![]() ![]() Mary Randolph included a recipe for pea soup that is interesting because it is made from fresh rather than dried peas. Many of the book's recipes are also found among the surviving papers of Jefferson's daughter, Martha, and his granddaughters, suggesting an exchange of culinary ideas between the families. In 1824 Mary Randolph, a first cousin of Jefferson's from Richmond, Virginia, published The Virginia Housewife, considered by food historians the "most influential" cookbook of the 19th century. Twinleaf offers Prince Albert, indistinguishable from Early Frame and introduced into America in the 1840s. Among the nineteen pea varieties Jefferson documented sowing were Early Frame, which was planted annually from 1809 until 1824 Hotspur, named for its quick, frantic growth Marrowfat, a starchier and later variety and Blue Prussian, which Jefferson obtained from Bernard McMahon. The English or Garden pea is usually described as Jefferson's favorite vegetable because of the frequency of plantings in the Monticello kitchen garden, the amount of garden space devoted to it (three entire "squares"), and the character-revealing playfulness of his much-discussed pea contests: according to family accounts, every spring Jefferson competed with local gentleman gardeners to bring the first pea to the table the winner then hosting a community dinner that included a feast on the winning dish of peas. Tabulating these purchases, as well as surveying the contents of Jefferson family recipes, provides another key to the vegetable world of "the sage of Monticello." When Jefferson was President, between 18, his butler, Etienne Lemaire, purchased produce in the markets of Washington. Jefferson supplemented his vegetable diet by purchases from Monticello slaves, who cultivated gardens out in the 5,000-acre plantation and maintained an alternative economy based on the production and sale of foodstuffs. The plants grown at Poplar Forest were usually the species that thrived at Monticello. Also, his notes on gardening extended from 1767 until 1824, fifty-seven years, and the enduring qualities of many vegetables can be measured by their appearance in the more mature gardens: following his retirement from the Presidency to Monticello in 1809, and at Poplar Forest, his summer retreat home near Lynchburg, Virginia, built in 1814. The frequency with which Jefferson planted a certain variety or species is perhaps a more objective criteria for tabulating his favorite garden plants. Historian Merrill Peterson has noted that Jefferson "did not often bother to qualify felicitous generalizations," and one learns to temper Jefferson's statements about the "the best of this" or "the most beautiful of that" with guarded scepticism. What were Thomas Jefferson's favorite vegetables? Although his unabashed enthusiasm for many garden plants was readily expressed by sweeping pronouncements about how the Marseilles fig was "incomparably the finest fig I've ever seen," or that the flowering acacia was "the most delicious flowering shrub in the world," only a few vegetables received such accolades. Here, Jefferson himself sowed peas, cabbages, and okra and recorded when the lettuce "came to table" or how the broad beans were "killed by bug" in his Garden "Kalendar." Although he loved fine fancy fruit, the ornamental trees that graced his mountaintop home, and a variety of flowers, the vegetable garden, because of its sublime posture overlooking the rolling Piedmont Virginia countryside and its dramatic scale and scope, was Jefferson's chief horticultural achievement at Monticello. ![]() as a condiment for the vegetables, which constitute my principal diet." His 1,000-foot-long kitchen garden terrace was an experimental laboratory where he cultivated 89 different species and 330 varieties of vegetables. We added a few new regions this year.In 1819 Thomas Jefferson wrote, "I have lived temperately, eating little animal food, and that. If you're wondering what to plant and when to plant in your area, check out our 2018 Planting Guide for the US. Using this chart, it's easy enough to interplant Companion Plants in your garden. Proper plant spacing can help reduce plant disease and maintain healthy plant. ![]()
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