Gardening the Amana Way

Chapter 4. Vegetable Gardening in Modern Amana

e4d —————————————————————————————— Vegetable Gardening in Modern Amana W ilma and I live in a verdant valley dominated on either side of the beautiful Iowa River by heavily forested bluffs. The soil here is of the type considered to be the richest in the world, found elsewhere only in the Ukraine. We live within the confines of a 26,000-acre game preserve, where deer, ducks, geese, swans, bald eagles, coyotes, foxes, raccoons, the occasionalcougarandbobcat,andcountlessotheranimalspeciesmaketheir homes amid abundant supplies of food and water. Also located within this preserve are several areas considered sacred by Native Americans in the region .Evidenceof theirancestors,intheformofprojectilepoints,spears,pottery , and beads, is offered up by the soil along streams and in plowed fields. Visitors to South Amana often comment on the beauty of our village and thesurroundingcountryside.SouthAmana,knownforitsbeautifulgardens, was—in its horticultural heyday—named the third most beautiful community in the state by the Keep Iowa Beautiful Foundation, an affiliate of Keep America Beautiful, Inc. The other six villages of our former communal society feel a bit slighted by this honor, and rightly so, since they all have a charm and beauty of their own. Soon after Wilma and I returned to South Amana, we noticed that those wonderful vegetables once grown in magnificent kitchen gardens in communal Amana now appeared chiefly in the home gardens of elderly women. Once the women were gone, those varieties would die with them. We made itourgoaltocollectseedfrom thevegetablesstillsurviving and toestablish a seed bank to perpetuate them. The women we approached were enthusiastic about our efforts and were only too happy to share their seeds with us. We have been operating our seed bank since 1986 under the aegis of the award- 44 chapter four winning Amana Heritage Society, an organization dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of the communal culture and its many artifacts. Wilma and I grow and bank the precious Amana heirloom varieties listed on the following pages. We make them available to local gardeners, who get preference, and then to all gardeners on a first-come first-served basis. Each vegetable variety has qualities that make it especially desirable. That’s why Amanagardenersoriginallygrewitintheirkitchengardens.Lookforrecipes incorporating some of these varieties in chapter 7. Each vegetable variety requires a different method of seed collection and processing. Lettuce seed, for example, is ready for processing once the plant has bolted and the seed stalks and heads have turned a grayish tan. In order to release the seed from within the seed heads, we hold each head over a shallow bowl and roll it between our thumbs and forefingers. The released seed drops into the bowl, along with some of the chaff. Once we’ve processed all the seed heads, we blow gently into the bowl. The chaff is lighter than the seeds, becoming airborne and flowing up and out of the bowl, leaving the seed behind. We process our radish seed somewhat differently. We harvest the seed stalks and heads once they have turned a light tan color. Radish seed heads are quite tough and flexible, so they don’t break open easily. To release the seed, we’ve repurposed a specially built device used in communal Amana to shake dirt off freshly harvested onion sets. We spread out an old bed sheet and set the device on it. Wearing gloves, we rub the stalks and seed heads across the hardware cloth built into the device. This separates the heads from the stalks and breaks some of the heads open to release the seed, which falls onto the sheet below. We collect the seed and chaff from the sheet, discarding the larger stem parts that have slipped through the hardware cloth. We discard the stem parts left on top of the cloth as well. Then we repeat the rubbingprocess,whichbreaksopenthoseseedheadsthatarestillintactafter the first rubbing. We use the same shallow bowl for the released radish seed, blowing the chaff out and leaving the seed behind. Muchsimplertoharvestistheseedfromoursalsifyplants.Eachtwo-yearold plant produces a bright yellow flower similar to that of a dandelion, only larger.Theseedheadalsolookslikethatofagiantdandelion.Wesimplygrab the parachutes on the seed head and pull. When thoroughly ripe, the seeds come off the stalk very easily. If they are thoroughly dry, we can put them di- Vegetable Gardening in Modern Amana 45 rectly into their storage containers as we take them from the plants. There is a caveat, however. Strong wind and goldfinches can easily dislodge the seeds andcarrythemaway.Installingnettingoverunripeseedheadshandilysolves this problem...