A master gardener in Virginia shares his vegetable bounty

When Michael Mekenie was growing up, no one he knew bought vegetables at the grocery store. Paying for vegetables would have been like paying for gravity or sunlight. Who would do that?

No, in the 1940s in Fairmont, W.Va., the Mekenies and everyone around them grew their own tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, zucchini, peppers and more.

“They called it Tomato Plant Hill,” Michael told me as we surveyed the garden behind the house the 87-year-old lives in now, in North Franconia. “All the people were Italian except my family.”

Michael’s family was Eastern European. Michael’s father was what he calls “an underground farmer” — that is, a coal miner. His parents were aboveground farmers, too, growing their own produce.

That’s just what you did on Tomato Plant Hill: You planted, you nurtured, you harvested, you canned. What you couldn’t eat you sold to those unfortunate folks who had no interest in gardening, no luck or no access to their own patch of earth.

“There were probably seven, eight or more places that sold tomatoes in a four-block area,” Michael said. “My family sold not only tomato plants but cabbage plants.”

Michael was the youngest of 10 children and the only boy. The soil is in his blood — he can’t not garden — which is why every spring he plants thousands of seeds, tends them, then gives away the harvest.

“If you can grow a few, you can grow a lot,” he said.

And he does grow a lot. This year, Michael will give away hundreds and hundreds of tomatoes, peppers and zucchini, placing them in a laundry basket on a bench in front of his house, next to a sign reading “Free Veggies.”

He gives away little tomato plants, too, the starter kits he grows from seed in a back bedroom.

He likes to plant his first seeds in eight-ounce coffee cups around St. Patrick’s Day. The seedlings typically go in the ground around Mother’s Day.

“Everything is a little late this year for me,” he said.

Michael folded back some deer fencing, and we entered the 50-by-50-foot garden, walking on the black plastic sheeting he puts down to control weeds. He moved slowly — he’s had both knees replaced.

There were rows of vine tomatoes on one side of the garden, bush tomatoes on the other. Most of the tomatoes were still green, though a crimson blush peeked through in a few places.

Yellow squash blossoms presaged where squash would form. A few zucchini were already luxuriating along the ground.

Michael’s lived here since 1986, alone since his wife, Helen, died in 2019. Together they raised five daughters. He has eight grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.

He created this garden. He cut down trees to let the sun in, then spread out load after load of wood chips to kill the English ivy that choked the ground. He brought in dirt. It took him six years until it was ready.

Every winter he orders seeds from Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Albion, Maine.

“His catalogue is like my bible,” Michael said.

A certified master gardener, Michael worked in retail, first at Kmart then in the garden department at the Springfield Home Depot. He loved that job. On Saturdays, customers would line up a dozen deep to pick his brain. If he could coax life from the soil, they could.

Even after Michael retired in 2015, he’d return to Home Depot to see his old workmates, bringing with him some of his garden’s bounty to give away.

“I used to take cucumbers,” he said. “They’re easy to grow. After a while, they said, ‘No, we don’t need any more cucumbers.’”

He laughed.

As adept as Michael is, setbacks do occur occasionally. This year, the heating pad that his jalapeño seedlings sat on under a grow light suffered a power surge, burning some of the tiny plants. He planted the survivors in some raised beds, and they’re doing okay. So are the spicy Asian peppers he’s growing especially for the Vietnamese staff who cut his nails at the nail salon in the Hayfield Shopping Center.

“Everything’s a little late this year,” he said again.

But everything is ripening. In a week or so, Michael will be picking dozens of vegetables a day and putting them out front. People in the neighborhood will help themselves and tell their friends. Those friends will tell their friends.

“I sell out every day,” Michael said.