#Cherokee Trail of Tears Pole Bean

[onemorethymenjr]

Six on Saturday - 8/10/22: Here Comes Autumn

Six on Saturday – 8/10/22: Here Comes Autumn

[anniekoh]

the poetry of land

I just learned about poet and writer Camille T. Dungy and am delighted to have so much to read. The image above are the covers to Trophic Cascade (2017) and Suck on the Marrow (2010)

From Dirt by Camille T. Dungy (Emergence Magazine)

Now the soil is ready to receive pole beans a friend gifted me last summer, beans from a line of seed passed on by survivors since the 1838 Trail of Tears. Soon, I will make a space in my garden for something that will look, by autumn, like edible hope.

I’m getting ahead of myself. Working the land, I am always losing track of a linear concept of time. What happens today is fed by what I did yesterday. What I reap in the fall will recollect decisions made by the likes of Dr. John Wyche—the man who began to send out these heirloom Cherokee seeds to whomever showed interest and sent postage—in a decade I was nearly too small to remember and which my daughter calls the olden days.

If we were to start from the start, where would that take us? Black-eyed peas, a staple food in West Africa, made the journey with enslaved people from that continent into the American South. In their book, In the Shadow of Slavery: Africa’s Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World, scholars Judith Carney and Richard Nicholas Rosomoff tell us that these same people used the stimulating kola nut to manage the fetid water they were given on slavers’ ships. Later, that nut would make a key ingredient for Coca-Cola. When I speak about garden-variety crops in this country, I nearly always point toward simultaneous legacies of trauma and triumph. Watermelon, sorghum, millet, sesame seed, rice: none of these would be what they are in America were it not for the centuries of human trafficking we call the slave trade. The stories I’ve received tell me some ancestor must have kept seed for okra in her hair through the long trial of the Middle Passage and onto, then into, American soil.

Diversity: A Garden Allegory by Camille T. Dungy On the Seawall (2020)

The covenant for our homeowners association specifies that what I’ve done around my house is technically prohibited. There should be fewer wildflowers in my yard. Banish the milkweed. Banish the tall grass.Banish the front yard onion patch, the sad squash trials. When the sunflowers have finished flowering, rather than leave the dried stalks and seed heads for birds to perch and munch on as they stock up for their winter migrations, I should pull all remnants of the summer plants out of the ground. There should be nothing brown like that around the yard. Nothing that might be construed as aesthetically unsavory.

Did I mention that my family is the only black family on our block? That we’re some of the only black people in our neighborhood? That,in fact, we’re one of the few black families in our entire town?

Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry edited by Camille T. Dungy

Black poets have a long tradition of incorporating treatments of the natural world into their work, but it is often read as political, historical, or protest poetry--anything but nature poetry. This is particularly true when the definition of what constitutes nature writing is limited to work about the pastoral or the wild.

Camille T. Dungy has selected 180 poems from 93 poets that provide unique perspectives on American social and literary history to broaden our concept of nature poetry and African American poetics. This collection features major writers such as Phillis Wheatley, Rita Dove, Yusef Komunyakaa, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sterling Brown, Robert Hayden, Wanda Coleman, Natasha Trethewey, and Melvin B. Tolson as well as newer talents such as Douglas Kearney, Major Jackson, and Janice Harrington. Included are poets writing out of slavery, Reconstruction, the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, and late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century African American poetic movements.

Also Dungy is also in the lineup for these events

2020 Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference and Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference (June 9 to 14) A mix of live and recorded sessions (curated selection of lectures and readings pulled from the archives) open to all, no registration required.

Camille Dungy + Aimee Nezhukumatathil Logos Collective Monday, June 29, 2020 7:00 PM  8:00 PM

[copper--dust]

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A post shared by @copper.dust on Apr 23, 2020 at 8:11am PDT

My bean forest. They’re shooting up so fast they’re getting moved to larger osprey pots today. It’s still far to chilly out for them to go outside.

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The ones right in the center are pinto beans from @the.wreckless.gardener . There’s also Jacob’s cattle bush beans from @a_beautiful_adventure, scarlet runner beans, Cherokee trail of tears pole beans, and calico crowder peas from @aMJBL3 Unfortunately I don’t remember which #SeedSwap they are from. If you remember let me know!

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#zone7a #Zone7Garden #RIGarden #RhodeIslandGarden #Fromseed #GrowSomeThing #GrowYourOwn #Garden #Homestead #ApartmentHomestead #SeedStarting #GardenPrep #SpringGarden #SeedSwap #PlantSomeThing #GardensOfInstagram #seedsaving #Homesteader #FarmToTable #HomeGrown #KitchenGarden #Potager #EdibleGarden #GardenFresh #GrowYourOwnFood #SustainableFood #FarmHer #GrowToEat #permaculture

[bigashfarm]

Took advantage of the warm weather (89 degrees in early May!? ) to plant some seeds. ( I think by the time they germinate and starting popping up we should be safe in terms of tenps). Pole beans and bush beans are in! Found I have quite a few volunteer beans popping up as well - and get this, I believe they're from a few years ago as that's the last time I planted beans in that area of the garden! What troopers! I've planted the blue beans I found in the dirt last fall - so excited to see what they do. I was thinking maybe they are descendents of the Cherokee Trail of Tears beans I had planted years ago in that same area? Lily supervised which was exhausting apparently - caught her sleeping on the job! 🤣 . . #beans #garden #garden2022 #seeds #boulder #boulderco #bouldercounty #lafayatte #lafayetteco #lafayattecolorado #louisville #louisvilleco #louisvillecolorado #longmont #longmontco #longmontcolorado #bigashfarm #bigashfarmcolorado #farm #farmlife #erie #erieco #eriecolorado #broomfield #broomfieldco #broomfieldcolorado https://www.instagram.com/p/CdYbHUiLyV3/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[wolfnowl]

From Dirt – Emergence Magazine

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[harborgardenhouse]

The Cherokee Trail of Tears pole beans are bearing well and there are plenty for picking. I’ve just pickled a small batch. They’re very good in bloody Marys, as an appetizer, or in salads.  I use the simple refrigerator method. They never last long, so there’s no need to fuss with pressure cookers and sterilizing jars.  Here’s a recipe to use as a point of departure. https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016828-pickled-green-beans

[mymngarden]

The beans are breaking through! I am trying a new black bean variety this year. I still love my Cherokee Trail of Tears beans, but didn't have room for more than one pole bean this year, so I'm trying these bush habitat Black Turtle beans as an alternative.

[onemorethymenjr]

Plan, Plan, Plan: The importance of garden planning

Plan, Plan, Plan: The importance of garden planning

[harborgardenhouse]

The first of the Purple Passionflower blooms appeared yesterday.  The Gulf Fritillary Butterflies should be laying eggs on the leaves very soon.

The guests harvested the first of the Cherokee Trail of Tears pole beans two days ago and picked a few ripe blueberries from the bushes in the newly planted garden on the west side of the house.

And yesterday, the peanuts in the new west garden sprouted. Also, I planted small zinnias in three colors in three colors in the west side garden and the garden bed between the driveway and brick walkway out front.

[harborgardenhouse]

Cherokee Trail of Tears Pole Beans The beans on the arched trellis are descendants of seeds that were carried on the Trail of Tears March from north Georgia to Oklahoma by a Cherokee couple in 1838 - 1839. Their grandson, Dr. John Wyche, continued growing the beans and donated seeds to Seed Savers in 1976.   I've been growing them and saving seeds for the past ten years.  They're delicious beans and I'm happy to share seeds with guests.  Or, you can buy them online.  The plants in the garden should be producing beans for guests to enjoy throughout the summer.

That's turmeric and ginger in the foreground and tomatoes next to the bean trellis, with bananas towering over the kumquat trees next to the house.