Yesterday, I think, was my first good glimpse of a roadside full of wisteria. The vines were carpeting an embankment. I had caught a small glimpse or two of a stray purple cluster here and there a day or so before, but this was wisteria in its full glory.
The trees that line the country roads near my house will be festooned with wisteria garlands for a brief while. If you blink, you may very well miss the splendor of nature's wild purple tailoring.
I drove down Poplar Springs Drive in Meridian yesterday, and saw spring in its full Mississippi glory. Azaleas of every shade, white dogwoods, a few early roses peeking out between deep greenery, daffodils, the wisteria blossoms hanging everywhere......it was enough to make a body fall off the side of that winding street and wreck in a gulley!
One home had a delightful border of tiny flowers. I couldn't slow down enough to distinguish them, but it seemed like a mix of impatiens and marigolds and such. You know, all those bright little annual bedding plants that pop up everywhere all of a sudden.
The first home we lived in when we moved to Mississippi had well-developed garden beds and trees and shrubbery. We moved in August, and I don't remember much but the kudzu garden at the roadside edge of our hilltop property. But when spring came, oh my goodness. We had huge yellow roses growing up beside our chimney. We had plum trees.....can you imagine? And peach trees! Oh, the boxes of peaches we picked that first season. I went to the local farmer's coop and didn't know what I was doing, but I was so entranced by all the little bedding plants I bought a bunch and killed half of them before it was all through. We did end up with some respectable-looking flower beds, though, by lucky accident.
Our neighbors asked us if we were going to plant a garden. Well, why not, we thought. Put seeds in the ground and up will come vegetables. So we put in a big old garden, about the size of a small cottage! We knew nothing about it. We planted tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, yellow squash and zucchini, We planted every variety of pepper plant we could find, because I liked the colors.
We tried to weed, at first, but then it just got away from us. Ignorantly, we planted our squash eight inches apart. (I can hear the laughter, but we honestly didn't know squash was supposed to be planted on little hills about three feet apart.) Soon, our entire garden was like some gorgeous, wild jungle full of food!
We thrashed our way in every morning when the dew was on the plants, and brought in baskets of delicious vegetables. My neighbor asked, will you "put up" your tomatoes and peaches? Why not, I thought. So we made a trip to Kirkland's Hardware and bought a huge enamel canning pot, jars, and a Ball book about canning.
We tried some of the recipes and canned jars of some lovely stuff called India sauce. We used our own fresh onions, jalapenos, tomatoes, and made fresh salsa.....I've never tasted the like ever again. We canned tomatoes, peaches, banana peppers, tabasco peppers which looked like Christmas tree lights.
No one told me that peppers had to be handled with gloves, carefully. I just plopped piles of jalapenos in the sink and started to work. By nightfall, my hands were on living fire, and it was hard to breathe! We learned the hard way about canning peppers, I can tell you.
None of the gardens we tried the following years ever produced like that first one. We tried smaller gardens that we could do a better job of keeping weeded. We planted things like we were supposed to. But it was never the same.
When we moved into Quitman next to the Archusa Creek Park, we could not find a place on our property that would grow veggies. The only spot would have been the front yard, and I didn't think our neighbors would care very much for a front yard vegetable garden. I think the soil in our new place may have been too sandy. After some half-hearted attempts at container gardening on the deck, we just threw up our hands and gave up.
But in my mind's eye, I can see the dew glistening off that first jungle garden just as the sun was up. I can smell the fresh cucumbers and tomatoes, the damp earth, the sharp scent of the peppers. I feel the grit in my shoes. And I can taste that India sauce, those peach halves, that completely homemade salsa. What a treasure God gifted us with that first year.
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