Veggie Varieties – the Old Timey Ones                   

July 9th, 2016, a Second Saturday Walk and Talk, 10:30-11:30 am

Grandmother’s Garden,  12 North 32nd Street, Sloss Furnaces

The July 9 Second Saturday at Sloss Walk and Talk will highlight “Heirloom” veggies…those vegetables with unique shapes and color combinations our ancestors grew. Join horticulturalist Sallie Lee to walk and talk in Grandmother’s Garden as she shares a few remarkable old timey veggie varieties. The hour-long talk begins at 10:30 a.m. Come and bring a friend. Dress cool and wear comfortable shoes! Rain or shine but not in stormy weather.

About the Talk

When families lived and worked at Sloss Furnaces 80-90 years ago, gardens were part of their survival, not merely ‘nice to have’ plots behind the family dwelling. Vegetables, herbs, and a few ornamentals were handed down and traded across fences and friendships.

While vegetable seeds were available, they weren’t ordered from catalogues or shops selling them. You either saved your own, or traded seeds with the family next door.  These seeds are classified as “heirloom” seeds, handed down from one generation, one family to the next.  Not necessarily “native” seeds, as most of them came from gardens of workers from Italy, Greece, Africa, these seeds represented the tastiest of the region from whence they came.  However, most are open pollenated, which means seeds become plants with the same characteristics as its parents. Most modern varieties are hybrids, meaning they won’t produce seed that grows “true” to the parent.

Sallie Lee is a horticulturalist who serves as an Urban Regional Extension Agent for Alabama Cooperative Extension System, working with homeowners and school and community groups.

Grandmother’s Garden is located adjacent Birmingham Historical Society’s 1905 house in Sloss Quarters, where industrial workers once lived and raised their food and medicine chest, the garden recreates a home garden of the early 20th century, the days before commercial fertilizers, hybrid seeds, and highly mechanized practices. Then and now, plots separated by gravel walks are laid out for a family’s vegetable, kitchen and medicinal herbs, fruits, and flowers.

Sponsored by Birmingham Historical Society and Alabama Cooperative Extension System with the support of the Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark