Once upon a time in the culture I grew up in, most every family had a garden. Many of us lived on farms, or had farming neighbors, so, in addition to spring, summer, fall and winter, our calendars had two extra seasons, planting and harvesting. Today’s families often take for granted the food and other harvested items that give us needed nourishment along with creature comforts. Older generations have memories of vegetable gardens and fruit orchards and corn fields. It was a way of life dependent on Mother Nature, and filled with hours and days of hard labor and frustration, but also rewarding in the bountiful harvest that followed. Although the women in our household seemed to thrive on the satisfaction of a dinner table filled with home-grown creamed corn, fried okra and squash, crowned with a fresh peach cobbler pie, I never liked gardening – or cooking. I came close to being one of those misguided people targeted by Rick Bragg who opined that too many people who call themselves gardeners have never owned a hoe. It wasn’t from my grandma’s desires for me to follow in her footsteps. I think she was born with green thumbs and a built-in farmer’s almanac. In retrospect, I see that she was more than a gardener; she was a truck farmer.

We tend to think of harvest as the gathering of the fruits of our labor, but one major aspect of all that is the gathering and storing of the seeds, necessary for the next phase of the cycle. I subscribe to the Market Bulletin from the Georgia Department of Agriculture. I love reading the ads in these waning days of summer when flower gardeners are offering seeds for next year’s crop of such treasures as money plant and zinnia and larkspur. Occasionally in a weak moment I will have visions from my childhood of that section of my grandmother’s vegetable garden where the bees and butterflies found pleasure amongst the old maids and marigolds.

It would be many years later that my mother became interested in money plant and its blossoms that miraculously turn into replicas of silver dollars. I have tried to continue growing the plant in memory of her. My crop this year was bountiful, and as I have done over the past few years, I called my favorite shop owner Christine, of Christine’s Creations, to offer her the “cash crop.” My energy level this summer has not been at its highest, so I hadn’t “shucked” the seed pods, a rather time-consuming but necessary process. Each blossom’s seeds are encased in a pod, and when the pod is removed, the seeds fall away, leaving the shiny coin. I almost felt guilty, recalling the summer that sister-in-law Evelyn gave us 100 ears of corn! I didn’t look that gift horse in the mouth, and Christine apparently was of the same mind. In a couple of hours, she sent me a photo of a beautiful wreath she had created with those silvery coins. A true Christine Creation. I must wonder what she did with the seeds. This unique plant is of the mustard seed family, famous since Biblical times for being nature’s smallest seed. There is little resemblance, since the tiny mustard seed can become a tree that could grow to a height of 30 feet. That won’t happen with a money plant.

Friend Pam is a plant lover, active in a garden club. Every year when her milkweed hosts its monarch caterpillar/butterfly visitors, I am envious. She has graciously given me some milkweed seeds, and I look forward to experimenting with this interesting act of nature come springtime. There is an old wives’ tale about gifts from nature’s botanical bounty. The recipient shouldn’t say “thank you,” else the seeds won’t come up or the plant will die. In my case, those tragedies can easily happen whether my appreciation is expressed or not. We shall see. In the meantime, Pam knows that I am grateful. I will try to keep in mind another tip from my grandmother’s gardening days. When planting, place three seeds in each spot. One is for critters, one is subject to rot, and one is to grow.

Mark Twain had a friend named Charles Dudley Warner, and in his essay “My Summer in a Garden” are these words: “To own a bit of ground, to scratch it with a hoe, to plant seeds, and watch the renewal of life – this is the commonest delight of the race, the most satisfactory thing a man can do.” And these ageless words from Genesis give us hope, in every season. “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” These words from the Sermon on the Mount give us pause to ponder: “The meek shall inherit the earth.” We have to wonder who would want it once we have managed to destroy it. Perhaps those who helped to destroy have gone to other planets to wreak their devastation there. If so, we can only hope they took seeds with them, but left some for the meek as well.

Juanita Hughes is the City Historian of Woodstock and a regular columnist for the Cherokee Tribune. This column was originally published in the Cherokee Tribune and Ledger News.