August 19 National Potato Day, Jane Webb, Phlox from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, Ellen Willmott, Willis Linn Jepson, Henderina Scott, Ogden Nash, Healing Herbs by Michael Castleman, Fall Herbs, and a Letter From Elizabeth Lawrence
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Today is National Potato Day.
Here are some fun potato facts:
The average American eats approximately 126 pounds of spuds each year.
And until the 18th century, the French believed that potatoes caused leprosy. To combat the belief, the agronomist Antoine Auguste Parmentier became a one-man PR person for the potato.
How did Parmentier get the French people to believe that the potato is safe to eat? Good question.
Parmentier cleverly posted guards around his potato fields during the day and put the word out that he didn’t want people stealing them. Then, he purposefully left them unguarded at night.
As he suspected, people did what he thought they would do: steal the potatoes by the sackful by the light of the moon, and they started eating them.
Later, Marie Antoinette wore potato blossoms in her hair.
The Idaho Potato, or the Russet Burbank, was developed by none other than Luther Burbank in 1871.
Botanical History On This Day
1807 Jane Webb Loudon was born. She was the science-fiction author who became the brilliant partner (and literal right arm) of garden writer John Claudius Loudon, finishing his final book after his death.
1843 The Massachusetts Horticultural Society’s flower exhibition celebrated the promise of homegrown phlox, predicting that American seedlings would one day astonish even England.
1858 Ellen Ann Willmott was born, the formidable English horticulturist of Warley Place whose lavish plantings and legendary intolerance of weeds made her both famous and fabled.
1867 Willis Linn Jepson was born, “The Botany Man,” whose field books, herbarium, and life’s mission helped define the flora of California.
1904 Henderina Victoria Scott shared her early time-lapse plant photography, revealing flower movements and growth changes that the human eye could never capture in real time.
Unearthed Words
On his birthday, Ogden Nash’s “My Victory Garden” offers comic consolation to every gardener whose ambitions outgrow their vegetables.
Grow That Garden Library™
Read The Daily Gardener review of Healing Herbs by Michael Castleman
Buy the book on Amazon: Healing Herbs by Michael Castleman
Today's Botanic Spark
1934 Garden writer Elizabeth Lawrence wrote to her sister about pale zinnias, tropical weed growth, and the peculiar despair of returning home to an untended garden.
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And remember: For a happy, healthy life, garden every day.
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