The Skagit Valley's Endless Harvest
While the rest of the country faced the winter chill of 1891, gardeners in Skagit County were picking fresh blackberries and watching peas bloom in the open air.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Last Friday, December 19, our townsman, George Brown, was in the garden of his neighbor, William Everett, and there, growing in open air, without other protection than that afforded by the canopy of heaven, he found the blackberry bushes still containing fruit in all stages of maturity, from the green berry just forming from the blossom to the ripe, luscious fruit, sparkling with the lustre of its own juice. Mr. Brown gathered a handful of these and brought them to the Herald, that it might tell its Eastern readers that our gardens are ripening fruit at Christmas time. Yesterday the Herald sanctum was again the recipient of a handful of ripe blackberries, plucked on Christmas morning by our old friend, David Richardson. The old gentleman assured us that the berries in his garden had been ripening constantly since July, with no prospects of exhaustion. He brought along some green berries, to show that there are some left for New Year’s. Christmas evening here comes George E. Brown with a twig from a blackberry bush which contains dried blackberries, freshly ripened blackberries and green berries of all sizes. He also brings us some strawberry stems fresh from the garden, containing berries just ripening, berries half grown and berries just setting, giving promise of an abundant crop. He also brings a twig from a wild-cherry tree growing in his yard that is filled with buds all ready to spring into full blown leaves. This morning Joe Richardson brings in a handful of wild-cherry twigs with well developed buds, and a soft maple twig fully decked out in its second suit of summer green. Mathew Jacobow, a rancher living well up on the side of the mountain back of Lyman, was in the Herald sanctum this morning and reported that his pea vines are all in blossom, and that green pods as long as his finger are formed. He says frost has not yet visited his garden, and that he hopes to have fresh green peas for New Year's dinner. Ira Baldridge was out in the mountains a few days ago and gathered a nice lot of huckleberries.
“Our gardens are ripening fruit at Christmas time.”
This 1891 report from the Skagit Valley captures the perennial wonder of Washington’s mild maritime climate, a recurring theme in local boosters' literature. Today, as climate change increasingly shifts growing seasons and challenges our agricultural stability, these accounts serve as both a reminder of the region's natural fertility and a baseline for our changing environment.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.