3 Gardens

Growing up we always had gardens. Adding in the fact we lived in the country we had access to every vegetable and fruit grown in the area. We would harvest our own home-grown food, buy bushels and bushels of fruits and vegetables, and pick cherries originally from our friends the Bakers and later the Reinebergs (friends who were close to one of the Von Trapp Family children of The Sound of Music fame).

Interesting Facts About Cherry Trees | Hunker
The Reinebergs' orchard looked like this in the spring.
My stepmother always had a small patch of rhubarb next to the house that was probably not more than 10 feet square. It was surprisingly productive and we not only ate many rhubarb pies each year, but frequently there was enough rhubarb left over to freeze. A word of advice - never eat rhubarb without plenty of sugar nearby. My recollection is that it's very bitter. One thing I've never bothered to look into, it was grown on the side of the house, an area that was not exposed to the sun very much. I guess they needed to be grown that way where we lived.

Where to Plant Your Rhubarb » Removing the Mystery

My father leased a half-acre from the local school district for property adjacent to ours, a half-acre we gardened every year. It's surprising how much food can come out of a half-acre. We grew corn, green and yellow beans, different squashes, carrots, lettuce, swiss chard, turnips, radishes, etc. On a separate piece of land on our property we also had s strawberry patch, the 3rd garden, which was more complicated to maintain so my father usually did it.

House in the middle. Garden would have been all that cultivated land at the bottom.
To supplement this food we went around to local farms as mentioned before to purchase peaches, pears, apples, and corn tens of bushels at a time. We'd fill the back of our Suburban with as many bushel baskets as the space allowed. Plus my father purchased half a cow most years. I grew with 20% of the free space in the basement devoted to food storage and because our freezers weren't large enough he rented a locker from the local butcher. My folks were definitely committed to being prepared.

PS We also were on well water.

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