SPRING  has  SPRUNG . . .

Well, not quite.  It is still nippy in the early mornings here on the edge of the Blue Ridge, but the days are beautiful.  Let’s hope it will last and we have seen the last of this “coldest, wettest” winter on record.  My thoughts turn to spring, wonderfully warm days,

. . . and vegetable gardens.

Visions of summers past!

When I put in my spring garden, I feel like I connect with my ancestors who were mostly farmers.  But whether they farmed or not, surely they put in their “kitchen garden.”  This is what they ate out of and preserved to carry them through the winter.  Their life and health depended on this garden.  The women usually were in charge here along with any children old enough to help.  Older boys had to help their father, working the farm, growing the grain to feed the animals, growing the corn and wheat for the bread they ate, growing the cash crop which they sold for money to buy the things they couldn’t grow like coffee and sugar.

This would not be the small neatly squared “home” gardens we are used to seeing; it would be a plot of land like a small farm in itself.  There would be arbors with apples and pears and grapes.  There would be nut trees with walnuts and pecans.

I can’t imagine being in charge of all this, along with everything else the woman had to do.  I am intimidated by the very small plot I have.  Bear in mind, I live in a small patio home in town!  Here I don’t “farm”  -  I “dabble”  I suppose you could call it.  When I moved here, the lady before me had a large terraced flower box in the back yard.  It has three terraces, each box about 8 inches below the level of the higher one.  It is approximately 10 feet by 12 feet over all, and gives me about 100 square feet of space.  When I first looked at it, I saw VEGETABLES!  This small space compels me to do what is called “raised intensive gardening.”  I don’t have long rows, I have tightly filled squares.  Putting plants so close together, you must give them really good soil and feed them well.

 

The “back forty” from a distance

 In addition to my “box” (which my sister calls the back forty,)  I am blessed with a huge back deck with a lattice railing around it.  I can accommodate at least 50 medium to large (some very large) pots here.  That’s another 50 square feet.  I fill the corners, stack them on little tables, create different levels, and generally arrange attractive groupings all along the railing and steps.  I wind squash and cucumber vines through the lattice, and have little French melons hanging there.

                                                                                                   French Charantais Melon                     

                                           

I garden organically, using no chemical fertilizers or insect controls.  Everything is natural.  I mix in a lot of mushroom compost and cow manure and I make my own bug sprays.  People might say that this is not necessary, but I know vegetables grown this way are better.  My husband could not eat commercially grown cucumbers (saturated with chemical fertilizers and pesticides) from the supermarket, but he could eat mine!  I think my ancestors would have farmed this way – they only had natural resources.  But I am glad I can buy my MOO COW poop in nice non-smelly pasteurized bags instead of having to shovel it out from under the animals!

Winter collards in pot

I learned how to garden organically many years ago, in Florida.  My husband’s uncle who was into “mega” farming hundreds of acres got the biggest laugh when I told him how I had enough collards to feed the two of us for many months from three magnificent plants I grew in pots on my patio.  He could not relate to this.  But it works.

I hardly buy any vegetables from the store from April through December except for corn, potatoes, and carrots which take up more room than I can give them.  I usually take the last of my patio tomatoes to my sister’s when I go for Christmas.  In my pots I have cucumbers, squash (yellow and green,) eggplants, bell peppers, hot peppers, banana peppers, collards, kale, beautiful French Charantais melons, and many small size and patio tomatoes.  Growing in all kinds of containers, hanging baskets, and planter boxes are romaine, and green scallions, and many varieties and colors of lettuce. 

                                                                                  Winter garden in pots on deck

 

In the late fall I put in a winter garden of collards, kale, onions and cabbage.  They grow well during the whole winter, even with 12 inches of snow now and then.  Nothing’s prettier than green scallions peeking through the snow.

In summer in the “back forty” I have bush green beans, bush lima beans, mustard greens, turnip greens, and 5 large size tomatoes, blackeyed peas, boc choi, rutabagas, and sometimes broccoli and arugala.  Scallions and radishes are slipped in wherever there is a tiny space.

The “back forty!” up close

Tucked in near my back door there is a small wrought-iron arbor over the walkway which will support pole beans and patio tomatoes, and there will be okra plants somewhere when it is hot enough.

         Garden planting chart

I made my “planting chart” back in February, but I am now ready to begin.  You shouldn’t put in transplants in this area until after April 15^th. There may be frost yet.  But I couldn’t wait and have started already with spinach, lots of lettuce, and some boc choi.  I grouped them all together on the deck right now just outside my back door because I have to cover them on cold nights, but I don't mind that.  I still have green onions, a little kale and collards from the winter, and also cabbage heads forming even though it was such a cold winter. 

My deck in full summer finery

I know my ancestors would also laugh at my efforts.  It seems so puny in comparison to what they did – and they did it out of

necessity! 

Surveying my little domain

But in the summer, when I sit in my comfortable deck chair under my umbrella, drinking my morning coffee, surrounded by all the beautiful plants hanging heavy with food, I look out toward my overflowing box (the back forty!), surveying my little domain, with the humming birds whizzing at my feeder, and I am very happy with my work, and I hope they can give me credit for my little bit.  

In this way, I think, I honor them.

My humming bird feeder

Plant a tomato and honor your ancestors

NEVER say NEVER

Rule:  Just because you have checked your research resources before, don’t stop looking in the same places over and over again, ever so often.

Example:  I had the name of my grandmother, MARGARET L. ALEXANDER, from the beginning of my journey into genealogy.  When I first began, my sister and I found in our mother’s bible a list of names for the grandparents and great grand parents.  I knew the grandparent’s names, but had never heard the names of the “greats.”  As I have said before, my family were not story tellers.  I suppose that paper had been in that bible all our lives, but we never knew it was there.

My PARKERs and ARANTs had pretty well been filled in and were a “gift” from my cousin, Darlene Parker Smith.  She was the one who encouraged (forced ! ) me to begin my HAYWOOD search.  I blame this obsession on her!  (:-D

My HAYWOODs, except for the current generation, were pretty much a blank slate.  I have written before about how I found Benton, my great great grandfather by accident while researching at Morning Star Lutheran Church in Mecklenburg County, NC, (Butterfly Whispers – June 28, 2013,)  but that was much later.

What I found that day on that paper in the bible was two names I had never heard before:  JOSIAH H. HAYWOOD, my great grandfather, and his wife MARGARET L. ALEXANDER, my great grandmother.  I have written before  (I Give Thanks Today – Nov. 27, 2013)  about discovering how Josiah went off to war and never returned.  My research leads me to believe that he died at the Battle of Bentonville (NC) against Sherman on March 19, 1865 and is probably buried in the mass grave there.  There is no record of him after that battle.

But Margaret!  Ah, Margaret!  There was no other bit of information listed anywhere

that I could find about her life before she married Josiah.  There is their marriage bond, dated 1 JAN 1850, with no other names except the bondsman, E. S. Harkness. 

There is the census of 1850, their first.  They were 25 and 19 years old, just married.  They are living right beside his mother CATHERINE WENTZ HAYWOOD on the extensive HAYWOOD land.

1850 CENSUS

There is the census of 1860 showing Josiah and Margaret with five children. 

1860 CENSUS

NOTE: The 3 year old “George” should be listed as “John A.”

And finally, the censuses of 1870 and 1880 showing Margaret’s life, raising her family alone after the war with her five remaining children out of the original seven. By 1870 Mary Ann and Barnett have disappeared.  They both could have died, or Mary Ann could have married and Barnett could have been lost in the war.  I can find no further record of them

.

1870 CENSUS This illustration represents the bottom of one page and the top of the next.  The Thomas 10 yrs is my grandfather, THOMAS MELTON.NOTE:  Josiah went by “Jo.”  So he is alternately listed on various records as Josiah, Jacob, or Joseph.

The last record for Margaret is on the marriage license of her son, my grandfather, Thomas Melton HAYWOOD as of 12 MAR 1883, the "mother" is listed as “deceased.”  So she died between 1880 and 1883.

There were hundreds of ALEXANDERs in the Mecklenburg County area at that time, and no way to find where she belonged.  She should be buried at Morning Star, but all the “ancient” graves there have disappeared.  (I have several family members who should be buried there, but cannot be found.  I have recently read that this old cemetery was “destroyed” in the 1940s, but I have not verified this yet, but can only wonder, if this is so, what crazy people could have done that!)

So, I have carried this ROADBLOCK with me for twenty years, believing it was a hopeless cause.  Never expecting anything  . . .  NEVER say NEVER!

One day the middle of March of this year, on a whim, I just decided to put MARGARET ALEXANDER through Ancestry.com once again in the public tree section.  Up popped all the trees I had explored so many times before, with no other information about Margaret.  Then suddenly, there was a tree which mentioned a father for Margaret!   I was astounded!  I immediately sent a message to the owner of this tree about this information – where had it come from, was there any verification?  I told her about my fruitless search for twenty years.  She came right back to me.  A NEW COUSIN WAS FOUND!

If you examine the censuses for 1860 and 1870 you will see the name John (see the note about his wrong listing as George on the 1860 census,) -  this is JOHN ALEXANDER HAYWOOD (1857-1930.)  He was Josiah’s son.  Note Margaret’s maiden name used here, a common practice.  John had a daughter named HESTER LEE HAYWOOD (1883-1952.)  She would have been my 1^st cousin, once removed.  Hester Lee married Samuel Boyd JACKSON.  All this I already knew.

From my “new” cousin I found out that Hester Lee HAYWOOD JACKSON had a daughter named Emma Lee JACKSON (1915 - .)  Emma Lee married JOHN HENRY SIMS.  She is now 99 years old, and still “alert and active” according to her daughter Sylvia who is my “new” cousin (2^nd cousin, once removed.)  Emma Lee remembers “discussions” about Margaret!  She remembers who Margaret was!  And from the research work on Sylvia's tree, I now have a line of ALEXANDERs going back to 1369!  This is a revelation genealogists dream of!  After twenty years of “drought,” I now have a “flood” of new information.  I can’t wait to jump in and see what other surprises lay in store.  I can’t thank my “new” cousin enough.  We intend to “keep in touch” and explore our families.

So no matter how many times you have run your names through the search resources, no matter how frustrated you become, how depressed you are about your ROADBLOCK, don’t give up!  With the wonderful new interest in genealogy today, new trees are coming on line all the time, trees that may have just that obscure clue you are looking for.

Good researching and

NEVER say NEVER