"Gardening in the Sky"

I found this c.1900 image in the Library of Congress photo collection.  Judging by the surrounding building details, this garden isn't on what we consider a "skyscraper" nowadays :-)  

The popular plants of the period are here in this garden though.  I think I spot castor oil plant and moonflower. With salvaged boxes and kegs serving as the planters it seems to be a working class family's garden. 

Gardeners Age Well

This is why I enjoy doing a historical seed blog.  I always imagine the people - evenings spent at the table with a seed catalog, under the light of the kerosene lamp, making lists.  

I love photos of older gardeners. Way into her 9th decade, my grandmother, who travelled between daughters during the year, always made sure to be home when it was time to fertilize her rose bushes. 

Addenda to "Poor Man's Friend"

Yes!!! What an eye :-)  The Great Coffee Berry was yellow soy beans.

Here is the  1910 H. W. Buckbee catalog page from yesterday I am referring to in case you landed here by chance.

Here is another reference which I think  is telling...

And there are many mentions of "so called" coffee substitutes from soy in late 1800s lit, not all folks being convinced.

There is a terrific free William Shurtleff & Akiko Aoyagi  book on soy in which he does all the work for me I find :-)

Here are some quotes.  Great book.

 "1858 Jan. 9 – In an inquiry to Moore’s Rural New-Yorker, W.H.S. of Phoenix, New York, asks for “information respecting the Coffee plant, a few seeds of which I obtained from the East this spring, and planted in my garden. They grew exceedingly well, and promised a good yield. But owing to a heavy hail storm that occurred the 31st of July,

it was badly injured.” Answer: This plant is actually the Japan Pea (an early name of the soybean). This is the earliest document seen that uses the word “coffee” in the name of the soybean or in connection with soybeans.

1894 May – The term “soy coffee” is first used in English in an article titled “A substitute for coffee” by Charles S. Plumb of Lafayette, Indiana. 

1927 Jan. – A.A. Horvath gives an interesting early history of “soybean coffee” in an article titled “The soybean as human food.” He writes (p. 30-31):

 “During the period of the Civil War in America, the soybean was extensively used in the southern states as a coffee substitute. For a considerable time seedmen sold the Ito San variety under the name of Coffee Berry and Coffee Bean (Piper & Morse [1923]). 

Soybean coffee has been used in Western Europe, in Switzerland, and in the Alpine Provinces of former Austria since the introduction of the soybean to Europe. Horvath [probably the writer’s father], 50 years ago [i.e., about 1877] was the first to prepare soybean coffee for the market in South Russia. In 1913 Marschner (Bohemia) put on the market a soybean ‘coffee without caffein’ [caffeine] under the trade mark ‘Santosa.’ In Germany, Fischer and Follmann (Dresden) also manufactured soybean coffee for the market... In China an ‘artificial bean coffee’ is prepared by the Kai Cheng Bean Products Company, Peking. 

(Note: Li Yu-ying is connected with this company).
Note 2. So far as we know, no one has been able to document the claim that the soybean was widely used during the Civil War in American as a coffee substitute. 

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And now...

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"Poor Man's Friend, the Rich Man's Delight"

 

These images are from H. W. Buckbee's 1907 and 1910 catalogs.  I couldn't pass up sharing this cut of his "modest" first building. (Love the gingerbread!)

The Great Coffee Berry (NOT real coffee) also got my attention.  We haven't heard much of that one lately. Wonder what it is. A bean from the looks.  Soy bean??? "Poor man's friend", indeed.

And lastly the herb pages, the first from 1907 and the second 1910.  I am always interested in seeing what a seedsman thinks is a good collection to offer.  I assume they will be a conservative selection, the ones of interest to most people.  

 

I like all the vignettes he adds to his headers.

東郷 平八郎 And Hiram Buckbee

Illinois Extension Service straightens us out on the history and naming of the melon which is called cantaloupe.  Basically, while all cantaloupes are muskmelons, not all muskmelons are cantaloupes.

Personally, I can't stand some of the muskmelons for exactly the reason they are called muskmelons...the perfume of the ripe fruit...or as I perceive it, the stink!  My husband loves them and their aroma. I wonder how many people's noses smell a nice aroma and how many smell rotting vegetation.













I wondered how many of Buckbee's varieties are still around.  Then I got side tracked by his Admiral Togo Melon!  He was a very popular figure, "termed by Western journalists as "the Nelson of the East", after Horatio Nelson, the British admiral who defeated the French and Spanish at Trafalgar." (Wikipedia)
As far as I can tell, the Admiral Togo melon is no more.  
Most melons varieties are no more when you get down to it.  

Good Link: Mother Earth News article on heirloom melons and their history by William Woys Weaver.

Ha!! Buckbee Sells Chufus...

You learn something new everyday if you are lucky, and this was a good day for me.

Chufus, Cyperus esculentus, also called chufa sedge, nut grass, yellow nutsedge, tiger nut sedge, or earth almond,  seems to have been a sweet treat you could buy at the County Fair!!

Dried chufa has a smooth tender, sweet and nutty taste. It can be consumed raw, roasted, dried, baked or as tiger nut milk or oil.

Note at the end of the 1899 page the source for seed chufa is Buckbee's store.

1896 Lots of Smiles! What's "CHUFUS"?

This page from the 1896 catalog has more smiles than any other illustration I have seen!
It is absolutely fascinating to  look at this romanticized county fair.  
What's "CHUFUS", or "CHUPUS"?  The little kid seems to like it.

Actually it isn't too far off from what we have here in my town. Our  agricultural fairs in Connecticut are town fairs where the surrounding towns people will participate as well.  It works great that way as  you get to show off your stuff many more times! Woodstock has the oldest, or one of the oldest depending on who you listen to.