Summertime Stringing

Of the beans. I've been getting string beans (green beans) in my CSA box lately and quickly realized that stringing beans is another one of those memory joggers. And, not nearly as much fun as it was when I helped my grandmother with this summer chore.

We had relatives who were mill workers AND farmers when I was growing up. Every summer, my grandmother and I and my brothers when they came to join our family, spent weeks 'putting up' fresh off the farm vegetables for the winter.

We put up corn and green beans and peas (of all sorts) and tomatoes and pickles (cucumbers) and water melon rind pickles (so good!). And then there were the preserves- strawberry, peach, fig. And the fruit- peaches, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries.

Our early summers were filled with canning/freezing these summer delights that we enjoyed year 'round thanks to Grandmother.

We would shuck bushel upon bushel upon bushel upon bushel of corn and Grandmother would scrape the kernels off the cobs. Her glasses and kitchen windows would be covered in corn spittle. It was hilarious! She put up the best corn I've ever eaten in my life to this very day. No matter what veggie or fruit she was working on, Grandmother took care and stayed with it until the job was completed to perfection. All the while humming her favorite hymns.

I don't put up bushels of anything around here. I've tried, but it's just not the same. I probably didn't pay enough attention to Grandmother's techniques or maybe I just don't have what it takes to take this on each summer.

Then there's the fact that the fruit and veggies that are made available to us these days taste nothing like the fruits and veggies Grandmother had access to. She chose all her produce from farmers who did not use pesticides. Most of them still didn't back then. We could eat all those goods canned with love by her hands without fear of the food making us sick over time.

Nowadays, we have to join a CSA and not all of them are certified organic. And, the ones that say they are, might be lying through their teeth. Even if they are telling the truth, who's to say that the very dirt they grow their veggies in isn't full of some sort of chemical death from neighboring farms or from pollution brought to the ground via rain or some other way that is known or unknown to the growers and to us?

I'm afraid that we are getting to that point in time where we have no escape from chemicals in our food and our water and our air. There is simply nowhere to run.

We didn't know how good we had it back in those days. Back when a good bit of our summer days were spent shucking and stringing and shelling and even picking. We could eat anything we picked right off the vine if we wanted to without downing more chemical pesticide than fruit.

A good many of our summer days were spent in laughter and love and learning from the company and wisdom of Grandmother while up to our waists in fresh, pesticide free produce.

Do y'all put up veggies?