They are not the first thing to open in spring; they are late bloomers. By mid-April, when the dogwood sheds its blossoms to create a white mantle around its trunk, sign painters are freshening the plywood placards that bear the welcomed words: “HOMEGROWN TOMATOES” or “FRESH STRAWBERRIES — PICK YOUR OWN”. Out of their winter’s hibernation, the produce stands emerge once again. Undaunted by the dormant months, they spread the good news that the earth is once again about to create its glorious garden of homegrown goods. Mother Nature is open for business.
Many of us have our favorite spots, and we’ll go miles out of the way to stop on the side of the road to select Vidalia onions, green peppers and corn still dressed in its natural shuck and tasseled with silk threads. We speak to the vendors in down home ways as we ask their opinion on this cantaloupe or that squash. We want to know on whose land they were produced.
What is it about “homegrown” that works its marketing magic on us? As much as it is the charm of choosing fresh vegetables as close to the farm as possible, it is also a subtle prompter of the sweet memories of our childhood when the backyards of our earlier springs were full of seeds carefully chosen and planted with hope, the soil lovingly watered and the rabbits carefully kept at bay until the fruits of our labors finally appeared.
My Granddaddy seemed to be the wisest gardener among us, though I never did see his green thumb that everyone said he had. Not only did he know when and how to plant the stuff, he knew exactly when it was ripe and ready to pick. I also believe he knew why we gardened, but he never let us in on the secret. We simply filled our baskets and bags with the harvest. We sat at the table, gave thanks, and spent the whole meal in utter amazement that our very own okra was the best in the whole wide world!
Like the plants in those gardens, all of us are also homegrown varieties of human beings. Whether we grew up in the ideal soil of a happy homes or the almost barren dirt of homes barely held together against the ravages of hard times, we know in our bones that that’s where our roots were put into the earth. In a sense, the garden is our common ground. And it is holy ground as well. Whether it was in the lost paradise of Eden or the backyard oasis of our childhood, all of us are homegrown. And the simple taste of a fresh tomato sandwich becomes soul food for us all and as nourishing as mother’s milk.
Joni Mitchell’s haunting song hits home: “We are stardust, we are golden/ We are billion year old carbon,/ And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.”