This backyard kitchen garden provided the household with a variety of flowers, fruit and vegetables. Major Jackson reported in an 1860 letter that the garden included, "lima beans, snap beans, carrots, parsnips, salsify, onions, cabbage, turnips, beets, potatoes, and some inferior muskmelons."
By using a cold frame or hotbed to protect tender plants from frost, Major Jackson could extend the growing season. This practice helped insure a diet of fresh produce for much of the year. Jackson, who was known to be ?as methodical as a multiplication table," followed a detailed planting calendar and owned an 1858 edition of Robert Buist's Family Kitchen Gardener, a popular gardening manual.
While Jackson enjoyed working in the garden with his own hands, the success of the garden depended upon the labor of three of the Jackson's slaves: Hetty and her sons, Cyrius and George.
"I went down to your henhouse yesterday evening? and, looking into the nests, found nine fresh eggs?."
Thomas J. Jackson to Mary Anna Jackson, Feb. 23, 1861 [from] Memoirs of "Stonewall" Jackson by His Widow, p. 138
"I never was fond of lettuce until I tried this. I regard it as the largest, tenderest and finest flavored that I have ever tasted."
Thomas J. Jackson to Laura Jackson Arnold, June 4, 1860.
"His garden was a source of very great pleasure to him: he worked in it a great deal with his own hands, and cultivated it in quite a scientific way?. So successful was he as a gardener that he raised more vegetables than his family could consume."
Mary Anna Jackson {from} Memoirs of "Stonewall" Jackson by his Widow, p. 108.
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