Park Seed Memories

Mail from The White House

It's not every day that you get an envelope that has The White House, Washington, D.C. as the return address. So Ron Breazeale, Park Seed Company's fabulous photographer, still remembers when the big, brown envelope arrived in 1992. Turns out that it contained a photograph of President George Herbert Walker Bush being given some packs of tomato seed.

But not just any old tomato seed!

President Bush is receiving packs of tomato seeds that spent six years in outer space as part of NASA's  Long Duration Exposure Facility test, or as we think of it here, the Seeds in Space LDEF adventure.

The mission that deployed the LDEF was officially known as STS-41C and was manned by Commander Robert L. Crippen, Pilot Francis R. Scobee, and Mission Specialists George D. Nelson, James D. A. von Hoften, and Terry J. Hart. I suspect that the astronauts shown above are the crew from the flight that retrieved the LDEF after its unexpectedly long stay in space. That would be mission STS-32, led by Commander Daniel C. Brandenstein, Pilot James D. Wetherbee, Mission Specialists Bonnie J. Dunbar, G. David Low and Marsha S. Ivins.

A big thank-you to Ron for sharing this artifact with us. He was helping me with another project that you'll probably see popping up here before too long--a video clip showing the seeds from one of our current seeds in space projects being delivered and opened right here at Park Seed's National Headquarters in Greenwood, SC.

If you are a student or teacher currently involved in NASA's Engineering Design Challange: Lunar Plant Growth Chamber, I would love to hear from you and share your story just like we did with the fine folks at The Orchard School in Indianapolis. And if you are fascinated by the idea of space seeds, visit NASA's site for teacher resources to find out how to get involved. I'm looking forward to hearing from you! Email me at ckuhl@parkseed.com with your out-of-this-world gardening stories!

Catalogs from Here to Fargo!

Like good business people everywhere, many of us here at Park Seed Company work hard at measuring and monitoring what we do. How else will we know if we are doing the right things right, right?!

Last week, my colleague Jason, Director of the Catalog Creative Department, was gathering some numbers about his segment of the business. He was documenting all the logical, normal numbers one needs about catalog production. But at some point, his mind began to wander..... (you know how those creative types are!) He started diddling with the data, and came up with some mind-boggling ways to think about the Park Seed and Wayside Gardens catalogs that we produce and mail. So here are some amazing factoids about the catalogs we produce in one year:

* If you laid all the Park Seed and Wayside Gardens catalogs end to end, they would stretch from here in Greenwood, SC all the way to a point midway between Fargo, North Dakota and Grand Forks, North Dakota. (Any North Dakota gardeners getting our catalogs? Tell me what you are growing out there! Email stories and pictures to ckuhl@parkseed.com!)

* If you stacked up all the Park Seed and Wayside Gardens catalogs, the stack would stretch 18.76 miles. To get a feeling for how that is, just think of 79 and 1/4 Empire State Buildings stacked on top of each other.

*If we were to mail all of those catalogs at United States Postal Service first class rate, it would cost us $10,295,947.20. No wonder we ship bulk rate!

You may ask, "Why print and mail so many paper catalogs? Doesn't everybody buy plants, seeds, and gardening accessories online these days?" Actually, yes, the majority of our business now comes in via the Internet.

BUT we have found that most gardeners really like to kick back with a nice, juicy catalog to study the pictures, read the text, mark their favorites, and dog-ear the best pages, all while sitting in their easy chair. When they have finally made their final selections, they then go to the Internet and use our Catalog Quick Order function to quickly and easily submit the order.

So what happens to all those old catalogs after their season has passed? Well, we hope that you will recycle any catalogs that you don't want to keep. But based on 140 years of experience, we know that some folks just find our flower books too pretty to pitch, and they keep them for years and years, like Camille in Florida did!

If you have vintage Wayside Gardens or Park Seed catalogs that you are willing to donate to our budding corporate archive, please let me know, at ckuhl@parkseed.com. Thanks!

Happy Birthday, Paul Harris!

I've just returned from a training session for Rotary District 7750, and so I've got Rotary on the brain even more than usual! Today is the birthday of Paul Harris, the founder of Rotary. He was born on April 19th, 1868, the very same year that 15-year-old George Watt Park founded Park Seed Company.

As it turns out, like George Watt Park, Paul Harris was comparitively young--only 37--when he had the idea that grew into Rotary International. He was only 44 when his two-year term as President of the International Association of Rotary Clubs ended in 1912 (later in 1922 renamed Rotary International).

After 1912, Paul Harris had no formal position in Rotary. However, he was the Founder of Rotary and continued to influence and inspire Rotary for the rest of his life, until he passed away in 1947. Clearly, Paul Harris's vision and leadership created the spirit in Rotary as we know it today. Here are some examples of Paul Harris's wisdom:

"A well-ordered mind is a possession more valuable than unlimited riches."

"It is just as easy to acquire the habit of speaking kindly as it is to acquire the habit of speaking unkindly."

"Perhaps dreaming is not so bad if one dreams good dreams and makes them come true."

A while back, I mentioned on this blog about how he planted friendship trees around the world. I'd love to start a tradition of planting trees in honor of Paul Harris's birthday...maybe something like that Dogwood (above left) or the Red Horse Chestnut (above right) from Wayside Gardens.

Happy 140th Birthday to Paul Harris! His spirit lives on and I believe that it will continue to influence Rotarians for many years to come.

Hooray for Letterboxers!

Earlier this week, I introduced you to the hobby known as letterboxing, which involves people hiding containers in special places and challenging other folks to seek and find them. As it turns out, the boxers are a fun and friendly community! 

Zoemomma's daughter posted a message in the www.AtlasQuest.com forum alerting her fellow boxers to the blog post. My traffic reports showed a happy little spike from their visits, and their comments in the forum were very kind. As a result, I even received an email note from a boxer who lives just up the road from us:

"I am one letterboxer who lives in GreenVILLE county who traveled to GreenWOOD to find letterboxes.  I have found one at Park Seed. The other has been more recently planted, so I have not had the opportunity to look for it yet. 

"If Zoemomma's box had not been there, I would have never visited your beautiful park.  My grandfather and father are avid agriculturists in Virginia - my grandfather has grown things others have said couldn't be grown in his area.

"Thank you for your lovely gardens. I enjoyed my visit - all in the quest for a letterbox.

"Paula U (aka Woody Clowns)"

Thank you, Paula, and all my new letterboxing friends! I hope you will visit this blog occasionally and definitely come to the Park Seed Trial Gardens to look for our letterboxes. Or perhaps add another of your own!

If you come on a weekday during the day, be sure and come into the Garden Center and tell them that you want to meet Claire, so I can come and shake your hand and get you to stamp my logbook.

Mystery Box Lurking in the Bushes

I know it's going to be a good day when a head pops into my office door and someone says, "Hey, Claire, can you help me solve a mystery?"

The mystery began when Halley, who oversees the 9-acre trial garden here at Park Seed, found a strange brown box stashed in the bushes.  "I found it close to a spot where folks like to eat, and at first, I thought it was just litter that someone tossed," said Halley, "but when I looked closer, it didn't seem to be trash."

The object in question was, in fact, a small, square plastic storage container, wrapped in dark brown tape. And when we opened the container, we found three things: a small notebook in a ziplock plastic bag, a stamp to create an image of a flower, and a card something like a business card, showing a website address and an email address.

I hurried to my computer to check out the website address (www.atlasquest.com), and discovered a whole new world--a hobby called letterboxing. It seems that there is a large community of folks who are dedicated to creating adventures that lead other "boxers" to special, beautiful places, and provide a way to document that visit. Boxers find clues either from each other or from websites, and follow those clues in hopes of finding a letterbox--like the little waterproof container we found.

Upon finding a letterbox, you take the stamp from it and, using the ink pad you brought with you, make an impression of the stamp in your own notebook, along with any notes about the location. Then, using your own unique personal stamp, you make in impression in the notebook inside the letterbox, and write the date and any notes you want to leave for other boxers. Put the stamp and the notebook back into the letterbox, and then rehide it in the spot where you found it, as we did the box Halley found.

Cool, huh!!?

Since our letterbox friend left an email address, Halley and I each emailed her to thank her for planting the mysterious little box on our grounds and to ask her permission to talk about it here.  Happily, she answered me:

"I am so delighted that you enjoyed the box and will keep it there. Having lived here for 20 years and seeing as how Park Seed is a part of the history of Greenwood, I believed that there needed to be a letterbox there. Only problem is that you all keep the grounds so well manicured that finding a hiding place is very difficult!

"You may go ahead and mention letterboxing in the blog....just don't mention the EXACT location of the box. By the way, there is another letterbox out there too! Among other reasons, "boxers" put letterboxs in locations that they think are special, attractive or must-see places. Thus the boxes at Park Seed.....sort of a must see for Greenwood.

"Thanks for the support!
"Zoemomma1"

Thanks, Zoemomma, for introducing us to the fun of letterboxing. I can imagine it becoming quite an absorbing hobby. In fact, in researching Zoemomma's online profile, I saw that she has hidden 72 letterboxes around our area. That's one busy momma!

Well, I've gotta run now. I just found a clue about where the other letterbox might be in our Trials, and I want to go find it!

If you are a letterbox enthusiast who has visited our gardens and found the boxes, I would like to hear from you and share your exploits. Just email me at ckuhl@parkseed.com.

Time-Traveling Seeds, Continued

Wednesday, I told you about the amazing pack of time-traveling tomato seeds that were donated to the Park Seed Corporate Archive by the gracious Mr. John Pahl in Muscatine, Iowa.  I promised I would do some detective work and try to determine just how old those seeds might be.

In his note to us, John took a guess at when the seeds might have been packed, saying, "I'm estimating 1920s or 1930s from some amateur research I've done on Park Seed and La Park, PA." So that suggests that the journey took at least 78 years.

I decided first to see what I could learn about the specific variety of tomato seed in the pack: Tomato 'Matchless.' Thanks to the miracle of Google, I learned that this particular cultivar was registered in 1889. So it's not impossible that these are seeds from the 19th century that found their way into the 21st! But in 1889, George Watt Park and his seed business were still based in Libonia, PA, his hometown. And the seed pack clearly says "Geo.W. Park, Seedsman & Florist, La Park, Lancaster Co., PA."

Hmmm...so when did the company relocate? According to his listing in the South Carolina Business Hall of Fame, George fulfilled his life-long dream of getting an education by completing a Horticulture degree at Michigan State University in 1886. He returned home to Libonia and then, "At the turn of the century, he moved to LaPark (now Paradise), Pennsylvania, a location closer to the Pennsylvania Railroad." This suggests, then, that the earliest date that these seeds might have been packed is around 1900. One source says specifically that the move took place in 1902.

And as it turns out, of course, Park Seed Company did not stay in La Park forever. Following his famous May-December marriage to Mary Barratt, and the birth of their two sons, John Barratt Park and William John Park, the family moved to Dunedin, Florida, and printed a catalog there in 1923.

Aha! Now we know that the time-traveling tomato seeds are between 85 and 106 years old. Amazing!

The Park Seed Company no longer sells Tomato 'Matchless,' although goodness knows, we sell lots of other kinds of tomatoes! The Park's Whopper in the picture above is our signature tomato these days.

I wonder, though, if perhaps we should be selling Tomato 'Matchless' today. After all, the message on the package is pretty darned compelling!

"This is undoubtedly the finest Tomato now in cultivation. The plants are vigorous, wonderfully productive, begin to ripen the fruits very early, and continue in bearing until frost. ... You cannot err in getting this variety either for the family or market garden."

And the price? 5 cents!

Time-Traveling Seeds

In this blog, I frequently talk about our 25-year Seeds in Space partnership with NASA and the seeds that have traveled in outer space. But today, I received seeds that have made something of a different journey. These seeds are time-travelers, arriving here at Park Seed Company in Greenwood, SC after traveling for probably at least 75 years from their starting point at...Park Seed Company in La Park, PA (see picture below). How did that journey happen? Well, here are the parts of the story that I know so far.

One of our resident horticulturists in the Customer Service Department received an intriguing email from Mr. John Pahl in Muscatine, Iowa:

"A few years ago, we purchased a box of odds and ends at a rural sale here in Iowa (near Durant). In that box was a very old unopened Geo. W. Park seed packet (see above, right). I just ran across it again this year when I was planting some starter seeds. ... I imagine someone stuck it in a junk drawer years ago and just forgot about it. And it turned up in a box of junk at this farm auction.

"I carefully opened the packet and removed a few seeds yesterday and planted them in a starter tray just as an experiment. I've reclosed the packet and put it in a zip lock bag.

"1. Would you be interested in this very old packet of old Matchless tomato seeds if I donated them to you?

"2. What do you think the chances are of any of these still sprouting?"

Happily, Bob accepted John's gracious offer, and I received the seeds today.

When I contacted John to get his permission to blog about all this, he responded promptly and positively. And he had an update about his efforts to sprout these time-travelers:

"Unfortunately, I guess the ravages of time and haphazard storage spoiled the seed (understandably). I have not had luck sprouting these old Matchless tomato seeds. It was worth a try, right?"

Definitely worth a try, John! Everyone here has been really excited about these vintage seeds finding their way "home" to us. Stephanie Turner, Director of Seed Product, is contemplating asking our Research Greenhouse folks to give it a try.

Of course, the other big question is: just how old are these seeds, anyway? I'll do some digging and report back later.

Do you have artifacts from Park Seed Company or Wayside Gardens that you are willing to donate to our budding the Corporate Archive project? If so, please contact me at ckuhl@parkseed.com. It's our 140th birthday, and I think that gathering, cataloging, preserving, and ultimately sharing these rare and historic items is a great gift to us all!

Garden Lovers: The Next Generation

Last week, I introduced you to Joan Wickersham and her amazing family of gardeners. In her message, she mentioned that "the grandchildren are avid 'pickers' and 'eaters.' Even the smallest girl at the age of one would eat the cherry tomatoes before they would make it to the house."

Lest we have any doubt about this budding next generation of Park Seed partners, here are some photos that Joan provided of her two granddaughters. One is enjoying a carrot that is almost as big as she is. And the other is happily seated in the berry patch, munching the fruits of the family labors.

Finally, here is a nice shot of Joan's younger brother cooking at the family's yearly camp-out. Judging from the size of that grill and the amount of food on it, this is one BIG gardening family!

In today's world, families of every size are rediscovering the virtues--and the fun!--of gardening together. For one thing, growing food in your own backyard is becoming a popular way of reducing a family's carbon footprint. Not to mention the fact that even the pickiest little eaters are generally tempted to try fruits and vegetables that they've grown themselves. Beyond the health benefits of eating home-grown food, the actual act of gardening is itself heathy--gentle exercise, exposure to the sun (to stimulate much-needed vitamin D production), and even the natural antidepressant value of good clean dirt. So take a page from the Wickersham family album--get outside and let's get growing!

If your family can boast generations of great gardeners, please send your stories and pictures to me so that I can share them here. Just email them to ckuhl@parkseed.com. We love hearing from you!

"Our Early Garden Days Have Sustained Us Throughout Our Lives"

A while back, I found a lovely comment that Joan Wickersham made in my post about "Grandmother's Garden Poetry Scrapbook." I emailed Joan and asked if she would share more stories and possibly some pictures with us about her family's generations of great gardeners. Happily for all of us, she did that! So here is Joan, with her tales of the some of the loving and committed gardeners in her family.

"Dear Claire,

"I am attaching a few pictures that I was able to locate that might be of use. I have included both of my grandmothers, Ella [Kinsey] (left) and Emma [Wirebaugh Snively] (below, right), who were both big gardeners. Ella cooked and was a housemaid for a family and used many of her fruits and vegetables for their table. Ella would not start into winter without 500 jars canned and on her shelves. She canned fruits, vegetables, and meats.

"Emma was a mother of 10, served as postmaster, grew her own vegetables, went to a fruit farm to pick all the ripened fruits, and managed to feed her own children, along with some of her daughter-in-law's.

"Since large families seem to run in the family, my parents had nine children (below). One sister has 8. At our home, the minute it became warm, our mother would have a garden planted. She froze most of her excess vegetables for winter. She made jams and jellies, wonderful vegetable soup, and provided scrumptious meals for 5 growing boys and 3 not so rambunctious girls. One of my first tastings of our fresh spinach turned into a lifelong love of spinach!

"As we grow older, our gardening days have taken on limited size. I am  limited to patio pots of tomatoes and peppers. My older sister is limited to a 4x5 space that produced limitless tomatoes, zucchini, and peppers. Our daughter has adopted the patio pots for her tomatoes, and the grandchildren are avid 'pickers' and 'eaters.' Even the smallest girl at the age of one would eat the cherry tomatoes before they would make it to the house.

"I am not sure if this is the type of information that you wanted. Our early garden days have sustained us throughout our lives and will continue to provide us with wonderful surprises as long as we are able to plant them. Even at 91, Mom [Naomi Kinsey] has a couple of tomato plants among her flower beds and enjoys them each year."

Sincerely,
Joan Wickersham
Minerva, Ohio

Joan, this is exactly the type of information I wanted. This blog exists to share 140 years of great gardening stories just like yours and the amazing women in your family. Thank you SO much for sharing! Check this blog Monday for some pictures of the youngest members of this fine gardening family enjoying the fruits of their parents' labor.

I hope to hear from other families for whom gardening has been an important part of life. Email your stories and pictures to me at ckuhl@parkseed.com.