Anti-Bacterial Herbs

I was shopping at the supermarket recently and purchased a disinfecting multi-surface cleaner made by Seventh Generation, a company that sells household cleaners and other products which are supposed to "help protect human health and the environment." The active ingredients in green alternative products like this one are very often plant-based. This particular cleaner lists "Thymol," a component of thyme oil, as its active disinfectant agent.

Seeing thyme oil listed on the bottle as an important ingredient of this very modern product reminds me of a continuity from 19th century household practices and today. A century and a half ago, thyme was a very popular cooking herb, just as it is today, but it also had medicinal and other household uses.

Common Thyme and the Chemical Structure of Thymol

In the 19th century, thyme was sometimes used in home medicine when washing wounds, a practice that could help prevent infection and sepsis. Today we understand that this is because compounds in thyme oil have anti-microbial properties and can kill infection-causing microorganisms. Civil War Era Americans did not understand the importance of bacteria and germ theory, but they did recognize strong, fragrant herbs like thyme as promoting a healthful influence.

Thyme was not the only common garden herb that was used this way. Savory was also utilized in washing wounds. Savory seems to often be a forgotten herb in today's cooking, but it was quite popular among Victorian Americans and imparts a very tasty Italian herb flavor to food.

Winter Savory

Common Sage

Sage was even more frequently used as a home remedy in washing or dressing dressing wounds. Its anti-microbial properties may contribute to its traditional role as an ingredient in pork sausage, further helping to prevent spoilage.

Herbs weren't just used in cleaning wounds, but also in everyday cleaning around the household. Fragrant herbs like thyme, sage, rosemary, and lavender were a common ingredient in cleaning mixtures for washing floors, tables, and other surfaces in the home, not merely because they smell quite nice, but because they were believed to help promote a clean and healthy atmosphere.

A Ward of Armory Square Hospital, Washington, DC in 1865

General hospitals during the Civil War also made use of herbal cleaning supplies for just the same reasons. We can appreciate today that those practices may have helped to reduce the spread of disease and infection among sick and wounded soldiers.

Fruits and Vegetables Year-Round

It's mid-January, but that's no reason why I can't eat all the fresh fruits and vegetables I want. Nothing is growing outside, but I need only drive to the supermarket to find an array of produce harvested from around the world and shipped right here. I can eat fresh strawberries, lettuce, and watermelon all year long, (even if they do taste better at the local farm stand).

In the 1860s, Americans didn't have that luxury which we take for granted on a daily basis. Diets were governed by changing seasons and the coming and going of different fruits and vegetables. Today many advocate for seasonal and local eating, but before rapid transportation and refrigeration people it was a necessity rather than a choice.

Eating seasonally and local is a picnic in July, but in winter it becomes much more difficult. At this time of year our ancestors did not go hungry; they turned to a preserved and stored food to keep a healthy, balanced, and tasty diet. A variety of food preservation practices were critical to virtually every American household until recent history. Through cellaring, salting, sugaring, and canning, Victorian Americans could enjoy the fruits of their farms and gardens during the whole year.

Pry House Root Cellar

The simplest method of keeping produce was usually cellaring. Visitors to the Pry House frequently ask about the stone structure partially embedded in the hillside. It was the Pry Family's root cellar, where hearty fruits and vegetables were stored to keep them dry and cool, but not frozen, until they were ready to be eaten. Root vegetables like turnips, carrots, and potatoes, were pulled and cleaned before being put into bins in the root cellar. Pumpkins and other winter squash kept all season in the root cellar if dry and cool. Apples, and even cabbages, will also keep there if properly stored. The climate of these underground cellars works very much like the crisper drawer of modern refrigerators.

Some produce was dried for keeping. Beans and peas were left to dry on the vine, then hulled and spread out to dry completely before being stored. Fleshy fruit was also often dried. Pieces of sliced fruit could be spread out in a warm oven to dry, sun-dried, or threaded and hung to dry.

Salting and sugaring were also common ways to save vegetables and fruits. Roots, string beans, and stocky, green vegetables could be kept in heavy brine solutions. A wide assortment of fruit can be cooked and stored in sugar. More commonly, fruit can be made into jellies and jams. Enough sugar or salt will keep virtually anything from spoiling. It will also change the food's flavor, but sometime's that's a good thing!

Pickling, a process of marinating and storing produce in a vinegar solution, was yet another popular means of preservation. Pickling was common not only for cucumbers and other vegetables, but many kinds of fruit too. While cucumbers are usually pickled with salt and spices, fruits like peaches and melons could also be pickled with sugar to make a sweet pickle. It was also common to make fruit vinegars, a kind of  drink concentrate, by steeping fruit in vinegar and adding sugar.

Bottled pickles found on the 1856 wreck of the Steamboat Arabia

(they are still edible)

Canning meat, fruit, and vegetables began in the first decade of the 19th century. It was initially a strictly industrial process for government use and commercial sale.  In the 1850s technology improved and "canning" in individual glass jars quickly became a staple of the domestic kitchen. In 1858 the iconic Mason jar was introduced, using a rubber gasket to seal. The disposable round metal lids used in canning to day were not introduced by Kerr until 1915. The great weakness of home canning is that it is not suited to non-acidic fruits and vegetables. Without the acid of foods like tomatoes, the hot water bath of the canning process is not sufficient to kill certain microorganisms which can cause botulism, an often lethal form of food-poisoning.

Originally Mason jars were aqua blue with gray, zinc lids

All of these processes for preserving food interest me because we now know that they work by excluding bacteria and microorganisms which can spoil food, but all of these methods were developed in times before people understood germ theory. People of the past simply understood that somehow the correct application of heat, salt, sugar, vinegar, etc. would keep food safe to eat for extending periods of time.

At the Pry House we don't actually go through the work of putting up the produce from the garden. The garden is small and only there as a teaching tool. Thinking about how the Pry family and their domestic help would have saved food from their gardens and orchards makes us appreciate how much work went into a routine diet in the 19th century.

Stratifying Seeds (I Hope)

I took a break from the blog last week because it was New Year's, and in the wake of the Christmas holiday there was nothing much to talk about. I hope that most were able to enjoy a little time off with friends and family.

We are in the heart of winter now, but it's still time for me to begin the preparations for new plants in the spring. I wrote in previous posts that in the fall I collected some seeds from the wild and from plants in the garden. Many of those seeds have to be properly prepared if I am going to sow them for growing this year.

Separating milkweed seeds from the fluff

When we buy packets of seeds from the store or online, they are usually properly prepared and ready to be planted right away. However, the seeds of many plants, especially perennials, have to go through a winter's cold before they are willing to germinate in the spring. This is a protective measure so that seeds do not drop in the fall and begin to sprout, only to be killed by freezing temperatures.

Because I collected these seeds rather than leaving them in the dirt outside, I will need to give them a simulated winter inside before I can use them in the spring. This process is called stratification. this is something I have never tried before and I am hoping that it works, giving me productive seeds to start a little later this year.

Milkweed seeds ready for a cold treatment

To stratify the seeds, I needed some kind of medium to hold them during the process. Many experts have recommended a variety of options including vermiculite, perlite, and sand. I have chosen fine peat moss, made from decomposed sphagnum. I purchased it from a garden store, so it is sterile, meaning that it should be free from diseases and unwanted seeds from weeds.

Peat Moss

I took a bit of peat moss from the sealed packaging and added some water in a bowl. I then nestled the seeds in the dampened moss. Dampening the moss is supposed to allow the seeds to absorb some moisture, helping prepare them for eventual germination.

I put each bunch of seeds into small plastic resealable bags. After a few days at room temperature to encourage the seeds to take up some moisture, I put those bags in the refrigerator. I chose the bottom drawer of the refrigerator because that tends to be the coldest place without freezing.

I am currently stratifying for different species: Common Milkweed, Butterfly Weed, Jimson Weed, and Common Mullein. Stratification times can vary widely for different types of seeds, but for these particular species I think that about a month will be enough time in the cooler. 

I am very hopeful that this process will yield positive results come spring. If it does not work out though, it was at least an interesting learning experience.

Medicinal Plants at Christmas

I am trying to post regularly to this blog every Tuesday, but since yester day was Christmas, I am posting this a little late. In keeping with the holiday, I am detouring from the Pry Garden for this post to talk a little bit about some of the plants we have come to associate with traditional Christmas celebrations. Many of the familiar evergreens that we might use to deck the halls were also used as medicines during the 1800s.

American Holly, Ilex opaca

Holly has been associated with winter celebrations in Europe since pre-Christian times. It has served as symbol of Christian faith since early medieval times. This has carried over to the United States, where American Holly often stands in for more traditional European varieties.

In the 19th century, holly root was prescribed for a variety of ailments and complaints. It was a common treatment for coughs, colds, and the flu. It was also touted as a treatment for a variety of eye problems, including pain, inflammation, and staphyloma.

Father and Son Cut a Christmas Tree in the Winter Forest

 by Franz Krüger, Germany, Early 19th century

Pine, spruce, and fir trees have been serving as Christmas trees in American homes since before the Civil War. The tradition of decorating evergreens for Christmas seems to have it's earliest origins in late medieval Germany and it was slowly introduced to America by German immigrants in the 1700s. Its adoption by Queen Victoria and her German husband Prince Albert led to the Christmas tree's adoption by mainstream American society in the 1850s.

Evergreen trees that might have served as early American Christmas trees were also fundamental in the production of several medicines popular in the 1860s. Pine tar was used as a treatment for racking coughs and bronchitis, as well as dry, cracked, and irritated skin. Creosote, distilled from pine and other wood tar, was directly applied as an antiseptic to healing wounds, ulcers, psoriasis, and other skin irritations. It was administered internally to treat a host of complaints, especially respiratory problems like tuberculosis and pneumonia, as well as neuralgia, epilepsy, diabetes, and kidney dysfunction.

Balsam Fir, Abies balsamea

Turpentine, distilled from evergreen tree resins, likewise had a multitude of applications in Civil War medicine, some efficacious, some highly dubious. Turpentine might be applied topically to abrasions, wounds, inflammation, and irritations. Internally, it might be prescribed for ailments of the respiratory, pulmonary, digestive, renal, reproductive, and other bodily systems. Turpentine was also long held as an anthelmintic, a drug used to expel worms and other internal parasites.

Harvesting pine resin for turpentine, ca. 1912

The needles of pine and spruce trees can also be boiled into a tea that is very rich in Vitamin C, thus a treatment and preventative for scurvy.

European Mistletoe, Viscum album

Mistletoe is another green plant at the center of traditional American Christmas. It's association with Christmas and the notion that men and women should kiss when passing under it together both seem to derive from British customs. In Britain, mistletoe is the species Viscum album. In the United States, Viscum is not native and Phoradendron serotinum or flavescens, which appears very similar, generally stands in its place.

19th century use of mistletoe as a medicine is sporadic and conflicting. Prescriptions for its use range from the treatment of epilepsy, palsy, and vertigo to circulatory problems, rheumatism, complications in pregnancy, and snoring. There appears to be some evidence that mistletoe is effective in combating high blood pressure and also as a gentle sedative. Mistletoe is also touted as possessing anti-cancer properties, a claim that is not without controversy.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

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.

Seed Catalog

The 2013 seed catalog came last week from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. Baker Creek has been the Pry Garden's go to source for seeds because it has such a wide selection of old heirloom varieties of vegetables and other garden plants. I have been very distracted lately, poring over the pages and making some selections for next year's garden.

I thought I would share a few of the more interesting items that are offered and some selections for the garden at the Pry House.

Some garden vegetables may seem very straight-forward. A carrot is a carrot, a potato is a potato, and a cucumber is a cucumber. That may not always be the case! We eat many of the same kinds of fruits and vegetables today that Americans enjoyed 150 years ago, but the varieties we are most familiar with today often did not exist during the Civil War. Likewise, some varieties of produce which were very popular in earlier centuries are extinct or very rare today. Sometimes the differences are subtle and we might hardly notice them, but often the difference between an 1860s apple and the Red Delicious you can find at the supermarket are striking.

As an example, the Baker Creek catalog offers over two dozen varieties of true cucumbers, but none of them appear to be correct for a an American Garden in the 1860s. Instead, I may plant burr gherkins, also known as maroon cucumbers. They are not true cucumbers, but are a close relative, also originating in Africa and coming west with enslaved peoples. Though rarely seen today, they have been in the United States for over 200 years and were once a very popular food. Reviews indicated that it heavily producing plant. They are small, spiky, and pretty wild-looking!

Burr Gherkins

Sometimes the heirloom seed catalog offers a wide spectrum of varieties more strange and exotic-looking than anything you will find in the grocery store or the garden store's seed rack. It can be a lot of fun to look at dozens of fruits and vegetables that are so different from what we are probably used to seeing on our own tables. Sadly, many of these fun varieties are not period to the 1860s or are not local to the United States in that time period.

This year's catalog offers 88 varieties of melon, not counting watermelons. Some are fairly wild-looking and I would love to grow them, but they just don't meet the standards of this garden.

Tiger Melon from Ukraine

Rich Sweetness 132 Melon from Russia

Ushiro Uri from Japan

Thankfully not all of the interesting and different-looking melons are beyond my reach. I will likely grow this variety of melon which Baker Creek labels as "Ananas D'Amerique A Chair Verte." It is of French origin, but has been grown in the United States for over 200 years. According to their catalog, it was grown by Thomas Jefferson and has been available commercially in America since 1824. I have never been a fan of melon, but others like it and this will be fun to try growing.

Ananas D'Amerique A Chair Verte Melon

This year I have decided to plant cowpeas in the garden. You might be more familiar with black-eyed peas, a more common variety of cowpea today. The seed catalog offers a number of varieties purported to date from the 1860s and beyond, but I will likely go with the simple Clay Cowpea.

Clay Cowpeas

Several seed companies correctly indicate that this was a common staple of Civil War armies, especially in the Confederacy. I have never grown anything like these before, so I am looking forward to learning how to plant, tend, and harvest these little beans. I am very curious to see how they might taste compared with more familiar black-eyed peas.

More on seed selections next week!!!

Several photos taken from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds at rareseeds.com. Check them out!

Milkweed Seeds

I have been doing a bit more seed collecting recently, so I thought I would talk about two plants in the same family that I have collected, one from the garden and one from the wild.

This spring, I added Butterfly Weed to the garden. Sometimes called Pleurisy Root, it is a native perennial plant in Maryland. It is more commonly seen in ornamental gardens for the appeal of its clustered orange flowers that appear in the late summer. As the name suggests, Butterfly Weed can be very attractive to various species of butterflies, including the Monarch.

The root of Butterfly Weed was used commonly by native peoples as a medicine. It was quickly adopted by white settlers and continued to serve medicinally through the 19th century. During the Civil War, the Confederate States Medical Purveyors listed Butterfly Weed as part of it's official pharmacopeia. The confederate government paid civilians to harvest the roots for use in the Southern army.

Butterfly Weed was most commonly used to treat a variety of respiratory/pulmonary ailments, including consumption (tuberculosis), pneumonia, bronchitis, and pleurisy (a painful inflammation of membranes between the lungs and chest wall). It was thought to relieve pain and inflammation and act as an expectorant. Butterfly Weed was also sometimes prescribed as a treatment for a host of unrelated conditions ranging from colds and fevers to rheumatism and venereal diseases. I have no idea if it actually worked.

The Butterfly Weed that I planted this year did not fare terribly, but it did not flourish either. I believe that this is because of soil conditions. This plant prefers to grow in gravely or sandy soils and that is not what I had given it. Perhaps I will replant it in a more appropriate soil come spring. One of the plants did do well enough, however, to produce healthy-looking seeds, which I have collected. I am going to try planting these in the spring to produce enough Butterfly Weed that I can begin harvesting some of the roots for future educational programming.

While visiting a pasture in southern Pennsylvania recently, I collected seeds from a close relative of Butterfly Weed: Common Milkweed. Both plants are members of the genus Asclepias. The genus is named for the Greek god of healing.

Asclepius, holding his snake-entwined staff

Milkweed is also a native perennial plant that is very attractive to Monarchs and other butterflies, but it's appearance is a bit different and less attractive to flower gardeners. Milkweed also likes to grow in gravely or sandy soil.

It's root was used to treat a variety of complaints. Like Butterfly Weed, it was believed efficacious in treating respiratory conditions like asthma and bronchitis, but also indigestion, diarrhea, kidney problems, menstrual cramping, dropsy (edema: swelling caused fluid retention), and other surprising ailments. Once again, I have no idea if there is any merit to these prescriptions.

Both types of seeds will require cold treatment, or stratification, to allow them to germinate when I plant them in the spring. That's another blog post!

It looks like our museum mascot Lacey was playing with my camera while I wasn't looking!