Resident has finely-tuned gardens for seven decades
Green Thumbs
West Fort Hill – He started hoeing in the garden before he began school.
By the age of eight, he could plow with a logging horse behind a No. 8-turner turning plow – and if he accidentally threw a rock and it hit him in the head, he would just lay there and cry until it quit hurting and then get back up and plow some more.
That was quite a while ago.
Today, 80-year-old Jay Stewart can still be found in the garden.
His garden on West Fort Hill isn’t near as big as the one he used to tend as a boy on West Buffalo. At the ripe old age of 10, Stewart was not only responsible for the garden, but he was also responsible for milking two cows, feeding a horse and 2-3 hogs, and then feeding and gathering eggs for 1,000 hens.
He recalls how his mom Maggie Lee Hyde Stewart was always raising more than they needed and sharing with the neighbors and family members.
“There were seven of us growing up,” Stewart said. “We always raised enough potatoes for the family and some for the neighbors as well.”
Stewart remembers that his daddy Ralph was a welder. He made himself a potato plow and worked an acre of potatoes. He also recalls the time he raised a garden on Hooper Bald with his uncle Claude Hyde.
He remembers that it was hard to get much to grow at that altitude.
Stewart enjoys gardening. He gives the Lord credit for his garden.
“You put the seed in the ground, but the Lord blesses it,” Stewart explained. “He blesses it every time you work in your garden.”
Yet, he worries about future farmers.
“If the farmers go down, there will be a lot of hungry people,” Stewart stressed. “You farm to make food. You can buy food with a dollar, but you can’t eat a dollar.”
Stewart and his wife Alice enjoy their produce from the garden. They can and freeze some of it for the winter, but most of it is shared with their family and neighbors.
“The good Lord produces,” said Stewart. “If I have more than I need, I give it away.”