anything with two wings, he placed a three foot snake strategically in the branches of the tree. The next morning when he walked out he claimed there was a robin sitting on the snake, alternately eating cherries and singing robin songs.

Not to be outdone, dad ran an extension cord to the tree and placed a radio underneath its branches. He turned the music all the way up and smiled as he walked back into the house. The method worked fine until Sunday morning when a deputy knocked on the door. A few of the neighbors had complained about the loud music so he had to remove the radio. Personally, I feel the deputy was a bit too quick to judge. Who among us has not carried a radio along as we walked among the squashes? Be that as it may, from then on he agreed with the robins to settle for half the cherries.

As for the peach tree, it took a little longer to bear fruit but when it did they were the prettiest peaches one had ever laid eyes on.  Alas, there was trouble. Overnight, there was an aerial bombardment of Japanese beetles. They attacked in such numbers that the peaches no longer looked like peaches but instead looked like large green balls with legs scratching for their turn at the table. That fall, the peach tree was part of our Halloween bonfire.

As for the fate of the cherry tree, it had a nasty little poison ivy vine climbing the trunk. My mom was extremely allergic to the stuff, so she sprayed Roundup on the trunk and some of the limbs. Problem solved! No more robins, snakes, radios—or cherries. 

I miss Mom and Dad, but they taught me a priceless lesson. If you’re going to do something, go all out and have a sense of humor.