Eighty-seven and still growing

Southern Living, Spring 2002 by Thigpen, Charlie

With dirty hands, dusty boots, and sweat-soaked clothes, Drew Collier feels at peace. To him working in the garden is therapy.

Drew Collier, a resident of Cleveland Alabama, is a man on a mission. As winter ends, the Southern soil gradually warms, and he gets restless. It's time to put one of his Cub tractors into high gear and break ground. You see, 87-year-- old Drew grows about 12 acres of vegetables, and there is little time to waste. Although the plants are set out in the spring, he's been hard at work for a while. In February, he starts his tomato and pepper plants from seed in a plant house.

Drew believes in quantity-last year he set out 700 'Park's Whopper Improved' tomato plants. He says they are crack resistant, extremely flavorful, and almost blemish free. Drew just can't wait to harvest that first batch of tomatoes. Although they produce throughout the summer, the first three to five tomatoes that form on the bush are always the biggest and best. He considers them his prize tomatoes. Drew picks them when they're pinkish and just beginning to turn red, letting them ripen in the shade or on the picnic table in the backyard.

Last year was one of his best pepper years. One morning he picked 5 bushels of 'Goliath Sweet' hybrid and 'Park's Whopper Improved' peppers. That crop was so large because summer rains came often, keeping his garden green and fresh.

Besides tomatoes and peppers, he fills his garden with corn, okra, squash, and beans. Every year he's one of the first to get his corn to the market. That's because he tries to plant it at the end of March. He looks for a few warm days when the soil is dry enough to work. Sometimes you can see him in his overcoat bouncing across the field on a tractor as a light rain falls.

He also tends to 200 blueberry bushes. They form a hedge along one side of the farm and load up with plump, juicy berries. Fig trees and muscadine vines also fill the garden. This year he put up more than 600 pints of jams and preserves. He sells some of his produce at market but gives all the jams and preserves away to his friends and family. "When you teach at the same school for 42 years, you have lots of children and an awfully big family," Drew says. About once every few weeks, one of his "kids" from school stops by for a visit-some of them are now 70 years old.

This man is a tireless worker. He says one day he started canning at about noon, and the next time he looked at the clock it was 2:30 a.m. Although he doesn't always keep such long hours, he never slows down. Drew treats his plants the same way he did his students when he was an English teacher and principal. He carefully nurtures each one, giving it everything it needs to be the very best it can be. Drew can't quit teaching-it's in his blood. He's always full of advice about farming and life.

Rows of colorful flowers line the front side of the garden closest to his house. After years of planting, he's decided that Inca Series marigolds are the best ones for him. Their fist-- size orange and yellow blooms form a low hedge. Dahlias, some with flowers 10 to 12 inches in diameter, are also incredibly showy.

Early in the morning Drew loves to walk down the rows, inspecting the mammoth blooms and watching the slow-moving bumblebees that cling to the dew-covered petals. All the flowers were planted for his wife. When she became homebound, Drew began planting them so she could look out their picture window and see the colorful blooms.

Besides growing vegetables and flowers, Drew has 10 acres of grass to cut. He likes mowing because it makes the yard look neat. If he gets tired of sitting on the tractor, he simply hops off and works in the garden.

Even at an advanced age, Drew has great vision. He's still planting shade trees, not for himself, but for his grandchildren to enjoy. In 1993 a man laughed at him for planting a tree. The man asked, "Do you actually think you'll enjoy the shade from that tree?" Today that tree is about 30 feet tall, and Drew can enjoy its shade-if and when he takes a break. CHARLIE THIGPEN

DREW'S FAVORITES

'Park's Whopper Improved' tomatoes

'Silver King' corn (white)

'Merit' corn (yellow)

'Goliath Sweet' hybrid peppers

'Kentucky Wonder' pole beans