“We grow cabbages with storage in mind. ‘Late Flat Dutch’ and ‘Mammoth Red Rock’ cabbage both form very firm, tight heads. We store them by hanging them upside down in a root cellar or we bury them in an outside pit, or grave, as it was sometimes called.
“We also grow peas, in the Freeman garden. Peas are an example of a vegetable that has been modified so much in recent years that it’s very hard to obtain authentic varieties from 1830. We did obtain an old variety called ‘Early Alaska,’ as well as ‘Prince Albert,’ but for our tall-growing peas, until recently we had to grow a variety called ‘Tall Telephone.’ Obviously, with a name like ‘Telephone,’ this pea doesn’t go back to 1830, but it is a late-nineteenth-century variety resembling tall vining varieties cultivated earlier in the century. ‘Tall Telephone’ requires staking on pea brush—dead prunings of shrubs or trees—used to support peas.
The farms at Old Sturbridge Village are recreations of Colonial farmsteads. The gardens are filled with heirloom vegetables and fruits and visitors are treated to both gardening and cooking demonstrations using open hearth methods.
“We also grow parsnips. Many of the visitors have never heard of them, but parsnips were very common in the 1830s. They store so well that we can leave them in garden rows over the winter and dig them up in March for a very sweet, delicious vegetable.
“Our bean, which we grow primarily for use as a shell bean, is the ‘True Cranberry.’ The shelled bean is as red as a cranberry. People visiting us aren’t familiar with the traditional practice of leaving pole beans on the vine to mature in the pod for threshing, shelling out, and using as a dry bean. Accustomed only to eating beans fresh, they’re often critical of our pole beans when they see them overmature. It’s very common to hear a visitor comment, ‘You should have picked your beans two weeks ago.’ Then we have to explain that people in the 1830s, if they were growing a bean primarily for storage, would pick some of those beans in the very young, tender stage for immediate cooking but would leave most of the crop in the garden to mature for threshing so they could have beans over the winter.
“In addition to the vegetables, there are a few culinary herbs growing in the Freeman garden: horseradish, sage, basil, parsley, marjoram, chives, mint, dill, and summer savory. Some were eaten fresh, and others were dried. Unusual for today’s gardens are the hops that were grown to preserve a yeast culture.
“Many of our visitors remark on how their own gardens differ from those generally grown in the last century. The modern garden is designed for fresh eating in the summer; and if the time, space, and surplus vegetables are available, the gardener will put aside some things for winter. In the nineteenth century the family garden was grown primarily for a year-round supply of vegetables; the fresh vegetables and greens of the summer months were a bonus to enjoy.”
You can visit Old Sturbridge Village and see the Freeman garden and the other historical gardens as well as attend their many events throughout the year—from herb classes to pressing apples for cider. For visitors passionate about heirloom vegetables one of the high points of the year is the annual event called “An Early Nineteenth-Century Agricultural Fair” celebrated in late September.
The gardens at Old Sturbridge Village are planted and interpreted to the public every year. Christie is doing more behind-the-scenes work these days, but with a little luck, you might run into her if you go for a visit. In speaking with her, I felt as if an important piece of my heirloom vegetable puzzle had slipped smoothly into place.
The Blüm Heirloom Garden
No one could be blasé traveling to Jan Blum’s garden. To get there, I drove northward out of Boise, Idaho, gaining altitude as I went. The highway straddles the famous Snake River Canyon, and as I continued northward I could see dry grassland and scrub for miles. The region looks so untamed, I couldn’t help wondering how anyone could garden out there. But then I came into a lush garden filled with leafy vegetables and bright flowers. Butterflies and birds flitted about, completing the idyllic picture.
This is the home of Seeds Blum, a mail-order seed company. Now, there are seed companies, and then there are seed companies. Some are exceedingly businesslike, with catalogs filled with color photos, but visiting them turns up a suite of offices with nary a plant in sight. Jan’s catalog is black-and-white, but there is plenty of color in the huge vegetable garden that surrounds the office.
Blüm is very concerned about the erosion of the gene pool and directs much of her energy toward saving such varieties as the ‘Super Italian Paste’ tomato and ‘Moon and Stars’ watermelon. She actively searches out varieties on the brink of extinction and adds the gardening information she turns up to her catalog. “A great part of my satisfaction,” she told me, “comes from people writing to say, for instance, that they haven’t seen the ‘Moon and Stars’ watermelon since the 1930s. Or, ‘I’ve kept thirty varieties of such and such alive for many years. Are you interested in having the seeds?”’
Having experienced Jan’s grand enthusiasm for heirlooms, I knew she would be great as a prototype heirloom gardener. I asked Jan and her partner, Karla Prabucki, to create an heirloom garden; when I arrived to photograph it, it far exceeded my expectations. It overflowed with unusual and historically rich varieties of vegetables.
To begin our chat that day, I asked Jan to explain what she had in mind when she put the garden together. “I had a vast bank to pull from; but I had limited space. I wanted to feature old varieties of common vegetables—for instance, ‘Red Lazy Wife’ bean. That name implies history! I also chose German-Russian varieties from the Volga River area of Russia, where my mother’s people came from. In the early 1800s there was a major flow of German people to settle the Volga area. This migration was reflected later in the gardens of immigrant families in this country. Consider the ‘Moon and Stars’ watermelon, for example. Most of Germany would have been too cold for watermelons, so this was probably originally a Russian variety that the Germans adopted. Watermelons became integrated into German cuisine, and watermelon pickles are now a tradition in German-American communities.”
Another German variety Jan included in the garden was ‘Ragged Jack’ kale, also known as ‘Red Russian’ kale, one of Jan’s favorite vegetables, as it is both tasty and beautiful, with its scalloped oaklike leaves and purple-colored veins. In its immature stage, it is also the best raw kale for salads. Jan also grew ‘Rattailed’ (also known as ‘Rat’s Tail’) radish, which differs from most other radishes in that its roots are inedible. It is prized for its foot-long seed pods, which can be pickled, used raw in salads (sparingly), or cut up like green beans in stir-fries.
The vegetable border at Seeds Blum is filled with ‘Black-seeded Simpson’ lettuces, bread seed poppies, ‘Ragged Jack’ kale, and sea kale—an old-time favorite pot herb.
The entry-way flower/vegetable bed at Seeds Blum is planted with ruby chard, chives that have gone to seed, borage, and red dianthus. The bed to the left contains ‘Blue Podded’ peas, red orach, and serpent garlic.
In addition to the German-Russian varieties, Jan couldn’t resist including some of her personal favorites: ‘Blue Podded’ peas, which have purple pods and flowers, and ‘Red Lazy Wife’ pole beans with their large, lush vines. The name supposedly refers to the beans’ being relatively stringless. She also planted the ‘Rough Vif d’Etampes’ pumpkin. Originally from France, this