You know it’s going to be a good day when the front doorbell rings at the office and you hear a big booming voice proclaim, “where’s the turnip man?” That means Mrs. Martha Reed has come to town and has more likely than not brought along a mess of fresh greens, with some nice size turnips attached.
Needless to say last Wednesday was a good day. The thunder roared outside, the lightning flashed devilishly in the sky, the rain poured down, that doorbell rang, and I heard that voice and those words.
“What are you doing out in this weather,” I asked. “It wasn’t raining when we got these,” Mrs. Martha, replied, and handed over a big bunch of greens, with those plump, sweet, purple and white turnips. She knows I want ‘em and she is always willing to oblige. We sure appreciate Mrs. Martha Reed at my house!
Some of you may remember reading her gardening story a couple of years ago when we did a feature on her in the pages of this paper. That story was prompted by one of her visits to the office with a three-and-a-half-pound whopper of a turnip. I commented on my fondness of fresh turnips at the time, she gave that one to me, and ever since I’ve been a regular beneficiary of some of her garden wares.
Earlier this year she dropped by with a seven-and-a-half-inch cucumber and she boasts of having raised a four pound sweet potato several years back. The talented gardener, who is somewhere upwards of 86 years old, but you wouldn’t know it by her work ethic, says her love of gardening was instilled in her by her father as well as her late husband.
“I garden to honor them,” she has told me, and apparently she is honoring them in a mighty fine fashion.
“I think more people need to get back to the old ways of sitting on their porch, shelling peas and raising our own food,” Reed said in a 2017 interview. “We need to take care of ourselves, live by God’s word and stop all this killing mess. People need to find something productive to do. I never see the need for being on a phone and gossiping or some of the other things people do.”
Wise words from a wise woman I thought then as I still do each time I see her friendly face at our counter.
Every year I struggle with my little-bitty garden, although I did grow a Jack-in-the-Beanstalk worthy 15-foot tomato vine next to the kitchen porch this summer — at this writing on Monday it was still thriving, and still producing, but I fear the predicted freeze may have taken its toll — and I did plant some turnip greens earlier this fall. When I told Mrs. Martha a few weeks back that I had planted some greens she said something along the line of “oh, I’ve already got turnips on mine.”
Well I don’t. Mine are still only about an inch or two tall and probably need thinning but, unlike Mrs. Martha Reed, I’m lazy when it comes to gardening. My daddy always grew a garden, my grandparents always had gardens, but somehow the work ethic required to succeed at the large scope of producing vegetables was never really instilled in me. As I’ve said multiple times over the years, I just don’t like to hoe!
So, in the meantime I’ll keep an eye on my little turnip patch, but I’m more apt to keep an ear open for that doorbell, and the kindness of Mrs. Martha Reed when she comes calling on the “turnip man” once again.
Thanks Mrs. Martha!
