Digging up veggie varieties of past

Early settlers knew the value of kitchen
gardens, as this photo from Florida's state
archives shows.

A head of iceberg lettuce costs $2.79 to $4 or more right now. Yikes. Time to grow my own like the pioneers did.

Fall and winter in Florida are prime growing seasons for many vegetables, including lettuce. Head lettuce can be tricky in home gardens, but leafy kinds grow really well. 

Large kitchen gardens were common sights in early Florida homesteads. I used to have a fair-sized vegetable garden, about 8 feet by 10 feet. Now I have container gardens because arthritis dictates my moves.

You can do a lot with containers. My husband's Earth box of scallions is looking good. Some of my buttercrunch and romaine lettuces, grown from transplants, have already shown up on the dinner table. Seedlings of leaf and romaine lettuces, radishes and carrots have sprouted and are ready for transplanting. Sounds like a haul, but it isn't and doesn't require a lot of space or time.

Still, I can run to the supermarket if I have a crop failure. Vegetable gardening wasn't a hobby for pioneer Floridians. Healthful survival often depended on what could be procured by a settler's own hand. Of course stores stocked and sold food. Many settlers relied on stores only for staples they couldn't produce themselves, such as flour, coffee and tea. 

I've always wondered what varieties of vegetables Floridians grew in the 1800s and early 1900s. Among the many things lost to the past are numerous distinctive vegetable varieties. Some modern companies and organizations specialize in heirloom seed stocks, thankfully. But many regional varieties are long gone.

Bermuda onions are
an old favorite. This
drawing is from the
1885 garden book.

That's sad, because regional varieties are known for having adapted to their locations over generations of growth. These sturdy plants didn't require coddling and they produced good yields. 

Over the years, I've grown some old-timey varieties with varying degrees of success. It's always fun to experiment with them. I like searching out old garden guides to see what types of vegetables were recommended for Florida. One gold-mine book was published in 1885. Gardening in Florida, A Treatise on the Vegetables and Tropical Products of Florida, was written by J.N Whitner, A.M. He was a professor of agriculture at Florida Agricultural College in Lake City in north Florida. 

Professor Whitner gave cultivation instructions for numerous vegetables and suggested certain varieties of each. Here are his choices for Florida gardeners in 1885:

• Asparagus - Colossal, Defiance
• Bush Beans - Early Mohawk, Golden Wax, Black Wax, Red and White Valentine, Long Yellow Six weeks
• Pole Beans - Giant Wax, Dreer's Improved Lima
• Beet - for the table: Egyptian Turnip, Early Blood Turnip, Early Yellow Turnip, Pine Apple; for feeding stock: Mangel Wurzel, Long Red, Long Yellow Mangel Wurzel
• Borecole (known today as Kale) - Dwarf German Greens, Green Curled Scotch, Purple Borecole
• Broccoli - White Cape, Purple Cape, Early Walcheren
• Cabbage - Early Jersey Wakefield, Early Winningstadt, Fottler's Improved Early Brunswick, Early Giant Bleichfield, Flat Dutch, Henderson's Early Summer, Improved American Savoy
• Carrots - Half Long Red, Danvers, Long Orange Improved
• Cauliflower - Early Snowball, Extra Early Paris, Extra Early Dwarf Erfurt
• Celery - Incomparable Dwarf White, Incomparable Dwarf Crimson, Boston Market, Golden Heart, White Plumed
• Corn - Egyptian Sweet, Sewell's Evergreen, Mammoth Sugar, Tuscarora
• Cucumber - Improved White Spine, Green Prolific, Long Green
• Eggplant - New York Improved, Black Pekin, Scarlet Fruited, White Fruited
• Lettuce - Green Fringed, Black Seeded Simpson, All the Year Round
• Okra - Giant, Dwarf
• Onion - Giant Rocca, New Queen, New Neapolitan Marzajola, Bermuda (the Bermuda was so popular it had its own separate write-up)
• Parsnip - Hollow Crown
• Parsley - Carter's Fern Leaved, Fine Triple Curled, Myatt's Garnishing
• Pea (green pea not field pea) - Ferry's First and Best, Bliss' American Wonder, McLean's Little Gem, Carter's Little Wonder, Prize-Taker Green Marrow, Fill Basket, Veitch's Perfection, Champion of England, Early Dwarf Wrinkled
• Radish - Long Scarlet Short Top, Scarlet Turnip, White Tipped Scarlet Turnip, Yellow Summer Turnip
• Spinach - Improved Round Leaved
• Squash - Yellow and White Bush Scalloped Squash, Boston Marrow, Hubbard
• Tomato - Acme, Hathaway's Excelsior, Golden Trophy
• Turnip - Early White Dutch, Early Red Top Dutch, White Globe

Some of those names are mouthfuls. I was surprised at the number of pea selections and mystified by the minimal tomato choices. Tomatoes usually take up pages in modern vegetable seed catalogs. I was happy to see Black Seeded Simpson among the lettuce options. That variety is part of my current crop of lettuce seedlings because it's a proven winner. It's neat that it's been grown in the state for over 125 years.

I recognized the Danvers carrot and Snowball cauliflower because the varieties are still around and I've grown them in the past. I once tried Sewell's Evergreen corn as an experiment. It wasn't very sweet at all. Most of the other heirloom variety names are mysteries to me.

I may envy these past gardeners the seed choices lost to us today. But other aspects of gardening in Florida are best left in the past. The book's section on fertilizers offers specifics on how to dissolve bones to create bone meal for working into the soil. It was a days-long process. Just reading about it made me tired. And glad a bag of balanced organic fertilizer is sitting on the garden shelf in my garage. 

Heirloom roses bloomed for pioneers

I've started a Pinterest board of the roses mentioned
in an 1892 Florida newspaper gardening column.
Visit the board on my Pinterest page.

Part 1 of 2

Roses aren't the easiest flowers to grow in Florida, but that doesn't stop any of us from trying. Through trial, error, education, and a fondness for heirloom varieties with scented flowers, I've learned that the China, Tea, and Noisette classifications are the best old-style types for Florida.

These are also the ones pioneer Floridians relied on. But there are thousands of varieties within these classes. It's a challenge to learn what the frontier rose aficionado grew after watching Northern-grown imports languish. A treasure chest opened for me the day I read the many varieties named in a Jan. 20, 1892, garden column in the Florida Agriculturist newspaper.

Local lore has long crowned Louis Philippe as the Florida Cracker rose. I can attest to its perfection. Two plants I dug from a friend's yard lived for years in mine, until I transplanted them one too many times. Another word-of-mouth favorite is the yellow climber Marechal Niel. When I finally tracked down a specimen, it died soon after transplanting. Modern strains of this beautiful rose are believed to be weakened by a virus.

Both these varieties are named in the Florida Agriculturist Floral Department column by R.B. or R.H. Burr, whom I haven't yet identified. The first two initials are fuzzy and hard to read. The writer gave a rose named Agrippina equal status with Louis Philippe:

Louis Philippe rose from my garden.

"Agrippina and Louis Philipe [sic] are both excellent ... fair growers and profuse bloomers. They cannot be dispensed with."

That was the first time I've ever heard of Agrippina. A Google Images search turned up a flower that looks much like Louis Philippe, only with a deeper crimson color. No word on its scent. Louis Philippe has a fruity-spicy aroma that's part of its charm.

Mr. or Ms. Burr's list was lengthy and apparently based on his/her personal Florida garden experiences. Most of the varieties are unfamiliar to me, and Old Blush - another favorite that did beautifully for me until I tried to transplant its 6-foot-tall mass - isn't even included.

A partial list of Burr's is below, with additional information added by me after referencing Best Rose Guide by Roger Phillips and Martyn Rix. Those notes are prefaced by the letters BRG and a page number.

• Bon Silene: fair grower, constant bloomer, spicy fragrance, single flower. BRR, 91: color varies from bright pink with deep yellow in center to crimson; sweet fruity scent.
• Madam Berard: half climber, vigorous growth on own roots, "... in favorable weather produces buds as near perfection as a lack of fragrance will admit."
• Caroline Kuster: fairly good bloomer. "Good rose of its color which is much lighter than that of Isabella Sprunt."
• La Sulphide: good grower. "Buds are superb in favorable weather but have little odor."
• Madam Alfred Carriere: vigorous grower on own roots, constant bloomer.  BRG, 103: white with flush of warm in center; Noisette rose.
• Queen of Bedders: poor grower but a profuse bloomer. BRG, 117: double flowers, excellent scent; Bourbon rose.
• Red Malmaison: "Doesn’t come up to expectations, too poor a grower to lose time with."
• Madam Caro: strong grower, constant bloomer, flowers large.
• Perle des Jardins and Coquette de Lyon:  Burr found these two very similar, and advised gardeners to instead choose Isabella Sprunt and Marechal Neil.
• Agrippina and Louis Philipe:  both excellent, fair growers, profuse bloomers. " (Burr spelled Philippe with one p.)
• Empress Eugenie: strong grower, flowers beautifully formed.
• Duchess de Brabant: good grower, constant bloomer, good rose of its class. Burr expressed a preference for Madame Caro. BRG, 98: nodding flowers of salmon or shrimp pink. Duchess de Brabant is a secondary name of a rose identified as Comtesse de Labarthe.

I'm still deciphering spelling and names on the Burr roses not included here; I'll try to write about them in the future. In Part 2 of this blog post, we'll look at how pioneers used roses. Right now, I'm going out to smell the roses of my Bermuda Spice shrub, which I learned in BRG was rediscovered in Bermuda after dying out in Europe, where it was known as Hume's Blush Tea-Scented China. You gotta love the detective work!

Colorful names all that remain

Early Floridians weren't growing Costoluto Genovese
tomatoes like these, one of today's popular heirloom
tomato varieties. Many of the cultivars grown in pioneer
days are hard to find now.  (Photo by Gerri Bauer)

A year ago, I wrote about heirloom vegetables and fruits and promised to follow up with a post about heirloom tomato cultivars. Finally, here it is.

I'm both excited and perplexed by what I found about tomatoes in the pages of Florida newspapers dated 1901-1919. Excited because there were more named varieties in ads and articles than I expected to find. Perplexed because only two were familiar to me: Ponderosa and Spark's Earliana, and the latter is a variation of a name known to me.

I've grown a number of heirloom tomato varieties in my garden over the years. They've included a couple believed to have been grown in Florida until as late as the 1920s and 1930s: June Pink and Earliana -  probably shortened from Spark's Earliana. The June Pink didn't show up in my (admittedly unscientific and limited) research. Nor did Cherokee Purple, Brandywine, Eva Purple Ball, Riesentraube, Costoloto Genovese, or Arkansas Traveler. All have produced tasty tomatoes in my Florida yard. As for Ponderosa - it was a fail in my garden the one time I tried to grow it.

So what did Florida pioneers grow when they set out their tomato seeds? My earliest find was also the most comprehensive. A December 1901 issue of the New Enterprise newspaper of Madison had a Farm and Garden article that addressed "newer introductions" of tomatoes. The names are great: Best of All, Dwarf Golden Champion, Early Nuby, Freedom, Fordhook Fancy, Improved Trophy, Lemon Yellow, Matchless, New Combination, State Fair, World's Fair.

A couple of other references made note of a tomato variously named Stone, Dwarf Stone, New Stone, and Livingston's Stone or Livingston's Globe. An October 1911 issue of the Pensacola Journal highlighted Stone as a "general favorite" for shipping purposes. Other tomatoes said to ship well were Beauty and Perfection.

The Ocala Seed Store in 1913 highlighted six types of tomato seeds for sale, according to a February 1913 issue of the Ocala Evening Star: Dwarf Champion, Early Detroit, Livingston's Globe, New Stone, Redfield Beauty, and Spark's Earliana. Seed cost $2 per pound.

Although the types of heirloom tomato varieties available to us has changed through the decades, one gardening caveat from the past remains true now. As the Pensacola Journal advised readers in 1911, "There are a great many seedsmen in this country, and very little attention should be paid to the many glowing descriptions given in catalogs."

Newspaper references in this blog post are from the Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers website of the Library of Congress.

In search of heirloom cultivars

Types of vegetable and fruit crops grown in pioneer Florida are nothing but names now 

Muscadines don't seem to have changed much over the years.
(Photo by Gerri Bauer)

Every vegetable gardener knows the fun of poring over varieties and cultivars and choosing what to grow. Just about every vegetable gardener - and plenty of nongrowers - also knows how many varieties have been lost to the demands of commercialization. Hence the rise of seed savers and heirloom-tomato aficionados in search of great-tasting, complex flavors. I've grown a (usually different) heirloom-tomato variety along with a fave hybrid every year in my garden.

Those tomato varieties will be the focus of another post. Today I want to write about the vegetables and fruits that no longer sprout in the gardens and farms of Florida. I thought about them earlier this week when harvesting muscadines from the improved variety I grow. Muscadine grapes have a long history in Florida soil.

My research is a mere surface swipe - notes gleaned from the pages of an 1889 Florida Dispatch, Farmer and Fruit Grower, the 1906 DeLand Special Edition of the Florida Agriculturist newspaper, and various local histories. Here's a sampling of what I found. If anyone knows of any of the varieties being cultivated or stored in a seed bank, leave a comment. Maybe the variety can be shared with home gardeners looking to follow in the footsteps of Persimmon Hollow pioneers.

I'm assuming the following are open-pollinated rather than hybrids, being that they were being grown before and up to/including 1906:

• Peas: Alaska, John L., Bliss Everlasting.
• Strawberries: Hoffman, Excelsior, Lady Thompson, with the latter two being noted as best for DeLand home gardens.
• Grapes: Duchess, Roger's No. 44, Peter Wylie, Herbemont, Ives, Goethe (aka Prince). A wine grape named Norton was said to be "marvelously adapted to our soil and climate."
• Muscadine grapes: Flowers, James, Meisch.
• Peaches: Peento (numerous references to that one), Bidwell's Early, Florida Crawford.
• Oranges: Boone's Early, Enterprise Seedless.
• Pears: LeConte (numerous references).
• Pineapples: Enville City ("great taste, doesn't ship well"), Red Spanish ("good for home use, easy to grow"), Cayenne, Abbaka, Egyptian Queens.

What, no persimmons? Well, no, at least not in that brief survey I conducted. But DeLand did go by the name Persimmon Hollow before being settled and taking on the name of city founder Henry A. DeLand. I'm on the local persimmon trail, though, so stay tuned. In the meantime, here's a brief history of persimmon cultivation from Ty-Ty Nursery over the border in Georgia.