By Jim Langham

My first garden was located in the remains of what had been a small chicken yard. It was the last week of March when I was a young child and my grandmother, who lived with us, asked if I would like for her to help me put out a garden.

With the place of high esteem that gardening held in our family, I was delighted; it was a real self-esteem builder. I could hardly wait to tell neighbors in our little hamlet where drawing well water from a pump, sharing daily with neighbors and putting out a family garden was a way of life.

It was after school on a balmy afternoon. Grandma had it all set, the process and the planting. I spaded a plot in soil that housed rich manure from having housed chickens, then broke the clods down and then, with grandma’s instruction, worked up the soil until it was fine enough to plant.