By Laurie Butters, Historic Site Manager of The Old Manse, a property of The Trustees of Reservations located at 269 Monument Street, Concord.

An arrangement had been made with the current owner, Samuel Ripley (Uncle of Ralph Waldo Emerson), for rental of the property, complete with furnished house. As the Hawthornes drove up "between two tall gateposts of roughhewn stone" they caught their first glimpse of the vegetable garden in the left field. Evidence shows that Cynthia Thoreau and/or Elizabeth Hoar requested Henry Thoreau to plant this vegetable garden as a wedding and welcome gift for the newlyweds.

Nathaniel Hawthornes' journal entries concerning the garden are quite extensive and give wonderful descriptions of garden cycles as well as what crops were grown. He took on the care of the garden and watched over his "vegetable progeny" with the eye of an artist and proud parent:

They [summer squashes] presented an endless diversity of urns and vases, shallow or deep, scalloped or plain, moulded in patterns which a sculptor would do well to copy, since Art has never invented any thing more graceful. A hundred squashes in the garden were worthy, in my eyes at least, of being rendered indestructible in marble.
Mosses From an Old Manse: The Old Manse

These works of art from Mother Nature graced the Hawthorne's table:

After breakfast , I go forth into my garden, and gather whatever the beautiful Mother has made fit for our present sustenance; and, of late days, she generally gives me two squashes and a cucumber, and promises me green corn and shell beans, very soon.
Journal, Saturday, August 13, [1842]

Of course, as all gardeners know, there is much toil required to produce these artful squashes:

I am forced, however, to carry on a continual warfare with the squash-bugs, who, were I to let them alone for a whole day together, would perhaps quite destroy the prospects of the whole summer. It is impossible not to feel bitterly angry with these unconscionable vermin, who scruple not to do such infinite mischief to me, with only the profit of a meal or two to themselves...There is an absolute pleasure in taking vengence on them.
Journal, Friday, June 23d, [1843]

Replanting a 19th Century Garden in the 20th
As part of the Landscape Management Plan for The Old Manse, the re-introduction of a nineteenth century vegetable garden had always been intended. The varieties grown were to be determined by information from Hawthorne's journals and George Bradford's (Samuel Ripley's brother-in-law) garden journal of Concord, in which he recorded all his gardening efforts at The Old Manse in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. The garden space measured approximately one-quarter acre and had been lying fallow since the 1920's.

In 1996, The Old Manse joined forces with Gaining Ground, Inc. to reproduce this vegetable garden that had played such an important role in the Hawthornes' lives. The main problem for The Manse had been lack of time and staff to maintain such a project. Meanwhile, Gaining Ground was looking to expand their amount of cultivated land and, it also happened, that their garden coordinator was extremely interested in working with heirloom seed varieties.

Most importantly, Gaining Ground's mission to "grow and distribute fresh, organic produce to Boston-area meal programs, shelters, and food pantries with the help of community volunteers", fit right in with The Trustees of Reservations mission to "preserve, for public use and enjoyment, properties of exceptional scenic, historic, and ecological value in Massachusetts." Ground was broken for the garden in April of 1997.

The garden was an immediate success on many levels: The Old Manse landscape was infused with a new level of visibility, everyone (visitors and locals alike) wanted to know what was being grown and what the history of the garden was; groups of garden volunteers were being educated about The Old Manse as well as the gardening process; Gaining Ground had more land to work with; their garden coordinator was able to work with a local school who grew tomatoes from seed, planted the seedlings and then returned in the fall to help clear the garden; collaborative public programs were created; and, in that first season, 5,000 lbs. of produce was harvested and donated.

Since 1997, 24,000 lbs. of produce has been harvested from this 19th c. heirloom garden at The Old Manse. The first year, the tomato plants were seven feet tall and produced fruit weighing five lbs., they are no longer that big or tall, but the garden continues to produce approximately 3,000 lbs. a year. The vegetables and varieties are rotated from year to year and the plan is to eventually have a self-sustaining garden. In other words, the seeds are saved each year to be planted the next year or traded through groups like Seed-Savers or other heirloom seed exchanges.

Problems suffered by Hawthorne in 1842-45 with the garden continue today. With him it was squash bugs; one of today's ongoing battles is with the potato beetle. Often the younger volunteers enjoy the job of "squishing them," as they say. Weeds are also a factor and Hawthorne's observations still hold true today:

Why is it, I wonder, that Nature has provided such a host of enemies for every useful esculent, while the weeds are suffered to grow unmolested, and are provided with such tenacity of life, and such methods of propagation, that the gardner must maintain a continual struggle, or they will hopelessly overwhelm him!
Journal, Friday, June 23d, [1843]

Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Thoreau would both be pleased to see the garden at The Old Manse continuing to provide for people today in both a practical and spiritual way.

...I felt that by my agency, something worth living for had been done. A new substance was born into the world. They were real and tangible existences, which the mind could seize hold of and rejoice in.
Mosses From an Old Manse: The Old Manse

We invite you to visit The Old Manse and Hawthorne's garden this year to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Hawthorne's birth.

Works Cited

• Bradford, George. Garden Journal of Concord. Private Collection, Concord Free Public Library
• Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Mosses From an Old Manse: The Old Manse. Centenary Edition, Ohio State University Press, 1974.
• Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The American Notebooks. Ed. Claude M. Simpson. Centenary Edition, Ohio State University Press, 1972.
• Mellow, James R. Nathaniel. Hawthorne in His Times. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1980.

Vintage Photo: The Old Manse Collection/TTOR
Contemporary Photo: L.Butters@TTOR

     

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