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| from the left, John Wilson, Tammy Algood and David Cook listen in as Alisa explains the keyhole garden to Mrs. Haslam |
On a recent Friday morning, we were honored to welcome the
First Lady of Tennessee, Chrissy Haslam to the Demonstration Garden. Mrs. Haslam came out to the garden to gather
information on vegetable and flower gardening for the new garden being
installed at the Governor’s Executive Residence. Accompanied by the horticulturist for the
residence, John Wilson and her personal assistant, Amanda Kerns, Mrs. Haslam
was ready to explore the entire garden.
The plans for the new garden will focus on heirloom vegetables, herbs
and flowers.
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the herb garden is full of teaching
opportunities; here Alisa explains using logs to define the outline of the
garden and how the beds were built from lasagna layers to Tammy Algood, John
Wilson and Mrs. Haslam as David Cook and George Kilgore diagnose the trouble
with the tomatoes in the keyhole garden.
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We began the tour in the main garden by showing off our new
keyhole garden since it is fairly uncommon in Tennessee. Mrs. Haslam was intrigued by many of the other
garden exhibits as well. The square foot
garden, three sisters garden and the zombie garden were all well received. The herb garden offered many ideas and
techniques as well. We had a chance to
share the methods of constructing the beds with lasagna gardening and building
beds from found objects. The herb garden
is also home to our own rock star; the tin man and he made a few new fans! Down in the far beds, we had a chance to show
off Jim’s bee nectar plants and our newly revitalized perennial garden. There simply was no shortage of plants and
information to share and Mrs. Haslam and John Wilson were eager to see and hear
about it all.
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touring the square foot, zombie and
three sisters gardens with Alisa are George Kilgore, John Wilson, Tammy Algood
and Mrs. Haslam while Amanda Kerns takes
a few photos and notes.
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Also on the tour was Tammy Algood, who has had a chance to
participate in planning the garden at the Governor’s Executive Residence. When I asked Tammy about the opportunity to
work with the First Lady on this project she was excited to share the
experience: “What I love about Mrs. Haslam is that she wants the garden there
at the residence done correctly. She is willing to wait on getting the
soil with the correct pH, wait on planting until just the right time, wait on
getting just the right plants that are heirlooms proven to be valued for their
taste. I have told her this and I will echo it to you: I believe
she is leaving an enormous footprint for many generations that follow. I
so appreciate her attention to every detail and how she values agriculture and
wants to make it a vital part of the Executive Residence. It has been
truly an honor to be involved in this garden project.” Well, we agree and we hope to take a tour of
the garden when it is complete.
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| down in the butterfly garden, everyone looks on as David tries to identify some of the plants missing tags. |
For now,
we will have to wait, the garden is not ready for visitors. Luckily, we can watch the progress of the
garden as it enters the third and final phase of construction. The First Lady has a webpage dedicated to the
garden project, http://www.tn.gov/firstlady/residence/renovation.shtml. Be sure
to read through the article to find the link to a tumblr page that features
photos of the garden as it progresses.
And even though they didn’t actually work in the garden, I still made a
cake. It was an honor to serve our
guests a blackberry cornbread buckle made with berries picked in the
demonstration garden. To see the recipe
and perhaps bake one too, visit food52.com, http://food52.com/recipes/22996-blackberry-cornbread-buckle.
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the newly revitalized perennial garden
gave Ty Ann(with her garden companion Bella) a chance to show off her hard work. The garden is now thriving and has many
beautiful plants in bloom.
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Come on
out to the garden, you never know who may be taking a tour!
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