Shelling Bees

At first glance, you might assume that the Garden is long since passed and that the soil is at rest awaiting the following Spring plantings.

When our guests take a second look at the fields, they can see that the section of the fields are alive with varying shades of green. The rows are filled with Fall greens including mustard, spinach, swiss chard, radishes, Winter radishes such as china rose winter, china white winter, green hobo and a number of others. At this stage of the Fall season, some of the turnips have grown to the size of a softball. This year, we are growing the white egg turnip and the old standard purple top turnip, which was introduced in 1883. Our “greenhouse tunnel” is filled with lettuce, radishes, onions, garlic, kale, collards and a variety of other salad greens.

This week, we finished planting our Fall/Winter onions which consist of several varieties. One of our favorites is the potato onion, an old variety which dates back to at least the 1700s. This variety could well be named the “year-round onion” because it can be used at some stage for the entire year. This type of onion is planted during the Fall season. Each bulb that is planted will produce anywhere from eight to 12 onions, some of which are small and grow in clusters, which is why this variety is sometimes referred to as the “nesting onion.” The potato onion also produces medium- to large-sized onions which are excellent for long-term storage.

In the Garden shed, every surface is covered with baskets of seeds and piles of field peas, butterbeans, beans and other “pods” that await shelling. Along one wall in the shed are baskets of pencil cob corn which will be ground into cornmeal for the chefs to use during the Winter months.

One of our favorite activities that we offer guests during the Winter months is “shelling bees.” On cold Winter days, we have coffee and cider warming on the wood burning stove, and guests young and old alike busy themselves shelling corn, peas, butterbeans and picking seeds out of cotton lint as they listen to old tales and history from this area of East Tennessee.

Each season here at Blackberry Farm has its own special character and mood. December is a wonderful time to enjoy the anatomy of the Winter landscape. With most of the leaves gone, it is a good time to observe the subtle character of the mountains, which is quite different from the Summer months when the landscape is covered with green.

– John Coykendall, Blackberry Farm Master Gardener