2
25
1578
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/45914/archive/files/8599d3cd36e60473ee259c0c10287124.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=BCVXNRE88eLAAeJngd%7EVGn119WzHCMArAQVDBvIcYSKBHOILl06HxRLw2yOvtW8-S7T42iVyzpuNC3kjoJ4lrySR7R2Xs4BdeDdilgSBfqXLRl8bKt5T0MSyYa7Z57f8FtQTzmqQaUKnz8VG%7ETRShxiVsxZPRo55r2Sy9pvIiKPeIjFcWBQrI1S8bSLPV6xaGPoy8ZdkNPWzSOgkVVOK80h72EBK13NkE6kC6cTDAq7i5mWFTug4vR52K%7EzXjCyn7GoguXqAVbxHbeV4CDbYERebHYjIXO7j32y7T7nB1eq2sxD8TzQBahhSkFLIpbhSKJx8NdTsYaAg16P88fII3Q__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
d170276d2717c1b69b77cfa5da2077ba
PDF Text
Text
8<`
Xarr: r...
i
F:::t<>;•:•: ., ; r."{
r;%: a.,,,,,, a?",,,
r-:
x,,.;:;;::•::;,. :•,-,,......
re.
gu-.:....
There is an old Arabian proverb that says,
How can a man die who has sage in his garden?"
We are experiencing a record -breaking heat wave.
Today the
temperature is predicted to reach over 100° and we are only halfway through
this heat -wave. We have had only occasional scattered light showers here so
the garden is quite dry. The squash is plentiful and I have melons growing.
Chili peppers thrive in this heat.
zo
We lifted morale on our site with a picnic. In the heat of July we find
co
a o
to
N it helps to refresh our spirits with a party and we expressed our appreciation
for our junior interpreters. They were acknowledged for their hard work and
m x .°received certificates and awards of appreciation. It was a great success!
cf)°
We
abowe our thanks to Jennifer Poirier who is responsible for planning the picnic
0
oa .and serving
as the emcee.
a3E
J
z
1O
c'
The value of growing herbs in the garden was recognized very early.
Citrus Crescentius' s Opus Ruralium Comrnodorun:,
a thirteenth - century
treatise on farming and gardening promoted the growing of herbs,
according to the pleasures they afford to the mind, consequently preserving
the health of the body as the state of the body affects the mind." He
included them in his pleasure garden stating, " a great diversity of medicinal
and aromatic herbs which not only please by the odor of their scents, but by
their variety of flowers refresh the sight."
Sage is the herb of my garden that I choose to focus on this month.
botanical name is Salvia officenalis.
Its
Sage has always been known for its
health giving properties and salvia means health. There is also a great deal
One old legend states that sage prospers in a
Another belief is that the condition of the health of
garden the woman rules.
of folklore related to sage.
the sage plant depends upon the prosperity of the master of the house.
Another bit of folklore believes that sage only grows well if it is planted by
An old English proverb says, " He who would live
for aye, must eat sage in May." The leaves are at their best in the month of
one with a lucky hand.
May and it was believed human life could be prolonged by eating sage
leaves in May. There was also the religious belief that sage had the power to
dispel evil spirits and that legend grew because sage was used in the
�ETH MARTIN
BRUTON HTS.
FDN. LIBRARY
treatment for snakebite. "
It' s a plant, indeed, with so many and wonderful
properties as the assiduous use of it is said to render men immortal," wrote
John Evelyn in 1699.
Three hundred years ago Nicholas Culpepper advised the use of sage
and honey for a mouthwash for sore mouths and throats. The cooling
effects of sage on the system is good for treatment for a common cold and
useful for relief of coughs due to asthma as well. The Indians treated fevers
with sage tea.
John Wesley recommended washing the face with sage tea
for relief of sunburn, and both tea and a conserve of sage flowers were taken
to help you have a good memory.
Hannah Glasse gives directions for making sage tea for the sick. She
writes, " Take a little sage, a little baum, put it into a pan, slice a lemon, peel
and all, one glass of white whine, pour on these two or three quarts of
boiling water, cover it, and drink when thirsty."
Sage grows best in sunny, well -drained soil. It is a perennial. It has
been used for food seasoning and we can find early medieval recipes for
pork sauce, which contained sage, parsley, breadcrumbs, vinegar and the
yolks of hard- boiled eggs.
From The English Hus wife by Gervase Markham, 1675 there is an
Elizabethan salad that includes small, tender sage leaves and spinach with
fruits, nuts, and sugar.
This was a special salad used a great feasts and it
sounds delicious!
In the 18th century sage was often an ingredient in broth' s and soups
mixed with oatmeal, a kind of potage.
Today the taste adds flavor to white meat, pork and poultry.
It has a
strong taste and it is often included in stuffing and sausages. It is quite often
blended with onions, and should be used sparingly due to its strong, over
powering flavor. So if you wish to live a long, healthy, life and have the
ability to remember your life I recommend that you drink many cups of sage
tea.
ar
2
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News
Description
An account of the resource
The Geddy Garden News was a monthly newsletter produced by employee Janet Guthrie who worked for many years as a garden interpreter at the James Geddy House. The Library holds a partial run of this newsletter (issues 33-114 with some gaps) for the years 1996-2003. The newsletter ceased publication in 2003 upon Guthrie’s retirement.
Subjects covered most often in the newsletters are 18th century gardens, gardening publications, gardens of the Founding Fathers, plant uses, early and pre-Christian folklore, and seasonal customs. Much good and interesting information is found within these newsletters, but current users should be alert for some now archaic interpretive sources, Latin errors, and cultural generalizations, especially with Native peoples/nations of North America which are often treated as one culture instead of many.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News, no. 52, July, 1998
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/45914/archive/files/8c9859ae6c47850f587d5e90cf57c776.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=DjwTbisAcn7Qy7R0lUV0WvsyomHMvA6o0WU-YwM6GmdSNCeq3Ql7ajBB2WsnGtlDPdd9M7QDzOn4l4ihmuYHELu5oEsolmf2oq-aEkzaX3UqjuB%7EBFcnnifAU8K2IOFc%7EhfaQ1aXYQ7Tfp0S38MxLP9qGzgbkU%7EvZ5xLHm7nf7yY3L2QsRwb-nrwohAvw2we8yhaxUBMAVK3igOFdTWNoPs8QqeGToVy8pFhtMevQ-ONutvsp-xarLG0mFMB8MkDydgeQEZ1oYt5IWpA4UAo85su7xs8Su%7ErYDnf1AK5vcgdWm5bwuJqwSUGYt8Qkaob4rvP6jznrhfrnp4T1Zq%7EoA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
a0c5f94f0c83a9c14e0dd434ce516ec8
PDF Text
Text
r "'
U:tirrrr:<
i : iv:<
tri+< iiF:? FFF_ Y:'
rr, .rt:<' r>} r Cb ; F ' tF • ,
Issue # 53
r' F4i{`< F::};: i•
F}
r":." JrrY•r'?;.
iw?
F,;?.• r.; 5::::•,
r:::::
i : •_ '
FA•' rt:
AUGUST
1998
Fairest of months, ripe
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER,
Summer' s Queen
The hey -day of the year
With robes that gleam
With sunny sheen,
Williamsburg, Virginia 23187
Sweet August doth appear."
Camomile
german- matricaria
roman
anthcmis
R. Combe Miller
chamomilla
nobilis
August weather so far has been atypical.
we can ever call the weather typical.
has been unusual weather wise.
I am beginning to question if
It seems to me each season each year
It has been either too cold in the winter
months, too rainy in the spring, too windy or too something or other in every
season.
column.
JR. LIBRARY
COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION
P. O. Box 1776
This particular summer definitely can be put in the " too
hot"
But we are surviving. The Jr. Interpreters have been most helpful
by drawing water from our well and Layne Chappell was invaluable in
harvesting potatoes with me. My grateful thanks to all those that helped.
I
also wish to acknowledge our peer teacher, Sarah Finkelstein as the winner
of the Name the Scarecrow contest. Our scarecrow this year is Matilda, and
she is withstanding the heat and the cameras.
I enjoyed the experience of growing white potatoes. I have always
grown sweet potatoes in the past. Gerard called the white potato the
Virginia potato, the colonists usually referred to it as the Irish potato. It was
customary to plant it on March 17, St Patrick' s Day. I had a few potato bugs
but not a serious problem. Since there was no real infestation I simply
picked off the pests and dropped them into kerosene. They also would
drown them in salt water in the 18th century. There was a good harvest and
we roasted some potatoes in the Geddy yard and enjoyed them. Now I' ve
planted seed potatoes. I was careful to select potatoes that were larger in
size than an egg, thereby insuring enough stored nutrition to produce new,
strong, shoots and eventually healthy potatoes. I planted in a new location to
avoid any remaining disease in the soil and I was sure to cover them well
�with soil to avoid exposure to light.
When exposed the potatoes become
green and toxic.
The first Englishman to write about gardens was Alexander of
Neckaham who was born in 1157. In The Nature of Things he wrote of the
flowers, herbs and fruits that should be included in a noble garden. Among
those fruits was the fig. Our figs are ripe and plentiful and I enjoy eating
them right from the branches. Phyllis made a fig cake with them that we all
enjoyed.
Among the herbs in my garden is one that was very popular booth in
the' 18th century and today as well, chamomile.
The two chamomiles, German and Roman are similar in appearance
and in their apple — like fragrance.
translated means, "
ground apple."
In fact that name, chamomile loosely
I like the names of the herbs, as they are
generally not named for people or places but relate to the plant itself and are
descriptive and sensible names.
Herbalists say these plants are interchangeable. The chemical
properties in both are alike. The differences are that the German chamomile
is an annual, wild plant, and grows tall whereas the Roman is perennial and
creeps lower.
They are sometimes identified as chamomile 1 and
chamomile II.
I am growing the German chamomile. It' s medical use can be traced
back to ancient Egypt. Oil of chamomile was prepared as ointments and
poultices. Nicholas Culpeper acknowledged its value in the 17th century. It
was suggested that chamomile be used to relax tense muscles and alleviate
fatigue.
Landon Carter used it frequently for his slaves and himself for a
variety of ailments, among them colic, stomach disorders, fever, cold
symptoms and worms.
It was even prepared as a strong tea and washed
externally on small pox ulcers.
Sir John Hill wrote in 1772, "
of virtue."
All parts of this excellent plant are full
The leaves and flowers served in aromatic bitters.
In January
1774 an article in the Virginia Gazette recommended it as one of 17 herbal
teas to be made as an alternative to drinking imported tea.
2
�A receipt from the Good Housewife' s Handbook, 1588 for chamomile
oil instructs; " To make oyle of chamomile — take
oyle a pint and a half, and
three ounces of chamomile flowers dryed one day after they be gathered.
Then put the oyle and the flowers in a glasse and stop the mouth close and
set it into the sun by the space of forty days."
John Randolph' s Treatise on Gardening by a Citizen of Virginia
suggested that you slip your chamomile in the month of March.
Parkinson
mentioned that the plant be planted, " in walks, and on banks to sit on, for
that the more it is trodden on, and pressed downe in dry weather, the closer it
groweth, and the better it will thrive."
Today chamomile tea is well known the world over as one of the
major herbal teas.
It is considered a treatment for insomnia. Some take it as
a cure for diarrhea, for nervous disorders, heartburn, morning sickness,
urinary tract infections, relief for gout, relief of arthritic pains, fever and flu
symptoms.
For those people with allergies it should be noted that
chamomile is related to ragweed and should be avoided if you are sensitive
to ragweed.
Aside from that long list of medicinal uses the versatile plant has been
used cosmetically for centuries as well. Both in the past and now
chamomile oil in the bath water serves as a means of relaxation.
Also then
as now hair washed in chamomile tea brings out color highlights and softens
the hair.
Today chamomile is used as a beauty treatment in facial masks and
also in wet compresses on the eyelids to refresh puffy eyes.
This wonderful versatile plant serves not only people but other plants
as well.
Chamomile tea can be sprayed on mildewed seedlings and by
planting chamomile throughout the garden, sickly plants can be restored to
good health.
I personally am not fond of the taste of chamomile tea but I drink it
mainly because it comes so highly recommended.
Mrs. Rabbit administered
it to Peter and that' s good enough for me!
fae€ leaktie
3
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News
Description
An account of the resource
The Geddy Garden News was a monthly newsletter produced by employee Janet Guthrie who worked for many years as a garden interpreter at the James Geddy House. The Library holds a partial run of this newsletter (issues 33-114 with some gaps) for the years 1996-2003. The newsletter ceased publication in 2003 upon Guthrie’s retirement.
Subjects covered most often in the newsletters are 18th century gardens, gardening publications, gardens of the Founding Fathers, plant uses, early and pre-Christian folklore, and seasonal customs. Much good and interesting information is found within these newsletters, but current users should be alert for some now archaic interpretive sources, Latin errors, and cultural generalizations, especially with Native peoples/nations of North America which are often treated as one culture instead of many.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News, no. 53, August, 1998
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/45914/archive/files/bf679da27b6f21143ce18e03650686c9.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=E-fj%7EfiQ9lFrk-rb-5zJMcITrbNmRekxeLCCGDA2YqQW%7EFRbCIM80DnAzcIWaBETVD1zfCFTAuQZG6vYdx0iZlZTzBaFKPKzgSMgkJ4FcW7mpuEtpeJSsDfVOAqSDEDZv9hpUB%7Ev6bMwY2q2tEkhABWjPldJi7eXUgQZvETI93y8EBlvZElOSnEDwRfo7e%7EzenIVOu43A6TY8bHVX1B6FsP46JNhC%7EEKR8VV9Lyn1gy8YIWogJPq26TgyjoTr779A-6UrQFT0qA6n8syEYZJIFnWJzuhAIfg-6RFHiZnEADDKrSrn8V1ICoxk6YubXaUldZGZivRfS0KJz5J87Bftw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
45ece587fc8f859b2c61729065fb0c5c
PDF Text
Text
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, JR. LIBRARY
COLONIAL WILLIAMS',
OUN© AT10 N EW
23187
stvWilliamsburg,
Issue
1998
1154 cSepiember
The
blows soli. T'
the flu&
ill
the toil September
garden show is almost over for another sununer. The marigolds and globe amaranths
are taking their final bows but the morning glories are taking the spotlight. They
are covering the fence in an array of rich colors. Walt
Whitman wrote, A
"
morning- glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics
of books."I
found among my moming glories some dipper gourds that volunteered left over from
last year. Gourds are fun and interesting. In the 18th century the slaves put egg shaped
gourds in the chickens nests to keep the chickens laying eggs. If
I cho se to dry the gourds, I must cut them before the first frost when the stems dry
or turn brown. Then they must be dried in a warm, dry, place either on newspapers or
hung to dry for a period of three months up to a year. I wil be careful to make no holes
in the gourds. When the seeds within them begin to rat le, I wil know they are completely
dry. soaking them in soapy water to remove the mold, I wil scrub them with
After
stainless steel and fashion them into dippers. I
have planted the fall cabbages, lettuces and broccoli. The abundance of apples encouraged
2 of our junior interpreters to try a couple of 18t-century receipts in the Geddy
yard. They gathered apples from several trees resulting in a variety of apples and made
two dishes. One was an egg dish;a type of apple fritter and the other a dish called Apple
Tansy. It was a suc es ful experience. An
apple tree in the Roscow Cole yard produced some small, unattractive, brown apples
that did not look too tempting but when I tased them,they were crispy and sweet. They
were by far the best tasting apples around. No one seemed to know what kind they were
but of courseRollin Woolley knew.They are called Margil apples and a number of employe s
have been sampling them.How lucky we are to have such goodies available to
us at our work place. Luckily
we are not living here during the time when the Lawes Divine, Morall and
Martial for the colony of Virginia were in effect or we would surely be found guilty of
breaking law number thirty one.What
"
man or woman soever, shall rob any garden, publike
or private, beign set to weed the same, or wilful y pluck up therein any roote, herbe,
or flower, to spoile and wast or steale the same, or robbe any Vineyard, or gather up
the grapes, or steale any eares of
the come growing, whether in the ground belonging
�tea can be taken to calm the nerves and to aid in sleep and help in the digestive process.
In a study at the University of Leister in Britain it was found that insomniacs slept as long
with the smell of lavender oil as they did with the aid of drugs and tossed and turned less.
Lavender is one of the herbs that is used often in aromatherapy due to the fact that
herbalists regard it as an anti -depressant.
The use of lavender oil in perfume and toilet water has been popular for ages
but do not be afraid to try it in your cooking as it adds an interesting flavor to grilled meat
and chicken dishes.
The Chelsea Physic' s Garden established in 1623 has a Lavender Avenue near the
Swan Walk Gate. The avenue commemorates Philip Miller who was the gardener there
in 1722 until 1770. He was regarded as the greatest of botanical horticulturealists.
Linnaeus called him the " Prince of Gardeners," and he was the author of the famed
Gardener' s dictionary in 1731. Miller was responsible for giving the name to Lavandula
angustifolia, the plant that produces the finest of all lavender oils.
Lavender also has some religious significance.
is often found in advent wreaths in Christian churches.
3
It represents purity and virtue and
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News
Description
An account of the resource
The Geddy Garden News was a monthly newsletter produced by employee Janet Guthrie who worked for many years as a garden interpreter at the James Geddy House. The Library holds a partial run of this newsletter (issues 33-114 with some gaps) for the years 1996-2003. The newsletter ceased publication in 2003 upon Guthrie’s retirement.
Subjects covered most often in the newsletters are 18th century gardens, gardening publications, gardens of the Founding Fathers, plant uses, early and pre-Christian folklore, and seasonal customs. Much good and interesting information is found within these newsletters, but current users should be alert for some now archaic interpretive sources, Latin errors, and cultural generalizations, especially with Native peoples/nations of North America which are often treated as one culture instead of many.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News, no. 54, September, 1998
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/45914/archive/files/0a3c20fa460f438bbf77e24578b1ef6c.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=FPZtTKH4EhB%7E-l6LE1YxJEbabMrJzLV0J9jHD6rnJx9dLlV69SMTb2wov8JCRIxX37glUU6eWr6ZyaHwVqJoYbua6q%7ETR1qzBTeNIfwViLBQ9Uxbhi8n1rlMTUd4OvGTbmxn1yaXAR7i9odTG0y7Rovi2GAZqrOW%7EV%7EfJ4w9CMzW5YnLArt9pr5i8vcYWIwDg1YxJ23JgkIQmkd7SkBJvgL2Dp2u-1A6OUlSc2Lf1cHRbAY2pAggHfhAI309HnFMVR2-GfTCIvFppmzm2nqoGyq1Ta0p8eN9emY4Nav3gM86jB%7EEUwI0Bftyp1MqRkAx%7EIdx-cBtRaoaWt39%7EvSQPA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
128e35211a9d12725d9e5ad2c2480a43
PDF Text
Text
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, JR. LIBRARY
COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION
P. 0. Box 1776
Williamsburg, Virginia 23187
ISSUE #
OC OBER 1998
55
GEDDY GARDEN NEWS
In October dung your field and your land, it' s wealth shall yeild
Old English Proverb
the
The slaves called October the yellow month due to they golden hue of
fall leaves. Unfortunately the leaves this year do not seem as colorful,
which is probably due to the dryness of the past summer so we do not have
the usual color show this season.
Albert hasaned out the perennial border. Now is a good time for
you to plant some bulbs in your gardens at home. Be creative now and
enjoy the results in the spring.
The fall vegetables, collards, cabbage,
broccoli, and lettuce are doing well.
We enjoyed the second batch of figs this year, so although our apples
were scarce the figs compensated by being so abundant.
I realize the fall season brings feelings of sadness to many. The end
of the productive summer can be condusive to melancholy, but I love the
way it satisfies my senses.
My sight is delighted with the colorful leaves every autumn and my
ears enjoy new bird sounds, mingled with the crackling and crunching of the
The cool air in the mornings and evenings is warmed by
the sun at midday and the contrast is invigorating.
leaves under foot.
The C. W. News printed on the front page a picture of our scarecrow,
Matilda. I felt just like a proud parent.
One of our junior interpreters recently asked me about the origin of
Halloween so I decided this would be a good time to think about this
It' s origins go back 2000 years to the Celts in Ireland
The coming of the winter season was caled Samhain, and was
interesting holiday.
and Britain.
celebrated with a festival.
On October 31
S`
when the sun was at it' s lowest,
the pagan belief was that the sun entered the
underworld and through the
�open gates evil spirits entered and roamed about the earth.
In an attempt to
hide from these evil demons the Celts dressed as ghosts and witches.
were bonfires lit to frighten the spirits away.
There
When Christianity spread, the holy day of All Saints Day also
known as All Hallows, was celebrated on November 1.
Hallows became known as Halloween.
The eve of all
Martin Luther attempted in vain to
abolish the celebration of Halloween. It was not celebrated in the manner in
which we do today until the 19th century.
In England, Protestants today burn scarecrows in bonfires and
combine the festivities of Halloween with Guyfawkes Day on November
5th.
There is an herb farm in Mason, New Hampshire called Pickity
Such herbs as monkshead, May apple
Place, that features a Witches Garden.
and hemlock grow in the Witches Garden and all have poisonous parts and
could concoct a potent witches brew. It would be a wonderful place to visit
on Halloween.
Today, in our country, the pagan and religious customs have
been combined to create the rather light hearted, costumed, trick or treat
party that we know as Halloween.
Witches fly skyward into the Blackness.
Their passengers are always cats of the darkest.
Halloween is with us, Eve ofAll Saints, and
Spirits are stirring."
John Patton
44aptN
4at[owevi
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News
Description
An account of the resource
The Geddy Garden News was a monthly newsletter produced by employee Janet Guthrie who worked for many years as a garden interpreter at the James Geddy House. The Library holds a partial run of this newsletter (issues 33-114 with some gaps) for the years 1996-2003. The newsletter ceased publication in 2003 upon Guthrie’s retirement.
Subjects covered most often in the newsletters are 18th century gardens, gardening publications, gardens of the Founding Fathers, plant uses, early and pre-Christian folklore, and seasonal customs. Much good and interesting information is found within these newsletters, but current users should be alert for some now archaic interpretive sources, Latin errors, and cultural generalizations, especially with Native peoples/nations of North America which are often treated as one culture instead of many.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News, no. 55, October, 1998
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/45914/archive/files/aa6c0fa4987ee79b1f8c5317179aae62.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=YG8EtGFbuHHr-7kbgyyflM0nSjApzCrv5dpZR2M8fpqXy3OAkRIXEfCYOYxEuJza7JJnEduCCGP-JpHz1%7ErTr4OpZ7VBY2ftBjv-eUZS7235gcsQdbNjZNmmiI0C2N58OgUnTw0ug49lmua9B6z4c4noZ48EWVnWG2sgXTiI2q7k-TbsqUdcYbS0f96YoWYiHlhDqwH2fLM7XPm93shxItyMT3MyG6FWLEcS2RLA0QoNPAGsZRTIdUcUrKZlxl%7EdIZCMqp1MsUgQox6QYr8bGYX015VNNbsguY%7EMNRmBRhk2a%7EFVLR6vlLPY6iPNUaDRR%7E5J8EF%7E5RFCz5aQyOjZrQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
bc7fb7f3f55c0ce317fa85bc789989b1
PDF Text
Text
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, JR. LIBRARY
COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION
Issue #
57
P. 0. Box 1776
December
21,
1998
i! liamsburg, Virginia 23187
GEDDY GARDEN NEWS
Christmas comes on this month, let us all rejoice at this redeeming
festival: In acts of charity assist distress, The poor will thank you, and God
will you bless."
George Washington 12/ 24/ 81, a letter to Major Wm. Heath
We are in the midst of the holy season of Advent and Hanukkah so it
seems appropriate to dedicate this issue to some of the plants, flowers and
trees that are related by legend, folklore or symbols to these holy seasons.
The folklore has been passed on through centuries and some of our religious
customs and traditions are an accumulation of such legends.
The relationship of God and nature has been recognized from
antiquity. Certain garden designs were making direct relationship to God.
The cloistered design of the hortus conclusis garden in the middle ages were
contemplative gardens which enabled those within to escape from the chaos
of the world.
These were secure, walled in gardens and symbolic of the
Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. These gardens
provided a place for the pursuit of happiness and the highest level of
happiness was not attained from what the early gains offered such as wealth,
power and fame but from truth and knowledge.
Within these enclosed gardens the intrusions of the world were shut
out and the desired goal could be reached which culminated in peace. Of
course the message of Christ' s coming at Christmas was to create peace on
The flowers grown within became associated with Mary and her
outstanding characteristics, thus these gardens became known as Mary
earth.
Gardens.
Some of the flowers that relate to the mother of God are the Lily of
the Valley and the Rose of Sharon which are mentioned in Solomon 2: 1 and
symbolic of Mary' s purity and her virtue of chastity. The violet, of which
Sir Francis Bacon wrote, ' That which above all yields the sweetest smell in
�the air is the violet' is symbolic of Mary' s humility. Jasmine also known for
its symbolism to Mary, the white color suggests the virtue of purity.
The flower that is most closely associated with Mary is the Rose.
There is a legend related by St. Ambrose that tells of how the rose got its
thorns.
According to legend the rose grew in Paradise minus thorns but after
the fall of men in the Garden of Eden the rose took on thorns to remind man
of his loss of Paradise.
Mary is called a ' Rose without thorns because she
was exempt from original sin. The daisy is symbolic of the innocence and
sweet simplicity of the Christ child and Lady Bed -Straw, so the legend tells
us, was a plant among the straw in the manger where the infant Jesus laid.
Pink Cisties. -
a pink flower that blooms in Palestine in the spring produces a
gum called Ladanum which is referred to in Genesis
as Myrrh. When it is
burned as incense it has a sweeter odor than Frankincense and it was those
two resins, valued for their fragrance that were gifts of the Magi to the infant
Jesus.
Coriander is one of the bitter herbs to be eaten at Passover.
The seed
of Coriander becomes more fragrant the longer it is kept but the foliage has a
strong offensive odor.
Even the maze in a garden had a significant meaning.
The use of a
maze reaches back to antiquity and was an allegorical path to salvation.
The spirit of Christmas can be truly found in a garden. Meny
Christmas.
Janet Guthrie
Nr. se Wrrhoui drorus. 1
6%i ednurn of Gerard s Ilnbrll
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News
Description
An account of the resource
The Geddy Garden News was a monthly newsletter produced by employee Janet Guthrie who worked for many years as a garden interpreter at the James Geddy House. The Library holds a partial run of this newsletter (issues 33-114 with some gaps) for the years 1996-2003. The newsletter ceased publication in 2003 upon Guthrie’s retirement.
Subjects covered most often in the newsletters are 18th century gardens, gardening publications, gardens of the Founding Fathers, plant uses, early and pre-Christian folklore, and seasonal customs. Much good and interesting information is found within these newsletters, but current users should be alert for some now archaic interpretive sources, Latin errors, and cultural generalizations, especially with Native peoples/nations of North America which are often treated as one culture instead of many.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News, no. 57, December, 1998
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/45914/archive/files/32fd1f4a118a0ffead82912ea86e6e23.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=IZXIy4mc5VjZOpJTFUwuJto3JRb%7EFAdV31utzj1JxihdyliYqKeeJXJNfuywr5VlGH8loBfItQEn2LUfvPwe9bm1sB6NQAevn9effXMEz1JzIEEVl72WpNxxN0MlLxl7loAYB4amiXFO135q5l7pWaZAB%7ERTUJuoPTLrmOawIXEb9KlKLZVHz9Rwc7q-YOQMcveFuR2vfLqVd20rZcPyCXPTm9oYPhNB38EMdTClepy40S5PoA0LzqYMbpsz-qKxZIGnE792j5yR836y6OVlPfVbrmxjCJ5xBa08iVZ%7EYtJhCCLKaTeaKWTjxq0IbVMpkMoxi0JXiR7Bl4oaSsVoOA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
28c95b2ce63b0f86540a06e8043e1145
PDF Text
Text
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, JR. LIBRARY
COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION
P. 0. Box 1776
Williamsburg; Virginia 23187
Issue # 58
January 1999
GEDDY GARDEN NEWS
The winter does not go without looking backward.
A Finnish Proverb
Looking back over the past season we realize what bizarre weather we have
experienced this year. We enjoyed an unusually hot spell — with
record breaking
temperatures in the weeks prior to Christmas. During that warm spell, we at the Geddy
site enjoyed our seasonal annual events. We wassailed our way to the Poiriers new
residence for the junior interpreters' Christmas party, blessing the trees en route with our
wassail. We have come to think of Jennifer Poirier as our Saint Julian, the patron saint of
hospitality.
She and Noel had only been living in the house a few weeks when we
descended upon them. It was a wonderful party!
We also were hosted by Beverly and Dwight Rudd in the Peary Hartwell Ordinary
for our Geddy Christmas party. It too was a very successful, festive affair. Then just as
Christmas Eve approached we were the recipients of an unexpected gift from Mother
Nature. Because it was unexpected by a lot of us we were quite unprepared. The
weatherman had predicted some freezing weather but I certainly did not expect the
extreme outcome that resulted. Most of us were caught off guard when we lost our
electric power, our telephones and in some cases our water supply.
The visual scene created by the ice storm however was one of silent beauty: The
trees were all silver plated and draped over in graceful positions.
Being controlled by our high tech lifestyle we were suddenly presented with the
It was a most humbling experience. Nature demanded that we
slow down our frantic pace. We had no choice but to comply.
challenge of survival.
In past centuries these stark winter conditions did not cripple the people. Samuel
Pepy' s wrote in his diary on January 11, 1668, " With my wife for half an hour walking in
the moonlight, and it being cold, frosty weather, walking in the garden, and then home to
supper, and so by the fireside to have my head combed, as I do now often do, by Deb."
There was a period of time from the 15th century called the Little Ice Age. In
England the Thames River froze often during those times. It was frozen solid for a
period of nine weeks in 1778. There were at those times Frost Fairs where many typical
fair activities, such as shows and sales took place on the thick ice. In the last Frost Fair
that was held in 1814 an elephant actually paraded down the frozen Thames River.
Landon Carter in his diary often wrote of the weather. He relied on the position
of the moon as his weather forecaster. He felt when the moon was leaning on its back
frost and rain were in the offing. He mentioned that the river had frozen over twice
in
�1766 and in January of 1767. There were two days, of frozen sleet and he wrote that it
was, "
A bad season this for old people and creatures which must feel it in their bones and
joynts. It is also very bad for any Kind ( of work) for none can be done."
After a siege of
bad weather in February of 1770 he wrote, " Hardly a day without falling weather, severe
frosts, pinching colds, and violent winds.
Those of us who were lucky enough to have a fireplace in our homes made good
use of them. During those cold days we truly appreciated whatever warmth they
provided even though Ben Franklin wrote it " will heat your face while your behind
freezes."
I simply turned around every so often.
Landon Carter also wrote, "
Another consequence of the gust is the destruction of
the timber which no future age of the world can repair. For the standing trees are in a
state of death mostly being shaken by the winds the roots so broke and the violent wet
weather since disposing of them to hasty rots."
We can certainly relate to the suffering Mr. Carter felt from the loss of fallen
trees. The greatest destruction of the ice storm was done to the trees. Perhaps it would
have been wise for us to have made a detour on our wassail route to include the trees in
the woods at Bassett Hall this year, for on Christmas Eve the Great Oak at Bassett Hall
was lost. We were aware that it was living on borrowed time for some time now but we
were assisting it in staying alive as best we could.
For anyone, such as myself who has worked at Bassett hall in the past it is
lamentable. That tree was always an integral part of the Rockefeller story and stood as a
living symbol of the past. It had stood there for over three hundred years with its
branches spread over a one hundred -foot span. It was very much a part of the visitor' s
experience to Williamsburg. Part of the joy of interpreting Bassett Hall was the
opportunity to roam the beautiful grounds and sit in the shade of the Great Oak and allow
yourself to be transported back through the centuries.
Now as the work continues to clear away the ice storms victims, the broken and
dead tree branches, we realize that nature has her own way of cleaning house. Perhaps
she was a bit over zealous and got carried away with her pruning chore this year!
Janet Guthrie
BETH MARTIN
BRUTON HTS.
FDN. LIBRARY
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News
Description
An account of the resource
The Geddy Garden News was a monthly newsletter produced by employee Janet Guthrie who worked for many years as a garden interpreter at the James Geddy House. The Library holds a partial run of this newsletter (issues 33-114 with some gaps) for the years 1996-2003. The newsletter ceased publication in 2003 upon Guthrie’s retirement.
Subjects covered most often in the newsletters are 18th century gardens, gardening publications, gardens of the Founding Fathers, plant uses, early and pre-Christian folklore, and seasonal customs. Much good and interesting information is found within these newsletters, but current users should be alert for some now archaic interpretive sources, Latin errors, and cultural generalizations, especially with Native peoples/nations of North America which are often treated as one culture instead of many.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News, no. 58, January, 1999
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/45914/archive/files/23f6c4fcd5db3aaf42fa6b83d34635c0.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=lKx74UaS53HybqPs4t3qMLBaYNmJ1SC9USQGcdd0EbFQOqVnUV-FBgBwTl95sPHPd0nFwtamXZIk2SCdJEnlzCOxYiCEV%7ENy69Z-XJxZ%7EpcWAYEWwNciSWT0EBTfKJodl5x0igD5tpWXjrG0rgb2WIGnnvjMjCy9Q-X8Twt%7EJIxH2OgHJQVRx3zuaTNiqvdWs0T2Wxhl1N9RLiB5fAX9PPE6BI1CdsL1gGt08UhAK5UYnQj8RIQ35XwFHkv65mUTLpuHhCWK2RbDcYOe3KKYREkm9y44PIzHWPZMtByhjZ4ORDJ5wJJBKX9ysVfOUQchEODcLpT00jYNKO7oRtAC3g__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
e413295d883eae18226c3a9687ca183f
PDF Text
Text
Issue # 59
February 1999
GEDDY GARDEN NEWS
1 am once more seated under my own vine and fig -ree... and hope to spend
t
the remainder of my days... in peaceful retirement; making political persuits
yield to the more rational amusement of cultivating the earth."
George
Washington
My Geddy garden will be encompassed by perennials along the fence this year
and my morning glories will have colorful company.
I took a vacation in Vero Beach, Florida this past month and during my visit
took a guided tour of an interesting garden. I found it of great interest due to the similarities I
found with Colonial Williamsburg.
The original McKee Botanical garden was established in 1932 on Route 1,
southwest of Vero Beach in Indian River Co., Florida.
o
Jungle Gardens"
o^
attraction
ec
cc
CO
Z
It was a major tourist
in Florida.
o0
o`'' .,
garden was created by landscape designer, William Lyman Phillips, from the
cThe
cc
At that time it was called the " McKee
as it also included some caged animals and birds.
well known New England firm of Fred Law Olmsted. Phillips
and Olmsted had been cc'
w _
Eo
Shur
clas mates at Harvard. Arthur A.clif , who became the landscape designer of Colonial wm
gardens at the time of the restoration, at one time worked under Olmsted. It was Y¢
that time that restoration concentrated on beautif cation in our country. Colonial o
m Wi'>
l amsburg
o=
at
J a:. Wil amsburg naturally focused on recreating formal European designs in the gardens and the o¢
a
03
col nial revival look graced many of our yards. zz
zoo
The
tropical zone of Florida, with its hot climate, concentrated
on more exotic plants,
and in order to do so they traveled all over the world to procure such plants. Orchids were
featured at McKee Gardens and there were Giant Bamboo trees, many varieties of Palm trees,
Hibiscus, Palmetto, Pepper Berry trees, Banyan trees from which you get rubber, and native
vegetation. All
these combined to create a tropical paradise. I
to k a guided tour and as we walked under a canopy of palm fronds we were asked
to collect any wild potatoes from the vines which were strangling the trees. I obliged. The
knowledgeable guide told the story of the garden as she identified some of the
strange and wonderful flowers and trees. I
Having
was impressed by a 500 year -old Live Oak tree.
recently lost our 300 year -old Oak tree at Bassett Hall in the Christmas ice storm,
I could not help but marvel at their treasure and wonder if they appreciated it. they
I gues
did, as they respectful y referred to the old oak as the "old man of the jungle."The
oak
�tree was one of seven trees called Florida Champions.
The champions are rated not by age,
but by height, width, and size of the tree.
Arthur McKee was a Cleveland industrialist in steel and petroleum who decided
to establish an 80 acre tract of land in the effort to create an environment for native and exotic
plants and to help promote tourism in Florida. A grove of over 300 Royal Palms, which are
native to Cuba, created such an attractive and romantic spot that it became a favorite locality
for weddings to take place.
Due to the generosity of visionaries like John D. Rockefeller and Arthur G.
McKee beautiful places like Colonial Williamsburg and the McKee Gardens became possible.
The opening of Interstate 95 and the decline of travel on US 1, along with the
opening of other attractions in Florida, such as Disney World and Sea World, caused the
garden to close in 1976. It was temporarily closed to the public during World War II when the
facility was served as a training ground for American soldiers. The tropical atmosphere was
so realistic that the soldiers were taught the techniques of jungle warfare there.
Although only 18 acres of the original 80 are available today for restoration, a
dedicated, hard working group of citizens are recreating a small bit of paradise.
Like Colonial Williamsburg, education plays a major role in the goals and
activities at McKee.
the site.
During the past summer "
At Risk"
students attended a cultural camp at
During my visit I saw middle school and high school students who volunteered to
In later years these young
McKee Gardens has recently
help clean up the garden by removing debris, branches, and fronds.
people will have a special feeling of attachment to this museum.
been named to the National Register of Historic Places.
This restoration was started as a grass roots endeavor for preservation and
conservation.
exempt
The Indian River Land Trust and McKee Botanical Garden is a non- profit, tax
organization.
I was very impressed with the place and was happy to learn that in the
future there will be no birds or animals kept in captivity as in the past, but certain plants will
be planted to attract birds like the parrot.
But enough about what I did on my winter vacation. I must now begin planting
my kitchen garden. As John Evelyn wrote in his Kalenderium Hortense:
A Gard' ners work is never at an end;
It begins with the Year, and continues to the next."
Janet Guthrie
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News
Description
An account of the resource
The Geddy Garden News was a monthly newsletter produced by employee Janet Guthrie who worked for many years as a garden interpreter at the James Geddy House. The Library holds a partial run of this newsletter (issues 33-114 with some gaps) for the years 1996-2003. The newsletter ceased publication in 2003 upon Guthrie’s retirement.
Subjects covered most often in the newsletters are 18th century gardens, gardening publications, gardens of the Founding Fathers, plant uses, early and pre-Christian folklore, and seasonal customs. Much good and interesting information is found within these newsletters, but current users should be alert for some now archaic interpretive sources, Latin errors, and cultural generalizations, especially with Native peoples/nations of North America which are often treated as one culture instead of many.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News, no. 59, February, 1999
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/45914/archive/files/ffd4d6a522d0fac67f312aefe015d57f.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=ZcIjUgaRm2lzuqmdLWQKgw0L5lVIPhIJF%7EH2q%7EnvIBAqki6N%7EMLEAmoXG2x2xninhRjalzcZGJ8DbAQn0OI-rFy-Cc0KLrfzr6KLHbXBCG3CG68sWFRtCteXhcy2qdMVjKwBMBTqU0s4BbKKAHevhgB2jIAk92aPZYkdAJ3KxeI-XRPIWsie4yIWUP4KMDW7gKMM9TDAWCJWcei3IRFgiJMb3iosS5a-ran9iZ8euQciCsSp%7Edbxp3xDyMK7whxaYd4Jg%7E7QmogycFVTF8kF8MxLYaRn8RGx3lisN8RKpQFbowfBCa7Mqol9iSl8191mFrqqA-DUBp7XxC9mN%7EG1iw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
7ef1ff408742eaf522bce661f5cd99ff
PDF Text
Text
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, JR. LIBRARY
COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION
P. 0. Box 1776
Williamsburg, Virginia 23187
GEDDY GARDEN NEWS
ISSUE #
MARCH
60
1999
March will search ye, April try ye,
May will tell, whether live or die ye,
Old English folksaying
Spring has arrived and I am ready for it.
Springtime
offers
many qualities, freshness, newness, simplicity, optimism and beauty.
so
Daffodils
are appearing around us and on the breezy days they stubbornly bob about
defiantly braving the winds.
I' ve planted my early peas. St. Patrick' s Day was a fine day for
planting them. It must have been the luck of the Irish! I' ve also put some
purple broccoli and Kohl robi plants in the garden.
I sowed some arugla seeds
as well.
This past month I concentrated on archeology. At the Williamsburg
program, The Town Before the Town: Explorina Williamsbura' s 17th Roots, we
explored the role of archeology in discovering what we need to know about
Williamsburg.
I found it all fascinating but I was especially interested in the areas
that were related to gardening such as the demonstration of paleobotany
analytical techniques.
At the visit to the phytolith lab I had the opportunity to
view a phytolith under the microscope.
I learned that fruit trees do not produce
phytotiths and that grasses produce the most.
At a seminar at Gunston Hall, archeology was featured.
The focus
of the seminar was on the changes in the Chesapeake landscape d evelopment.
Historical archeology is taking place today and is important in helping us
understand and appreciate that the landscape, like gardens make up
the cultural
aspects of other people.
I had the opportunity to share what I learned at these programs
with school students via the Electronic Field trip.
Discovering the Past through
archeology was the theme for a Colonial Williamsburg electronic field trip which
went out to schools all over the nation. The students telephoned their questions
and along with 17 other coworkers I answered them.
certainly came in handy.
All that recent training
�As I prepared my soil in the Geddy garden this week I found some
shards of blue and white ceramics which I added to my collection of other
artifacts from my garden. I like to do a little exploring with archeology myself.
Now I' m off to the garden with a lot of work to do.
When all is said and done is there any more wonderful sight, any
moment when man' s reason is nearer to some sort of contact with the nature of
the world than the sowing of seed, the planting of cuttings, the transplanting of
shrubs or the grafting of slips?"
St. Augustine
NAi..,
e
2
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News
Description
An account of the resource
The Geddy Garden News was a monthly newsletter produced by employee Janet Guthrie who worked for many years as a garden interpreter at the James Geddy House. The Library holds a partial run of this newsletter (issues 33-114 with some gaps) for the years 1996-2003. The newsletter ceased publication in 2003 upon Guthrie’s retirement.
Subjects covered most often in the newsletters are 18th century gardens, gardening publications, gardens of the Founding Fathers, plant uses, early and pre-Christian folklore, and seasonal customs. Much good and interesting information is found within these newsletters, but current users should be alert for some now archaic interpretive sources, Latin errors, and cultural generalizations, especially with Native peoples/nations of North America which are often treated as one culture instead of many.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News, no. 60, March, 1999
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/45914/archive/files/6065be9e003b46021380beaeaea48c5b.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=h80P9RjCpnEaxGEqY3cIUpBqGo42RWYp5huoboXab1ZqL2PqFT3VNN7eEBWC6-KOGbiuCdBrSfCNkK%7EIz9qUMYs3Ak6yEwaBwU6jMkjQkPIBs27vLXJVHF7ZUYRDYKLurAZr0EjMNLmAafjCnZ3lyvYCqJcGDCL-75cd98Zvrfl6BOCk2vBMgFzY6r3GIqxSzflNrXbpeAM3U50SotTie3D1Crp4icEptv2YD-kP-y-WTJ%7EH%7E0NP9uanRVnfmBLTK-Aaqe2CW4VUfMQiiuyaVaNANGFJ5C4ndN6WCldDFkm21P3qZudQUlWUYv6T8U9mniBtC8XUOsaKXF8J6zkKIQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
0ca219ef036f763467d6a275058e8743
PDF Text
Text
JOHN D. ROCKEfELLER, JR. LIBRARY
COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION
P. O. Box 1776
Williamsburg, Virginia 23187
Issue # 62
May 1999
GEDDY GARDEN NEWS
Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year' s pleasant king;
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing,
Jug -jug, pu- we, to- witta- woo!
Thomas Nash,
16th Century English author
For the past several months I have been researching the history of the
celebration and customs of May Day in preparation for the 300th anniversary of the
establishment of the city of Williamsburg. The decision had been made to create a May
pole and to invite the citizens to take part in the Maypole
dance.
This
assignment
was
appropriate for me because of the relationship of May Day with spring flowers.
Very quickly I learned that May Day celebrations represented very
different things to various people.
Originally it was a pagan ritual dating from prehistoric times. It had many
names.
The Celts called it Beltane, Teutons called it Walpurgis, and the Romans named
it Floralia, for Flora, the goddess of flowers and springtime.
Some believe the Druids
were celebrating tree worship and in Egypt and India the May Day celebrations were like
spring festivals. These celebrations were a combination of mythology and folklore.
May Day was a major festival in pre -Christian Europe that celebrated the
A
important seasonal transition in the year. It was an expression of the death of winter.
key symbol of the day was fresh spring flowers, which served to generate feelings of
hope and joy in the communities.
Trees, which became the Maypoles, were carried from the woods.
The
branches were chopped off and the tree trunks were wrapped in violets and ribbons were
attached to the top of the Maypoles after the trees were carried to towns accompanied by
the music of horns and flutes.
In the earliest days May Day used to be a period of great sexual license
and a fertility rite. Men and young maidens went into the forests on the eve of May Day
to gather birch boughs, flowers and garlands for the Maypole and did not return from the
forest until the next day. This was called goinz aMaving.
Because of these sexual overtones the Church of England tried to suppress
the
Maypole
celebrations.
The Maypoles
were deemed devilish
instruments
and
heathenish and the constables and churchwardens tried to remove the poles in England
�and
It was, however, the Puritans who reacted in horror to the frivolous,
Wales.
unrestrained May't ve antics and made Maypoles illegal in 1644.
However with the reign of the Stuarts the Maypoles returned to England.
Villages competed in trying to produce the tallest poles and London set their poles
permanently in the ground. A famously large one was purchased by Sir Isaac Newton to
be used to support his 124- foot telescope.
in 1717.
The last Maypole in the strand in London was
Today there is still a section of the city of old Warwickshire which is named
Maypole, where the old wooden Maypole was replaced in 1850 with an official one
which stands today, set in concrete in front of the Maypole Public House.
Traditional dramas were often enacted on May Day in many countries.
Shakespeare' s comedy, A Midsummer Nights Dream, takes place not in Midsummer but
on May Day. Poets like John Milton and Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote poems about May
Day.
When May Day returned it was without the elements
of sexual license.
It
took on a much more moral tone in the 19th century with the emphasis placed on the
innocence of children, the beauty of nature and the hopefulness of the coming of spring.
During the French Revolution the Maypole became known to the French
people as the tree of Liberty, symbolic of freedom.
May Day is the only major festival of pre -Christian Europe that was not
adapted by the Christian church and there was never any significant church service
The secular nature of May Day probably accounts for its being the
choice of the Russian Communists in 1920 as the day to display their military strength
connected with it.
with parading soldiers and weapons.
This year May Day 1999 in Brixton, London, a group called the
International Cannabis Coalition met and chose the day to seek and end to the prohibition
to the herb Cannabis, which is the hemp plant.
So as you can see May Day has been used
by many people with diverse agendas.
We chose to simply recreate the Maypole dance with the emphasis on
innocence and a welcome to springtime in support of the future of our city of
Williamsburg.
Maypole.
Our carpenters contributed their time and skills to the making of our
Because baskets of flowers were a part of the custom of the celebration, I
encircled the Maypole with flower baskets.
Those of us who were assigned to present the Maypole dance to this
community rehearsed our dance. Phyllis Putnam, Pat Gibbs, Julie Sweet, myself, and our
two junior interpreter peer teachers, Sara Finklestein and Caroline Hollis, practiced our
of the
dance.
It was immediately obvious to us all that Caroline was to be the director
�performance.
control.
She knew exactly what she was doing and had the ability to maintain
She taught the crowds of adults and children the Maypole dance for the entire
afternoon and exhibited the same energy and enthusiasm at the end of the day as she
shared with her very first group of the day. We all agree that Caroline Hollis is
Williamsburg' s Queen of the May!!
We do not know for sure whether there were actually Maypoles in
Virginia in the past 300 years, but neither do we know that
there were not any. We do
know that the people here were inclined to follow many of the customs of their culture
and I believe there were probably some Maypoles erected in some towns in early
Virginia.
I was pleasantly surprised to have so many people of all ages, both men
and women, relate their experiences of having danced around a Maypole at some time in
their lives.
Our Maypole united us of Colonial Williamsburg with our neighbors, the
residents in the city of Williamsburg and visitors in a very special,
carefree way.
day of good will.
Janet Guthrie
It was a
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News
Description
An account of the resource
The Geddy Garden News was a monthly newsletter produced by employee Janet Guthrie who worked for many years as a garden interpreter at the James Geddy House. The Library holds a partial run of this newsletter (issues 33-114 with some gaps) for the years 1996-2003. The newsletter ceased publication in 2003 upon Guthrie’s retirement.
Subjects covered most often in the newsletters are 18th century gardens, gardening publications, gardens of the Founding Fathers, plant uses, early and pre-Christian folklore, and seasonal customs. Much good and interesting information is found within these newsletters, but current users should be alert for some now archaic interpretive sources, Latin errors, and cultural generalizations, especially with Native peoples/nations of North America which are often treated as one culture instead of many.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News, no. 62, May, 1999
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/45914/archive/files/1e5fa1e052080787ccb0c0839618c1bd.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=i4j3rbZk2coAP%7E2Kky7Cl05IfmgHXsh-JCgvfN1VZ5iA1Vby917%7EaSWbF4NDXT7huC-1aUQcP0WcodOJrcp8ZIDhjLiBWBhMuWSUJobLvPttl0CmtwZ8BA6sDEi7I-tCAT2-s1LIf%7EI5Q0Hf7V1OaYVIUuFbG9Y65o8Jz4V8pjqjVfpwFdNcMCc2LI1AWs8SIfVVBAeTcgFs27u-mhB92Xuec3nLIffQ9tgPoV-ICT5KxK2wUvNfRYGHfL5zbxPrffRME9InOHUdqc6W5DyMsHZPrL-GRl78xI9sNaFkYVGt-pQ8qwEz9nzMX1aQ900FZkRkkc26Sd-EEI4-SVseOA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
0a8cc7f8b212c6006b08b1e56b185c50
PDF Text
Text
Issue # 63
June 1999
GEDDY GARDEN NEWS
1
A dripping June keeps all things in tune.
Old Folks Saying
Cd 0
N
0
CC- CCr•-.
oo
w
J CO
X
w -Cr) OCO
U
Q UP.
J
i
b=
yo
a
J
Q =
O
cJ
U
We have survived a long, dry spell but thankfully the spell has been
broken and our garden is quenching its thirst. The ground had become very hard and dry
and some streams and wells in the area had dried up but although our well had become
low, it had not become dry. We rejoice in the rain.
June 15th is St. Vitus Day, which is known not only for a spastic dance of
the sick but according to weather lore the day plays a role in weather forecasting. The
saying goes, "
If St. Vitus Day be rainy weather, it will rain for thirty days together."
I' m
in the process of testing that theory right now.
Another bit of weather lore says, " Red sky at night, shepherd' s delight"
and I find that proverb was taken from the Bible. " He answered and said unto them,
when it is evening ye say, it will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning?
It will be foul weather today; for the sky is red and lowering. 0 ye hypocrite' s, ye can
discern the face of the sky, but can ye discern the signs of the times?" Mathew XVI , 2- 3
The plants in my garden that showed the quickest response to the rain are
They have reseeded themselves in a slightly
new location from where I planted them last year. They have almost doubled in height
from the two -foot flowers of last year. They obviously are draught tolerant and they
seem to be challenging our new scarecrow to see who is the tallest in the garden. Since
Black- Eyed- Susan' s are long blooming we will be enjoying them for quite some time.
the Black- Eye- Susan' s ( Rudbeckia Fulgida.)
�Another plant that is starting to benefit from the change in the weather is
the sweet potato. They have really been put to the test this year. First they had to survive
the hungry rabbits that live in our boxwood border and then the scorching heat. Having
endured all that, they now seem to be doing well. I' m relieved because the sweet potato/
is one of the most important vegetables in my garden. The colonists appreciated and
enjoyed it. We should all eat more sweet potatoes if only for their nutritional value. By
switching from the baked white potato to the sweet potato you can eliminate the
temptation of adding all those harmful, fat toppings to your diet. The sweet potato is high
in vitamins A and C, iron and calcium and high in beta -carotene. Do not confuse it with
the yam, which has a white colored flesh, not orange and is much lower in nutritional
value.
Our fruit trees are coming along nicely in the orchard! The apples and figs
appear to be unharmed by the lack of rain and the cherries have already ripened. Of
course the birds ate them all.
Cherry trees bring to my mind George Washington. The association of
Washington and cherry trees began centuries ago by an Episcopalian minister named
Mason Locke Weems. Weems was born in 1759 and was a very interesting, eccentric
and controversial preacher. He seems to have been ahead of his time. He was often
harsh in describing sins, which probably would not have the same shock value today as it
did then. He often preached at the Pohick Church where Washington had been a
vestryman. He was inspired by Washington' s character and wrote a popular biography
about the first president upon his death. He included in this book the legend of George
Washington chopping down the cherry tree. This little story was the creative imagination
of the minister at work in an effort to exemplify Washington' s honesty and it has endured
throughout
time.
The legend of Washington claiming " I cannot tell a lie" about chopping
down his father' s cherry tree caught the imagination of Americans and Mason Weems
rose to fame. His book was published in 52 editions in many languages.
So although George Washington may never have really spoken those
words he will forever be associated with honesty and truth. We can thank Mason Weems
for having placed that little hatchet in George' s hands.
Janet Guthrie
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News
Description
An account of the resource
The Geddy Garden News was a monthly newsletter produced by employee Janet Guthrie who worked for many years as a garden interpreter at the James Geddy House. The Library holds a partial run of this newsletter (issues 33-114 with some gaps) for the years 1996-2003. The newsletter ceased publication in 2003 upon Guthrie’s retirement.
Subjects covered most often in the newsletters are 18th century gardens, gardening publications, gardens of the Founding Fathers, plant uses, early and pre-Christian folklore, and seasonal customs. Much good and interesting information is found within these newsletters, but current users should be alert for some now archaic interpretive sources, Latin errors, and cultural generalizations, especially with Native peoples/nations of North America which are often treated as one culture instead of many.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News, no. 63, June, 1999
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/45914/archive/files/bf10ab5a18cf569c5f037de4f827989d.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=HXLqX5A5AcSsdNnZdQO-T3EKnYxHsCJAa116SJRtyOcj0Hf3qejECAdEEQJdJ-tQuunixY2rcRiadcLg0yub66ZSMB4f8MB2g61gZjpdItld81%7ECXPASZZj7sao7oBMCyIL-gykigwkDosoC5pawHz9g0LUt8NivgOFJT51qE1Tpf4L7DVEAd0ATKsNsZRlY6A%7E7Pu55zWkxizkB6NXegrggOtuvsAYoAVmduIq3lnaHJp-kajYt8g7K-Yh4Fqsds6vRd4kMsEpP1hHa%7Est9gGZDI%7E1U0DiDxQNwj832WZ-y6M4lzXjMWQFOKPO02Yv6XvL5XqVuf6FWQbX8-KauTQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
e707d19da8a29cd9e1dfdebd9e7ef916
PDF Text
Text
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, JR. LIBRARY
COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION
P. 0. Box 1776
Williamsburg, Virginia 23187
Issue # 64
July 1999
GEDDY
GARDEN
NEWS
Now every field is clothed with grass, and every tree with leaves; now the woods
put forth their blossoms, and the year assumes its gay attire."
Virgil ( 70- 19 B. C.)
Summer is here and we have experienced record breaking high
temperatures already. After a long drought we also had a strong rain storm that caused
the loss of several large limbs from one of our fig trees, but the rain was needed and
appreciated.
The annual Jr. Interpreters picnic took place last week and we all enjoyed
ourselves. I awarded Danielle Banks the prize for naming our new scarecrow. The
winning name was Lazy Daisy.
I' m not sure how well Lazy Daisy is doing her job. I' ve seen quite a few
crows in the garden this year. I recently learned that crows can be taught to repeat
phrases. The regular crow sound we hear from them is their way of marking their
territory but if that sound turns low and guttural the crow is warning other crows of the
nearby danger of hawks or owls. Crows have a bad name and always have from very
early times. Discord and strife was symbolized in hieroglyphic drawings of crows and in
folklore the presence of a crow forewarns death.
Crows are also associated with war and thought to incite armies. The
crow is a thief and a scavenger. He eats everything from corn to frogs and toads. He
robs eggs from bird nests and eats small snakes. The good news is that he also eats
beetles and cutworms and some of the other garden pests. The crow is definitely not
wanted in our garden and therefore we will continue to do our best to eliminate him.
The sweet potatoes in the garden are growing well. They are considered
number one on the list of vegetables containing the beneficial nutrients of vitamin A,
vitamin C, foliate, iron, copper, calcium and fiber. However if one overeats sweet
potatoes he can run the risk of becoming jaundiced from the pigment carotene. Sweet
potatoes should be eaten quickly because they spoil and they should not be refrigerated
but stored for a short time in a cool place.
I have melons growing in the garden. The pocket melon is doing well. It
was one of the three melons that Miller wrote was worth cultivating. It is grown for its
fragrance. I' m also growing some cantaloupe, which is another of the three melons
mentioned by Miller. I' m careful not to grow them in the same bed nor near gourds or
cucumbers because in his treatise on gardening John Randolph warned that " the farina of
one will impregnate
the other, spoil the relish of the fruit, and make them degenerate."
�Probably the most frequently questioned vegetable in my garden this year
was the infrequently seen kohlrabi. It was introduced to China from Europe via the Silk
Road in the Middle Ages. It was eaten in the colonies. It is believed to have developed
from a single mustard ancestor, a wild cabbage. The bulb is the edible part of the plant.
It can be sliced and eaten raw or added to a salad but it is usually steamed. I had never
tried it so I decided to sample it. I found it agreeable. It was similar in taste to a turnip or
rutabaga, but without the bitter taste. It has some nutritional value but is not as beneficial
as broccoli, kale or brussel sprouts. It is high in vitamin C, potassium and bioflavonoids.
It is also high in antioxidants that may reduce the risk of cancer.
The garden has required a lot of weeding this year but that is what
gardening is all about. Women in the 18t century were called " women weeders."
There
is no doubt that gardening is laborious. Rudyard Kipling wrote, " and such gardens are
not made by singing; " Oh how beautiful! And sitting in the Shade."
Janet Guthrie
A
i4
KOHLRABI
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News
Description
An account of the resource
The Geddy Garden News was a monthly newsletter produced by employee Janet Guthrie who worked for many years as a garden interpreter at the James Geddy House. The Library holds a partial run of this newsletter (issues 33-114 with some gaps) for the years 1996-2003. The newsletter ceased publication in 2003 upon Guthrie’s retirement.
Subjects covered most often in the newsletters are 18th century gardens, gardening publications, gardens of the Founding Fathers, plant uses, early and pre-Christian folklore, and seasonal customs. Much good and interesting information is found within these newsletters, but current users should be alert for some now archaic interpretive sources, Latin errors, and cultural generalizations, especially with Native peoples/nations of North America which are often treated as one culture instead of many.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News, no. 64, July, 1999
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/45914/archive/files/52038b3257115a10f068d0e87eb40a94.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=AD5s8-ecsJv8h2jTnsw-tXj-nEhyPfA9cC0DIkT3MLPwYeczYFAnrZYEZLOl5j-C1jX%7E9bBjtLjXsRpuOkuR44eoTEiMmQhgoPG4hpxEOShRuVCN-D5tHtR-hAxE0DMOAMN2QwVRk40fImcw6il%7EMO-LAz0VWE6OYpjLwgDAftaTHKIXo3IqVQntNPz4VjkzuFX8NbLC4lx%7ER2lKsYD2KvyvsTzTOxv2EVTg9-QXr7oypyCGfYPFm2oE%7E4iAT3IJ4trZRVdHIia2jwxLONeTFO63PVpv-AOh4W1iuXvMfCRE1fntRH%7EGyrVhEXGQdm7btRcr5g53hUBIytEsTXMpvA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
318f6f863583b4bb0eb81f847a76d49e
PDF Text
Text
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, JR. LIBRARY
COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION
P. 0. Box 1776
Williamsburg, Virginia 23187
August 1999
Issue # 65
GEDDY GARDEN NEWS
If the 24th of August be fair and clear, Then hope for a prosperous autumn that
year."
Old Folks Saying
August 24th is the feast day of Saint Bartholomew, who was one of the
twelve Apostles and died a martyr for preaching the Gospel in barbarous countries.
The extraordinary heat of this summer has contributed to a bumper crop of
figs. Everyone has been enjoying them. Some visitors have sampled them for the very
first time and that is always special when a new experience can be introduced in my
garden.
Figs were available in Virginia in the 18th century. They were not
however among the favorite fruits Fithian mentions in his diary. He and the ladies went
through the garden and gathered some figs. He wrote, " the ladies seem fond of them, I
We know that Thomas Jefferson grew them in his garden as early
cannot endure them."
as 1769. By the 19th century the popularity of the fig increased. Many northern visitors
describe covering their fig trees to protect them from the cold in winter. That is not
necessary here.
In my search for women garden writers I came across Margaret Morris.
She was a Quaker widow in Burlington, N.J. in the 18th century who kept a kitchen
garden journal which she called her gardening memorandum. She was growing her
garden in an effort to aid the poor and sick and elderly in her Quaker community. She
grew few flowers; mostly food for charitable donations filled her garden. Much of it
seems to have been donated to the Asylum, which today is known as Friends Hospital in
Northeastern Philadelphia.
Her gardening methods combined old and new techniques. The old
method of planting by the phases of the moon. She was also experimenting with some
ideas in planting potatoes by cutting them in pieces and drawing conclusions from the
results.
Garden journals or notes, or as in Margaret Morris' s words,
Memorandums, are wonderful windows into the past. Like most diaries the most
mundane practices or activities are omitted in the writings. It was taken for granted that
certain things were common knowledge and therefore did not need to be written down.
Another female contributor to our garden information of the past is Lady
Jean Skipwith. Laura Viancour has done a great deal of research on Lady Skipwith.
Although her garden journal is not accessible to the public because it remains in the
possession of a family member, we do have copious garden notes written by her. She
�kept detailed records of her garden at Prestwould Plantation in Mecklenburg Country,
Virginia.
She was born in Virginia but lived in Britain from the age of 12 to 38. She
married a baronet in 1788 after she had returned to Virginia to live. Her garden notes
show us a remarkable woman with a love and devotion to gardening. Her house remains
today. She wrote that she had fig trees near the beehives and it is thought that the figs in
the recreated garden there today might possibly be off shoots of her original fig trees.
Some of her notes and records were used during the restoration of Colonial
Williamsburg. Her stepdaughter and niece became the wife of St. George Tucker. Lelia
Skipwith Carter, a widow, married St. George Tucker in 1791.
She like her Aunt Lady
Jean had a love of gardening, as did her new husband, St. George Tucker. He referred to
his wife in a letter to his children in 1810 as the " Matron of the Green."
Sometimes we find garden writing in poetry and essays. In 1802 Dorothy
Wordsworth, sister of William Wordsworth wrote a beautiful description of the first
sighting of daffodils.
Some children' s books were written about plants and flowers in the
eighteenth century and they combined moral lessons with pictures of flowers. The
Practical Flower Garden: with Moral Reflections. for the Amusement of Children printed
in London in 1778 is one such book. Although there is not a great deal of written garden
information of the period it is found in diverse places.
We are still in desperate need of rain for our gardens and reservoirs.
There is an old rhyme that tells us that cows are good weather indicators.
When a cow tries to scratch its ear, It means a shower is very near.
When it clumps its side with its tail, look out for thunder, lightning and hail.
Let' s hope we see some ear scratching cows soon.
Janet Guthrie
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News
Description
An account of the resource
The Geddy Garden News was a monthly newsletter produced by employee Janet Guthrie who worked for many years as a garden interpreter at the James Geddy House. The Library holds a partial run of this newsletter (issues 33-114 with some gaps) for the years 1996-2003. The newsletter ceased publication in 2003 upon Guthrie’s retirement.
Subjects covered most often in the newsletters are 18th century gardens, gardening publications, gardens of the Founding Fathers, plant uses, early and pre-Christian folklore, and seasonal customs. Much good and interesting information is found within these newsletters, but current users should be alert for some now archaic interpretive sources, Latin errors, and cultural generalizations, especially with Native peoples/nations of North America which are often treated as one culture instead of many.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News, no. 65, August, 1999
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/45914/archive/files/773b4f121d0094f477f0b3b2482c53dc.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=jFZe2MG4pfAaagwlAq0g77inRj8nH5P7uBshTG0y6Bk2GA-s7QmCPkuQLBMwHcIEdef2K-mfvyLr5OEGyxNTPuAIWzV6Dkz75TSCwlIhz7vqskPCi-jSEK53Nty5t%7EbyRuJLmLfEEPbKibdMXhMxGpiQbC0cu81z9sytURRk3%7EvqoCdypFyvS4bq0rONWEIrCFnNiSfULBBMMGkHp7F-zuu3EZN-yaTJ0qC%7ERtgB%7Eysywj7AfS1ngNhFHTIMzPgSksBoa8r3eLcGQ57OqsjvIIBnr1TiDoeJiCyfMIRzGLejegX%7EL%7EQ8RqTWBa3ZzDvjuWSDQHfB8QJ5JWLG7AE4Gw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
da6131eeb17bfafe1ab73eb3548d41b6
PDF Text
Text
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, JR. LIBRARY
COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION
P. 0. Box 1776
Williamsburg, Virginia 23187
September
Issue # 66
GEDDY GARDEN
1999
NEWS
Season of mists and mellow fruitness,
Close bosom -friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit and vines that round the thatch eves run."
John Keats, ' To Autumn',
1819
We survived the hurricane Floyd. Luckily the Geddy property did not
have damage. Our scarecrow withstood the storm and merely lost her hat. She seemed to
be more of a guardian angel than a scarecrow.
Colonial Williamsburg, however suffered the loss of many trees in the
hurricane, especially near the Cascades. When we lose our trees we lose not only
aesthetic beauty but we also lose the practical functions that trees offer. Their placement
can alter the effects of wind and screen out objectionable views and lighting in residential
communities. They can control intrusive noise by serving as sound barriers and by
proper placement they can aid in our comfort by providing warmth in winter and coolness
and shade in summer.
We received approximately 18 inches of rain in our Tidewater area as an
aftermath of Floyd, which is above average, but the most severely damaged city in
Virginia was Franklin. There was also great harm done in the state of North Carolina. So
we cannot really complain.
At a recent seminar in Toronto, Ontario I had the opportunity to attend a
lecture given by Ken Parker, a Seneca Indian. As the only nursery that is owned and
operated by a Native American in North America his lecture focused on the history of
native American plants and their reestablishment and Indian culture.
His nursery is located above Buffalo, N. Y. in zone five. With the
deepening concern we all share about the environment it is important to remember that
the Native Americans were our very first environmentalists.
There is a trend being established .in gardening to contribute to responsible
environmental caretaking. A result of the trend is an aesthetic style called " new
naturalism."
The featured plants of this style are the ornamental grasses of the American
prairie.
Prairie is a French work for meadow and the American prairie extends into
Canada.
It is interesting to learn how the Indians of that territory were using some
of the plants. Tribes such as the Mohawk, Iroquois and Senicas burned sweet grass for
spiritual cleansing and to communicate with the Great Spirit. Tobacco was also used in
such ceremonies.
�There were medicinal uses for many of their plants. The Tall Coreopsis
was made into a tea as a remedy for what we call arthritis. Seeds from sunflowers were
used for oil and gum. Wild bergamot leaves were used to soothe insect bites and were
also made into tea. Tea was made from the flower of the American Highbush Cranberry.
Indians ate both the flowers and leaves of Spiderwort in salad form and the pods of the
Prickly Pear were eaten and the yellow flowers were made into a jam like dish. Boneset,
like the name implies was used to set bones but also as a cough remedy. Another cold
remedy used by the Indians came from rose hips. A tea was made from Fireweed and the
flowers of the Fireweed plant was made into honey.
One of the more interesting uses of a plant was of the Silhium laciniatum.
Because the leaves of this plant align north to south, the plant was used by the Indians as
a compass and became known as the compass plant.
By planting some of these native plants we can restore natural resources as
well as create habitats of wild life and insects. As an added bonus we will be beautifying
the land especially with the showy plumes of the Indian grasses.
Janiet Guthrie
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News
Description
An account of the resource
The Geddy Garden News was a monthly newsletter produced by employee Janet Guthrie who worked for many years as a garden interpreter at the James Geddy House. The Library holds a partial run of this newsletter (issues 33-114 with some gaps) for the years 1996-2003. The newsletter ceased publication in 2003 upon Guthrie’s retirement.
Subjects covered most often in the newsletters are 18th century gardens, gardening publications, gardens of the Founding Fathers, plant uses, early and pre-Christian folklore, and seasonal customs. Much good and interesting information is found within these newsletters, but current users should be alert for some now archaic interpretive sources, Latin errors, and cultural generalizations, especially with Native peoples/nations of North America which are often treated as one culture instead of many.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News, no. 66, September, 1999
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/45914/archive/files/8eeba872e4e7be0d3edf917a57ee0941.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=Z92PlQBtf%7E9L77diB%7E4A25UqML3pyMgnO3IqfmsRPVQXGOzvPLfy5lLns2qn-aeth3OOk4m86xINuKHtWrDM0aFHaq-sbm01me7%7EKx2osDpS6wkw1NuigQHIkvsR7ics7gNn%7EnnNCtad-WurWoDnhlpHAGQuYIvi51-cEfdC8hKcgNv62GdJp4%7EkT5KIw9wj9Q7w1U9yi-FGbLxsy9YsuWfz8yK3LswHUZgRfl9jYlUu9N8E0zRz4OApcn80kZjlWNWg1orrygJavhvvzYYiC1AKYAMTTZNZbmtr1Fq2RUeYEEG38aPCEScla60oFrxXnnXTgmshl%7Erf0hV6D7rLhg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
4fee61108921d3ceb0a7f3e6a89c4349
PDF Text
Text
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, JR. LIBRARY
COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION
P. 0. Box 1776
Williamsburg, #Virginia 23187
Issue
67
October
1999
GEDDY GARDEN NEWS
Gardening gives me fun and health and knowledge
It gives me laughter and colour.
It gives me pictures of almost incredible beauty."
John F. Kenyou
Autumn is the twilight of the year. The harvest is almost over. We have
enjoyed our figs, a luxury we are fortunate to have in our Geddy orchard. In
ancient Rome the fig was considered a gift of the god Bacchus. The Bible tells us of
the significance of the fig in the lives of the Hebrews. It is in fact the first tree
mentioned in the Bible. On the wall of a 12th dynasty Egyptian grave there can be
found a fig -harvesting scene. Fig like plants were growing in Italy and France long
before the Stone Age. Fossil remains revealed this to us. In America the figs were
introduced by the Spaniards. They were in St. Augustine, Florida in the 16th
century. In Jamestown in 1629 Captain John Smith wrote, " Mistress
Pearce
harvested neere a hundred bushels of excellent figges."
Many Northern visitors are surprised to find our fig trees uncovered during
the winter but our fig trees can withstand temperatures as low as 10 degrees
Fahrenheit without suffering serious damage. When the temperature dips to 5
degrees Fahrenheit below they will suffer but will usually recover with new shoots
sprouting from the roots. We have experienced that several times on our site. The
well- known cookie, the Fig Newton did not come about until the late 19th century
and is named for the town of Newton in Massachusetts.
This is the season for soil preparation fertilization and the building of garden
beds. These tasks, along with weeding and watering take up most of my time in
October. I found some interesting quotations from an 18th century letter of Rosalie
Stier Calvert of Virginia.
She wrote, " Experience
continues to demonstrate
how
plaster ( of Paris) fertilizes the soil. We still use ten tons of it annually and a great
quantity of manure, too. My husband buys almost all ( the manure) available in
Bladensburg, as well as their old ashes for almost nothing..."
I have had mixed feelings this past week about the National League
championship battle. I am an Atlanta Braves fan but I recently gained new respect
for the New York Mets. My interest in the Mets came about from learning of the
hobby of the ball club. They grow a vegetable garden at Shea Stadium. Two of the
ball players, Dennis Cook and John Franco and Chris Murphy a grounds
crewmember at Shea are responsible for the garden. Shea was built on a landfill so
a lot of fertilizer was needed and the NYC mounted policemen provided horse
manure. Before the establishment of the garden a rat problem existed in the
bullpen but since the ball players have started gardening the rat problem has
diminished.
�The garden which is isolated behind the right field wall in the bull pen
produces broccoli, sun flowers, both jalapeno and habanero peppers, pumpkins,
and tomatoes which are covered with netting to protect them from getting hit by
homerun balls. The team members weed and water the garden during batting
practice. Although I was happy with the outcome of the recent post season playoff I
still felt a little sad for the gardening Mets. Wait until next year...
Janet Guthrie
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News
Description
An account of the resource
The Geddy Garden News was a monthly newsletter produced by employee Janet Guthrie who worked for many years as a garden interpreter at the James Geddy House. The Library holds a partial run of this newsletter (issues 33-114 with some gaps) for the years 1996-2003. The newsletter ceased publication in 2003 upon Guthrie’s retirement.
Subjects covered most often in the newsletters are 18th century gardens, gardening publications, gardens of the Founding Fathers, plant uses, early and pre-Christian folklore, and seasonal customs. Much good and interesting information is found within these newsletters, but current users should be alert for some now archaic interpretive sources, Latin errors, and cultural generalizations, especially with Native peoples/nations of North America which are often treated as one culture instead of many.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News, no. 67, October, 1999
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/45914/archive/files/5975c1ec2e080f1f999582a2cb1c6cef.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=nhCSCM6GsUNscxo%7Ei%7EOs5hrIGB7v8cTNCaZQFrZGrduZraRtNRDeNkaLeei%7EfEC2nnxpJM2MBqqtQE26afNdMPhCzsPwlS6nZLoWkvglMOUf0-SSei-bfEdeI8QqRslWIXjnFBmGEfYbwqtxtNbYyLahgGtrRvdlZ84C0xOK%7E-HmXKd2wPr6eTw-upephykqLQW8gyovsVagUHVdksJTQilXzMn2HY0kuWIA9GMsojK6wLlowe36Scd-e-a7q056CzRFLtFyHfTpM6BYR8SIqrg77qYvc0MECwbTZ0hbjJopqkenVh47%7EuWXEqtXCbSiurGH3vS58UCM1eEYmbM0nA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
15ee0b8a18e636153cd508f1f011421b
PDF Text
Text
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER,
JR. LIBRARY
COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION
P. O. Box 1776
GDDY GARDEN NEWS
Williamsburg, Virginia 2.,.
6
November 1999
Issue # 68
The earth, gentle and indulgent, ever subservient to the wants
of man, spreads his walks with flowers, and his table with plenty,
returns with interest,
every good committed to her care."
Pliny the Elder
The after effects of hurricane Floyd are still being tallied throughout Virginia and
Farmers report that the peanut. corn, and soybean crops were
along the East Coast.
damaged and production was low and the quality of the cotton crop suffered as well.
experienced
our
first
frost
of the
season
on
November
temperatures have occasionally reached into the 70s.
3,
We
but since that day our
The foliage
with its vivid
hues
has
been signaling the approach of winter and I expect we will be welcoming coldest weather
any day now.
November is an interesting month because it offers so many important, special
occasion days.
Veterans Day, commemorates the sacrifices of military veterans in
In the past, it was called Armistice Day, celebrated on the anniversary of the
November
our country.
11,
armistice of World War I in 1918.
The name was changed to include the servicemen of all
branches of the military of our country. The same day, November 11, has for centuries been
observed as Martinmas or St. Martin' s Day. St. Martin of Tours is a patron saint of France.
He was the son of a military officer and he had himself enlisted in the military at age 15. He
is known as the patron saint of military chaplains. It is most significant that the two
celebrations are observed on the same day. We presented a program here, in Colonial
Williamsburg, on Veterans Day to include and honor our visitors who in the past have
served or are presently serving in any of our military forces.
November 1999 has been proclaimed by President Clinton as National American
Indian Heritage Month.
first environmentalists.
We recognize the many contributions of the American Indians, our
In Virginia there are 20, 000 Native Americans today. There are
eight tribes and two Indian Reservations
in the Commonwealth,
the Mattaponi
and the
Pamunkey. The Mattaponi Reservation was established in 1658 along the borders of the
Mattaponi River in King William County, Virginia.
Reservation.
Only 75 members still live on the
The Upper Mattaponi tribe of 100 members are non- reservated Indians located
in the Mechanicville area.
�The Pamunkey Indian Reservation serves as the home for approximately 100
members who still live on the 1, 200 acre reservation located in King William County.
The
Pamunkey tube was among the 34 tribes of the Powhatan Confederacy of the 17th century.
Another tribe of the Confederacy is the Nansemond Tribe of Chesapeake, Virginia.
population of 300.
It has a
Approximately 1, 000 members of the Chichahominy Tribe live in Charles City
County with 150 members in the Eastern Chicahominy Tribe in nearby New Kent County.
There
is the United
Rappahannak
Tribe which
owns
21
acres
of land
in Indian
Neck, King and Queen County, Virginia.
The eighth tribe is the Monacan Tribe which today numbers 700 members.
It is the
most western of the eight tribes, located in Bear Mt, in Amherst County and was not ever a
member of the Powhatan confederacy.
All of these tribes observe separate heritage festivals throughout the year.
Some of
the ceremonies are rituals that relate to the three crops known as the three sisters of Indian
The word squash derives from an Indian word,
bean, and squash.
lore, maize.
asquutasquash,
which
means
uncooked
or raw.
Some
of the Indian
tribes
observe
Fall
harvest festivals.
As I write this, members of the Mattaponi Tribe are in the woods hunting a deer to
present to our Virginia Governor. This Thanksgiving custom began in 1646, when the
Mattaponi Indians first presented a gift of game or fish to the Governor of the
Commonwealth and the custom has been carried on ever since, as a gesture of Thanksgiving
and good will.
The American Indian is of the soil, whether it be the
region offorest, plains, pueblos, or mesas. He fits into the
landscape, for the hand that fashiated the contbteit, also fashioned
the nOnl for his sunvu Jings. He once grew as naturally as the wild
sweaters.
He bekiigs just as the buffalo belonged."
Luther Standing Bear
Oglala Sioux Chief
Janet Guthrie
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News
Description
An account of the resource
The Geddy Garden News was a monthly newsletter produced by employee Janet Guthrie who worked for many years as a garden interpreter at the James Geddy House. The Library holds a partial run of this newsletter (issues 33-114 with some gaps) for the years 1996-2003. The newsletter ceased publication in 2003 upon Guthrie’s retirement.
Subjects covered most often in the newsletters are 18th century gardens, gardening publications, gardens of the Founding Fathers, plant uses, early and pre-Christian folklore, and seasonal customs. Much good and interesting information is found within these newsletters, but current users should be alert for some now archaic interpretive sources, Latin errors, and cultural generalizations, especially with Native peoples/nations of North America which are often treated as one culture instead of many.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News, no. 68, November, 1999
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/45914/archive/files/8ca0bd48fa38f4c2fd12bf836a0943db.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=WtDNBzMHLIvIEqY5TL4SJSxz9BIddAynYlLo3xo-rB1osXKtyStHIpSH4VanSn0zOGwJvr3sr9rwCTI9u6ELM9HqMSLLWXsIG0g%7E411z4CrIJqjWsw3s96tWzr6pLsiwJriCe68QCGHOpjEsSDXX2sbyN322WwzTMDfqcdh-hfYWoKMlrfZrEH-k4a1-XhVlgpr97XfyTbbRoQA9z8JA%7EkxOBP%7EjuMzSZKol8eUzrEH4BXNShOImGie0OkbRzvGW7q0j4XV2pJ8IbvSr1omS65QMqWOY8aMpb9hy73ytP00-lHMZ7OwZB4FW8%7EvzjgLR7xnpYFdyWgH3DbehRzUe9A__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
83b484084489b90f7cf51aec48074b63
PDF Text
Text
Y GARDEN NEWS
COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG F
P. 0. Box 1776
Williamsburg, Virginia " 1 R7
Issue # 69
December
1999
Heap on more wood!
The wind is chill;
But let it whistle as it will
We' ll keep our Christmas
Merry still."
Sir Walter Scott
As the Geddy garden slumbers we find ourselves in the midst of Christmastide.
enjoyed our annual festivities
We
of the season.
Jennifer and Noel Poirier once again hosted our junior interpreters' Christmas party.
We built a fire in the Geddy yard and brewed our Christmas wassail as we have in the past.
We then wassailed our way to the party, blessing the trees along the way.
appropriately as we went. Robert Herrick wrote,
We sang
Wassaile the trees, that they may beare
you many a Plum, and many a Peare:
For more or lesse fruits they
Will bring
As you doe give them Wassailing.
What sweeter music can
We bring
Than a Carol, for to sing
The Birth of this our
Heavenly King?
Awake the Voice! Awake the
String!"
We greeted the Poiriers at their door, playfully and joyfully singing " We wish you a
Merry Christmas," and we were cheerfully welcomed into their home.
Among the many carols we sang was the 18th century, "
Hark the Herald Angels
Charles Wesley had a difficult entry into the world. The
eighteenth child born in his family he had been born several weeks prematurely and failed to
Sing," by Charles Wesley.
open his eyes or cry for two months. He was never sure of the exact date of his birth but
knew it was just before Christmas. Isn' t it fitting that he is responsible for giving the world
one of the all- time favorite Christmas Carols?
Christmastide causes me to imagine the landscape of the Holy Land in ancient times.
The trees found there and then are mostly unfamiliar to us. One evergreen tree is the Carob
which is also known in the Bible as John' s Bread Tree. ( Matthew 3: 4) The fruit from the
Carob is eaten by both animals and people. Other evergreen trees found there are the
Aleppo Pine, and the Cypress. Olive trees and Date Palms grow wild in the desert and are
mentioned in Deuteronomy 8: 8. Also found in the desert is a member of the Mimosa
�family, the Acacia, or Wattle.
mentioned
in Exodus
This tree provides food for the desert animals and is
25: 10.
The large impressive and important Kermes Oak is abundant in the Holy Land but
probably the most beautiful of the ancient trees is the Almond tree which is mentioned
several times in the Bible and blooms in the spring with showy pink and white blossoms.
What a beautiful land this must be.
Doc and Margaret Hassel hosted the Geddy party at their home.
We enjoyed
delicious food and Christmas cheer and fellowship at an outdoor oyster roast.
Oysters were available and enjoyed in the 18th century in Virginia. They were known
to be served on the half shell at Mt. Vernon by the Washingtons. George Washington also
mentioned having a snack and eating cold cuts. These words sound so modern and familiar
but were actually written in the 18th century. Some other holiday foods to which we can
relate today are cranberries.
George Washington served spiced cranberries at Mt. Vernon
and early on William Byrd writes in his diary, " Said my prayers and ate some cranberry tart
for breakfast."
Many holiday recipes can be found in 18th century cookbooks.
Hannah Glasse offers
a recipe for Yorkshire Christmas Pie. In the Country Housewife and Lady' s Director ( 1732)
recipes for mince or Christmas pies, and Plum or Christmas pottage are offered. The latter
is like Plum pudding. There is even a Christmas cookie recipe in Amelia Simmons'
American Cookery.
Martha Washington wrote instructions on the way to store cherries.
her cookbook, "
She wrote in
To keep Cherries yt ( so that) you may have them for tarts at Christmas
without preserving."
Dining was definitely a favorite form of entertaining ther.. as it is today. But equally
as important in 18t' century holiday hospitality was drinking. After saying grace before a
Ladies at the table were often toasted individually, then the
gentlemen and then the country and so on.
meal,
the
toasts
began.
A traditional Christmas drink served then and also usually served at our Geddy
Christmas party is syllabub. Sometimes considered a ladies drink, it is made with white wine,
cream, milk, egg whites, sugar, nutmeg, and the juice and rinds of lemons. Other holiday
drinks enjoyed by the colonists lud colorful names such as flips, shrubs, and bounces.
Benjamin Franklin had a special recipe for orange flip, which began with a gallon of
rum! He also was the writer of a drinking song, which ended with the line, " For there can' t
be good living, where there is not good drinking."
aJyr /
f
eus yea,,
te
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News
Description
An account of the resource
The Geddy Garden News was a monthly newsletter produced by employee Janet Guthrie who worked for many years as a garden interpreter at the James Geddy House. The Library holds a partial run of this newsletter (issues 33-114 with some gaps) for the years 1996-2003. The newsletter ceased publication in 2003 upon Guthrie’s retirement.
Subjects covered most often in the newsletters are 18th century gardens, gardening publications, gardens of the Founding Fathers, plant uses, early and pre-Christian folklore, and seasonal customs. Much good and interesting information is found within these newsletters, but current users should be alert for some now archaic interpretive sources, Latin errors, and cultural generalizations, especially with Native peoples/nations of North America which are often treated as one culture instead of many.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News, no. 69, December, 1999
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/45914/archive/files/108fd8ef44549796c3d1e437cda6ac7c.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=qFfy1ZXAmliJPdtJgU251yUrn69-3OImrFFCKLlitjx6trjZAmyA6gnS-ROCVHO%7ELJuQ4AopuniZWVHd4e6AGEy4lVHIerZJXe2A6jhfD-q-eqUHZUFapPSosCJcWNM1tfjXU20as-7Pkyei%7E-Dz3so1nIfZLqIOfDK61fa1NzzFGpVh5GR7IWpG%7E6xfav8%7ET8ZI0-EFr0ajZhP-qZvQFrRIUpEDiPSVRWJeueM8inGvOsXIAZuaBTePgwWHDTt-X7mz7YYz5T0%7E7xi2DgED75IgL3-d-10bw5pMWv84GATGVF2MTmklHVum3GKjZzjIzvl0%7ELu7LGta4m8%7ESbg3fQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
b9475d7a264fb89515bd46f4d2ab6e60
PDF Text
Text
JOHN D. ROCKE
COLONIAL WILLIA
ESBJR ROUNDATON
P. 0. Box 1776
Williamsburg, Virginia 23187
GEDDY GARDEN NEWS
Issue # 70
January 2000
IfSt Paul' s Day be fair and clear,
Then it betides a happy year."
Folksaying
We welcome the millennium and enjoy our first taste of winter temperatures
of this twenty- first century. January 25th is St. Paul' s Day.
Today we rely on modern technology, newspapers, radio and TV weather
forecasters to predict our weather conditions. In past centuries, however, there were
special days in the Church calendar that were linked to weather forecasting. Those
dates being set and consistent had a history of matching weather patterns so that the
folksayings are not based on superstition, but were often quite accurate and reliable.
Hence, weather lore became linked to holy days and saints' days. For example, the
Feast of St. Hillary, January 13``', has often been found to be the coldest day of the
year and it became known as such. Some connections can even be traced back to the
The theory of the red sky at night as the prediction of fair weather to come
Bible.
can be found in Matthew
XVI, 2- 3:
When it is evening, ye say, it will be fair weather, for the
sky is red. And in the morning, it will be foul weather
today, for the sky is red and lowring. "
January is considered to be one of the most unreliable months, weatherwise,
so there is another old proverb that is especially appropriate for January:
Winter weather and women' s thoughts often change."
In our recent training about Taking Possession of the Land, Kent Brinkley
told us about change over time.
He spoke of trees such as pines, beech, hickory and
oak in the woodlands being disturbed by road building. Boundary markers were
These cuts were
being made by early surveyors by making cuts in the trees.
commonly known as three chops. Did you ever wonder, as I did, about the origin of
the name of Three Chop Road in Richmond?
I find that the idea of marking land can also be traced back to the Bible in
Proverbs
22: 28, "
Cursed
be the man
was used in The Commination
who removes
his neighbor' s landmark."
Service in the 1662 Book of Common
Prayer.
this linkage to religion in so many aspects of the lives of the colonists.
This
We find
�During these cold winter months, the colonists took care of their property by
doing many necessary tasks, such as repairs of their buildings and fences and cutting
up firewood.
The gentry members took advantage of the cold, frosty days to also enjoy
recreational
activities.
George Washington was a great outdoorsman and it was often in January and
February that he would enjoy hunting and deer stalking. He loved fox hunting and
he loved riding his mount Magnolia. He had hunting horses named Blueskin, Ajax,
Valient and Chinkling. He also enjoyed seeing and wagering on horse races and
would travel to attend a good horse race.
and R time for colonists.
These cold winter months became the R
Repairs and recreation.
f
i4
,%
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News
Description
An account of the resource
The Geddy Garden News was a monthly newsletter produced by employee Janet Guthrie who worked for many years as a garden interpreter at the James Geddy House. The Library holds a partial run of this newsletter (issues 33-114 with some gaps) for the years 1996-2003. The newsletter ceased publication in 2003 upon Guthrie’s retirement.
Subjects covered most often in the newsletters are 18th century gardens, gardening publications, gardens of the Founding Fathers, plant uses, early and pre-Christian folklore, and seasonal customs. Much good and interesting information is found within these newsletters, but current users should be alert for some now archaic interpretive sources, Latin errors, and cultural generalizations, especially with Native peoples/nations of North America which are often treated as one culture instead of many.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News, no. 70, January, 2000
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/45914/archive/files/94ab9f5df4ad1a24d4c2da9108f2772d.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=Rhb7USnxJyiciC3d-o2z1-1ER7vtzaeYakE5%7E7wnpqIehtMG45Gq6Hot5Z-Sb3BQ8EHQDF9DJpVmGKQ5s%7EBITxsJCQqZI6lFbsEpsd-lsolA7sVfnfwv4EsAdxqE5VNTrVckekSwd35f0pStRgnJDQbSlBgg9i1H9RbBOG6h6eevmvUgvsUQpadPAROkLjPDx984C%7EgyAfvW2V4wQhCZ55dU%7EVI-Fx%7EJCnIG1ukC-v9BylILZ4gdVX96lUjootel7QeOuRyevT%7EC4lbpnuxxQ2-kvS61O8TLqr05qI%7E7SZ63TKcdqcd-Vy7VK-ni%7E0ayn%7E8J-UHYynZlUIFU6ARNAA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
89e3a5631f52703182c4a56e50f47136
PDF Text
Text
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, JR. LIBRARY
COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION
sEts
P. 0. Box 1776
C9eddy
Williamsburg, Virginia 2318
javden @JV
ems
0v'
ofissue # 71
c:::
e6ruary 2000
February brings the rain,
Melts the frozen lands again."
February
Our
Our temperatures this month are proof of that.
is fickle.
temperature today is a balmy 75° but in some shaded spots there are still small, dirty piles
The soil in my garden is still somewhat wet due to
This rule in gardening do not forget: Always sow dry and set
of snow left over from recent days.
February' s fickleness. "
wet."
February 6th is the feast of St. Dorothy, who is one of the three patron saints of
The other two are St.
gardening.
accuvea of witchcraft and tortured.
Phocus
and St.
Fiacre.
Dorothy
in 313 AD.
was
When taken before a judge he asked,_" How ! onge
wilte thou drawe us along with thy witchcraft? Eyther do sacryfyse and lyve or ellis
receyve the sentens of thy hide smytyne of." A lawyer named Theophilus mocked her and
asked her to produce the fruits of the Garden of Paradise. Legend has it that at that time
an angel appeared
and delivered
to her 3 apples and 3 roses.
Theophilus
became
a
Christian convert and eventually a martyr himself. Dorothy became associated with roses
and in ancient
times,
in England,
brides were crowned with dried roses and both the
bride and groom wore caplets of red and white roses. Rose petals were thrown at the
So in this month of
wedding couple instead of the rice that is often thrown today.
February, I dedicate this newsletter to St. Dorothy, a patron saint of gardening.
I trust
she will guide me as I begin planting my Geddy kitchen garden for this new millennium,
We find both beans and peas were grown very
early on in Palestine and used for food as vegetables and also dried. The green garden
and I will begin with the planting of peas.
peas that I' ll be planting however began to be mentioned after the Norman conquest when
green peas for Lent" were recorded. Then after 1536 edible podded peas were described
In Virginia Captain John Smith wrote, " We daily feasted with good bread,
in France.
Virginia pease,
pumpions,
putchamins ( persimmons),
wild beasts, so fat as we could eate them."
True Relation
of Wvmouths
fish,
fowle,
and diverse sorts of
Rosier in 1605 on Monhegan Island wrote in
Vovaee and Exploration, "
Wed. the 22 of May, wee sowed
pease and barley, which in sixteen days grew eight inches above ground."
We fmd the mention of peas in the colonies in letters indicating the important role
the pea was playing.
In 1637 Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts, in a letter to his wife,
advises her to protect herself in the cold weather and adds that she should feed the Ram,
lock him up and give him meals, the greene pease in the garden etc. are good for him."
Seventeenth
Century
Governor
William
Bradford
of
Plymouth
Plantation
mentioned green peas growing along with other vegetables and grains in the gardens in a
poem he wrote.
There are 17h Century receipts for pea soup, using pea puree in cook books for the
English Royalty.
for boiled chicken.
Peas were also suggested as the main ingredient for a sauce to be made
�We find them advertised in 1738 by Thomas Crease in the Virginia Gazette and
Thomas Jefferson considered the pea his favorite vegetable. In 1791 he wrote in a letter
Oh the 17`h of February I saw blackbirds and robin red breasts
and on the 7`h of this month I heard frogs for the first time this year. Have you noticed
to his daughter Maria, "
the first appearance of these things at Monticello?
I hope you have, and will continue to
note every appearance, animal and vegetable, which indicates the approach of spring, and
will communicate them to me. By these means we shall be able to compare the climates of
Philadelphia and Monticello. Tell me when you shall have peas, etc. up; when everything
comes to table.
When you shall have the first chickens hatched; when every kind of tree
I just love that
blossoms, or puts forth leaves; when each kind of flower blooms ...."
letter.
Jefferson competed with his neighboring farmers each spring to have the first peas
in the garden. The winner served peas to the others at a dinner and Jefferson was very
In his 1774 Garden Book he noted " the first dish of peas from the
often the winner.
earliest patch was on May 16, the second patch of DeRs comes to table on May 26t. June
5th a third and fourth patch of peas comes to table. June 13th a fifth patch of peas come
in.
July 13th - last dish of peas." He definitely paid close attention to his peas. Minded
his Peas and Qs.
Landon Carter' s diary in 1770 mentions planting Nottoway pea, a wild pea which
he claims " makes a prodigious fine soup." He also complains on Feb. 17`h that the frost
had left the ground too wet to plant his garden peas.
Mrs.
George Wythe in March of the same year wrote to Thomas Jefferson,
Wythe will send you some garden peas." So we find the garden peas were a noble and
highly regarded colonial vegetable.
We also fmd peas and pea pods were popular vegetables in needlework in the 16th
Several 17th century samplers exhibit pea pod designs on the raised or
and 17'h centuries.
stump work embroidery.
There is a connection made with love and pea pods as told to us in a Devonshire
proverb,
Wintertime for shoeing,
peascod time for wooing."
Shakespeare also used the peapod in As You Like It in a similar way.
The daisy is
used in determining whether one is loved or not. If the peas remained in the pod upon
picking the pod off the vine then it was considered to be a positive response. Peas and
peapods are included in a 17t century pattern book for embroiderers but seem to
disappear in needlework during the 18th century for some unknown reason. They make a
strong comeback during the Victorian era and even continue on in today' s machine
embroideries.
So peas can be grown, eaten and worn on your clothing.
vegetable.
2anet juthrie
A most versatile
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News
Description
An account of the resource
The Geddy Garden News was a monthly newsletter produced by employee Janet Guthrie who worked for many years as a garden interpreter at the James Geddy House. The Library holds a partial run of this newsletter (issues 33-114 with some gaps) for the years 1996-2003. The newsletter ceased publication in 2003 upon Guthrie’s retirement.
Subjects covered most often in the newsletters are 18th century gardens, gardening publications, gardens of the Founding Fathers, plant uses, early and pre-Christian folklore, and seasonal customs. Much good and interesting information is found within these newsletters, but current users should be alert for some now archaic interpretive sources, Latin errors, and cultural generalizations, especially with Native peoples/nations of North America which are often treated as one culture instead of many.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News, no. 71, February, 2000
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/45914/archive/files/9311f732b52c67f053b92eb47bb16095.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=FQYLJdxNJQjf8Mf8vG5fwQL4p6IN0pwY9CDupFPIzegYJ5pTrga8ITGJkj46EiOxrWAP5ck25gCuUfsBD9Xrm-8M7P%7EaEGoTRTPfSNpp%7EcjeRrg6TauQYqfr0l3V9XmKLiaNCugi4sUp8RJBSBN6y5CyID-bMBGycfMO6M-YysZo9GeIT56XZtOr%7EDkv-DLyAnkCo%7EgKAzIwBllp8BSQvl-nb4ZIPd-RFWPYAw2AP7J6si%7EhllMcWXJ52o%7ErGAVCb5jvQe0SLsaT0JrLs-uRrrBgUCCUGrM8x-5Z6HZcWgbD9Sei2MqVhGD9XtiqBo37WBW2WR-RoenvtmoFoIj3TQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
246883c14be9c6dd74602d4a39850ad1
PDF Text
Text
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, JR. LIBRARY
COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION
P. 0. Box 1776
Williamsburg, Virginia 23187
Q)
jeddy jazdenlems"'
ssue72
#
2000 Tis
Rauh
&
fine to see the Old World, and
travel up and down Among
the famous palaces and
cities of renown, To
admire the crumbly castles and
the statues of the Kings But
now I think I' enough of
ve had
antiquated things, So
it's home again, and home
again, America for me!"
Henry
Van Dyke I
did enjoy every minute of my visit to Ireland and 1 was impressed with the beauty
of the country of my ancestors. I
was very surprised to see Palm trees growing
there but then was reminded that the gulf stream is responsible for that. I
ar ived in the Emerald Isle on my birthday, which fell on Ash Wednesday this
the Council of Nicaea, in A. D. 325, said Easter was to be celebrated
on the Sunday that followed the full moon after the vernal equinox, but since
1582 Pope Gregory XIII introduced the calendar we use today. The dates for Easter
and Ash Wednesdays vary.Ash Wednesday, being the first day of Lent, is a day
of fast and abstinence, which for me meant there was to be no big steak dinner to
celebrate my birthday. But just being in Ireland was celebration enough! These
year. Originally,
religious Lenten practices were followed in 18th- Century Virginia. In
the
agricultural
calendar
Fridays, and
days, days
the
liturgical
fact,
calendar. Wednesdays,
is
closely linked to
Saturdays after the first Sunday of Lent were called ember
of fast. The
word ember goes back to the 9th and 10th centuries and
refers to the burning off of the fields. The Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before
Holy Thursday were known as Rogation days, which is another agricultural term
for planting. The emblem of Ireland is the Shamrock, which is symbolic of the Blessed
Trinity, and the Shamrock grows wild throughout Ireland.All
this interlocking between agriculture, or
very evident in Ireland.
nature, if
you will, and religion is
�many of the tens of thousands traveling on the great
Philadelphia Wagon Road, which was the most heavily traveled road in America,
were people from the city of Ulster in Northern Ireland, who were seeking freedom
In
the
from poverty.
1770s,
I found it was fun and interesting relating these puzzle pieces
together between America
and Ireland.
Upon my return, I enjoyed attending the Garden Symposium. There was an
informative garden walk with Wes Greene which focused on the art of tree pruning
in which he gave us instructions on the proper methods which will produce the best
results.
I also enjoyed the lecture on Helbores.
Helbore,
in Greek, means
kill, which is a clue to the fact that these plants are poisonous.
Christmas
Rose, H. Niger, and the Lenten Rose, H. Orientales.
There
These
bloomers and shade plants that prefer a humus -rich, limey soil.
food to
is the
are winter
Although
the
Hellebores appear to be beautiful and delicate when in bloom, they are deceivingly
tough and can withstand cold weather and storms. We, attending the symposium,
were each delighted to receive as gifts at the end of the symposium, small Lenten
Roses, which I have in my garden at home.
The Shad bush is blooming, and the blossoms of the Shad Bush herald the
spawning run of the Shadfish. Its berries attract song birds. Perhaps, Phillip
Fithian was near some Shad bushes on April 10, 1774, when he wrote in his diary,
This morning is extremely pleasant, full of flowers, and the branches full of lovely
singing birds."
2anei juthtie
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News
Description
An account of the resource
The Geddy Garden News was a monthly newsletter produced by employee Janet Guthrie who worked for many years as a garden interpreter at the James Geddy House. The Library holds a partial run of this newsletter (issues 33-114 with some gaps) for the years 1996-2003. The newsletter ceased publication in 2003 upon Guthrie’s retirement.
Subjects covered most often in the newsletters are 18th century gardens, gardening publications, gardens of the Founding Fathers, plant uses, early and pre-Christian folklore, and seasonal customs. Much good and interesting information is found within these newsletters, but current users should be alert for some now archaic interpretive sources, Latin errors, and cultural generalizations, especially with Native peoples/nations of North America which are often treated as one culture instead of many.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News, no. 72, March, 2000
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/45914/archive/files/6582f54cd588c92ed40c5431b2d1443f.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=AIqS5qTUxbNnzJZ2gnV8S1UcObQdRxa-wt4I1QfMkiIMwfJmrE2CS7VRU2FFPtgjcO-jeihSXNrgYrcFYfownNH0NJx%7EjDFddxWVqENde0WkMDaqE2WX7Gw1014I3h71b6IT5B2eBDmcTNMJJcN%7E0j8SWdy4zyJ2psSbfpcQslWD5WO4ASZ7DZJilVZs5Z7NhWADqnhkF0UT27dxAsxa4M-jZn%7EuX69lto7r3RJL81WiiEFpbKbWF5EvgZCbfuXBp0zC2B%7EO52m40iejRmGbPU3u%7EzlKutvCwCLR5wm6BYiVTNYW-kVmr1o7LBhD1mtf4v3GSGLIA%7ESASdiB1XMRYA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
07c32ebbfd2bf85940e460f4eeaff004
PDF Text
Text
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER,
JR. LIBRARY
COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION
P. 0. Box 1776
3187
Williamsburg, Virginia
lOr
jeddy jazden
c9ssue #
1ems
Ciprii-c97day 2000
73
There never can be too much rain before midsummer."
Old Proverb
After almost a month of very little rainfall we are finally enjoying some very
welcome
spring
showers.
We celebrated Mayday with the ancient Maypole tradition. The pole was
erected and festooned with colorful ribbons and surrounded by baskets of flowers.
The celebration took place in the Robert Carter backyard and the upper level of the
yard formed an amphitheater for interested spectators. John Needre provided
music for the occasion and visitors and employees joined in the Maypole dance.
Families with youngsters, school groups and senior citizens united, resulting in a
joyous welcome to springtime.
The Maypole has proven to be a very popular event
for our visitors.
The Geddy garden is thriving and is being carefully guarded by our
unnamed
interpreters
scarecrow.
on June 11`
She will receive her name at our picnic for our youth
h
This time of year, I enjoy one of nature' s finest gifts, the strawberry.
I don' t
look for the largest strawberries in the market, for they are often filled with tasteless
water and lack the flavor of smaller strawberries.
The desire to enjoy the sweet taste of strawberries
goes back in time.
Thomas Tusser wrote in this book, Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry in
1557,
Wife, into thy garden and set me a plot,
Such growing abroad, among thorns in the wood,
Well chosen and picked, prove excellent good."
Thomas Harlot wrote in 1587, after his voyage to Virginia, " Strawberries
there are as good and great as these which we have in our English gardens."
The Indians not only ate strawberries but also drank them in tea for a wide
variety of medicinal treatments.
Cherokee tribes drank strawberry tea as a remedy
for diarrhea, scurvy, nervous disorders, dysentery and even to remove tartar from
�Iroquois Indians made a tea of the root for chancre sores and to purify
the blood, and for colicky and teething babies. Some Indian tribes considered it a
their teeth.
medicine and they even powdered the leaves and used it as an antiseptic.
They unknowingly were also receiving ellagic acid, a cancer preventative found in
life"
strawberry leaves.
Gerard suggested boiling the leaves to make a poultice to reduce the heat in
The berries were to be eaten to quench thirst and he also suggested
distilling the water to make the face fair and smooth.
wounds.
Parkinson and Gerard both recommended
the distilled strawberry water to
revive the spirits and make the heart merry.
Parkinson
mentions
that
the berries "
are often brought to the table as a
reare service whereunto claret wine, creame or milke is added with sugar ...
a good
cooling and pleasant dish in the hot summer season."
In 1770, Landon Carter bemoaned the fact that a severely cold winter had
killed every one of his strawberry vines as well as his lettuce, parsley, broccoli and
artichokes.
1 have found the best way to freeze your strawberries is to slice them and mix
Use about one pound of brown sugar to 4 pounds of
strawberries after giving the strawberries a 10 minute rest, pack them in containers
and put them in your freezer. The brown sugar preserves the natural flavor and
them with brown sugar.
color and even the aroma more than white sugar.
I have just developed a great appetite for strawberries with a little whipped
cream, low calorie, of course.
Bon appetit!
Oanei juthvie
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News
Description
An account of the resource
The Geddy Garden News was a monthly newsletter produced by employee Janet Guthrie who worked for many years as a garden interpreter at the James Geddy House. The Library holds a partial run of this newsletter (issues 33-114 with some gaps) for the years 1996-2003. The newsletter ceased publication in 2003 upon Guthrie’s retirement.
Subjects covered most often in the newsletters are 18th century gardens, gardening publications, gardens of the Founding Fathers, plant uses, early and pre-Christian folklore, and seasonal customs. Much good and interesting information is found within these newsletters, but current users should be alert for some now archaic interpretive sources, Latin errors, and cultural generalizations, especially with Native peoples/nations of North America which are often treated as one culture instead of many.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News, no. 73, April/May, 2000
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/45914/archive/files/642ecbaa62dd071a75beffb090b565bf.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=S4yRBgBr8z1Hgyu3It2Je2qmMIPdavBAXdfIUvmCm3UyAZsnQUXlp5esemLHxcp6vPm%7E6KyoxkzRb7Sk6QN-f-lM4pjxdXDAUHNnu-TdcQ-N6hAL%7EQIaqUPXif%7E9BEJrcwUqQ2zvabfnhMBl8VXlI1faGGtE9oEGK8ujwhClySiDIvWFMh5x-G2MnidtlNkVpqNK-ngmsctZtQaVdYAhIrc5Ney5ceBf4kma-aESzEqMF7xgxqx7-FYnbSx4-352itbz5hM1cuo-76T43Z7h947sbmWRvYZn-BanfrbkS0uSZ9wh1vnYr0FwDUfkx3MsGJu2itgLM30n%7EmlRu-V5ZA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
dd224e58f6a87efea30674948e5f143f
PDF Text
Text
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, JR. LIBRARY
COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION
P. 0. Box 1776
Williamsburg, Vir
jeddy jazden
c1ssue #
c2Veius
74
What a desolate place would a
world without flowers!
It would be a face without a smile,
a feast without a welcome."
Clara
Balfaur
Today is the first day of summer and the Geddy Garden seems to be shouting
out
with
that
news.
The edible plants in the Kitchen garden are showing off their beauty
their lush foliage.
To walk through the garden right now is like being in a
large salad bowl amidst a variety of salad ingredients. The vegetable garden has a
beauty all its own. The rich green leaves of Swiss Chard are a lovely contrast to the
pale shade of the Kale plants.
The sizes, shapes and textures of the diverse plants as
well as the beautiful shades of color blend together to celebrate summer.
This year the perennial border of the Geddy garden is alive with color and
the Bee Balm is attracting hoards of butterflies.
The border encloses and enhances
the garden and serves as an invitation to passersby to enter and enjoy the pleasures
the garden has to offer.
I am often questioned
about the "
tall"
flowers.
When
I receive
such
a
question I know immediately that it is a reference to the hollyhocks, a cheerful
addition to the yard this year.
It is
The Hollyhock is native to China and one of the oldest plants in civilization.
propigated by seed and produces large colorful flowers. It is a sun -loving plant
but it can manage to still do fairly well with some partial shade.
Gerard' s
Herball,
the
1597
Historie
of Plants,
shows
woodcuts
of the
Hollyhock. One was a double purple flower. John Rea, in 1665, recommended that
the Hollyhock be included in summer gardens in his plant catalogue. They can also
be found in the art and literature of the 17th century Persian gardens.
Probably the
earliest reference of the Hollyhock is found in a 1420 painting known as The Garden
of Paradise by an unknown Rhenish artist. It is shown among other flowers growing
They were also to be found in the beautiful Italian Renaissance
in the grass.
gardens.
The gardens in England displayed Hollyhocks and they were being grown in
the 17th century in the northern colonies of our country. John Josselyn mentioned
them in Two Voyages to New England 1638- 1663, and there are mentions of the
seeds for sale in a Boston newspaper.
�The respected Williamsburg resident, John Custis, who served as a member
of the Governor' s council for 22 years, was an avid gardener.
He was one of the
gentlemen who was very involved with exchange of plants and seeds with England.
He was described by his correspondent, Peter Collinson, along with John Bartram,
as one of the " Brothers
of the Spade."
In 1735 he thanked Peter Collinson for
sending him Hollyhock seeds. It became one of the most commonly cultivated plants
in 18th century gardens.
In 1767, Thomas Jefferson wrote that his Pinks and
Hollyhocks bloomed on June 10th and he again listed them in his Calendar of Bloom
of Flowers in 1782.
The other
name
for Hollyhock
is Althaea
Rosea.
Althaea comes from the
Greek meaning to cure, so Hollyhocks were used medicinally. It was believed to be
useful, when brewed, in voiding kidney stones and part of the root is used as an
ingredient in cough medicine, both in ancient times as well as the present.
Hollyhocks
come in a rainbow of beautiful colors, which includes a deep
The Geddy garden has a color
maroon flower, sometimes referred to as black.
range from pale yellow to deep rose. They have contributed summer beauty to the
Kitchen garden.
2anet jutirie
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News
Description
An account of the resource
The Geddy Garden News was a monthly newsletter produced by employee Janet Guthrie who worked for many years as a garden interpreter at the James Geddy House. The Library holds a partial run of this newsletter (issues 33-114 with some gaps) for the years 1996-2003. The newsletter ceased publication in 2003 upon Guthrie’s retirement.
Subjects covered most often in the newsletters are 18th century gardens, gardening publications, gardens of the Founding Fathers, plant uses, early and pre-Christian folklore, and seasonal customs. Much good and interesting information is found within these newsletters, but current users should be alert for some now archaic interpretive sources, Latin errors, and cultural generalizations, especially with Native peoples/nations of North America which are often treated as one culture instead of many.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News, no. 74, June, 2000
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/45914/archive/files/1578183b3e7c91ddc36b6a4df3c075be.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=ZrXHpJCcNj0jMdNoUNjf7MsQFIXkWWWh7WENuc8SutJAeqKFvio5oRNWZ7-DzcHXw0aQXPU4faIkFzvfEEpyYYQvQ3HLuvGm4lvbnF8ps5DZYV5SjuYlUclRAGuo0XrmEDjDX8jKAPPC8aIvKyHhwCpWtxgwV2o3hRuTibZjhUrQ9n3%7EXGN6404zU85x%7E6rWaNxZ8ed-zHSkghNicF9f%7EEBdv62iT9b7xDBQtbhhIo7T02XMkbXtbHQc3%7E2mbC0GuKtZ6s2VGFxVi3lpithQ66Cifo47vTxVXyf6TibZNe1OraFofSCwtqEGDZ1JtR3OY3cTD0Av2wxIwYov0xeXQQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
a383aed87c17986aca946cc76858f077
PDF Text
Text
JOHN D. Rnr"
r77"
r_
o
IR^ ARV
it?
COLONIAL' t"''
P.
Wiliamsburg,
eddy
jarden
l eivs
C&
9ssue # 75
0At7us1 2000
A housewife coming in from the garden with an apron full ofsucculent
variety is a pleasant sight.."
The Old Farmers
Almanac
ugust is the midpoint of summer, and I can feel the heart
August first is Lammas Day. It
celebrates the beginning of the harvest season and is
Our word cereal is
named for the Roman goddess of grain, Ceres.
f the summer beating.
derived from that word.
In Christian times, the first grains harvested
were offered to the church for use in the sacrament during the liturgy.
There were Lammas Day Festivals and faires in many countries and
some places still celebrate Lammas Day.
The Geddy garden is very productive this year and that success is
due in large to the richness of the soil.
This year my beds were raised
and the soil was improved with the addition of compost. The drainage
and acidity benefited from the attention paid to the beds and the soil.
As Karel Capek wrote in the Gardener' s Year, "
A real gardener is not a
man who cultivates flowers; he is a man who cultivates the soil ....
came into the Garden of Eden he would sniff excitedly and say: '
If he
Good
Lord, what humas! "'
I grew some parsnips in the garden this year, along with lots of
onions, squash, cucumbers, and sweet potatoes. Parsnips were enjoyed
by the colonists. I found an eighteenth -century receipt from a woman in
South Carolina named Rebecca Motte, who
heroine.
became a Revolutionary
When the British took over her plantation and called it Fort
Motte, she chose to have it burned to the ground to rid her house of the
British invaders!
She had the following receipt for mashed parsnips:
Boile six large parsnips in a cast iron kettle, drain and mash them with
a
wooden
spoon.
Remove the stringy fibers.
cream and two tablespoons
teaspoon of pepper.
hard and serve hot."
Add 4 tablespoons of
of butter, one teaspoon
Heat in a saucepan,
remove
of salt and half
from
heat and beat
Parsnips were also included as an ingredient in
the making of marmalade wine in colonial times.
�I was never partial to parsnips, but it was in Ireland that I found
a way to enjoy them. There they mixed parsnips with mashed carrots,
which resulted in a tasty dish.
Parsnips were among the 250 varieties of vegetables that Thomas
Jefferson grew in his 1, 000- foot- long vegetable garden at Monticello.
Jefferson
enjoyed
a vegetable
diet.
He
once
wrote, "
temperately, eating little animal food, and that ...
the vegetables, which constitute my principal diet."
in the month of August, on August 3rd,
I
have
lived
as a condiment
for
Incidentally, it was
1767, to be exact, that Thomas
for his homesite,
Jefferson first mentioned the name " Monticello"
he wrote in his garden book an entry about his
when
cherries in his fruit
garden.
I have enjoyed watching the hummingbirds hovering around the
trumpet vines on the fences.
Humming birds are fascinating to watch.
They remind me of nervous helicopters.
There have been several good garden helpers this summer.
been helped with weeding and watering by Caroline Hollis,
I have
Sara
Finklestein, Phyllis Putnam, and even Jennifer Poirier, in her delicate
condition!
The fig trees have been producing delicious figs again this
year and one day, Robert Watson became a helper by generously
offering to help me pick the figs from the higher branches.
Figs were a favorite fruit enjoyed by our founding fathers.
Jefferson boasted that his Marseilles fig was, " incomparably the finest
fig I' ve every seen," and another good farmer, George Mason, wrote a
letter to George Washington during the Revolutionary War, " May God
grant us a return to those halcyon Days; when every Man may set down
at his Ease under the Shade of his own Vine, &
his own fig -ree, &
t
the Sweets of domestic Life!"
anet juthrie
enjoy
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News
Description
An account of the resource
The Geddy Garden News was a monthly newsletter produced by employee Janet Guthrie who worked for many years as a garden interpreter at the James Geddy House. The Library holds a partial run of this newsletter (issues 33-114 with some gaps) for the years 1996-2003. The newsletter ceased publication in 2003 upon Guthrie’s retirement.
Subjects covered most often in the newsletters are 18th century gardens, gardening publications, gardens of the Founding Fathers, plant uses, early and pre-Christian folklore, and seasonal customs. Much good and interesting information is found within these newsletters, but current users should be alert for some now archaic interpretive sources, Latin errors, and cultural generalizations, especially with Native peoples/nations of North America which are often treated as one culture instead of many.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News, no. 75, August, 2000
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/45914/archive/files/af67aca5592cbc386645c611d331d8af.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=N1RjHEKuJeeqpo%7ECvWPWhuQok39kW0-sDq3ByP1gFkjCL0jdwxFl3WX3asPi42pDNAHBJDRMHTgbfcfQM1dSXAvTEif-Dl8eRaghnnuy9mfzJokAsOLl4LFVaQHfkM0URXFR5BzvmBuplmP-NqqfboAce2Rba5pycyacuRZ6otF-4RdpSDFrHVR-9NKK8kOV2wanEacWQLFL-etrVFXXmDSJTiL1lmqjlLTkY2ckj%7E3SDqAWiT-2W-0GRyAuw5nwdiohuKW-bqPGPIxp2QO3Xyh3z4Sys544gOtB4MMbVlM8Bd%7EuczZsI1Y46ap3ISVTDCQaXk-p9L72N5He9oNdxg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
f9ff19d79f240f50073034dbccdd64b7
PDF Text
Text
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, JR. LIBRARY
COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION
P. O. Box 1776
Williamsburg, Virginia 23187
jeddy javden
@J1ews = :
@September 2000
flssue # 76
While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o' er Her frolics, and pursues
her tail no more."
Jonathan
Swift
e cat is one of the animals that is credited with the ability to
orecast weather conditions. I suggest that you take notice of
your cat' s behavior because if you notice your cat is walking
with his tail straight up, you can expect an approaching wind, and if you
find he is scratching your furniture
more often than usual,
it is an
indication that there will be a change of some sort in the weather.
Since
I do not own a cat, I must rely on you to tell me if there is much truth to
any of these beliefs.
conditions
varied
weather
extremely
past summer,
throughout the country. Some states suffered extreme record -breaking
This
heat, accompanied by drought. That was the dangerous combination
that resulted in the devastating forest fires in Montana and the western
regions of our country.
It was just such a drought that was the partial cause of the
dreadful Great Fire of London, on September 2, 1666.
There had been
no rain for over a year when the fire began, and the city of London,
with all its wooden buildings, burned uncontrollably for three days and
A week later, in early
three
nights,
causing terrible destruction.
October, it rained heavily for ten days straight. If that rainfall could
have occurred a week sooner, it would have saved the city of London.
Here in Williamsburg this summer we, on the other hand, have
experienced the opposite.
We have had a rainy summer. Every time I
was prepared to plant in the garden it seemed to rain. I found it
annoying.
In reading Esther Burr' s diary of 1755, I found that she was
affected emotionally by the weather. She wrote on February 1, 1755, " I
feel very gloomy today, the weather is dark and black. I am so
�connected with it, that it never changes but I change two."
She became
depressed.
Another eighteenth century diary I' ve been reading is that of
Frances Baylor Hill of King and Queen County, VA. She repeatedly
was forced to change her plans due to rain. On a good day, she wrote of
some typical activities, " Sow' d a great many flower seed set a hen
walked about in the garden all most all day.
read &
wrote."
However,
Sew' d on Mama' s apron
when it rained we find entries like the
following,
Intend' d to go to church prevent' d by the rain." April 23rd.
The young Ladies from Riccahoc came over in the evening they were
prevent' d by the rain from dining with us." July 76
We had a very hard rain soon after dinner, Papa came in the hardest
of it but was in the carriage and did not get wet." July 15th on an outing
to Smithfield, " It rained very powerful in the evening which prevented
our going home." July 16th and again on July 17th she wrote, " had a
rainy evening."
On one occasion the family was forced to turn back, "
We all set
off to Uncle Temples but was oblig' d to turn back on account of the
it rain' d hard almost the whole day, and had some very severe
thunder and lightning."
rain,
So,
as the saying goes, into every life a little rain must fall.
seems Frances Baylor Hill had more than her share.
I finally was able to plant my fall lettuce yesterday.
09anet juthrie
It
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News
Description
An account of the resource
The Geddy Garden News was a monthly newsletter produced by employee Janet Guthrie who worked for many years as a garden interpreter at the James Geddy House. The Library holds a partial run of this newsletter (issues 33-114 with some gaps) for the years 1996-2003. The newsletter ceased publication in 2003 upon Guthrie’s retirement.
Subjects covered most often in the newsletters are 18th century gardens, gardening publications, gardens of the Founding Fathers, plant uses, early and pre-Christian folklore, and seasonal customs. Much good and interesting information is found within these newsletters, but current users should be alert for some now archaic interpretive sources, Latin errors, and cultural generalizations, especially with Native peoples/nations of North America which are often treated as one culture instead of many.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News, no. 76, September, 2000
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/45914/archive/files/1ea43ce815e265c3c63fe87a029d8d11.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=ZV-DqNJxuxUDj6FWdZfnqBv%7EbDNtO5d%7Eu-hazWt0n4x6WIQA6IeM4%7E-P9hZMM7MKd3Jr3zXOhp8bOC6lOAApZ0zQnVv4DLvHkFgHkmcml8HS7RN9w5jyOC-gTtLEP3-gugEdFkQ2hf5zebAtfZcrKvJZZ7plZzmv3VKgIaIgdDfpB4rHSCZXVJo8ql0Zp5X6-FetJVj3wGI6%7EMXajCB3NlcjTifFx05P-Jfonj7UG34jJamjzO%7Ex7coKQh8uHiI3BaDvbD46xXQRwRpERnKLtPGx%7EObLs0YBqLJjF9JPZoq7K4R4r7Rvj5lIEC6mI%7E43SgOQ8KWL2R0FhFY2IKCCwA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
e3cf57a1fc72a235d606e56c1b46f8d0
PDF Text
Text
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, JR. LIBRARY
COLONIAL- wituAmCDUIla FOUNDAT1C 4
P. 0. Box 1776
1Nilliamsburg, Virginia 23187
c9ssue # 77
eddy
Si
arden
MS
PctoGer 2000
0, it sets my heart a clicken' like
the ticken' of a clock,
When the frost is on the punkin'
And the fodder' s in the shock."
James Whitcomb
utumn is here again.
Riley
It is that magical season when the leaves burst
into color and treat us to the viewing of some marvelous sights. A
sugar Maple outside my window at the Geddy House offers me a
spectacular sight. I consider this annual event one of nature' s special gifts to
Nature also provides the decorations for the Halloween celebrations in
An anonymous 17th century poet said, " We have pumpkins at
October.
morning and pumpkins at noon, if it were not for pumpkins we should be
me.
undone."
Although the pumpkin is associated with Halloween and enjoyed as a
lantern today, it was not that way when the colonist came to North
Jack o'
America and found the Indians growing and eating pumpkins.
The word " pumpkin"
comes from the Latin word peponem.
pompion in old French, pompion or pumpion in English.
It became
Washington
called it pompion in 1828 and finally, today, we call it pumpkin.
Irving
The Sioux
word for pumpkin is Wagamoo.
When the Apache Indians grew pumpkins, they encouraged good crops
by holding ceremonies to ensure good harvests. They had young boys scatter
Juniper berries over the pumpkin patch in the belief that more pumpkins
would grow wherever the berries landed. Another tribe that grew pumpkins
were the Catabas, aka Esau or Issa, which means river. They lived along the
Santee and Wateree Rivers in North and South Carolina. They did a lot of
trading with the white settlers and it is believed that the Catabas received
from them in trade the knowledge of using baking soda to make dough rise.
They learned to make what is known today as Prince Albert Pumpkin Bread.
The Moravians in North Carolina were eating pumpkins for supper.
They wrote in 1754, " In the morning we have mush with milk or drippings, at
supper mush with drippings, or pumpkins, or squash."
The earliest mention of pumpkins I found was by John Parkinson in
Paradise in Sole.
He wrote of the use of pompions, " They are boyled in faire
�water
and
salt,
or in powdered
beefe brothe, or sometimes in milk, and so
eaten, or else buttered."
In colonial times, they also boiled pumpkins and made soup and it was
Mrs. Frances
common to slice and dry pumpkins.
Bland Tucker Coalter in
Virginia in 1801 had this receipt for Mrs. B. Pynpkin Fritters: " The pumpkin
boiled,
left from
dinner.
must
be well
eggs,
one half Pint to more of Milk (
Tablespoonfuls
of
brown
Sugar,
Take four Spoonfuls
or Cream if you wish)
Thicken
with
Pumpkin,
one
Flour
Wheat
or
two
more
about
the
Fry in boiling Lard two
or three Spoonfuls for each Fritter. Tried and found good."
thickness of batter for Waffles well beaten and light.
The first published pumpkin receipts in an American cook book was in
1796 in American Cookery by Amelia Simmons. We know that many of the
Virginia planters were growing pumpkins. George Washington grew them in
his kitchen garden at Mt. Vernon. Thomas Jefferson mentions planting white
pumpkins, solid pumpkins from South America, and Long pumpkins from
Malta.
I wonder what a Long pumpkin looks like. Jefferson grew some
pumpkins for animal fodder as well. In 1796 he wrote, "
pumpkins have fed 9 horses at Shadwell 5 weeks." He
pumpkins then is equivalent to 5 acres of corn."
less than an acre of
added, "
Landon Carter told us how he planter his pompions "
in May, 1766.
I do love this magical season.
An acre of
4 seeds in a hill"
I love the nip in the air, the beautiful
leaves falling about, stacks of firewood ready for burning in fireplaces, and
orange pumpkins just waiting to be chosen and transformed
into a scary or happy faced jack o' lantern. All of this is truly American in the
fields
of round,
fall of the year.
Other countries have some fall traditions of their own.
Because of the
abundance of potatoes in Ireland, one of their Halloween customs is to eat a
dish called Colcannon on Halloween.
It contains mashed potatoes,
boiled,
shredded cabbage, butter, parsley and onions, cooked in milk.
This year there is a shortage of Virginia pumpkins due to the weather
conditions of the summer.
Therefore,
I recommend that you hurry to your
garden or field or roadside stand and select your Halloween pumpkin, but if
you cannot find a presentable one, you can have Colcannon for dinner and
have an Irish Halloween this year.
c::
eappzy cReallaween,
2anet juthvie
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News
Description
An account of the resource
The Geddy Garden News was a monthly newsletter produced by employee Janet Guthrie who worked for many years as a garden interpreter at the James Geddy House. The Library holds a partial run of this newsletter (issues 33-114 with some gaps) for the years 1996-2003. The newsletter ceased publication in 2003 upon Guthrie’s retirement.
Subjects covered most often in the newsletters are 18th century gardens, gardening publications, gardens of the Founding Fathers, plant uses, early and pre-Christian folklore, and seasonal customs. Much good and interesting information is found within these newsletters, but current users should be alert for some now archaic interpretive sources, Latin errors, and cultural generalizations, especially with Native peoples/nations of North America which are often treated as one culture instead of many.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News, no. 77, October, 2000
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/45914/archive/files/557e0ada8332e32f4d64901724ec0566.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=GBCp631B728LrKNk1xqwZkJsEDrkoekPGh%7E1fvHiP8CarPIfJ71ARsvw-ZzcrtgelPW09s7FnnMsNH0D6CVCEonuP%7EZ8WEiPwQD99YJMjuYZYktEQ5CE4Pj8o9%7Ega0hDYCjaLUpmWRMjleXbcczNODEP9KgrwfVuQXug7livOWeBtp06Ra9wIX-BTRCSOqgEtWx2Tu-fP2iXjwd7hSd4I5ZKIUOoHJnkMjj7wRQsHhoTKgH6joN-bLByLxIbIm2DgoZNjt5I58h0E9LV96w4kan4k8EqRCu%7E2o2nXwg9KneCvXFdYDwiHmIN2t5MwxLpvZwyLYUozb1HRQPdH2bYNg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
848ca0fa6592937e336e0e6d64fd5906
PDF Text
Text
November 2000
Issue 78
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, JR. LIBRARY
COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATIO EDDY GAR.DE1V NEWS
P. 0. Box 1776
Williamsburg, Virginia 23187
For man, autumn is a time ofharvest,
Ofgathering together,
For Nature, it is a time ofsowing,
Ofscattering abroad
Edwin Way Teale
When I visited my daughter recently in her new home in the country, she was concerned
about being unable to establish a garden; landscaping had become a major problem. She proceeded
to take me around the property to exhibit the cause of the problem. Deer tracts were noticeably
visible. I had some solutions to offer her. There are quite a few safe remedies available. By safe I
mean
treatments
that contain
no toxic
chemicals.
There are homemade concoctions of such things as garlic, hot peppers and vinegar that can
be sprayed about, but this requires frequent applications. There are also commercial sprays on the
market that are natural and somewhat effective. They produce unpleasant odors and tastes that
drive off deer. There are also mesh barriers that can be attached to trees or posts.
We finally agreed upon the use of a deer -proof garden flower mix. This mix contains seeds
of flowers that do not appeal to deer. Among these flowers are Foxglove, Sweet Alyssum, Lupines,
White Yarrow, Coreopsis, Gloriosa Daisy, and Blue Sage, just to name a few. There are at least a
dozen others, as well as some attractive ground covers like Lily of the Valley, Pachysandra and
Periwinkle that can be used. This was a solution that would also enhance the beauty of the
landscape. Some people today use electric fences to shock the deer, but that idea did not appeal to
my daughter at all.
We know that the 18t- century citizens often chose fences. Thomas Jefferson had a ten foot
high paled fence around his kitchen garden to protect it from rabbits and deer. Of course, in the
cities like Williamsburg, a fence was required within six months after you built your house on your
lot.
Deer meat was eaten by the Indians as well as the colonists. Indians roasted deer on spits.
Not only was it roasted, but it was used as a convenience food. After being dried in the sun, it was
packed in sacks made of hide. This was called Pemmican, from the Cree language which means fat
or grease. Venison was also cut into strips, dried, and then eaten when traveling, similar to what is
known today as jerky.
�Nicholas Cresswell' s journal of 1775 mentions that one of his company shot a deer in the
Ohio Valley and Landon Carter in October of 1770 wrote in his own sarcastic way that his son
managed to shoot at and miss from only twenty steps away two large bucks that were standing close
together.
He referred to the event as remarkable!
William Byrd in September 1709 wrote in his diary, " The whole company eat their venison
without any other sauce than a keen appetite."
At the Governor' s Palace in 1769, William Sparrow listed venison among the other foods in
Lord Botetourt' s palace kitchen in December and we can also find receipts for doe -venison in
Hannah Glasse' s Art of Cookery.
There is a custom that was begun here in Virginia in 1646 by the Mattaponi Tribe. The tribe
annually pays tribute to the governor of Virginia with the presentation of a deer, or turkey or fish at
i...anksgiving. This American celebration of Thanksgiving is over 350 years old. ^'
As I count my many blessings this year, I include among them the reuniting of the Historic
Trades Department, making us once again a family.
Happy Thanksgiving
Janet Guthrie
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News
Description
An account of the resource
The Geddy Garden News was a monthly newsletter produced by employee Janet Guthrie who worked for many years as a garden interpreter at the James Geddy House. The Library holds a partial run of this newsletter (issues 33-114 with some gaps) for the years 1996-2003. The newsletter ceased publication in 2003 upon Guthrie’s retirement.
Subjects covered most often in the newsletters are 18th century gardens, gardening publications, gardens of the Founding Fathers, plant uses, early and pre-Christian folklore, and seasonal customs. Much good and interesting information is found within these newsletters, but current users should be alert for some now archaic interpretive sources, Latin errors, and cultural generalizations, especially with Native peoples/nations of North America which are often treated as one culture instead of many.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geddy Garden News, no. 78, November, 2000
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Guthrie, Janet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation