I've never lived on a farm. But my family had an organic garden starting in 1976. (My brother John was big believer in organic principles.) We'd plowed an area next to our back yard, then bought a big pile of horse poop to put on it. We also got some seaweed from near our cottage for more fertilizer. Then we hired a guy to come harrow it with his machine. Father was out back talking to this guy, who was laughing a lot, and Mother thought Father was telling him stories. But it turned out he was drunk.
Gardening can be a lot of work. In that spring of 1976, I was out back digging ditches around the garden, where there hadn't been any ditches before. It was so exhausting that I ended up in bed in the afternoon. Then later a friend came around with gardening experience, who said that the ditches had to be wider and deeper. That got to me.
Success varied year by year. In 1979 the weeds really took over, and the only thing that grew well was pumpkins. But other years were better. In 1986 one of the parents got the bright idea of growing extra peas between the rows of corn, and between rows of potatoes. The only problem was that these extra rows were hard to weed, and the result was that we had to all go out on the rainiest day of the year and pick weeds.
Even after I moved to Toronto in 1990, I'd come back to New Brunswick in May and plant the garden. But that ended when my parents moved to Toronto too in 1994. (That last year we only planted peas.) Here in Toronto we only have room for a small garden, but I'm still trying to make a go of it. It's now time to harvest our potatoes.
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