Remember When Planting A Garden Was A Chore?

It has been a crazy spring but a lot of you have your gardens planted already. Do you remember what a chore planting a garden was? Some people were lucky enough to have a horse that pulled a walking plow to work the ground for planting. Others had to spade the garden with a shovel (spade). I remember my mom hiring a couple of young neighbor boys to spade our garden, but at the time we lived in town so maybe using a walking plow pulled by a horse was not an option. Never having to do much more than experiment with either method, I can’t say that one was less work than the other. A walking plow pretty much says it all. Yes, it was pulled by a horse, but held in the ground and maneuvered by you. I think that there was an art to making a turn with the thing also. Once the ground was worked you got to proceed with the planting and watering. Just how did you water the garden before sprinklers? I think that the success of your planting had a lot to do with the weather the Good Lord decided to grant us. Gardening was not a hobby, rather a necessity, but I bet there was a lot of satisfaction felt when watching the garden grow and enjoying the produce.