ILLAHE Kay Atwood

The Story of Settlement in the Rogue River Canyon


We grew everything. That land down there will grow anything. It'll do a pretty good job of it, without water. We didn't have any irrigation. There is less water now. Less water in the stream. We'd usually start about the first of March. The season would vary sometimes two or three weeks at a time. After working the ground, we'd plant our early vegetables. Lots of time we'd raise winter crops too. Late in the Fall, about the first week in September, we would sow a large area of three or four acres. Just broadcast the seed, like you would grain. It would come right away. First rain we'd get, it would start growing. By spring those turnips would be big. We fed that to the stock and to ourselves and to the miners. As soon as the weather would permit to work the ground, we'd take up all those turnips. Carrots and beets would stay in the ground all winter. We'd take them up and put in our regular crop. We always fertilized the ground well. Used barnyard manure. No compost, no chemicals. Some years we'd put the garden in here, some years we'd change and go down to the other end. A lot of seed we couldn't get. We'd send for them from the seed houses.