Southern gardens have always been as diverse as the gardeners wanted them to be and the land allowed them to be. The South is a mosaic of micro climates, which means just about everything will grow somewhere in the South. The new southern garden can include venerated heirloom items and the newest cultivars. Some gardens contain plants so common that they seem universal, while others are intensely local. A typical garden, farmers’ market, or Csa farm box in New Orleans will look considerably different from one in Asheville, but both are equally, authentically, and sufciently
southern. Like our dinner tables and recipes, our gardens are shaped by a mixture of circumstances and customs, history and habits. The earliest southern gardeners were the Native Americans who cultivated our indigenous foods. Everything else was added because someone couldn’t imagine life without it and found a way to grow it. Starting with the earliest explorers and colonists, new vegetables and fruits arrived in the South with each wave of newcomers. People tried to bring a little of what they had, what they knew, and what they anticipated they would need in the most unknown and foreign of places. One of the surest and most soothing ways to get our bearings in a new place is to cook and eat something we recognize and fnd familiar, something that tastes of home. When we can’t go home to eat, we can eat to go home.
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