This is the fourth installment of four retold from Andrea Wulf’s book, The Founding Gardeners. The Constitutional Convention Story: Installment #4 A Pathway in the Bartram Garden Monday, July 16th dawned crisp and clear and cool. Though the air temperature had improved substantially, the tempers of the gentlemen delegates in the closed hall of the Pennsylvania State House were as hot as ever. That Monday only 10 states (Of the 13 original colonies) were voting. Six votes would be required to either defeat or accept The Connecticut Plan. Rhode Island was boycotting the Convention. The New Hampshire delegates had not yet arrived, and of the three New York delegates only Alexander Hamilton had arrived so that state did nothave a quorum and was not eligible to vote. As the voting started, one by
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This is the third installment of four retold from Andrea Wulf’s book, The Founding Gardeners. The Constitutional Convention Story: Installment #3 On the trip back from Bartram’s Garden and for the next day and a half, the delegates had a lot to think about. The 55 delegates ranged in age from 26 to Benjamin Franklin who at 81 was the oldest delegate. Franklin, himself, had begun to doubt that the Constitutional Convention would ever produce a successful result. He had stated, “Failure to revise the Articles of Confederation would show that we have not the Wisdom enough among us to govern ourselves.” The seemingly insurmountable area of contention was the issue of distribution of power in the Legislative Branch. Stone wall separating upper and lower gardens of Bartram’s Garden The small states argued
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Upper Garden with rectangles The Constitutional Convention Story: Installment #2 This is the second installment of four retold from Andrea Wulf’s book, The Founding Gardeners. There were 12 men in the entourage that visited Bartram’s Garden that day: from New York-Alexander Hamilton, from South Carolina-John Rutledge, from North Carolina-Alexander Martin and Hugh Williamson, Manasseh Cutler, from Massachusetts-Caleb Strong, from Virginia-James Madison and George Mason and his son, 2 Philadelphians and Samuel Vaughan. Bartram’s Garden was divided into an upper and lower garden. The upper garden was divided into three rectangles; one planted with flowers, one planted with vegetables and one planted withnewly received or recently germinated plants. The lower gardens had been designed by John Bartram, the father, with meandering paths, small glades, scoops, cascading terraces, a small stream and a dock
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The Family Home of John Bartram The Constitutional Convention Story: Installment #1 In 4 days we will celebrate the birth of this nation. Last year, as part of this celebration, Harvesting History posted a story of The Constitutional Convention and The Great Compromise that made the United States a reality. From July 1 through July 4th this year, we are going to repeat this story as a series of 4 newsletters. The story is somewhat complicated which is why we are retelling it in 4 installments. I apologize to each of you that feels that 4 newsletters in one week is too many. It is, but this story is worth telling and retelling. At a time when this nation faces, perhaps, its greatest challenges since its founding, it is
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Kale and Collards-Some of the Cold Hardiest Vegetables in Existence Kale and Collards are probably the earliest cultivated variations of the European wild cabbage. Kale is known to have been widely grown by both the Greeks and the Romans. From a scientific classification point of view, kale and collards are considered to be the same plant – just two different varieties. Sometimes collards are described as a kind of kale. However, diehard Southerners will tell you that collards are collards and kale is kale and they are very different. Kale, also known as Borecole, and collards are non-heading, leafy greens that are among the most cold-hardy vegetables grown. Kale is definitely a cool season crop whose sweet flavor is substantially enhanced when the plant is exposed to several
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Check out our detailed videos on growing potatoes and growing potatoes in tires on YouTube! To see our Starting Potatoes in the ground or in tires videos on You Tube click this link Potatoes cannot be shipped if the temperatures are below freezing. We will ship to the west coast when we have 5 consecutive days above freezing temperatures. We will ship to the midwest and east coast when we have 3 consecutive days of above freezing temperatures. For this newsletter, we are going to be talking about standard potatoes. Harvesting History sells two kinds of potatoes: the fingerlings and the standards. Fingerlings are long, somewhat ‘finger-shaped’ potatoes. The standard potatoes have a round or oblong shape. We will be discussing fingerling potatoes in our February 2, 2019 newsletter. Potatoes are
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Tomatoes To purchase Harvesting History Tomato Seeds click this link Today’s newsletter was created to answer a question that we receive frequently, “Help me to choose some tomatoes for my garden. I do not have a lot of space.” In today’s gardening world, the problem of limited space is ubiquitous from city dwellers with only a roof top or a balcony, to suburban homeowners with only a deck or patio, to rural farmers who can only protect a small space from the critters, to seniors, everywhere, who refuse to abandon their much beloved tradition of summer tomato growing and consuming the luscious fruit warm from the vine. The “Complete Tomato Garden” will have 1-2 different varieties of tomatoes from each of the three kinds of tomatoes: plum/paste,
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