Gardening: Novelty or Necessity?

How does your garden grow? Many of the hobbies we tinker at today were the necessities of yesteryears. Pumpkin patches were not just nurseries for jack-o-lanterns. Flashback Jack, they were the nourishing source of flavor that added spice to the long cold winters. Town kids and country cousins alike worked their families’ plots of sustenance. Rich black topsoil runs two feet deep in Hoosier-land.

Ask an expert. Mary, Mary, quite contrary, knows a garden doesn’t just spring up overnight. You must stake your claim, turn the dirt, bust the clods, and fling a few stones. You break a sweat before you are even ready to plant. Brace yourself for a long summer. You battle the element, spray the bugs, and hoe the weeds. Stand your ground! The critters are coming! Ravenous rabbits by day and rascally raccoons by night lay siege to your bounty right before harvest.

Late summer, early fall, all is well. The crop is in. Kick back and relax. Job well done.

Not so fast, you have veggie out the wahzzu.? Ripened all at once, now you have a ginormous problem. There is more produce than you can eat or give away. Oh no! Will it all Spoil!?

It is the Ball Brothers and pressure cookers to the rescue.

Did you know Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, drew its name from a mason jar? Well, sort of, the philanthropy of the Ball Brothers and the Ball Corporation helped establish Ball Teachers College in 1922. The school became Ball State Teachers College in 1929 and was renamed Ball State University in 1965. Higher education became well preserved in Eastern Indiana because of the generous manufacturers of the little quart glass jars.

Well, back home in Crawfordsville, the Ball jars saved the day by preserving all the bounty from the Clore family gardens. We are talking bushels from my sister Beverly’s garden in Mellott, and tons from Granny’s two acres in Alamo. Decky and Junior’s garden in Romney and our backyard on Delaware Street seemed to outproduce the Jolly Green Giant. We snapped enough green beans to fill a silo.

By autumn, we fill all our pantries and cellar with quarts-beyond-delicious quarts. So much so that we skipped the canned food aisles at the A&P all winter long. Canning can save your can through a harsh winter.

Mom had a secret recipe for canning each berry, veggie, jelly, and jam, especially the green beans. I can taste the memories. She would fry a little bacon, sauté a bit of onion, splash a tad of vinegar, and add a dash of this and that. Mmmm, mmm.

One year, something went awry with her blackberry preserves. The whole batch became fermented. Pappy really enjoyed the recipe that year.

Here is a fruit and vegetable stand the folks had on East Delaware Street circa 1950. Mom, Georgia Clore, is to the far left. Dad, Austin Clore, is to the far right. Standing next to Mom, is her sister, Abby Williams, and her son Kenny.

Dad would prefer to work dawn till dusk for himself than 9 to 5 for someone else. The vegetable and fruit stand is just one of his many entrepreneurial ventures.

Mom came by her gardening skills quite naturally. As a child, she helped out around her father's truck farm on Lafayette Pike. George Cole, her dad, supplied Montgomery County with fresh vegetables.? I believe she was a vegetarian until she married into the meat and potatoes Clore family.

Story and graphics by Chuck Clore — Photograph by Kenneth Williams