What are the dimensions of the Vegetable Garden?
The garden platform, enlarged by Jefferson in 1808, is 1,000 feet long and 80 feet wide. It contains about 2 acres.
Why is the soil in the vegetable garden so red?
Visitors are often surprised by the red clay soil in the garden. The reddish color is a result of the soil's high iron content. Soil amendments, such as compost, rotted leaves, or manure, improve drainage and promote greater fertility. The darker the soil, the more amendments have been added.
How many people care for the Vegetable Garden Today?
A full-time Vegetable Gardener, aided at times by other gardeners and summer assistants, cares for the garden. Typical tasks include planting, watering, weeding, adding amendments, and harvesting. The Garden is often planted three times a year to ensure harvests in spring, summer, and fall.
In Jefferson’s time, enslaved workers such as Wormley Hughes, Goliah, and several older members of the enslaved community worked in the vegetable garden, under the supervision of the overseer.Some white laborers were hired by Jefferson as well, including Scottish-born gardener, Robert Bailey, who worked for Jefferson at Monticello for three years.
What happens to the produce grown at Monticello?
The vegetables, herbs, and fruit grown at Monticello are donated locally and are used in many products available in the Shops at Monticello. Seeds are also collected for sharing with other historic sites, replanting at Monticello, and for sale in The Shop at Monticello and our online store.
How are the vegetables and other plants propagated at Monticello?
Almost every plant found in the vegetable garden is propagated and grown on site. Usually, our plants are grown from seed. To preserve a rare or historic variety, fruits are allowed to fully ripen, and plants are kept until they set seed. The seeds are then collected and saved for planting the following year. Other plants, such as sea kale or rosemary, are grown from cuttings.
What kinds of herbs did Jefferson grow?
Jefferson's central reference to herbs was a list of sixteen medicinal, fragrant, and culinary herbs in 1794. These include…sage, lemon balm, mint, thyme, lavender, marjoram, chamomile, tansy, rue, wormwood, southernwood, rosemary, hyssop, periwinkle, marshmallow, and beargrass (yucca).
By 1814, Jefferson wrote that "[my] garden is so bare of kitchen herbs, as to have but a single plant of sage, & that stripped of all its leaves." Today, herbs are distributed randomly throughout the garden rather than in a formal, isolated "herb garden."