Thomas Jefferson's Vegetable Garden: A Thing Of Beauty And
Science Originally published on Wed May 23, 2012 10:48 am When
you listen to All Things Considered host Melissa Block's story
about Thomas Jefferson's garden, you'll hear how he cared about
putting peas on the table and sharing seeds with his friends. He
also set loftier goals for his vegetable garden: Monticello's
south-facing expanse was a living laboratory for a lifelong
tinkerer and almost obsessive record keeper. Jefferson was, in
many ways, a crop scientist. After Jefferson retired from public
life to his beloved Virginia hilltop plantation, the garden
"served as a sort of this experimental testing lab where he'd
try new vegetables he sought out from around the globe," says
Peter Hatch, the estate's head gardener. Hatch recently wrote a
book about Jefferson's garden and its history called A Rich Spot
of Earth. Somehow, the author of the Declaration of Independence
and the nation's third president found spare time to
meticulously document his man