Mustard: Not Just for Your Hot Dog

This week I am going to talk a little bit about a truly versatile plant that grows in the Pry Garden, Mustard. It has an important place in both the garden's medicinal and kitchen aspects as a spice and a green vegetable.

Mustard has been grown by man since ancient times. It figures prominently in a famous parable of the Gospels:

Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof. - Matthew 13: 31-32

Most people are familiar with yellow or brown mustard as a condiment on their hot dogs and sandwiches, or an ingredient in their cooking.

This comes for grinding the tiny mustard seeds into powder and mixing it with water, salt, and other ingredients to form the many varieties of condiments available in the store. Mustard was as common and popular during the Civil War as it is today.

Less popular today, mustard greens were once a staple vegetable in the United States, especially in the South. They can be eaten raw or cooked up like collard greens, turnip greens, kale, and other leafy vegetables.

I am normally a big fan of cooked greens, but I was sorely disappointed upon trying these mustard greens to find that I could not abide them. To be fair, I have never really liked mustard in my food and these leaves do taste surprisingly strong of raw mustard. I am sure that some other people around the museum might find them a bit tastier.















 In his definitive 1863 text, Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests, Francis Porcher writes, "The demand for the production of this plant as a local irritant, should induce every planter and farmer to grow it. Enormous quantities are required to supply the armies; besides that, it is largely consumed in every household." Porcher continues to explain that mustard is useful in cooking as well as in its capacity to produce mustard oil, which was valuable in industry, agriculture (feeding livestock), and domestic use (cooking and burning for light). Mustard is very closely related to the canola or rapeseed plant, which was used in the 19th century, just as it is today, to produce canola oil for cooking and industrial applications.

Commercially available mustard plasters from 1906

Almost unheard of in the 21st century, mustard was considered a powerful and commonplace medicine in the 1800's. It's most common household application was in mustard plasters. Mustard seed was ground to a powder, mixed with flour and water or egg, and the paste was applied to a cloth. This was then employed as a poultice on the exposed chest or back as a common treatment for colds, bronchitis, or other lingering respiratory problems. It might also be used as a treatment for rheumatism, a general term for chronic pain and problems with joints and connective tissues. The belief was that mustard would help to stimulate what we today the immune system, as well as alleviate pain.

Commercially available mustard plasters from the early 20th century

For a great illustrated explanation of how mustard plasters were (and apparently still are) applied, check out this blog.



In Dr. Joseph Carson's Materia Medica of 1851, mustard is listed as an important medicine, primarily as a rubefacient, which is a substance that causes redness of the skin by dilating blood vessels and increasing circulation when applied topically. Carson's reasoning seems to be that such application would help to reduce pain and inflammation by improving circulation in the nearby skin, but the correlation is not fully explained. Perhaps this is something of a holdover from the heroic era of medicine, which was based on the humors of the body and included such practices as bleeding and cupping. Carson also lists mustard seed as an effective laxative.

New Plants and Planting in the Rain

Last Friday was one of the days that I look forward to all year. Along with April Deitrich and Judy Candela, my coworkers here at the museum, I went to the annual Landis Valley Herb and Garden Faire in Lancaster County, PA. It's a long drive, but the incredible volume and variety of plants for sale at the Landis Valley Museum every Mothers Day Weekend makes it worth the trip.

Though it is so easy to be distracted by all of the beautiful and unusual plants, I was on a mission to acquire new medicinal plants for the Pry Garden. I made a two-page wish list and both April and Judy got their own copy. I was hoping to scratch a few more items off the list than I did, but I came home with a good haul and we all had a great time. It all seemed to be over too quickly!

Here are some pictures from the trip:

heirloom tomatoes and other vegetables

April and Judy!

Plant Sitting! The museum would babysit your plants while you kept shopping!

Even though I did not get as many different plants as I wanted, I still had a lot to plant.

I also had to plant the the seedlings that I have been growing at home since winter.

Tomatoes from seed!

Saturday was our scheduled planting day, but unfortunately the weather did not cooperate. We had rain throughout most of Friday night and Saturday. That kept most of our volunteers away and made the garden paths very muddy. Luckily a few dedicated volunteers did come out to help and we had a two-hour stretch without and rain, and even a little blue sky!

Standing in the mud!

Refreshments for volunteers

For a brief time, it was a beautiful day!

 Thanks to those who came out and helped! It really made an ambitious day possible!

Despite the thick mud, it's not looking too bad!

Clearing, Planting, and Sprouting!

This Saturday, May 11th, we will be having a garden work day from 11AM to 2PM! Come out to the Pry House and help us as we put in many brand new plants, especially different medicinal plants that were used by the Confederate Medical Department during the Civil War! You can make your own green thumbprint on the Pry House Medicinal and Kitchen Garden! Please dress appropriately and bring gloves, and any shovels if you have them.

Several people have already been working very hard in the garden lately, and it really shows! I have to thank David Price, Tom Frezza, Karen Dammann, and everyone else who helped to transform the and clean up the garden while I was out of the state this week! I can't thank them enough!

As this picture from my last post shows, the garden was very overgrown! It was just too much to handle with hands and shovels alone, so we moved ahead into the 20th century for some mechanical assistance!

Thanks to a gas-powered tiller, the garden is looking a million times better! Karen Dammann, the wife of Gordon Dammann, the Chairman of our Board of Directors, spent many hours weeding between the beds and pulling out piles of weeds! I cannot thank her enough for all that hard work!

There is only so much that a machine can do though. I had to spend some time pulling out all of the weeds from the bottom of the new trellises. Still, it was only a fraction of the daunting task that I thought was facing me!

 With the rubbish all cleared, now I can actually make use of the space and begin to plant! I am planting three kinds of beans on the new trellis.

Sowing pole beans in the soil

Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans. These are your average "garden variety" green beans. They are real climbers and produce plentiful  crops of large tasty green beans. They are still a popular variety today,  and while the name has often changed, the Kentucky Wonder  variety has changed little since the mid-1800s.

Painted Lady Runner Beans. Runner Beans are very similar to other common garden beans, but one of the big differences is that they grow in cooler weather. I should have planted these earlier, but I have been too behind in building a trellis and clearing the garden space. Painted Lady beans have been grown since the late 16th century or even earlier!












Clay Cowpeas. These are basically a kind of black-eyed pea. They look just like your common variety, but are quite small. These were once a very common food staple, especially among poorer peoples in the South, including slaves and Confederate soldiers.

Beans aren't the only vegetable in the garden; a number of green plants are starting to fill out the vegetable beds!

Spinach

Three Varieties of Beets

Mustard Greens

Six Varieties of Leaf Lettuce

Things are looking great in the garden now, but this is only the beginning! This is still so much to be added and completed!

This Saturday, May 11th, we will be having a garden work day from 11AM to 2PM! Come out to the Pry House and help us as we put in many brand new plants, especially different medicinal plants that were used by the Confederate Medical Department during the Civil War! You can make your own green thumbprint on the Pry House Medicinal and Kitchen Garden! Please dress appropriately and bring gloves, and any shovels if you have them.

Twining Trellis

If you read my earlier post, you know that our white picket fence at the Pry House has been taken down and it's uncertain when it might ever return. We are adjusting and getting used to seeing the the property that way, but it is still strange to look at the Pry House without a fence.

One of the problems that I run into with the garden is the fence had been important in demarcating the back border of the garden. This week I have been putting up a series of new trellises that will help to fix that problem. They are also going to provide a great medium for climbing plants like pole beans, cowpeas, and runner beans.

I used this trellis last year for growing calabash gourds. The gourds did mediocre, but the trellis was great. Unfortunately the winter weather took its toll on the twine, which had to be replaced.

I started making new trellises to expand on the existing structure. I collected some hefty and durable sticks from the woods to serve as the upright posts for the trellis. I dug post holes with a simple hand shovel and placed a stick in each hole. I then filled them back in and tamped the dirt back down. Hopefully they will serve as a sturdy support for beans and other climbers.

Once all the trellis poles were up, I went about stringing twine between each section. It was very easy, but quite time-consuming. That is why this blog is being updated so much later than I usually like to have it finished.

For some of the taller poles I had to pull out the ladder to reach the very top. It makes me nervous getting up there!

Now that it's all finished, I think it looks very good! I just hope that my handiwork will hold up, and soon it will be alive with green!

Taking Down the Fence

It has been something of a sad week for us at the Pry House Field Hospital Museum. Those of you who have visited us will probably remember that the house and yard were surrounded by a striking and attractive white picket fence. This was put in place about fifteen years ago to recreate the white picket fence which was there at the time of the Battle of Antietam in 1862.

Unfortunately, the years have not been kind to the recreated fence. It has deteriorated to the point of falling down in many places and becoming a very real safety hazard throughout its entire length.

Because of this, the National Park Service has deemed it necessary to remove the fence in its entirety. The staff of Antietam National Battlefield's Cultural Resources Division and volunteers from Shepherd's Spring Outdoor Ministry Center have been hard at work dismantling the dilapidated fence this week. 

Knocking off the pickets. Some can be saved; others will be burned.

Digging out the concrete which was used to set the posts

Ranger K. C. Kirkman affixing the sign to the only fencing left standing

Park Superintendent Susan Trail visits the sight 

Ranger Keven Walker digging concrete

During the demolition it was discovered that the iron brackets holding the fence posts to the stone wall were very old, and quite possibly original to the Civil War period. To protect them and reduce them as a safety hazzard, park staff and volunteers built small wooden boxes to cover them.

What makes this sad for the Pry House is that this fence will not be replaced any time soon. Ideally, a new fence would be going in to replace this rotten one, but that would cost thousands of dollars and the money is just not there for Antietam National Battlefield. Money has been a concern for most National Parks for years now, but with the current sequester, times are desperate. As jobs and staffing are cut to the bare bones and preservation projects and interpretive programs are entirely scrapped, getting a new fence for the Pry House is not a possibility. Like so many effected by these Federal Government budget cuts, we are just going to have to learn to do without.

These means that the garden is looking a little different now too. I am going to need to devise a way to demarcate the edge of the garden that was bordered by the fence. If I had realized this would happen so soon, I might have chosen to rearrange the plants in the garden.