Thomas Jefferson: Our (almost) Permaculture President

I recently took a tour at Moticello called the "Revolutionary Garden Tour." The foundation that maintains Monticello has undertaken to recreate Jefferson's garden, based on his gardening journal and letters that cover 60 years of his gardening experience. And I could not help but think that Jefferson would certainly approve of what is today being called permaculture. He seems to have enjoyed growing different species, observing plant interactions and behavior, and swapping seeds with other founders.

http://www.monticello.org/site/house-and-gardens/vegetable-garden

Nice post. I watched a program a couple years ago that discussed the garden and showed how meals were cooked during that time period. I have always wanted to visit the garden at Monticello along with Mount Vernon.

In this vein, I highly recommend Andrea Wulf's Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation. Wulf focuses on Washington, Adams, Madison, and Jefferson, all four of which were passionate about gardening, and argues persuasively that horticulture greatly informed their politics. Of the four, I really took a liking to Adams -- he clearly enjoyed getting his hands dirty and seemed to be happiest when hard at work on his small farm. By comparison, the slave-owning Jefferson, Madison, and Washington appear, dare I say, downright aristocratic.