I was brought up believing the Pilgrim narrative about Thanksgiving. Now, I realize that in many circles the subsequent inexcusable treatment of Native Americans dampens the idea of a celebration. Still, it never dampened my feeling that Thanksgiving has always been a celebration of the fruits of gardening. Obviously, it is something I like to celebrate.
I realize that back in 1621 not much by way of vegetables were eaten. All descriptions of the meal back then include much talk of venison and wild fowl. Not a mention of pumpkin pie or marshmallow sweet potatoes and all the other vegetables, home-grown of course, that laded our table when I was a kid growing up in New York.
To reinforce the gardening theme, we were taught that the noble Squanto showed the hapless Pilgrims how to plant corn, and thus ensured their survival. Clearly, the Europeans learned a lot from the Wampanoag Indians about how to fish and hunt -- but they also learned how to farm the strange land they chose as home. They were totally unprepared, and they were saved by some darned good gardeners.
As the story goes, Squanto also taught the Europeans to bury dead fish under plants to make them grow. I know now that this was adding great microbial food to the soil. I could go on about why the fish attracted bacteria into fungus-dominated soils, making it possible to grow an annual like corn where once mostly perennials and trees grew. This makes Squanto one of the first teachers of soil web food gardening, way back in 1621. That is something I can celebrate.
I can remember hearing the story of Squanto from my grandfather. We would fish together, and whenever we caught a particular kind of bony fish we couldn't eat, it came home with us and ended up under a corn stalk or rose bush. We had unbelievable corn and roses, and at Thanksgiving I always thought a good deal of the credit should go to Squanto's gardening lessons,
Gourds, too, played a big role in celebrating Thanksgiving when I grew up. I am not sure if they were present in the New England story, but they sure were used to decorate the table and mantel, and to me they represent another tribute to the harvest and to gardening at Thanksgiving.
For some reason my grandfather was enamored with growing gourds: Perhaps it was their unbelievable color combos and shapes. He grew some of the most unusual looking ones you can imagine, all warty and in mixes of various colors of the rainbow. He would let me help him harvest them and afterwards, we would coat them with shellac (a smell I still associate with Thanksgiving) so they would last. I bet if I looked around the house here in Alaska, I could still find a couple of them, 50 years and more later.
In our family, everyone gardened (or weeded), so Thanksgiving dinner meant dining with a bunch of gardeners: Thanksgiving meals where the conversation was dominated by gardening "talk." Gardeners tell almost as many stories as fishermen and golfers.
I suspect I am not alone here. But in any case, I want to wish you all a happy and warm Thanksgiving. Think about the wonderful gardening season we had. And while you give thanks for other things today, don't forget to include those early gardeners.
Jeff Lowenfels is a member of the Garden Writers Hall of Fame. You can reach him at teamingwithmicrobes.com or by calling 274-5297 during "The Garden Party" radio show from 10 a.m. to noon Saturdays on KBYR AM-700.
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