![]() ![]() Most cole family vegetables are available in six and nine packs. These are very cold-hardy and will produce harvests until very early spring. The crops of the cole family such as the plants of collard, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and brussels sprout can now be set out. September brings us the best of both worlds to enjoy in the garden world. Some of the warm weather vegetables are still being harvested and there is still plenty of days to sow and set out fall plants and vegetables. There are not many insects and weeds to hinder the newly sown vegetables recently planted. The garden soil is workable and receptive to the vegetables of autumn. The garden in September is a place of comfort and joy with temperatures laced with lower humidity and some rainy days mixed in to season out the cool weather vegetable varieties. As we move past the halfway mark of the month, we will see a larger amount of colors such as pink, purple, yellow, orange, red and burgundy as the artist of autumn displays his handiwork in the horizon of autumn. With the sun setting a minute earlier each evening we can already see a small amount of added color in the sunset. The leaves of some silver maples already display a hint of gold. The summer annuals are already making their slowdown and signaling us that they know autumn is not far away. Days are still getting shorter by a minute each evening and soon there will be more nip in the September air as we progress farther into the month. So, let’s be proud of her and know, “they don’t make ‘em like her anymore and without her, you and I might not even be here today.”Īutumn will be arriving in three more weeks. ![]() Who might this wonder woman be? Maybe our Mama, our Grandmama, or other kin, who led the way to whatever we are today a true mountain woman a legend in her own time. Whatever the case, she knew that with coming of the morn’, she would be ready to “go to war” once again and “fight the good fight” all over again. Only then could she kick back in her rocking chair, relax, wonder what was left undone and what tomorrow would bring. Her only rest came at the end of the day well after dark when all the work was done and all the kids were safe in bed. When she laid that look on her man, he looked up in the sky and asked his Maker, “Lord, what have I done now?” She taught her kids “why and what for” with no more than a certain look that could burn a hole in a two-by-four. Her word was “law” and anyone who crossed her path better have some heavy back-up or there would be H… to pay. ![]() She washed clothes in a number two washtub over an out-door fire, ironed them with a flat-iron heated on the wood-burning cookstove, grew the garden, stored food for winter and shot the shotgun as good as any man sometimes at her man. If you have a submission for Reader Diary, email it to John Peters at old saying, “Woman’s work is never done” was a fact of life in the backwoods of the Blue Ridge Mountains of yesterday and if we could take a look, what might we find? She was Queen of her Castle (such as it was) and a hard-working soul who “kept” the house, chopped the firewood, worked the fields along-side her man, raised the kids and cooked the meals (three a day, 365 days a year). Editor’s Note: Reader Diary is a periodic column written by local residents, Surry County natives, and readers of The Mount Airy News. ![]()
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