Gardening in Thomas Jefferson's Footsteps

摘要

WHEN I ASKED PatBrodows-ki what her schedule is today in the vegetable garden at Monticello, the head gardener said, deadpan, "Work until I drop." Then she laughed heartily, because it's true. Brodowski's daily tasks for maintaining this two-acre expanse of vegetables and herbs, which Thomas Jefferson's slaves dug out of the side of a mountain 200 years ago, are daunting. "We grew 220 cabbages last year," says Brodowski, a sturdy 59-year-old woman with a long brown braid, gazing out over the wide, flat 1,000-foot-long terrace, a tapestry of green cabbages, purple cauliflowers, and blue-green artichokes.