xt7jh98zct60_46 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7jh98zct60/data/mets.xml https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7jh98zct60/data/2015ms086.dao.xml Bevins, Martha 0.05 Cubic Feet 55 items archival material 2015ms086 English University of Kentucky The physical rights to the materials in this collection are held by the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center.  Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Martha Bevins letters to Tom McCarthy Radio broadcasting. Agriculture -- Kentucky. Birds Women air pilots. 1958 August 28 text 1958 August 28 2016 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7jh98zct60/data/2015ms086/Box_ms_42/Folder_1/Item_46/1958_8_28_gardening_and_Hollywood_p1.pdf 1958 August 28 1958 1958 August 28 section false xt7jh98zct60_46 xt7jh98zct60 W, - .
Morning View Kentucky
. x 28 august 1958

Hello Mr. McCarthy, .
Oh those days when the mud didn't threaten to engulf me, I have
been busy in the garden area of the pond—field. Though my gardening
years are few and the ways of a growing vegetable not infrequently
fill me with confusion, I have noticed one odd result of fliis season's
rain and consistently high humidity.
Mo crop has been merely average, or just fair—to-middling this
summer. They are all either quite superb or perfectly horrible. The
weeds, incidentally, fall in the superb category. For a little
over a week it Was too muddy to touch them and they availed themselves
of the opportunity to take off with such a fine running start that
I have been unable to overtake them, deSpite the assistance of a
power cultiVator. .
My tomatoes are awful. There must be a million green ones — more
or less —- large enough to ripen, but most of them refuse to do so,
turning instead a ghastly greyish-green, then collapsing into
mushy nothingness. The few that ripen are watery and weak in flavor.
The lima beans presented a problem through no fault of their own.
Some one at the seed company became confused, and I discovered one
day that my bush limas were prowling like so many kudzu vines. I
pick lima pods from the corn and the green pepper plants, and others
have tangled among the recalcitrant tomatoes. Some even went so far
as to intertwine with poison oak along the fence.
That poison oak, by the way, has its merits. Whenever I plan to
remove it, I have a small debate with myself, and it remains. Birds

, thrive on its berries, it turns a lovely color in the fall, and no
one is going to climb a fence enveloped in poison oak to raid the
garden. I am untouched by it.

‘”<:;¥he green beans rivalled my best weeds in exuberance, the little

stalks tilting uncartainly under their loads. after preparing
several bushels of them for the freeZer, I found myself resolving
bitterly, as I do each year, not to plant them again. I am not the
philosopher Thoreau Was about his famous beans; but then he didn't
have to snibble them up for the freezer. I enjoy planting them
and feeding them and cultivating them, and even picking them. However,
I quickly reach a high point of irritation when I must sit and
snap and snap and snap them. I tried reading as I worked, which
proved most disasterous, since a close Watch must be kept on the
beans themselves. Later I experimented with pursuing an interesting
train of thought, which was almost as unsatisfactory, for I
concentrated on my thinking until my eyes no longer saw beans.

 r‘ I ‘ V i. l "
z -2- I
" The most fantastically successful product of the garden is the

corn.
I made myself nervous by trying a new hybrid, then watched with
increasing alarm as it soared skyward, and, remembering the bush
limas which weren't bush limas, began to be afraid another error
had given me field corn. By.the time it towered high above my head,
and massive ears began to form, Several to the stalk, I was sure
my fears were correct. ,
a neighbor was with me when I picked the first ear and we both
agreed it was the first time we had ever seen anything, either '
flower or vegetable, that looked as pretty as its picture in the
seed catalog. I have eaten many kinds of corn in many places,
and I am merely making a factual statement when I Say that this
surpasses all have ever tasted. Others agree with me.
I am frantically eating it, and freezing it, and giving it away,
for there must be tons of it, and it is so very good that it
should be eaten and not allOWed to grow old. If it were not so
far to the Farmer’s Mart, I would be tempted to stack corn like
cord wood in the station wagon and haul it over there to sell. I
have never sold anything in Such a manner, and think it would be
a pleasant experience.

. 1 “fly
I meticulously follow the routine method or corn freezing —-
peeling it, and blanching it (and carefully stabbing it as you
suggeSted) and putting it in plastic bags, to the great amusement
of my neighbors. hey peel off the coarse outer husks, turn back
the inner ones sufficently to pull out most of the silk and cut
off the tip, then close the husks tightly with a rubber band
and pop it into the freezer without benefit of boiling Water or
plasyic bag.
They claim the corn has far more flavor, and insist that once
I have utilized their system, I will want no Other, partly because
it is so much quicker and easier, but mostly because the corn
tastes so much better. ~‘
I have frozen some as they directed and am going to eat it in a few
daysto find out for myself. will report on the experiment.
Best wishes to all, _M .

fill/WW}

Thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated your trip to French Lick, and
was amused by your struggles in Madison, though I would not walk
the width of the road to see all Hollywood piled in a heap. Was
unavoidably in constant contact with assorted movie stars some years
ago in Hollywood and didn't like them. Can't endure their

, me-and-God attitude, and their feeling of conferring an honor upon ’
one by an invitation to watch them do a scene. Would rather meet
polio Salk or submarine Rickover.