Angelkeep’s earliest garden produce comes in the form of the Angelkeep onion patch. No lonely little petunia in Angelkeep’s onion patch, but new growth of green tops sprout from sets left in the ground in autumn of 2021.
They begin growing new tops from bulb remains long after the ancestral plants had been topped and the greens placed in the freezer for winter cooking. Yum. April brings on ground warmth, thus onions. New sets will be purchased and added, but fresh green ancestral Angelkeep onion tops will be eaten before garden shops have sets for sale. The process remains from the early days of Angelkeep gardening. Those older ancestor bulb greens are just as tasty as the new generation.
During winter days when the onion tops are devoured in things like breakfast scrambled, or added to a stew, additional Ancestral April items of interest had been discovered. Cold months reading old newspapers proved cozier than sitting on the snow-drifted patio dreaming of fresh onion tops.
Before sharing Ancestral April’s find, the February Funnies deserves some recognition. For instance, 1899’s February 22nd Bluffton newspaper shared the story of a Lancaster Township farmer who solved an irrigation need for his garden. He simply alternated rows of potatoes and onions. This farmer claimed (false news alert) the potato eyes watered from the close proximity of the onions, thus no additional watering needed.
This brought back an Angelkeep ancestor’s authoritarian advice that planting potatoes needed large spud chunks with at least two eyes to see (excuse the pun) a crop grow. Experimentation proved that wrong by planting only peelings. We ate the meat of the original potatoes, followed by the crop grown from the peels. The ancestor refused to believe peels grew spuds, to her dying day.
Ancestral onion time coincides with decision making on what will be planted for the current garden year. Jade beans for sure, seeds obtained from the Ossian Hardware. Winter’s reading found a gardener poem of February 6, 1879. It offers a hint at a never-before-tried garden variety.
“Will Pennies Grow?”
“Mr. Gardner, please to tell us, How soon pennies grow. Alfie has one in his pocket, Which we are going to sow. He fetched his little spade, Saying, “Gracie come with me, We will dig and plant this money-seed, And we’ll make it grow a tree.” We want a heap of pennies, To help the poor, you know. So tell us, please, dear gardener, How soon will pennies grow?”
Angelkeep would enjoy a tall tomato tree to pick from.
A Bluffton man by the name of Hugh Dougherty (no relationship known to Angelkeep) found himself required due to health to decline a request to assist Gen. Lew Wallace and committee to plant a soldier’s monument in downtown Indianapolis. Wallace also declined the offer. Except for a short story in Bluffton’s newspaper on April 21, 1887, history failed to record these two men as first choices to serve as commissioners to see to the “growth” or construction of Indiana’s Soldiers & Sailors Monument named “Liberty.”
Regardless, both men were significant, and Hugh a leader for decades toward growth of Bluffton, Wells County, and Indiana. He contributed the first financial sum from Wells County devoted toward the monument.
Last summer’s financial disaster attempting summer squash gardening led to Angelkeep declining to sow seed or plant starts for this much-desired vegetable. A bushel of the golden squash could have been purchased for the cost of planting seeds and starts which failed to produce but one small piece of produce. Once upon a time Angelkeep’s yellow summer squash grew faster than they could be grilled and devoured. Their soil location would be converted to additional Jade beans, a summer-long bean producer, of the finest length and taste, and better than any that Jack and the Beanstalk’s family could imagine.
Of course with the squash spot in the garden bed available for repurposing, there is always the option of planting a penny for Angelkeep’s first penny tree.
Mr. Daugherty is a Wells County resident who, along with his wife Gwen, enjoy their backyard and have named it “Angelkeep.”
