By Dawn Mitchell

OK, it’s 1960 and I’m at my Nanny and Granddaddy’s house and of course I was allowed to stay up as late as I wanted, or at least as late as they stayed up. You know, you learn a lot about a man after 8:30 pm, my at-home bedtime. My granddaddy always had time for me (I guess most like to remember it that way, but he really did MAKE the time). We played dominoes, real dominoes, not the kind you order out. We ate ice cream sundaes that my Nanny piled high with made to order toppings. “We” made turkey yelpers; he was known for calling turkeys and he had the beards to prove it! This little stroll down memory lane has caused me to digress, and if you’re still reading, thank you!

I’m beginning my fourth class as an intern in the Master Gardner program through the Montgomery County Extension Service and I’m loving every second of it…so glad to be retired, but that’s ANOTHER story, and I’m finally learning just how little I know about gardening. I love to plant flowers, some are actually from SEEDS, and watch them grow and grow as I water and water and water AND water. You see, my Nanny could throw a stick in the yard and up would come roses and daffodils and parsley, and she could drop a leaf in her “homemade” potting soil, she knew just how much perlite and vermiculite was needed for every African violet, bromeliad, fern, you name it…all to become blue ribbon worthy. I’m not quite sure how this green thumb was handed down to my Daddy, her son-in-law of ALL things, but he had her passion for gardening in the yard when it was a hobby and not the vegetable gardening that we depended on when I was growing up…those vegetables taste better every time I think of them.

Back to Granddaddy and his after-hours hobbies. He loved to plant and harvest a backyard garden, that is, when he wasn’t playing dominoes with his buddies at the drug store. So, he would spend some of those “after 8:30 pm hours” pouring over the Burpee Seed Catalog, looking for vegetables that he’d either never heard of, seen and/or definitely never eaten. We would laugh at the “guaranteed” results…doubting that we’d ever see such! It was the unusual he was looking for-the challenge of growing but more the fun he would have showing off these curiosities. “We” would fill out the order form for these weird specimens and we’d check the post office box every day anxiously awaiting their arrival. I’m quite sure I’d lost interest or maybe even forgotten and I don’t remember the planting, but I will never forget what came out of that garden!

Remember, it’s 1960…no one had ever heard of or seen or eaten spaghetti squash…it’s 1960…mission accomplished. I have no idea how my Nanny figured out how to cook it without Pinterest, or googling “Healthiest Way to Prepare Spaghetti Squash”. There’s a good possibility that bacon grease was somehow involved…remember, it is 1960. The most memorable for me was the yard long, yes, YARD LONG, green beans. Just one could make a good mess of beans. And they were longer than I was tall!!! Just to be sure “we” measured them all before they were shown to my Granddaddy’s buddies. I inherited the green thumb, ‘kinda’, but I have really big (long) shoes to fill.

Most of the 2500 folks in town can attest to seeing some crazy things come out of that little garden on the side of the road. My granddaddy had confirmed that Mr. Burpee was a man of his word…plant it and it will grow. Lots of other interesting vegetables made it to our table in 1960, but it took the 21st century to convince the masses that they were edibles.

Dawn Mitchell, a Master Gardener of Class 2018, lives in Montgomery. For more information on becoming a master gardener, visit www.capcitymga.org or email capcitymga@email.com.