Michael Tricomi: It's February at Monticello. It's been chilly and we had a gorgeous snow, but that hasn't stopped our early blooming flowers. You can see swaths of yellow Winter Aconite and violet Scotch Crocus on the West lawn. Near the entrance to the house, early daffodils are blooming. We've been pruning fruit trees and sowed our first peas of the season.

Introduction

Michael Tricomi: This is “A Rich Spot of Earth,” a podcast about gardening and the natural world. I’m Michael Tricomi, Manager and Curator of Historic Gardens at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home in Albemarle County, Virginia.

Gardens of Enslaved Families at Monticello

Michael Tricomi: This month we're going to talk about the gardens enslaved families cultivated at Monticello. Jefferson's home was the center of a 5,000-acre plantation, where roughly 130 enslaved African Americans lived and labored at any given time. Justin Bates, Monticello's Manager of Special Programs, joined Curator of plants Peggy Cornett to talk about their family gardens.

 

Peggy Cornett: We know that the enslaved had their own gardens to supplement their diet because they were given a meager ration of meat and flour, so they needed greens and fresh vegetables.

 

Justin Bates: The rations that people received once a week would typically be about a half a pound of salted pork, what they would call a peck of cornmeal, which is probably a roughly 10-pound bag of cornmeal, and a half dozen salted fish. And, of course, one of the many ironies is that even though Jefferson's allotting out these rations, enslaved people were the ones who had butchered the hogs, ground the corn, and caught the fish. Fruits and vegetables were not part of the ration diet, so out of necessity, for survival, they produced their own fruits and vegetables.

Michael Tricomi: They also raised poultry, hunted animals, like deer and rabbits, and foraged for wild fruits and plants.

Justin Bates: The typical day for an enslaved person was sun-up to sundown. And one thing that always amazes me is that not only are people being made to labor these long hours, but then they're going back to their homes and they're laboring throughout the night to grow their own food.

And it's likely that families worked at night by lighting pots and pans that were filled with animal fat, so that way they had light to work by at night. You can imagine the children are probably being involved and tending to the garden as well.

Evenings and Sundays--they're described as being their "own time." and some people ask, how is it that this system comes to be where people are able to have Sundays off and they have evenings off? And just something to think about is slaveholders’s worst fear was always some sort of violent reaction to the oppression of slavery. And so there's this constant push and pull between the oppressed and the oppressor.

 

Elizabeth Hemmings

Michael Tricomi: We know of several families that were held in bondage at Monticello through generations. One of the best documented is the Hemmings family. The family matriarch was Elizabeth Hemmings.

Peggy Cornett: Betty Hemmings--didn't the archeologist find the area where she probably had a garden?

 

Justin Bates: In the 1990s, that's when archeologists excavated the site where Elizabeth Hemmings lived. Elizabeth Hemmings being the matriarch of over 80 people at Monticello, Grandmother to a lot of people. And they found a group of stone cobbles about 75 feet from what would have been the hearth of the cabin. They described it as being located near a well-drained and relatively flat area of ground. So it would've been prime for a garden spot. And they believed that the cobbles were piled to create a fence or boundary.

She's got a really big family. Members of her family are coming to eat at her house and maybe they're helping her garden. It's that idea of going to grandma's house. And we know that they visited her there because her grandson Madison Hemmings talks about one of his last memories of her is in her cabin. So, it's likely that that garden was almost like a community space, brought the family together.

 

Selling Produce to Jefferson

Michael Tricomi: Some enslaved families sold produce from their own gardens to Jefferson and his family. Jefferson’s memorandum books record hundreds of these financial transactions over the years.

 

Justin Bates:

It was one of the very few opportunities enslaved people at Monticello and throughout Virginia had to actually make money.

 

Peggy Cornett:

I think 51 separate purchases were made of cucumbers in January. There are different ways to preserve cucumbers. They might have been stored in underground storage pits. They might have been pickled.

 

A second large item that was sold to the household was cabbage, purchased in December, I believe. But cabbage I think is pretty easy to imagine it being preserved. It can last a long time just in cool storage. Another way that I've heard cabbage can be stored is to actually pull the whole plant root and all out of the ground, dig a trench, turn it upside down, and bring the earth around it. And it can stay that way until you're ready to eat the cabbage, just pull it right out.

 

Justin Bates:

Peggy mentioned these sub-floor pits that people had in their homes, which is like a root cellar, which enabled people to store not only any valuables or personal treasures that they might have but also to store different types of food items all year round, keep it at a pretty consistent temperature.

 

Peggy Cornett:

I think Jefferson's vegetable garden often wasn't providing the quantities they needed for the household and for the many guests because he was trying to grow such a wide diversity of crops; there were also experimental crops and sometimes there might have been crop failures, and so he may not have had a big quantity of cucumbers or cabbages at this certain time of the year.

 

Justin Bates:

There were upwards of 25 people living inside of the house at any given time.

 

Peggy Cornett:

Plus all the guests that would come.

 

Justin Bates:

Plus all the guests. Martha Randolph, Jefferson's daughter, once talking about having to prepare for 50 overnight guests at one point.

 

Peggy Cornett:

And some of these purchases were like--five times greens were purchased, or three times lettuces were purchased. So it was just the need of the moment. They didn't have enough lettuce in the garden for all that they needed at the table at the time, so they went to the enslaved to see if they had enough to supplement.

 

Justin Bates:

Something I think about too is what was the conversation like when they sold this produce to Martha Randolph and her daughters? Was there bartering, was there negotiation taking place? Did enslaved people -- what agency were they able to exert?

 

Peggy Cornett: There's so much, we'll never know.

 

Granger Family

Michael Tricomi:

It seems that gardening techniques were passed down through families and a rich tradition of African American horticulture developed. This included the Granger Family.

 

Justin Bates:

Bagwell and Minerva Granger, they had nine children while they were here at Monticello. And we know that Minerva Granger's father was a man named Squire. We don't know his last name but we know that he likely passed down knowledge of gardening to his daughter because in Bagwell and Minerva Granger's Garden, we know that they sold lettuce, beets, potatoes, watermelons, apples and cucumbers, which Peggy talked a little bit about cucumbers, but they sold all of those to the Jefferson family.

 

Another thing that Bagwell Granger grew were hops. We think that was largely to support Jefferson's beer brewing operations. And we know in 1818 that Jefferson paid Bagwell Granger $20 for over 60 pounds of hops. I don't know what $20 would be in today's value, but it was quite significant.

 

Peggy Cornett: Yeah.

 

Justin Bates:

And you just think about what the Grangers might have been able to apply that towards. With all this said, talking about enslaved people making money for certain tasks, whatever they did make was never enough to purchase one's freedom. At least as far as we know in the records, that never happens at Monticello.

The one thing, though, that Jefferson prohibited enslaved people from growing was tobacco.

 

Peggy Cornett: Yeah.

 

Justin Bates:

He even says that if that were to happen, it would be impossible to draw what he says, "a line between what is theirs and what is mine." So I think showing how freedom in Virginia, economic independence in Virginia, rested with people who were able to control both land and labor, which is why it's so significant that enslaved people are taking this action over the land. But at the end of the day, it's the large landholders, like Jefferson, who's controlling what's coming out of the land. And that thing that is, of course, fueling this whole economy is tobacco and, eventually, wheat, but those cash crops.

Reflections on what Gardens meant to Enslaved Families at Monticello

Michael Tricomi:

Justin has researched the gardens of enslaved families at Monticello. You can read an article he wrote on our website. He's thought a lot about what gardens may have meant to those families.

 

Justin Bates:

Gardens, of course, they added a lot of necessary elements to an enslaved family's diet. It also afforded them one of the very few opportunities to make money, but perhaps most importantly, it afforded them ownership over a small aspect of their lives. We talk about resistance a lot amongst enslaved people. And while this may not be a traditional way to view resistance, I think we can say that these gardens, in some ways, were symbols of resistance, something that enslaved people carved out of the land for themselves, in a world that in many ways sought to deny them everything.

 

Visitor Spotlight

Michael Tricomi:

Now let's hear from a Monticello visitor.

 

Pruning

Michael Tricomi:

Now we’re going to switch gears and share practical advice on a subject that intimidates many gardeners: pruning.

 

When you cut a tree or shrub back, it might feel like you’re damaging it, but pruning is beneficial. Horticulturist Robert Dowell sat down with Peggy to explain.

 

Four Ds of Pruning

Robert Dowell:

Whenever I approach a pruning project, I go through what I call the four Ds. And so I look for dead, diseased, damaged, and distorted growth. So running down the list of those--dead wood. A lot of gardeners get intimidated by what time of year to prune and there are some things to consider with that, but the beauty of dead wood is you can remove it anytime of year. It's dead. It's not coming back to life. You can remove it from the plant.

 

Once you get past the dead wood, looking for diseased growth is always a good thing to look for. And oftentimes when you're removing diseased branches from a tree, you want to cut back into healthy wood, beyond that point where the disease and the healthy wood meet, so you're totally removing the diseased material.

 

Fire blight is a common disease that people will reference with this. Fire blight is a bacterial disease that affects members of the rose family, which includes a lot of important trees, like apples, pears, peaches, and whatnot. And it spreads from small branches all the way throughout the vascular system of the plant. So once you see evidence of fire blight on the plant, you want to remove it and remove into healthy growth.

 

Peggy Cornett:

And it does look like it's been burned. It's like the foliage is blackened.

 

Robert Dowell:

It's very distinctive, on pear trees especially, the shoot tips will be blackened and have like a shepherd's crook. And it's a very distinctive feature to know that you're dealing with fire blight.

 

Peggy Cornett:

And if you're moving from tree to tree, it's good to spray your pruners with an alcohol solution, I think.

 

Robert Dowell: Yeah. Keeping sterile tools is wise in any horticultural practice, but it's very critical when you're pruning out fire blight. So that's an example of disease growth that's critical to remove.

 

Damaged branches are pretty self-explanatory. When tree or woody branches break, it's almost never a clean break. It's a jagged wound, and that's a great entry point for infectious pathogens. So cutting that damaged material off and making a nice clean wound that can heal over nicely is always good pruning practice.

 

And then the last category is distorted. And it does depend on the overall shape and structure you're aiming for with the plant, but I would define distorted branches as crossing branches, inward growing branches. Generally I tell myself when I'm pruning a plant, I want upward and outward growth, and anything that goes contrary to that, I prune out.

 

How to cut

Michael Tricomi:

Robert and Peggy also talked about how to make the pruning cut.

 

Peggy Cornett:

Especially if you're pruning trees, you want to make sure that you're not leaving what they used to call coat hangers. You don't want to cut in too deep into the main trunk either.

 

Robert Dowell:

Right. So if you imagine a trunk with a large branch coming off of it, there's a swelling at the base of that branch, and that's called the branch collar. And you want to preserve that collar because that's where the wound wood will form that will allow the wound you're making to heal over properly. And so when you're cutting that branch off, you never want to make a flush cut. That's bad practice. And you never want to leave a stub either. You want to preserve that branch collar.

 

Peggy Cornett:

And it's dependent on different species, too. Some trees you have to cut in a little bit closer to the trunk to get to the right collar point because that's where the cells are differentiating. And once it knows that it's lost the branch, it's going to make this kind of rounded growth, like a donut all the way around. And then that will seal off the cut. If it never makes that rounded healing over that spot, it's going to continue decay down through the center of the trunk.

 

Robert Dowell:

Exactly.

 

Peggy Cornett:

So it's very important.

 

Michael Tricomi:

In the past, gardeners tried to help the tree heal by covering those pruning cuts.

 

Robert Dowell:

I think I even remember reading they would use really strange concoctions back in Jefferson's day to cover tree wounds. I think mixtures of cow manure or things like that. Generally, the accepted practice today is not to cover tree wounds. The tree will naturally produce its own compounds. Like when you see sap exuding from a wound, that in part is the tree's response to try and make a barrier against infection.

 

When to prune

Michael Tricomi:

Timing for pruning varies.

 

Robert Dowell:

Certain trees when pruned certain times of the year will have excessive sap flow. This is especially true of birches and maples and some conifers when you prune them in like a late winter, early spring timeframe. This is actually the same time when they tap maples for maple syrup. This is they're taking advantage of the sap flow season. When you prune some of these trees at this time, you run the risk of exposing them to insects because what'll happen is you'll make that pruning cut. The plant will start bleeding sap and that sap has attractants in it to things like elm bark beetles bronze birch bore, and different pests. So you can avoid having that problem if you prune earlier when the sap isn't flowing or prune later when it's not flowing as much.

 

And one final point I'll make too is as a general rule, I avoid pruning late summer, early autumn. The reason for that is when you prune at that time of year, you'll encourage the plant to put on a new flush of growth, and oftentimes that flush of growth can't harden off before the first frost. And so you're actually damaging the plant by encouraging it to grow at the wrong time of year.

 

Flowering Shrubs

Michael Tricomi:

Pruning at the correct time is especially important for flowering shrubs.

 

Robert Dowell:

One thing you need to ask yourself, does this shrub bloom on old wood or does it bloom on new wood? That'll often give you a pruning schedule to work off of. If the plant blooms on old wood, such as a lilac or most hydrangeas, you don't want to prune it in the wintertime because you're removing material that's going to bloom for you in the spring.

 

If it blooms on new wood, then that means it'll bloom on wood that's been formed later in the season, usually mid or late summer. So you can prune it in the winter months and the plant will have recovered by its bloom time and you can expect a bloom performance that season. So that's one instance of where timing is critical with flowering shrubs.

 

Fruit trees

Michael Tricomi:

Finally, there are special considerations for pruning fruit trees.

 

Peggy Cornett:

We do start pruning the apples and peaches in February.

 

Robert Dowell:

Winter's a good time, too, because the plants are naked of foliage, so you can get a really good view of the structure and you can see these damaged branches, diseased branches, disordered branches that you can fix.

 

You do try and maintain them to a certain size. And oftentimes, especially with apples and pears, they'll send up what are called water sprouts, which are just these stems that come off the main scaffold branches as they're called and they just shoot straight up and usually those are pruned out because they're detracting energy from the plant that would otherwise go towards better foliage and fruit production.

 

Peggy Cornett:

And you want to open them up too to let light in and get better fruit production that way.

Robert Dowell:

Exactly. Most fruit trees--apples, pears and peaches--are trained to have an open center. So whereas some ornamental trees, especially conifers, are pruned to maintain a central leader, think of like a Christmas tree with central stem and laterals that descend up it. With fruit trees, it's more like a bowl shape. You want an open center so that light and air can circulate and that helps prevent disease developing. And also, it puts the fruit production on the outer fringes of the tree for easier harvest.

 

Peggy Cornett:

And I'm not sure if that was a technique done in Jefferson's day or not. I think that might be a more of a modern method of pruning.

 

Robert Dowell:

In addition to the water sprouts, you'll also have basal suckers on fruit trees, which are basically just water sprouts at the base of the tree. Almost every fruit tree you encounter in the landscape is going to be grafted. And so you're going to have a different rootstock growing on top of the scion wood, the desirable fruiting variety. And if you ever see basal suckers, as they're called, emerging from below that graft union, you always want to prune those out because they're detracting from energy that would otherwise go to the desirable variety.

 

Peggy Cornett:

And you really want to cut that deep down into the root, not just snip it off at the top. because it'll keep coming back.

 

Robert Dowell:

Exactly, yeah. You want to remove it straight at the base and they will likely reappear year after year. It's a continual effort to remove them.

 

Peggy Cornett:

One of the happiest memories I have is just being down in the orchard on a winter day, clear, cold, and just climbing in trees and pruning and getting really warm because it's a south orchard and it's such a beautiful site, the views of Montalto, and so it's nice to get out and do that kind of work because you do warm up pretty quickly when you're sawing and pruning, that sort of thing. And it's a nice activity.

 

Conclusion

Michael Tricomi:

Thanks to Peggy for sharing that memory. For many of us, the joy of gardening is in those unexpected moments when you feel completely in tune with the natural world.

 

That's it for February! Thanks for listening. We'll be back in March with another episode of "A Rich Spot of Earth."