Social Studies

5th Grade
Thomass Tomatoes
Thomas and the Tomatoes
Thomas Jefferson was more than a Founding Father and President
of the United States. He was a scientist and gardner, interested in
agriculture and the best means to grow some unlikely plants for the
Virginia climate.

Focus
Exploring Thomas Jefferson and his interest in agriculture

Jeffersons impact on the science of growing plants that are not
native to the United States/Virginia

Using microclimates to grow tomatoes (cold frame/cloche)

Growing Jeffersons tomatoes from seed

Documenting in a diary format the observation of growth of the plants
in microclimates through diagraming, charts and written notation

Comparison of 2 types of growing methods (cloche vs. cold frame)

Charts that compare the amount of water seeds/seedlings/plants
receive, soil conditions (direct sow or pot, type of soil), amount
of sunlight, temperature and the leaf shape

Background Information
use written resources-see images to right
and attached articles as well as resources found on http://www.monticello.org

IPad app-tommeets by Partou. The world meets a tomato. (WARES ME) is an app
($0.99) that tells the history of tomatoes

websites: (more below preceding separate articles -attached)
http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/attending-to-my-farm
http://www.monticello.org
Questions
Who is Thomas Jefferson and why is he a signicant historical gure?
What were Thomas Jeffersons interests?
Why did Thomas Jefferson garden/farm?
What types of plants did Thomas Jefferson grow?
Why was vegetable/fruit gardening so important to Thomas Jefferson?
What is a microclimate?
Why was it necessary for Thomas Jefferson to focus on microclimates?
What variables are important for plant growth? (variables include type of soil, amount of
water)
How can a micro climate be established in Dohertys ECO Garden? (Answer -cloche or
use the cold frame)
What type of experiment could the class do to test if a microclimate would work in
Ohio to grow one of Thomas Jeffersons varieties of tomatoes?
(Answer-1. plant some seed under the cloche-water them differently-some direct sow
and some in pots and plant some in cold frame again some direct and some potted 2.
apply different amount of water 3. take into consideration cold frame gets some sunlight
4. record outside average temperature versus cold frame average temperature
How could the experiment be recorded? (Examples of a growth chart and plan growth
diagram are attached.)
How long will the growth take? (estimate-see seed package) When is best time to begin
planting seeds?
Materials Needed
seeds-found on the Monticello website
http://www.monticelloshop.org/farm-garden-seeds.html


Costoluto Genovese Tomato Seeds (Lycopersicon lycopersicum)
$2.95


Purple Calabash Tomato Seeds (Lycopersicon lycopersicum)
$2.95
pots
soil (if using other than what is found in ECO Garden)
cloche (Or terra cotta pot with bottom sealed)
use of cold frame
journals for documenting growth and variables and any written activities
regarding the unit
iPads
suggested books
computer
water source and method
thermometer


Assessment:
Finished journals
group/team eld work
cold provide a rubric for what the journal must contain-weekly or biweekly
diagrams- daily growth chart (maybe want to designate 2 students to record
each day and then share)




















http://www.monticello.org/site/blog-and-community/posts/
jeffersons-progressive-use-microclimate

Jeffersons Progressive Use of Microclimate

July 22, 2013
by Benjamin Whitacre
Posted in: Gardens

As a gentleman farmer, Thomas Jefferson was among the most forward thinking of his
peers he grew fruit trees grafted onto dwarfing rootstock, championed native species,
imported European varieties, commissioned the Lewis and Clark Expedition for flora,
and was the earliest American to reference garden plants widely found at nursery
centers today. But perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of Jeffersons plantsmanship
was his use of microclimate something that took nearly 170 years to fully appreciate.

Jefferson's fruitery and garden pavillion
From 1767 to 1814, Jefferson experimented with hundreds of varieties of fruit on the hot
southeast facing side of his Monticello mountain. Here, in the middle of USDA zone 7a,
he placed his orchard and vineyard, which he called the fruitery. Mediterranean
staples like figs, and perhaps pomegranates, accustomed to the much warmer zones 9
and 10, were able to ripen fruit long into the fall because the mountainside microclimate
extends the normal zone 7a growing season by two months. Nevertheless, the only
fruitery experiment that continued beyond 1814, until 1817, was the Vitis vinifera
European grape vineyard -- a failure even with the direction of the ambitious Italian
viticulturist Philip Mazzei, who came to Virginia to start a wine industry. Mazzei and
Jeffersons vinifera grapes never lived long enough or fruited well enough to produce a
bottle of wine. However, 166 years later, in 1983, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation
hired another pioneering Italian viticulturist who was determined to finally create a
Virginia wine industry. The unexpected results vindicated Jeffersons choice of vineyard
microclimate.

Muscat of Alexandria
Gabriele Rausse, now Monticellos Director of Gardens and Grounds, initially looked at
the task of realizing Jeffersons 1807 vineyard plan as a beautiful, but quixotic
adventure. The most capricious part of his work was grafting Muscat of Alexandria, a
golden Egyptian table grape with oval fruit that was considered to be the finest dessert
and raisin grape in Jeffersons time.
I told them this plant will never grow here in Italy, yes. It does well in Sicily. It does
very well in North Africa. But it needs a very warm climate, Rausse said. The answer
was 'well you graft it, plant it, and it will die, and we will write down that it died.'
But Rausses Muscat of Alexandria, cultivated and protected with the benefits of modern
grafting and disease prevention techniques, survived and produced a good crop three
years later despite being transposed from Egypts zone 10b weather to Charlottesvilles
zone 7a.

Green Ischia Fig in UVa Pavillion
Jefferson had a season which was two months longer the winters were cold, Im sure
actually they might have been even colder than our winters sometimes. But the fact that
the cold air rolls off the mountain at the speed of water in spring makes the
microclimate very different, Rausse said. So I think it was an unbelievable thought for
him to have had. It is sometimes almost a Mediterranean climate here except for that
one cold night that comes along and ruins everything.
Jeffersons other major use of microclimate was architectural. For the University of
Virginia, he designed serpentine walls, one of the most striking features of the UVa
pavilion gardens, as noteworthy in the landscape as the mountainside fruitery is at
Monticello.

Pomegranate in UVa Pavillion IX
The amount of material absorbing the heat in the day is greater than the amount of
material you would have if the wall was a straight line. It is not the curve itself, it is the
amount of bricks which are there to absorb the heat, Rausse said.
Thanks to the serpentine walls, which absorb and retain extra warmth in addition to
blocking winds, UVa pavilion garden IX sports massive pomegranates and figs.
And in part because of Jeffersons exceptional use of microclimate, Rausse didnt loose a
single one of the Muscat of Alexandria vines he planted in the Monticello fruitery in
1984 until 2004. Today, three of the originals are still alive and bearing fruit, almost
thirty years later, despite growing in the type of clay soil that limits the lifespan of
Muscat of Alexandria to 40 years, even in the most hospitable climate.
I think it is a wonderful story because of the fact that Jefferson planted a vineyard 200
years ago in the perfect spot, even good enough for a variety that is so delicate, Rausse
said. Its wonderful that he was so ahead of his time, so ahead of everybody else.
Gabriele Rausse has been Director of Gardens and Grounds at Monticello since 2012.
From 1995 to 2012, he was Assistant Director. In 2011 he received the Distinguished
Service Award from the Virginia Agribusiness Council. As a vintner and consultant,
Rausse is a critical figure in the establishment of Virginias wine industry. He conducts
workshops in winemaking at Monticello. Often, varieties of figs, and grapes like
Sangiovese, grown by Jefferson in the fruitery, are sold through the Thomas Jefferson
Center for Historic Plants at the Visitor Center Museum Shop, or through Monticellos
online catalog at www.monticelloshop.org. CHP plants that are marginally cold hardy in
your zone may be grown outdoors without special cover by using the microclimate
techniques Jefferson used at Monticello and UVa, as well as other methods, like planting
by a body of water, beside a house, or within a protective mass of plants. If you have a
question about a particular plant, email chp@monticello.org or call (434)984-9819 to
speak with someone at CHP.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/01/garden/01monticello.html?
pagewanted=all&_r=0wanted=all&_r=0At Monticello, Jeffersons Methods
Endure
IN THE GARDEN
At Monticello, Jeffersons Methods Endure

Jay Paul for The New York Times
In the vegetable garden at Monticello, his home in Virginia, Thomas Jefferson sowed seeds
from around the world and shared them with farmers. He was not afraid of failure, which
happened often. More Photos

By ANNE RAVER
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.
NEW gardeners smitten with the experience of growing their own food amazed
at the miracle of harvesting figs on a Brooklyn rooftop, horrified by the flea
beetles devouring the eggplants might be both inspired and comforted by the
highs and lows recorded by Thomas Jefferson from the sun-baked terraces of his
two-acre kitchen garden 200 years ago.
And they could learn a thing or two from the 19th-century techniques still being
used at Monticello today.
He was experimental and had a lot of failures, Peter Hatch, the director of
gardens and grounds, said on a recent afternoon, as we stood under a scorching
sun in the terraced garden that took seven slaves three years to cut into the hill.
But Jefferson always believed that the failure of one thing is repaired by the
success of another.
After he left the White House in 1809 and moved to Monticello, his Palladian
estate here, Jefferson grew 170 varieties of fruits and 330 varieties of vegetables
and herbs, until his death in 1826.
As we walked along the geometric beds many of them planted in an ancient
Roman quincunx pattern I made notes on the beautiful crops I had never
grown. Sea kale, with its great, ruffled blue-green leaves, now full of little round
seed pods. Egyptian onions, whose tall green stalks bore quirky hats of tiny seeds
and wavy green sprouts. A pre-Columbian tomato called Purple Calabash, whose
energetic vines would soon be trained up a cedar trellis made of posts cut from
the woods.
Purple Calabash is one of my favorites, Mr. Hatch said. Its an acidic, almost
black tomato, with a convoluted, heavily lobed shape.
Mr. Hatch, who has directed the restoration of the gardens here since 1979, has
pored over Jeffersons garden notes and correspondence. He has distilled that
knowledge in Thomas Jeffersons Revolutionary Garden, to be published by
Yale University Press.
This seed-y missionary, as Mr. Hatch calls Jefferson, collected seeds and
cuttings from around the world and distributed them to others, only to have them
die in his own garden.
Jefferson would kill the thing at Monticello and go back to George Divers and
say, What happened to those black-eyed peas I brought back from France in
1789? Mr. Hatch said, referring to Jeffersons neighbor, a much better gardener
who usually won their pea-growing contest.
Jeffersons eagerness to give away seeds and plants was a great lesson about
sharing stuff, Mr. Hatch said, so that when it dies at your house, you can go to
your neighbors for a replacement. (So, pass cuttings and seeds over the garden
fence.)
There are many such deaths from drought, insects and disease recorded in
Jeffersons garden book between 1766 and 1824. His meticulous calendar, which
documents when each seed was sown, when it sprouted, flowered and came to
table or died, serves as a rough guide for Mr. Hatch today.
Yet this same garden book is maddeningly devoid of details on how plants were
protected from disease and insects.
Mr. Hatch does recount a plague of insects descending on Monticello while
Jefferson was away, as secretary of state, and his daughter Martha Jefferson
Randolph writing to him in despair.
Jefferson wrote back and said the problem was the crummy soil, Mr. Hatch
said. He told his daughter that when he returned, the two of them would cover
the entire garden with a heavy coating of dung.
Mr. Hatchs book includes the letter, dated July 21, 1793, in which Jefferson
writes, I suspect that the insects which have harassed you have been encouraged
by the feebleness of your plants, and that has been produced by the lean state of
the soil.
He adds, When earth is rich it bids defiance to droughts, yields in abundance
and of the best quality. His words reveal a man of the earth far ahead of his time:
the scientific connection between fertile soil and plant health is only now being
documented.
At Monticello, the gardeners dig plenty of homemade compost and aged manure
into the soil, when they can get it. But allegiance to Jeffersons methods goes only
so far.
When flea beetles known to Jefferson as turnip flies hit the eggplant
seedlings this spring, gardeners sprayed them with insecticidal soap. They will
use other pesticides, as benign as possible, to save crops. Now, those eggplant
seedlings are hefty three-footers, full of purple flowers.
The intense heat and humidity of a Virginia summer explain why colonial
gardens were planted only in spring and toward the end of summer, when
temperatures cooled. But Jefferson gardened year-round, planting early in heat-
collecting beds along the mountain slope and growing heat-loving crops like okra,
melons and tomatoes during the scorching summers. He also grew cool-season
lettuces long past their time in the low-lying, damper areas farther down the
mountain. (So look for the warm spots around your own garden, as well as the
shady, cooler ones, so you can push the limits as he did.)
Jeffersons biggest mistake was to put his monumental, 1,000-foot-long garden
on the south side of this mountain, where it is in full sun from dawn to dusk, with
no water source.
The restored vegetable garden here is watered by overhead sprinklers supplied by
a 30,000-gallon cistern fed by a spring a half mile down the mountain. If
Jeffersons slaves hauled barrels of water from there on a mule-drawn wagon,
there is no known record of it.
We might think that farmers markets are new, but the Washington farmers
market was thriving when Jefferson was in the White House. He avidly supported
its farmers, bringing them seeds collected by his consuls in their respective
countries, as well as seeds and cuttings from his own plantation, where crops
from Africa and the Americas were flourishing.
Mr. Hatch sees the okra soup that came out of the Monticello kitchen as a melting
pot of international crops and cuisine. An early form of gumbo, it included
cimlins (squash) and lima beans inherited from the Southwest Indians, tomatoes
from Central America at a time when Northern Europeans still believed the
love apple was poison and okra from Africa, via the Caribbean, where it was
creolized, as Mr. Hatch put it, by French and African-American cooks.
Now that the Obamas are growing vegetables on the South Lawn of the White
House, Monticello has become a source of heirloom varieties like Tennis Ball
lettuce and Texas bird peppers.
Pat Brodowski, Monticellos head gardener, saw me eying the round seed pods of
the sea kale and clipped off a few of the dried stems. The seed doesnt stay viable
very long, so plant them in a pot as soon as you get home, she said.
If Im lucky, a few seeds will sprout and grow into sturdy plants that can be set in
the garden.
Sea kale is a true perennial that can be wintered over, even in New York, if
protected by mulch. The plant dies down to the ground, but in spring its tender
shoots can be eaten like asparagus.
At Monticello, the shoots are protected by upside-down clay pots in early spring.
Then the pots are removed and the unfurling leaves are enjoyed as ornamentals,
sending up stalks covered with tiny white flowers.
Jeffersons favorite vining beans wind up a variety of sturdy cedar structures,
which are an extrapolation from the scant records he left about arbors and other
supports. And Ms. Brodowski is happy to show visitors how the fiber from the
yucca plants that grow here can be macerated and woven into a sturdy twine that
was probably used to lash such posts in place.
Monticellos gardeners dressed the asparagus beds and sowed peas in February,
following the practices Jefferson recorded in his calendar.
But we dont sow a thimbleful of lettuce every Monday morning, as Jefferson
did, Ms. Brodowski said.
Jeffersons ritual is good advice for todays kitchen gardeners, because successive
plantings of small amounts of seed keep everything from maturing at once. But
when it comes to lettuce, a cool-season crop that grows bitter and goes to seed as
soon as hot weather arrives, Ms. Brodowski ignores Jeffersons advice.
He really wasnt a very good gardener, she said with a laugh. He was
adventurous.
And pushing the limits was his gift to gardeners.
The Jeffersonian Way, With Peas and Beans
THE art of saving seeds is alive at Monticello, where gardeners are busy
harvesting the pods of spent peas, beans and sea kale. Gardeners everywhere can
do the same, letting the pods dry completely in a semi-shady room with good air
circulation, then packing them in tightly sealed containers and storing them in a
refrigerator or freezer.
Another lesson from Monticello is planting crops in a quincunx pattern. It is an
efficient use of space, and the precise rows it creates of parallels and diagonals
adds orderly beauty. Pat Brodowski, Monticellos head gardener, uses a
compass and string to align beds and then sets her plants in the square, much like
the five dots on a die.
is one of perfectly aligned diagonals and perpendiculars. The artichoke plantings
are a gorgeous example of this ancient Roman technique, and they may be seen
all summer until frost.
Erecting sturdy posts, especially from cedar or black locust, adds beauty to a
garden and gets plants off the ground, where, as Jefferson knew, they were more
subject to insects and disease. Ms. Brodowskis crew laid four 12-foot posts on the
ground and wound jute, or sturdy twine, around the tops. When the posts were
lifted up and brought out to the corners of the bed, their weight worked much like
the stones in a Roman bridge, holding them in place with no need to sink the
ends into the earth.
Simple brush fences made of well-branched woody plants can be used to stick
peas or beans, as gardeners did in Jeffersons day. Set them in place when you
plant your peas, and the tendrils will grab onto the branches, Ms. Brodowski
said.
http://www.monticello.org/site/house-and-gardens/tomato

Tomato

Thomas Jefferson first mentions tomatoes in Query VI of his Notes on the State of
Virginia: "The gardens yield muskmelons, watermelons, tomatas, okra, pomegranates,
figs, and the esculent plants of Europe." [1] One of our research historians notes that
"Jefferson does not single out tomatoes as unusual objects in Virginia gardens, and in
other parts of the country, the fruit was also available."[2] He recorded planting
tomatoes all of the years that he kept his Garden Kalendar (1809-1824), and included
them in his chart of vegetables sold in the markets in Washington, D.C.[3] Tomatoes
commonly appear in the Jefferson family recipe collections. Two varieties Jefferson
planted most often were the "dwarf" and the "Spanish," which was described as "very
much larger than the common kinds.
Jefferson himself never mentioned the belief by some that tomatoes were poisonous.
There is a story that, on a visit to Lynchburg, he terrified one of the locals when he
paused to snack on a tomato on the steps of the Miller-Claytor house;[4] our researchers
have found no proof that this incident ever happened.