Growing Our Own

Growing our own
Was vital to life
When I was young
But now lost in the fog
Of history

Like “putting up”
Meaning planting picking then
Shucking shelling snapping
And canning
In Mason jars
Placed  neatly and proudly on shelves
In pantry basement or cellar
(Difference floor concrete or dirt)

Later in freezers
First community locker rooms then home
Horizontal or upright 

Before that plowing disking planting
In rows straight as stretched string
For that’s how we laid them out
Then dug a furrow
With a push harrow 

We bent at the waist
Hand planted the seed or eye
In a row
Or a hill 

Potatoes white or sweet
For baking boiling or frying
Whole or sliced large to petite
Sometimes mashed or scalloped 

Beans string and lima
Also called butter
Octobers pintos navy waxed
Runners creepers and pole

Corn Silver Queen or Golden Bantam
Beets red and yellow
Cabbages radishes salsafi
carrots parsnips turnips

Tomatoes for slicing juicing stewing
Red and yellow early and late 

Lettuces eaten when picked
Arugula Butterhead Coral
Cress  Endive
Escarole Frisée Iceberg
Little Gem Looseleaf Mache
Mesclun Oakleaf Radicchio
Romaine Speckled Stem

Supermarkets
Not yet invented
Only grocery stores
Where men standing behind a counter
Clad in aprons
Gathered your order
Of salt sugar flour

Never vegetables
Which you grew and put up
From your Victory Garden