May 16, 2022
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Historical Events
1735 On this day, a French expedition made
the first attempt to transport cinchona trees to Europe.
The scientist Charles Marie de La Condamine was the first man to
describe the Cinchona tree, the scientist Charles Marie de La
Condamine, was on the expedition along with the botanist Joseph de
Jussieu.
Their mission was to add the trees to a Paris collection, but sadly
the trees were lost when they were washed overboard.
Once Europe learned of the power of the Cinchona tree, they were
eager to get their hands on the bark.
Cinchona's name was in honor of a Spanish Countess named Ana, and
her second marriage was to the Count of Chinchon.
After the Count was given the job of serving as the viceroy of
Peru, a station that oversaw the entire continent of South America,
except for Brazil, the couple arrived in Lima in 1629.
The following year, the Countess grew gravely ill with tertian
ague. She suffered a fever that occurred every other day, the
Governor of Loxa, Don Francisco Lopez de Canizares, sent over a
life-saving parcel of cinchona bark. With the cinchona powder, the
Countess made a rapid recovery.
Eleven years later, when the Count and Countess began their return
trip to Spain, they brought along a precious supply of the curative
Quina bark for use with their people. They also hoped to introduce
cinchona medicine to the rest of Europe.
Sadly, Ana died during the long voyage home in Cartegena in
December 1639. But Ana's legacy lives on in the medicine we know
today as quinine. After her husband, the Count returned to Spain,
the medicinal Quina bark powder became known as Pulvis Comitissa in
honor of the Countess. And over 100 years later, Linneaus named the
genus Cinchona in honor of the Countess of Chinchon in 1742.
Linneaus should have called it Chinchona, but he forgot the
"h."
1809 On this day, the herbalist and midwife
Martha Ballard worked in the raised beds in her garden and recorded
her annual spring gardening efforts.
For 27 years, Martha kept a journal of her work as a gardener, town
healer, and midwife for Hallowell, Maine.
Today, Martha’s great journal gives us a glimpse into the plants
she regularly used and how she applied them medicinally. As for how
Martha sourced her plants, she raised them in her garden or foraged
them in the wild. As the village apothecary, Martha found her own
ingredients and made all of her herbal remedies personally. As a
midwife, Martha assisted with 816 births.
In May of 1809, Martha worked in the gardens surrounding her house.
She sowed, set, planted, and transplanted.
On May 15, she planted squash, cucumbers, muskmelons, and
watermelons. And on this day, May 16, she sowed string peas at the
end of her garden.
In Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's work, The Life of Martha Ballard,
she writes,
Martha's was an ordinary garden, a factory for food and
medicine that incidentally provided nourishment to the
soul.
"I have workt in my gardin," she wrote on May 17, the
possessive pronoun the only hint of the sense of ownership she felt
in her work. The garden was hers, though her husband or son or
the Hallowell and Augusta Bank owned the land.
"I have squash and Cucumbers come up in the bed [on the]
east side the house," she wrote on May 22.
The garden was hers because she turned the soil, dropped
the seeds, and each year recorded in her diary, as though it
had never happened before, the recurring miracle
of spring.
1861 On this day, Union Captain Jacob Ritner
wrote back to his wife, Emeline.
Jacob and Emeline exchanged marvelous letters throughout the Civil
War that depicted their heroic lives on both the battlefield and
homefront.
While Jacob wrote with the tragic news of war, Emeline kept him
apprised of their four small children and the challenges of
maintaining the family farm. Emeline's news from home kept Jacob
sane and anchored to the happier reality that awaited him after the
war. Emeline often wrote about the garden and the landscape,
proving that even news of a faraway garden can be anchoring and
grounding amid hardship.
And so, on this day back in 1861, Jacob wrote in his letter,
Now Emeline dear, you must write me a great long letter next
Sunday.
Tell me all the news, how the trees grow, the garden and grass,
what everybody says...
1918 On this day, the rose season began at
Munstead Wood, the Arts and Crafts style home and surrounding
gardens in Surrey, England, created by garden designer Gertrude
Jekyll.
Munstead Wood became famous thanks to Gertrude's books and articles
in magazines like Country Life. Gertrude lived at
Munstead Wood from 1897 to 1932.
Volume 82 of The Garden celebrated the first
rose to open at Munstead Wood on this day by reporting,
The rose season begins. The opening the first Rose is always a
source of delight. The first we have seen in the open this year was
the pink Rosa rugosa at Munstead Wood on May 16. This is one of the
oldest garden roses and is said to have been cultivated since 1100
A.D. in China, where the ladies of the Court prepared a kind of
potpourri from its petals, gathered on a fine day, and mixed with
Camphor and Musk.
Grow That Garden Library™ Book Recommendation
The Secret Garden Cookbook, Newly Revised Edition by Amy
Cotler
This book came out in 2020, and the subtitle is Inspiring
Recipes from the Magical World of Frances Hodgson
Burnett's The
Secret Garden.
If you've been listening to the show, I've been on a little bit of
a cookbook kick lately, and cookbooks tied to literature. So this
is continuing in that same vein with this great book
called The Secret Garden Cookbook by Amy
Kotler.
Amy is a professional chef, caterer, and cooking-school teacher -
and if you're a cookbook lover, you will truly appreciate her
background in the kitchen.
When this book came out, people were going crazy for
the Toffee Pudding recipe that you can find on
page 32. So that's just a little heads up.
If you're a gardener, I'll point out that right at the beginning of
the book is a beautiful picture of the Francis Hodgson
Burnett Memorial Fountain. It's both a statue and a
tranquil fountain filled with lily pads that depicts Mary and
Dickon from The
Secret Garden. It's located in
Central Park in New York City, and it's just a gorgeous photo of
this Memorial.
Here's how Amy introduces us to The
Secret Garden and the magic of food:
She writes,
Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden is about the magic
of making things come alive. Mary, Colin, and Dickon all help the
forgotten secret garden to grow again. ButMary and Colin come
alive, too, through hard work, friendship, and good, nourishing
food.
When Mary Lennox first arrives atMisselthwaite Manor from
India, she is thin,sallow, and unhealthy looking. But as she goes
outside, skips rope, and works in the garden, her appetite grows.
Colin, too, is sickly until he learns the secret of the garden. By
the end of the novel, he is enjoying food as much as Mary. Pails of
fresh milk, dough cakes with brown sugar, hearty porridge,
fire-roasted potatoes-Mary, and Colin can't get enough of
them!
The children of The Secret Garden grew up during the reign of
Queen Victoria... commonly known as the Victorian
era.
In those days, food took a long time to cook and
serve.
Even Mrs. Sowerby, Dickon's mother, though she must feed
fourteen people, manages to find a little extra food for Mary and
Colin when they experience the joys of eating.
And that's what this book is all about; a hardy appreciation of
good food.
This book is 112 pages of fifty recipes inspired by The
Secret Garden, and they're all
updated for the modern kitchen and appeal to today's tastes.
You can get a copy of The Secret Garden Cookbook, Newly
Revised Edition by Amy Cotler, and support the show using the
Amazon link in today's show notes for around $10.
Botanic Spark
1905 Birth of Herbert Ernest Bates (pen name
H. E. Bates) English author.
He once wrote,
The true gardener, like an artist, is never satisfied.
H.E. is remembered for his books, Love
for Lydia (1952), The
Darling Buds of May (1958), and My
Uncle Silas (1939). The Darling Buds of
May inspired a TV series in the 1990s.
In his book, A
Love of Flowers (1971), H.E. wrote,
It is wonderful to think that one of the few unbroken links
between the civilization of ancient Egypt and the civilization of
today is the garden.
And he also wrote,
Gardens… should be like lovely, well-shaped girls: all curves,
secret corners, unexpected deviations, seductive surprises, and
then still more curves.
Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener
And remember: For a happy, healthy life, garden every
day.