by Mack Samples
I know that many of you think the month of February is all about love, valentines, and buying those boxes of chocolate candy that are shaped like a heart. No doubt, the 14th of the shortest month provides an opportunity to make that person whom you have been lusting after (in your heart, of course) all winter aware of the fact that you are interested in them. I have no quarrel with that. That’s one form of “breaking ground.”
But for those of us who live close to the land and raise what we eat, February is the time for another kind of ground breaking. It’s time to plow! Some of you might say it’s too early but the generations who came before us in these hills did not think so. Both of my grandfathers always plowed in February if they could catch a day when the ground was dry enough. They both plowed with a horse-drawn turn plow. Those of you who are familiar with that implement will recall that it plowed pretty deep.
My maternal grandfather made a living on forty-six acres without benefit of any outside income. He raised everything he ate and he ate better than anyone I know about today. So it’s pretty hard to argue with his methods. He maintained that if you turn the soil in February it will bring the larvae of the insects up to the top of the ground. “They will lay right there,” he would say, “until the hard freezes, which are sure to come in late February and early March, kill them.” My paternal grandfather who lived just a few miles away made the exact same argument. Why was it so important to them to kill the larvae?
Well, you have to understand that those old boys were organic farmers before the term was ever invented. They used only natural fertilizer and did not have access to insecticides. They did not have to contend with the deer infestation in their day, but insects were a terrible problem for them. I remember hearing both of them say that “tater bugs would wipe out a patch in a week’s time” if you did not control them. About the only way they had of controlling the garden pests, once they started, was to shake them off into a can of oil.
When your life depends on what you raise in your garden, it’s pretty important to use every method you know to keep your plants healthy. Those wise old boys who put food on the table year after year figured that all of the insects they could kill by early plowing was that many they would not have to contend with during the growing season.
I know that February is a good time to sit by the fire, pop popcorn, and think about breaking ground on a new romance, or renewing the bonds of the heart you have already won but you had better think about getting on your long underwear, pulling on your overall jacket, finding a hat that you can pull down over your ears, and get behind your plow. It could very well cut down on your use of Blue Dragon, Sevin, and all of the other poisons that you have been spraying on your plants.
Mack Samples is a well-known writer who lives in Clay County. He is also a musician who tours with the Samples Brothers Band. Visit his website at www.macksamples.com.
