The Vegetable Gardens at Monticello
As promised, I made a slide show for you of my favorite photos of the Monticello vegetable gardens. It sure was hard to pick and choose the ones to add, I have a ton of photos of the gardens. I finally narrowed it down to 36 of my favorites. Click through the photos below with the arrow buttons on the side of the player, if you click on the small icon in the top left hand corner you can view the slide show in full screen (click the button again to exit full screen mode when you’re finished). It takes a while to load since I uploaded larger files, so be patient, it will be worth the wait!
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This vegetable garden surely is inspirational. I’d love to have one this big, of course when I can retire and have nothing else to do but garden. Until then, I’ll keep these photos to inspire my future gardening efforts.
What did you like most about the vegetable gardens at Monticello?
Here’s a slideshow of the House and Ornamental Gardens from my visit.
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Visiting Monticello
Last Monday (August 2) Mr Chiots and I finally found our way to Monticello after wanting to go for years. We were wondering how we’d like it, after going to Longwood Gardens several times, most other gardens pale in comparison. The main part of Monticello I’ve really been wanting to see is the vegetable garden. It’s quite impressive in photos and I must say, it’s equally impressive in person, I was not disappointed. This was one of two asparagus patches, now that’s about the size I need since we love asparagus so much (that’s yours truly in the photo).
We woke up to the perfect day, overcast with temperatures in the low 70’s. Considering the temperatures before and after our trip were in the 90’s we were so lucky. We arrived early, about 15 minutes before it opened (which was at 9am), which turned out to be quite an advantage. We were able to get our tickets right away and head up the path through the woods.
We arrived in the vegetable garden right around 9 am. I’d highly recommend arriving 15-20 minutes before opening and making a beeline for the vegetable garden if that’s what you’re interested in. We had the garden all to ourselves for about 45 minutes. It seems everyone else that arrived when we did toured the house first, then they went to the gardens.
It was very nice to be able to get some great photos of the garden with only one of the gardeners around, he was picking all of the eggplants and peppers that morning. I’ve read the vegetables harvested are distributed to the Monticello employees.
One of the things that I found fascinating about the gardens was the use of natural materials. All trellises and plant supports were built from saplings and twigs. Since they didn’t have Gardner’s Supply back then selling all shapes and sizes of supports, they used with what they had. I have to admit, it makes for a much more beautiful garden. The natural materials blend beautifully into the garden.
This is something I try to do here at Chiot’s Run, I’ve blogged about using twigs for my peas just like they do in the gardens at Monticello. I have plenty of saplings and twigs around since our gardens are surrounded by woods so it’s a very frugal plant support option.
The plants were tagged with large tags, which were easy to read and written in a lovely script. I don’t know if this is how Jefferson tagged them, or if this was done for the benefit of the visitors. They were quite lovely. Something I definitely want to find a way to make and use in my garden. Looks like a project for Mr Chiots to do someday. Here’s a slideshow of the Monticello vegetable gardens if you’d like to see more.
We didn’t just look around the gardens, we also toured the house, and the Behind the Scenes tour, which takes you up into the rotunda and through the second and third floors in the house. You have to have a tour time to go through the main house, and it seemed kind of rushed. It was interesting, but not nearly as interesting to me as the gardens.
The behind the scenes tour was much more laid back and the group was smaller. Our tour guide was very good, and you are also allowed to take photos, which you aren’t on the main house tour. They also have garden tours and plantation tours that are free and you don’t have to get a tour time reservation. We didn’t go on either of these since we were tired and hungry and I’ve read a lot about the gardens and the plantations so I knew all about them.
Tomorrow I’ll post a slideshow of the gardens at Monticello for you to enjoy, I didn’t want this post to get too long! Truly I could blog about this for a week.
I can finally check this garden off my list and work my way down through the other gardens I want to see, like Mt Vernon, Williamsburg, Longwood in summer, and many more.
Any great gardens you’d like to recommend to add to my list?
Here’s a slideshow of the Vegetable Gardens from my visit,
and a slideshow of the House and Ornamental Gardens from my visit.
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Catching Up
Going on vacation is great, relaxing and fun – until you come home! Since Mr Chiots and are self-employed, there’s no one to do the work while we’re gone. Coming home from vacation means tackling all the stuff that piled up while you were gone. The garden doesn’t weed itself either while you’re gone, so that piles up as well. I’ve been busy busy busy since coming home last Wednesday working in the office so I have only had a little bit of time to spend outside in the garden. All of that time was spent watering and picking the things that ripened while I was gone. I haven’t had a chance to get through my photos from Monticello yet or write a blog post about it. All I have time for today is a quick shot of what I harvested last Thursday evening.
Hopefully I have time to get through some Monticello photos soon and you’ll get a lovely photo tour when I do. I promise it will be worth the wait.
What have you been up to recently? Anything exciting blooming or coming ripe in your garden?
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Quote of the Day: Albert Einstein
“Look deep into nature,
and then you will understand everything better. ”
Sometimes looking at things from a different angle helps.
Have you noticed anything interesting in your gardens recently?
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Gardeners Should Not Go on Vacation
Going on vacation in the middle of gardening season is not the best idea, especially if you have a lot of potted plants. I have 10 potted tomatoes on my front porch and 6-8 on the back porch along with many potted herbs and flowers. Our weather in July/Aug here in Ohio is usually hot and dry, which means watering these potted plants at least once a day, and the big tomatoes, usually twice per day. It’s inconvenient to ask a neighbor to come over twice a day to water everything, especially since most of our neighbors are weekenders here in our lake community (meaning they live elsewhere and only spend the weekends at their summer homes).
Since we don’t have a drip irrigation system, Mr Chiots and I moved all those tomatoes back by the rain barrels where they would receive more shade and be protected from the elements. They all needed to be tied together since they didn’t have the porch posts as their main source of support. We put each pot into a large plastic storage container and then watered them well and made sure each container had 3-4 inches of water in it. The weather was pretty hot while we were gone and I was hoping the plants had enough water while we were away. Of course it rained really hard the day we came home, so we have to wait a few days for the pots to dry out to move them back out front. They look great though, I’m pretty sure they would have all been dead had we not taken the time to do this for them (I think they actually look better than when we left).
Do you have family or friends look in on your plants when you go away during the gardening season?
