This story is an excerpted from a workshop conducted in Yancey County, North Carolina in September 2026 with Charles Shelton

Well, we planted all kinds of things: corn, beans, cucumbers. They planted carrot beets and birds. They canned them, and they canned apples, and they made apple butter, and they made blackberries jam. Oh yeah! And we had sweet potatoes, and they made sweet potato butter. Found the sweet potatoes and harsh potatoes just all in there and then we had the acorns squash. We keep them and them butternut squash. We had black-eyed peas. We grow it in the corn to pick it.