Well my garden is so boring right now and I figure I will just post the garden pictures from Yesterdays adventure here instead.
So Laura and I probably took our last summer outing because she is moving down state at the end of the month. The weather has not been cooperating this year and so much else has been going on that we have not been out that often. So now, after Labour Day weekend the tourists are thinning out and the beaches are nice and quiet again. This post though is about the gardens out at Port Oneida.
This is part of the gardens they planted to show how people lived back when the first farms were settled. At Port Oneida there were several farms in the immediate area, this one is being used as an example and has been planted with things that would have been grown back in the 1800s. This is the back view of that farm.
Three Sisters.....Corn, green beans and Squash. Planted together they do well.
They grew Sunflowers for oil and seeds. Tomatoes, Millet, Dill for pickles and in another garden raspberries, strawberries and blackberries. The orchard here has apples, but another also has pears, I have also seen Gooseberries.
With a few acres they were pretty self sufficient, all they needed were a few chickens, maybe a goat and a cow along with horses to plough. What more could a person want? In that area at least there are many Deer and Turkeys and Bear and Beaver if you are so inclined for fur. Canada Geese and Sandhill Cranes are common visitors and so a good farmer and outdoors man could provide very well for his family. Certainly an abundance of trees for heating the house, but Winters are long and cruel sometimes. The farms seemed to be within a reasonable distance of each other in this community. Further on the other side of Empire is another collection of small holdings. Lovely barns and I bet they helped each other put them up. I think I could have lived and been happy there.
Sunflowers are such beautiful and useful plants. The flowers they grew encouraged the bees and so had a practical side as well as a beautiful side.
Some flowers had medicinal qualities and most farm wives knew how to use them.
I wonder now how many people these days know about such things, there was a time when every house wife knew her herbs and what grew where and what it was used for. Nature has so much to offer out there, the willow trees for baskets along with the reeds and grasses from the rivers. The rivers also being full of fish. No one should ever have gone hungry. All they had to do was learn how to preserve things.
This farm across the road from this one.
.......and around the corner this one
Along the same road are 3 or 4 more farms and one is still being worked. Usually they are with a life time grant before it goes to the park for posterity.
There were pests to hold off and I know chickens can help with some of the bugs.
The Olson Farm also had gardens and had Zinnias in theirs as well as Hollyhock and a Butterfly bush...........Look how pretty the Zinnia are close up.
I suppose if we do get out there again it will be for the Fall colours. Not quite ready for that yet.
The history of our area is simple but interesting. I can relate to the early settlers and their lives, hard working people. How beautiful it must have been when they first arrived. A shame that it was all taken from the original peoples who did not know the concept of "owning" land.
