Fruit Cellars and Potato Pits

My Dad always started early in the year to ensure his family would have enough food during the coming winter.  In February he pruned his fruit trees.  He had a lot of apple trees, some pears, peaches, prunes, apricots.  Spraying would come later.  We had grape vines, black currants, rhubarb, multiplier onions, Jerusalem artichokes, curly leaf parsley (which we began to eat with our bread and milk as soon as it was big enough to pick), and strawberries that came back every spring.  In early March, as soon as the ground began to thaw, he plowed several plots of ground so he could plant an enormous garden.

Of course, in those days, we wouldn’t go to the store and buy fresh vegetables year around so he was anxious to get seeds into the ground so we could have fresh food as early as possible.  He always planted peas in March and as soon after the peas as he deemed it wise to do so, he planted onion, radish, lettuce, carrot and other seeds.

Amaranth (Pig Weed)

It has a red root.

My Dad’s favorite supper was bread and milk so that was what we ate most of the time but it was a little monotonous so we added other things to have variety.  We all liked to eat onions with our bread and milk.  Obviously, if we were going to eat onions all winter and also be able to cook with onions, he had to plant a fairly sizable amount of onions.  But we were always eager for spring and new green things that grew early.  I remember my dad bringing in “pig weeds” for mom to cook.  We’d put a little salt, pepper, butter and a touch of vinegar on our pig weeds and they were delicious.  I wish now that I had paid more attention to what pig weeds looked like and where to find them.  Sadly, I wouldn’t be able to identify them now.  But, it was always something we looked forward to then because we were hungry for fresh, green food.

Also, he would bring in water cress from the ditch bank.  Water cress is an early spring vegetable.  Oh my, how we loved to get fresh water cress to eat with our bread and milk.  Now, of course, we can buy watercress in the larger grocery stores all year. (I do love watercress in salads and on sandwiches.)  Daddy would also look for new, tender dandelion greens.  We loved those as much as the pig weeds.  We seasoned them just like we seasoned the pig weeds and thought it was food fit for kings.

Of course, it doesn’t take radishes long to grow to an edible size.  He planted both red and white radishes and green onions and we loved all of them.  The lettuce also got to an edible size very quickly.  The peas began to bear in May.  Oh, how I loved to go out in the pea patch, sit on the ground and shell out those wonderful little green balls that tasted so sweet, fresh off the vine.  In the meantime, Daddy had planted potatoes, squash, cabbage, celery, turnips, parsnips, beets, Swiss chard, tomatoes, green beans, summer squash (both white and yellow).  I don’t remember any zucchini.  Perhaps zucchini was not available in those days.  We had lots of cucumbers (for eating with our bread and milk, as well as with other meals) and he grew dill for pickles.

We always had chickens, lambs, pigs, rabbits and cows.  We could always count on having milk, cream, butter, cottage cheese, etc.  Our cow(s) would have a calf every spring.  When it was a bull calf, we butchered it in the fall.  We butchered a pig and a lamb, as well.

As you may have guessed, the garden, orchard and meat items had to be taken care of to see us through the winter, so the next priority was to have a way to store/preserve them.

Daddy was always up early and in the summer, as soon as it was light he was out in the garden checking the ripeness of the vegetables.  If there were peas or string beans to be picked, he would call the kids out to help pick and then we would bring chairs out of the house, put them in the shade on the west side of the house, and we would shell peas or snap the stem ends and pull the strings off the green beans to get them ready to be put into bottles that would then go into the pressure canner for winter use.

When the corn was ready, Daddy always picked it.  I don’t think he trusted his kids’ ability to determine whether or not it was the special ripeness for canning.  But after he had picked the corn, we all gathered on the west side of the shade to husk the corn.  Of course, all of the kids pitched in, with whatever ability level they had, and helped mom with the canning.  Believe me, it was always a group activity.  Of course, the fruit ripened and it also had to be preserved.

I should add here that we always ate whatever amount we wanted of the fresh veggies and fruit in addition to what went into bottles.

Daddy built cellars or “pits” to preserve the vegetables and fruit that we didn’t bottle.  He always built separate cellars for fruit and vegetables.  He would dig a hole in the ground, probably about three feet deep, maybe four feet wide and eight or ten feet long, then build a wood frame to keep it from collapsing—also to hold the “roof” of the cellar.  He put dividers in to keep the veggies separate, i.e., potatoes in one, onions in another, squash in another and so on.  The roof over the pit had a little slope but not a lot, because he put dirt on top of the boards for insulation.  He made a “door” as part of the roof so we could pull it open to enter the pit.  (Remember, there has to be room to move around in the pit after you put the vegetables inside.)  He put plenty of straw on the floor for insulation and after the veggies were in place, another thick layer of straw on top.  He also had burlap bags that he would lay on top to protect everything from freezing.  If my folks had an old blanket that was totally beyond use, he would use that, as well.  Then he had to build another for the fruit---apples and pears.  He never mixed the apples.  Each variety had its own space.  The “pits” lasted several years but eventually the boards would start to rot and he would have to start over.

Daddy had dreams of building a rock cellar with stairs going down into it.  He acquired to rock and dug the hole but he had to spend so much time growing food for his family and trying to get jobs to earn money to buy shoes and coats for his kids that he never did get the cellar built.  There is a marvelous cellar by the house where Mary James lives here in Loa.  When I see that cellar I think of my dad and how he would have loved to have one like that.  When I learn how to use my phone to take pictures I will take a picture of the cellar and then you can see what a really cool cellar looks like.  If I could draw, I’d draw a picture of it.  Also, I would draw a picture of the “pits” so you could see what they looked like but inasmuch as I don’t have that talent, I hope my description in words paints the picture.

I was the youngest of seven children and I was 14 when my parents got their first refrigerator.  You may ask, “How did you keep milk without a refrigerator?”  That is a good question.  Of course, the winter isn’t a problem but it is possible to have cool milk to drink even in the summer.  The window sills in home built back in the l920’s and 1930’s were wider than window sills in homes now.  We had a window on the north side of the house.  In the summer, my mother would open the north window a few inches and put cool water in a pan that was round and maybe three or four inches deep.  Then she would put a pitcher with a cover, full of milk, into the pan with the water.  We always had flour sacks, and she would get the sack dripping wet in cool water and wrap the pitcher all the way to the top with the wet sack.  The water would “wick” up the sack, the north breeze would keep the sack cool and the cool, wet sack kept the milk cool.  We always checked the water level and couple of times a day to be sure the milk would be cool.  The window was large enough that we could have two pitchers cooling at one time.  I should probably mention that they were large pitchers.  The milk was not ice cold but plenty cool and delicious. 

We had all the meat we wanted.  As mentioned above we had a variety of animals.  We didn’t have any way to freeze the meat so my mother bottled a lot of it in the pressure cooker.  She bottled, beef, port, lamb, chicken and rabbit.  Oh, my goodness!  It was so-o good.  It was good on sandwiches or to eat with potatoes and gravy, in soups or whatever.

And, when Daddy killed a pig, he would cut out the portions for ham and bacon.  Daddy always cured our bacon and ham.  It was quite a process.  He made a rub with brown sugar, salt, pepper and I don’t know what else and he would rub and rub and rub that into the meat.  Then he would wrap the meat in clean flour sacks and hang them on the north side of the house, up high, under the eaves where “the sun don’t shine.”  After a couple of weeks he’d get the meat down and go through the same process of rubbing and rubbing the mixture into the meat.  He also had a large “needle” looking thing that he could put some liquid “rub” inside the meat.  He would, again, hang the meat up under the eaves.  A couple of weeks later he would do it again.  I don’t remember how many times he did that but it was several times.  Oh my goodness, that was such good bacon and ham.

All things considered, I pretty good life when I was growing up.  Yes, we had to work hard, including the kids, but it was very satisfying and the rewards were great.  For instance, we had an ice house.  In the winter when the reservoir was frozen my dad would go to the reservoir and cut blocks of ice.  As I recall, the ice was about eight inches thick.  He would cut squares about two feet by two feet square and load it onto the “bob sled”.  I believe the horses belonged to several people so they would take turns using the horses.  He would load up the bob sled and the horses would pull the sled home.  Daddy would have a lot of sawdust on the floor—probably about 24 inches.  Then he would place the squares of ice on the sawdust, leaving a space around the edges and between the blocks of ice.  When he had a layer of ice he would pour a layer of sawdust all over and around the ice.  He would do this over and over again until the ice and sawdust were about four feet from the top of the icehouse.  Obviously, he had to make a number of trips to the reservoir and cut multiple blocks of ice.  It was hard and cold work but he was willing to do that for the rewards.  Often, the ice would last until mid or late August.  We could have cold water for drinking, freeze ice cream (YUMMY), mold jello and keep the homemade root beer cold for drinking.

It was a good life.  I wish I had tried harder to learn about some of the things we had available to us in order to be better prepared in case of emergency.  Although, I have no doubt that if it were necessary, I would learn very quickly how to cope.  Hope this helps a little.  Love you.