October 25, 2019 Gardening for Mental Health, Supporting Farmer’s Markets, Bertrand de Molleville, Odoardo Beccari, Martinus Beijerinck, Bernard Verdcourt, Bliss Cameron, Flowers in the Kitchen by Susan Belsinger, Garden Collections, and Thoughts on Autumn by William Taylor
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Curated News
Thrive - an organization using gardening to change lives, shared through the voices of young people who found the garden a place to feel calmer, happier, and more themselves.
And here’s your friendly nudge to keep visiting farmers’ markets: late-season abundance still reigns—apples, pears, winter squash, Brussels sprouts, beets, parsnips, and sweet potatoes—plus the small kindness of a warm drink for the sellers may earn you a new friend.
Botanical History On This Day
1744 Count Bertrand de Molleville was born—an unlikely horticultural hero who, after fleeing the French Revolution, helped develop the secateurs, the tidy little tool that later caused such alarm among vineyard workers, sparking a riot.
1843 A million bushels of wheat made the news when The New England Farmer offered a brisk national update: Wisconsin, it was said, would have 1,000,000 bushels for sale—an agricultural boast with the confidence of a young state.
1920 Odoardo Beccari, Italian botanist and plant explorer, died—forever linked to the Titan arum (the corpse flower), that colossal bloom of spectacle and stench that draws crowds, selfies, and awed disbelief.
1990 Martinus Beijerinck and the “virus” resurfaced in a flu-season article—his tobacco-leaf experiments revealing a “contagious living fluid” smaller than bacteria, and giving the world the word virus (Latin for poison).
2011 Bernard Verdcourt, botanist of East African flora and legendary Kew character, died—an astonishingly prolific scientist with a mollusk hobby, a hand-written output of over a thousand works, and handwriting infamous enough to be its own institutional folklore.
Unearthed Words
Bliss Carman’s Autumn Song urges us to “grow with the asters,” brave the frost, and be glad— a bright banner of cheer for the pageant of passing days.
Grow That Garden Library™
Read The Daily Gardener review of Flowers in the Kitchen by Susan Belsinger
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Flowers in the Kitchen by Susan Belsinger
Today's Garden Chore
Gather up garden collections—empty containers, ornaments, and spare pots—then protect ironwork with a final clear coat, stack clay pots with burlap between them, and bring a few patina-rich treasures indoors to enjoy all winter.
Today's Botanic Spark
1875 The Victorian gardener William Taylor's autumn manifesto reminds us that October cannot be perfectly tidy—and shouldn’t be: it is a month of two seasons at once, where pruning, planting, storing, and preparing collide, and the greatest “vacation” may simply be a change of work.
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And remember: For a happy, healthy life, garden every day.
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