Getting The Fields Ready For Spring

 

Coming down highway 23 in Virginia today I noticed a farmer out working in the field just off the road. Since he is the first person I have spotted doing such a thing this year, he caught my interest. I turned around and drove back to see more. He spotted me stopped along the road and looked up.  I waved and he waved back. "Can I come over," I shouted. He waved me over with a wave of his hand. The man stopped working as I walked up the dirt path that lead to his field. "You're that photographer fellow from over at Kingsport," he said in a matter of fact manner. "How'd you know that," I asked. Seems I had taken some photos of him and his giant pumpkins many years back.  He got his picture in the newspaper and he had never forgotten about it. As we talked, I got reacquainted with Cline Qualls of Speers Ferry, Virginia. Apparently the newspaper photo had made him a celebrity for a time. He was spreading mulch and generally getting his garden fields ready for spring planting. He still grows the big pumpkins, along with corn, strawberries, onions, potatoes, etc....you get the picture. But, the vegetable he was proudest of today was sweet potatoes. "I've got this kind of potato that nobody's seen before," he said. "I sent it off to a fellow who examined it and said he'd never seen one just like it either.  He put it in his catalog and named it after me."  Mr. Qualls has spent most of his 76 years growing something or other and enjoying it.  "Except," he explains, "nowadays I have to watch that people don't steal my things."  He told me a story about one incident in particular. A woman had tried to purchase a large pumpkin from Mr.Qualls, but he needed to keep it for the seeds to plant the next year. The woman asked how he would even move the pumpkin anyway. He told her about rolling it onto a blanket and having someone help pick it up by holding the corners of the blanket. The woman left and next morning his pumpkin was gone. "Doggone if I didn't even tell her how to steal it," he laughed.

Comments

[Katrina Presley]

That's my daddy, he is the hardest working man I have ever known. He enjoys his gardening, bees and flowers and loves to share information, stories and the fruits of his labor.

[Vickie Qualls]

He is one of the most unique people I have ever met. He never meets a stranger always willing to chat, if you have a question about farming most likely he has the answer.