Hunting for Edible Plants and Weeds at Monticello’s Tufton Farm On a misty, early spring morning late last month, Tufton Farm welcomed Jonathan Till, Executive Chef of the wildly popular Evening Star restaurant in Alexandria, Virginia for an inaugural forage through the property. Till, a self-taught forager who embraces innovative (and delicious) culinary creations, spoke […]
What an exciting time of year for those of us who love to garden! Leafing through catalogs and planning for spring reinvigorates the dormant grower inside. At Tufton Farm, we’ve been seeding in our greenhouse and taking pause to admire the garlic planted last fall. The vegetables we’ve planted so far include Onions, Leeks, Kale, […]
Jefferson is the founding father who has influenced me more than any other figure in American history. He inspires me for one big reason: Because he dreamed of the same future I dream of today: a nation given its essential character and its deepest principles by the values of farmers. As we all know, he […]
Lengthening days and slowly rising temperature call out for early planting. Thomas Jefferson advised sowing a thimble-full of lettuce every Monday from February to September. We like that advice, and extend it a few weeks in each direction to harvest weekly fresh salad year-long. So in mid-January, get started with sowing lettuce and bulb onions […]
This week, I attended a workshop on plant and vegetable breeding to improve varieties for organic growers in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern U.S. The workshop was hosted by NOVIC– the Northern Organic Vegetable Improvement Collaborative, which joins researchers and farmers from the Organic Seed Alliance, the USDA, Oregon State University, Cornell University, Washington State University […]