In Tennessee where I grew up, there were animals, farms, wagons, mules.
I worked on a farm for a little bit.
I like to walk around. And I have a really big garden in Brooklyn. Growing tomatoes in my backyard feels very rewarding.
I'm amazed at how much my writing is improved when I step away from the computer, even in small amounts. If I'm stuck, I vacuum the living room or walk the dog. I'm amazed at what comes out of that... We have to realize that part of the writing life where we're sitting down at the computer is harvesting the crops, but you have to have planted them and watered them and created fertile soil - and that's a life.
When I pass a flowering zucchini plant in a garden, my heart skips a beat.
I don't spend my time on farms. I don't like the smell, to be honest.
I have memories of being on the farm with my grandfather.
My stepdad was a farmer, so growing up, during summer breaks, I woke up every morning and went to work. Harvesting tobacco, picking cucumbers, gathering watermelons from the patch, pulling up sweet potatoes... stuff like that.
There would be no advantage to be gained by sowing a field of wheat if the harvest did not return more than was sown.
In '38, this time I did a job for Mr. Stryker. I went on his payroll at about half the salary I was getting before, to cover what he called Harvest in Ohio.
I like to pick my own vegetables.
I grow my own vegetables and herbs. I like being able to tell people that the lunch I'm serving started out as a seed in my yard.
With hand on the spade and heart in the sky Dress the ground and till it; Turn in the little seed, brown and dry, Turn out the golden millet. Work, and your house shall be duly fed: Work, and rest shall be won; I hold that a man had better be dead Than alive when his work is done.
We grow our own vegetables.
I had a lot of jobs when I was younger. Where I grew up, there was a lot of agricultural jobs, so I worked on a lot of farms. I worked in the pea fields, harvesting peas.
As a child, the paddy field was my playground.
In Scotland, Dad grew courgettes which were the size of my leg. I'd step into the garden and it was like 'The Day of the Triffids.'
