JAYESS (AP) — It’s not how beautiful a vegetable looks that tells Robert Wilson whether it’s ready to be harvested, it’s how it feels. Wilson is blind.

His lack of sight did not prevent the 77-year-old Wilson from planting 31 different vegetables, legumes, fruit and herbs in a nearly one-acre garden behind his home in Jayess.

‘‘You can look at any two rows and tell a blind man made them,’’ he said, ‘‘but everything I ate today came out of this garden except a little bit of meat. We buy very little outside of the garden.’’

Wilson’s loss of vision is caused by macular degeneration. He is totally blind in one eye with extremely limited vision in the other. Macular degeneration causes deterioration of the macula, the paper-thin tissue at the back of the eye where light sensitive cells send visual signals to the brain, which interprets the signals as vision.

‘‘There’s nothing they can do for me,’’ he said. ‘‘It will continue to get worse.’’

What will come will come, Wilson said, but he’s not going to change his routine because of it.

His day normally begins before dawn. As the first rays of sunshine break over the horizon, Wilson is sitting in a chair next to the garden quietly waiting. By the time the veil of darkness has been lifted, he is crawling on hands and knees leaving behind tufts of choking grass and other weeds.

‘‘I can’t bend over,’’ he said. ‘‘Every inch of every row I’ve crawled to prune.’’

Wilson will spend no less than four hours a day on the ground during this critical stage of growth.

‘‘Now I’ve done my part and it’s in the good Lord’s hands,’’ he said.

Wilson was born and raised in the Carmel community of Lawrence County, but left in 1965. He traveled to more than 36 states in his field of industrial construction and had a garden in 12 of them.

‘‘Anywhere I put down roots long enough, I would make a garden,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s a way of life for me. Even when I couldn’t have a garden I would plant things. As a supervisor, I would know a mound of dirt wouldn’t be used for months and I would toss mustard seed on it. They never could figure out where those were coming from. I just like to see stuff grow.’’

He returned to Lawrence County permanently in 2005 and purchased the home where he lives now. A garden was one of his first improvements.

Wilson said he dislikes store-bought vegetables because of the preservatives and other chemicals. He likes his plants organic and fresh from the garden.

‘‘It just tastes better. Clean,’’ he said.

It’s all done by feel, he said. He has spent his life gardening and has that experience to guide him through the crooked rows.

‘‘You learn to know the difference between a pea, bean, tomato stem or anything like that from a weed or grass.

‘‘The only thing bothers me about that is I don’t know the difference between the feel of a dead snake or a live snake, but I think I would learn that real quick,’’ Wilson said.

Wilson said he feels the generations following him have forgotten the importance and pride of gardening and producing one’s own food, but he hopes that will be the silver lining of the present economic slump.

‘‘The way the economy is, I feel if a blind man can do it there are plenty of others who can find the time,’’ he said.

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