Snow and Seedlings

It is formally spring this week, but the weather outside doesn't seem to have heard! We had one of the heaviest snowfalls of the year yesterday, covering the garden a thick, fluffy layer of white. I hope that won't hurt the seeds I planted last week, but if it does I will just replant. I am hoping this is the end of cold!

White it has been snowing outside, seedlings inside are coming along!

 Fenugreek (in the foreground) was the first to germinate and is doing the best. I tried growing fenugreek last year, but it did not work out. I am hoping that this year I will have some better luck. I think that I just have to work a little harder to give them the right conditions of light, soil, and moisture in the garden.

Fenugreek has been under cultivation for thousands of years and no one is really certain of when or where it originated. It probably comes from the Middle East, but is found throughout the ancient world. While its popularity has waned in recent times, fenugreek is a versatile plant, useful as an herb, spice, vegetable, and medicine. It remains popular in Indian and other Asian cuisines. It has been used in ancient times, the 19th century, and even today as a supplement to increase lactation in nursing women.

All five varieties of tomato are coming along. Some are bigger than others, but I think I will have some plants of each type to put in the garden in May. Friends are clamoring for some tasty and unusual tomatoes, so I am hoping that the tomato crop won't meet with disaster like last year! There is nothing like a fresh garden tomato right off the vine!

Valerian is just beginning to poke its head above ground. It's too soon to tell how well it will do, but I am hoping that, like fenugreek, I will have more success with it this year.

Also like fenugreek, Valerian is an ancient medicinal plant. As I have written before, Valerian has been used to promote relaxation and relieve insomnia and anxiety for more than two thousand years. Both Hippocrates and Galen specifically mention Valerian in their writings.

 I'll be out in the garden later this week. It's time to plant more seeds in the garden. Hopefully I will see some lettuce germinating while I am out there!

Seed-Starting Time Again.

I did not post this blog yesterday because I was away in Washington, DC at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. It was my great privilege to take a private tour of their current exhibit, "The Civil War and American Art," with the museum's senior curator of painting and sculpture, Eleanor Jones Harvey. Because I had been involved with our recent exhibit, "Bringing the Story of War to Our Doorsteps," based around "The Dead of Antietam" photography of Alexander Gardner, I was asked to meet Dr. Harvey and take an intimate look at their wonderful exhibit at the Smithsonian. If you have an opportunity, please do stop in at the Smithsonian American Art Museum to see their Civil War exhibit. It is much more than just a collection of Civil War paintings; rather, it takes a wider view of art during the period and how the war impacted the creation and reception of artwork.

Outside of stuffy museum galleries, it really feels like spring! As temperatures rise and the Sun stays out longer, people's spirits seem brighter and the garden is beginning to wake up. I enjoyed the wonderful weather over the weekend and got out in the garden to finish preparing it for some new tenants. On some of the perennial plants, I cut back the last of the winter die-off and pruned for fresh spring growth.

I also started planting my first indoor seedlings on Saturday. Last year I started some seeds a few weeks earlier, but I am growing some different plants this season, so it wasn't quite as important to start so early.

On this first round, I sowed five varieties of tomatoes, each of which will look a little different than your modern kitchen-variety tomato if and when they come to fruit this summer. One unusual variety, the poma amoris minora lutea or lesser yellow love apple, is a small variety of yellow tomato that has been cultivated since at least the 16th century.

I have also sown six different medicinal plants, none of which I have successfully grown in the garden before. Some of them may be a bit too tricky and temperamental to survive in the Pry Garden, but I am going to give everything a chance and hope for the best.

One plant that I am particularly unsure about is the Blue Flag Iris. This was a popular medicinal plant during the Civil War, and it was listed on numerous drug supply tables by the Confederate States Medical Department. I have never tried to grow an iris from seed before, so I am curious whether it will work out. I worry about growing it in the garden because the Blue Flag Iris likes a very wet environment, which will be difficult to provide.

I have planted each in small biodegradable pots that will make it easier to transplant seedlings into the garden in the spring. I used these last year on just a few plants with great success. Even though they are biodegradable, I don't just plant the whole pot in the ground; I usually tear off the sides and throw those in the compost because they don't really break down that quickly.

My indoor growing set up is similar to last year. I have a small table set up near a window. I don't really get enough light through that window though, so I have added two desk lamps with compact florescent bulbs. I keep my home fairly warm and I use a spray bottle to make sure the little pots stay moist, but not too wet. I am hoping that many of these seeds will germinate into healthy plants that will live well in the Pry Garden.

Eggplant, Tomatoes, and Nightshade

Sometimes vegetables very familiar to modern Americans just were not on the dinner table in the 1860s. This is the case with vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower. Broccoli as an edible vegetable predates the Roman Empire, but it was not common in the United States until the 20th century. I have no heartache over this, and in the words of President George H. W. Bush, "I do not like broccoli and I have not liked it since I was a little kid." Unfortunately I am not President of the United States, so it is a bit harder for me to escape that sinister green vegetable.

(Disgusting)

However, when it comes to a tasty treat like eggplant I am sad to leave it out of the garden at the Pry House. Americans did commonly grow eggplant in the 19th century, but strangely enough, Victorians usually cultivated it as an ornamental, rather than as a food source. The reason for this may be that eggplant is a relative of nightshade and it was therefore perceived as poisonous. In fact, the leaves and flowers of eggplant are mildly toxic.

There are some noted exceptions, however. Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Andrew Johnson were all great enthusiasts of eggplants, as was the honorary American, the Marquis de Lafayette. Eggplant was Johnson's absolute favorite food. Ordinary Americans, however, were largely unfamiliar with the purple and white fruits as a food.

Presidents from Tennessee seem to love their eggplant!

I have a similar problem with trying to grow tomatoes in the Pry Garden. As another relative of the nightshade plant, early Americans generally avoided tomatoes, or "love apples" as a poisonous plant. Again, they were sometimes grown as ornamentals, but usually not as a food.

Deadly Nightshade, Atropa Belladonna

By the 1860s, however, most Americans were becoming comfortable with eating tomatoes. After a long and determined campaign by a few enlightened souls, white Americans began to accept the tomato as a safe and uniquely tasty garden fruit. The tomato was originally a New World plant, but was not found in English America until its reintroduction by Europeans. The exact history of the tomato's origin's, spread around the globe, and introduction to the dinner table remains fairly murky and often conflicting, but we are at least certain that the fleshy red fruit was on its way up well before the Civil War.

"Red Apples from the New World" - 1563

from Johannes Kentmann's Kräuterbuch (Book of Herbs)

Nevertheless, it's never that easy! The vast majority of the scores and scores of tomato varieties available to the modern gardener have no place in the 1860s. The plump, round, smooth tomato so dear to us today was not developed until the decades after the Civil War. Earlier tomatoes were short, squat, and looked like they were puckered, with deep ridges around their circumference.

Purple Calabash Tomato, very reminiscent of early tomatoes

I am still struggling to find some good varieties of tomatoes which would be appropriate for the Pry Garden. I believe I have found a few and will move forward with procuring them for the spring.

New plants and giveaways

I have been very busy in the garden lately. I have added a number of new plants to the garden, and most things are coming along very nicely. I have also been waging a losing battle with the weeds, digging them out with a full shovel.

One of my new additions is pole beans. I have made another trellis for them out of sticks from the woods. The bluebirds love to perch on it, but I haven't gotten a picture of it yet. The beans are sprouted and looking very healthy. Hopefully I can keep the critters off of them.

notice the bloodmeal sprinkled about to discourage critters

I have sown some new root vegetables too. I am trying two varieties of carrots, both heirlooms, of course, one white and one orange. They have not germinated yet, but I hope they will soon. I planted beets as well, and they are doing very well so far.

I also received some generous gifts for the garden over the weekend. Ike Mumma of the NPS at Antietam National Battlefield brought over an Alaskan cabbage plant. After seeing the garden on a visit to the house, a couple from Hagerstown brought an heirloom yellow tomato plant to add to the garden. Both are now in the garden and doing well so far.

Mr. Mumma's cabbage - flanked by mint springs to deter the critters

The new tomato

Other plants in the garden are doing very well, and already I am harvesting tasty things! My first plantings of red radishes are ready, so I have been pulling those. Some are sweet and others hot. Strawberries are also coming in and they sure are sweet and tasty!

Other plants out here in the garden are doing a little bit too well. I have a number of herbs that are spreading too much and need to be cut back. I hate to just throw them away though, so I am looking for people who are interested in taking some plants for themselves. Here is the list of plants that are available for the taking:

Peppermint

St. John's Wort

Lemon Balm

Oregano

Marjoram

Sage

Lamb's Ear

Rue

Let me know if you are interested. I would rather they go to good homes than the compost pile.

mint, St. John's wort, lemon balm