Show Frustrated Farmers By FLORENCE BITTNER Experts bemoan the loss of our farms as people move from country to city in a continuing Farmers are trading in their straw hats for a time but be not Most of them just transplant their planting urges to their city back THE NEED to dig in dirt continues in the most city oriented of and even such fourth generation city dwellers as still tend their vegetable plots after they have wended their way home through the traffic and polluted Tomatoes are our chief but many more are the vines planted at our house than tomatoes A green thumb we have not-not even a green stain between but for all that we WE GAVE up on corn and peas and Too much too many an over abundance of and soil so poor the morning glory looks We mourn and There is much truth in the old adage that to taste right corn must not be picked till the water is boiling and the diners are seated with poised knife and I hold to the belief that garden peas are best eaten My father and pea pods will be forever associated in my If he had a it was green and in season his pockets We could track him down by the trail of pea SUCH luxuries we only taste when we visit my father in corn and pea Any resemblance between store bought corn and peas to the off the vine variety is purely in B. us addicted to Heaping plates of slices festooned with mayonnaise begin each and he doesn't want them adulterated with lettuce or green SO EACH spring we plant from six to eighteen tomato but we barely manage to supply our own From that many my father could supply the It's that we don't love because our tomatoes are the most looked after and crooned over growing things in the but they are mostly At that they do better than our asparagus All these and all we have to show for our efforts is an occasional We have tried feeding the asparagus bed and starving We have kept it wet and let it We have cultivated it and left it Still we get perhaps a dozen stalks in a and believe there is very little you can do with one stalk of asparagus at a MY FRIENDS harvest fruit each year from their back yard so I decided to extend my farming Surely there isn't much I can do to a peach tree I but I underestimated my Have you ever seen a peach tree with one Spindly and but We have cared for it with TLC for three but still we have only one This year we were wiped out in the All two We do have a looking pear tree which is beginning to tower over the back That wasn't wiped out in the frost because there was nothing to wipe How long is a pear tree supposed to grow before it begins to-put forth an occasional WE BOTH had farming Grandpa Bittner specialized in such exotic vegetables as and My father grew just about everything his brood I still remember the year he was carried away with enthusiasm in pea planting Come the Relief Society picked peas on They brought in wash tubs and my mother reached near hysteria before father gave up and pulled the vines for cow There must be a secret we don't know about back yard Maybe this year we'll try organic We've tried assorted varieties in bags and so maybe what we need is some natural Drop by anytime in gardening We'll offer you a stalk of wizened slightly trampled asparagus from our truck |