I have to admit Fran that I am very curious and would know that as well William Threerivers -----Original Message----- From: Fran West-Powe <fwestpowe@gmail.com> To: CHEROKEE <CHEROKEE@rootsweb.com> Sent: Fri, Mar 7, 2014 3:54 pm Subject: [Cherokee Circle] Granddaddy's crops My Daddy who told us we are Cheery-kee, left the farm early on, picked strawberries in FL and fished for folks for a living so I never knew him to farm. Daddy did teach me how to live alone in our environment so that I did not need planted food. Granddaddy was another matter. With a wife and seventeen kids to feed, he planted literally from daylight to dark with his mule and plow. I remember our gourds were always removed first off, then re-planted elsewhere. Corn was next, sweet potatoes. Beans and squash were planted by Granny, as was okra . As best as I can recall all these years later, they were planted pretty much in that order. Granny planted her peppers, the little round ones that my people fancied. Today, Burpee has something that looks similar called birdseye. Granny took her "digging stick", dug holes with it, and we eleven grandchildren filled each hole with the number of seeds Granny wanted/needed. Granny made us all flour sack bags, filled them with the seeds she wanted each to plant and we followed her around dropping our seeds where, and as, she told us. The biggest one of us always followed with water bucket. Granddaddy was crazy about his sweet potatoes. He said he kept moving his vines up closer to the house due to the 'gators also liking sweet potatoes and the closer Granddaddy went to the house, the closer went the 'gators. Granddaddy started loosing his dogs, he called them Cherokee bulldogs, in the back yard when his potato vines were moved the last time. Do y'all believe those bulldogs attacked 'gators? I didn't see it, but then Granddaddy said it was so and the 'gators quit coming up near the house, so something worked. We still lived a lot off the land: wild greens, green plums, berries of many kinds, roots that grew down near the water, turtle, fish and squirrel; but the vegetables/peppers named above were planted using the methods described. One other item of possible interest: Granddaddy planted by the "moon". Now, being a child, I don't know what that meant. Maybe a reader knows and will explain. Fran Chinkapin ======*====== List archives http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index?list=cherokee ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to CHEROKEE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message