The hard work thus far this year in the garden is finally starting to bring in some green. Well, I should point out that it is not the singular form of the word, but the plural—greens. Yes, all my hours of tilling, weeding, planting, fertilizing and cultivating have culminated in a good harvest of ‘greens' for the table and the freezer. In case you aren't from these parts, greens are leafy vegetables, such as mustard, kale, spinach and turnips or other green leaves that are typically boiled until softened in water and ‘seasoned' with fatback (salt pork) grease. We usually add a little salt and pepper and sometimes vinegar, especially if the leaves have gotten a little size on them. That's the simple, yet tried and true recipe, although I have eaten them with everything from hot pepper flakes to monosodium glutamate. The ones with MSG and about a hundred other unpronounceable chemicals came from a can in the store in the off-season when I was feeling desperate for a taste of spring. Sadly, I got a late start last year and didn't have enough mustard planted to last me through the winter. This year, I think I more than made up with it.

A good ‘mess' of greens are hard to beat, especially when they are picked young and tender and processed promptly.

I don't do much of the processing work at home, other than my share of the harvesting. The stems have to be removed on larger pieces, so it's easier to pick them all when they're a little on the small side to keep from having to take off the stems. They also taste better, but the yield is smaller.

I try to make sure I always do my part when it comes time to eat them. When eating greens, I guess I will always think of my father, who always had lots of greens in his garden. That is especially poignant at this time, as he has taken a bit of a downward turn and is still in the hospital in Winston-Salem. It is always hard for me to associate the man he is now with the kind of man he always was. Anyway, he really loves greens. My mother would always cook them for us and we would eat an entire pot at one time. Of course, if you fill a pot with greens, you end up with just a few once it all cooks down.

Anyway, I know he would rather eat greens with a big plate of pinto beans (also seasoned with fat meat), some fresh green onion, and a chunk of corn bread than have almost anything else. As for me, I feel almost the same way. However, I can't say I would take greens and beans over a one-pound ribeye every time, but I would at least some of the time.

My leaf lettuce also is getting near ready to harvest, as are the onions. We've already been nipping off some of the onion tops for cooking, which seems to make the onions grow even more. Green onion soup with broth is another of my favorite things to eat, although I haven't made any this year. I'll get to it soon. I never acquired as much of a taste for lettuce and onions, another traditional dish made by pouring hot grease over lettuce leaves and pieces of onion. That's one that is especially good for vinegar lovers. I'd rather have my lettuce ‘raw' and my onions served separately, but I have eaten it and enjoyed it before.

The yellow onions that I planted this year have turned out very sweet, which is a good thing. Hot onions are only good for cooking, but sweet onions are good for everything.

I also have planted my tomatoes and bell peppers, corn and cabbage and a few other plants. With the number of little corn plants I have counted in the garden, I'm hoping for a good harvest. I tried a different method of planting this year. Instead of having two long rows of corn, I put in a square ‘block' of corn plants in the top edge of the garden. I hope that makes it pollinate better and also helps to keep it from blowing over.

Last year was one of the first years that I had corn and none of it blew over. I've planted sunflowers for the past couple of years to help stabilize the corn, but haven't had much luck at getting them to come up with the old seeds I saved from two years ago. Maybe I'll break down and buy a few seeds at the farm supply later this year. I don't eat that many sunflower seeds, but I do like to watch them grow.

The other thing I've noticed this year is a healthy crop of ‘volunteers' popping up. Last year's tomato crop, the tommy toes in particular, got well ahead of me several times. I finally ended up cutting down a couple of plants because we simply couldn't do anything with all of them. I made a mistake when buying plants last year and accidentally picked up eight small tomato plants, four red and four yellow. By the end of the season, there were somewhere around 10 million tomatoes all over the place. Some were on the vine in various stages of ripening, while others were on the ground in various stages of rotting. The plants also really were vigorous, covering everything that even dared come close by.

The seeds from those plants are apparently coming back to life in the middle of my other rows. I figure I might transplant one or two plants to another place and let them grow, but I hope I never let them get ahead of me like they did last year.

Every year I get a little smarter, a little more experienced at what I'm doing. I've spaced out most of the plants enough to get the tiller through, which helps with weed control.

I have found that the better job I do at planting time, the easier the garden is to work later. How much of life is like that? If we always start the right way, everything works better.

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