Blog Entry by Shayla Carey
Tucked away in the far corner of the site is a true Landis
Valley treasure: the Brick Garden. Mainly tended by Heirloom Seed Project volunteer Mickey
Blefko, it contains vegetables and herbs in well-weeded raised beds and is surrounded on three sides by
flowers.
Despite temperatures close to 90 in the sun, Mickey eagerly
gives me a tour on this early July morning, taking me through the paths among
the raised beds. “Some of these are here for seed and some are just here for
demonstration,” she says. She points to
a row of beets situated half-way into the garden. “We have 'Deacon Dan' beet seeds for
sale, but they are too big for this garden, so we grow other demonstration
varieties that we can harvest and eat ourselves.” The volunteers are careful not to let them go
to seed and they are grown in areas remote enough not to adulterate the
heirloom population.
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| 'Munchen Bier' radish seed pods |
We walk past kale and Swiss chard that were thinned by other
volunteers earlier in the day. She points
rows of peppers of various stages of ripeness. “The Seed Project saves the seed. But, the great thing about it is that we can keep
the fruit after the seeds come out.” I look at her and the same twinkle is in
her eyes as is in mine: we can just
taste the stuffed peppers that can be made later in the season. The same rule goes for tomatoes and Mickey
eats them stuffed, too.
The garden is in a constant state of change, as some plants
die back and others start again. A few,
such as ‘Munchen Bier’ Radish and ‘Green Star’ bean, are precious and are
babied. The radishes weren’t sold for
years and the remaining seed was a few years old, so Mickey was tasked with
planting them here and refreshing the genetic supply. They came back like gangbusters and are now laden
with seed pods full of seed. If nothing
kills them before the seed is fully ripe, it will be a true success story.
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| Beets in the front and 'Green Star' beans climbing poles. 'Amish Paste' tomatoes behind the beans and 'Beste Von Alum' bush beans to the left. |
The beans have a similar story, though they are still in the
flowering stage. ‘Green Star’ is a pole
bean that was not for sale for years due to low population and, this year,
Mickey was given 20 of the 30 or so seeds left to plant. “I didn’t know what to expect, so I planted
five of them in each corner,” she says as she points to the pole structure that
supports healthy plants. “Wouldn’t you
know? All five in each corner came
up! I had to thin them.”
Most of the plants here do well, though she has had some misfortunes. Demonstration potatoes that occupied a far
corner didn’t germinate, critters got to her peas, and she had to re-plant lavender
and rosemary, as even hilling them with straw didn’t ensure their survival
through the winter. But for all of that,
the garden is brimming with beautiful bounty. Mickey encourages visitors to stop by and view the garden from a designated spot along the fence between flower plantings.
“Come back later on and see what’s growing,” Mickey says cheerily as we
leave the garden to bask in the July sun.
