The Cades Cove Garden

The Cades Cove Garden
1818-1934

This year’s special garden theme features Cades Cove from the years of 1818-1934. The garden will be an example of the earthiest crops raised in the cove, (the three sisters intercropping method of farming), which will include corn, beans and pumpkins.

A wider range of plantings will represent varieties, which were grown in the later years of the cove’s history. Cades Cove, which is located not far from Townsend, Tenn., is a beautiful, spacious cove and is surrounded by mountains. The rich bottomland produces abundant crops for the early settlers, and for the generations of farmers that followed, until 1934, when the cove became a part of the Smoky Mountain National Park.

The crops that are being raised will give our guests and visitors an insight into farming during a unique time period of our early Tennessee history. As planting time approaches, I will be using a number of seeds from my own collection, which were originally grown in Cades Cove. These seeds represent an unbroken chain, whose links extend far back into the past and have been handed down to us today, just as they were when the first settlers in the cove planted their crops.

John Coykendall, Master Gardener