Folklore For Gardeners

  • Trees that bloom twice in one year will have a bad crop. Pap says he’s seen June apples bloom twice more than once.
  • If you spit in your hands when cutting wood you’ll have good luck. Pap said the spit just helps you hold on better. Holding on to the ax always = good luck.
  • Don’t plant your garden until the oak leaves are the size of mouse ears. (from B. Ruth)
  • Always plant your potatoes on Good Friday.
  • Plant your greenbeans on Good Friday.
  • Anything planted on the first day of Spring will live.
  • Bury nails around the roots of Hydrangea to make the blooms blue.
  • Never plant vegetables that sound alike together. Think potato and tomato. Pap told me that one.
  • Never say thank you if someone shares their flowers or plant cuttings with you for if you do they will die. I’ve heard this one my whole life and man is it hard not to automatically say thank you when someone gives you plants.
  • If you find a horse shoe in the garden hang it in the nearest tree for good luck. It’s not as common to find horse shoes now as it once was. I have found a few in the big garden, but I hung them on my porch instead of a tree.

Got any gardening folklore to add?

Tipper

 

Similar Posts

36 Comments

  1. One day Mama and I were driving along the river with the mountain beside it. She looked at the mountain and commented that it was green 3/4 of the way up. She said old people always said that when the greening of the mountain is 3/4 of the way to the top, it is time to plant corn.

  2. Well, Tipper you are right it is very difficult not to say thank you when given a gift of flowers. However to say something is better than not. So if you wish not to say thank you for the flowers. Just say, “THEY ARE SO BEAUTIFUL AND FRAGRANT I WILL ENJOY THEM ON MY DINING ROOM TABLE.”

    Or They are beautiful I’ll put them in water immediately. God Gives us beautiful things and we should all be grateful.

  3. Found a half a horseshoe on the Old Yonahlossee Road yesterday, there used to be a horse drawn coach on that road way back when, reckon that’s good?

  4. I do not thank people when they give me a plant. I do ask them if they know the custom about giving and receiving plants so they will know I do appreciate what they did. I have heard you should plant your garden on Good Friday. That is what my Aunt Lucy did and my wife’s grandmother did.

  5. My dad always said to plant corn by the new moon so that the ears would hang down and were easier to pull. If you planted by the full moon then the ears would grow upward

  6. Gosh, I’ve never heard the one about not saying thank you for plants, but it seems lots of folks are familiar with it. I can only hope it isn’t true! A friend gave me a huge load of plants thinned from her flower gardens last Autumn, and I spent five hard hours getting them all in the stony ground here…after thanking her over and over again for her generosity! If I cross my fingers will it help, do you think?

  7. Re: squirrel ears – just noticed that Jerry in Arkansas was about 15 hours ahead of me (insert symbol for way behind the times here;-)

  8. A clarification – the squirrel ear-size oak leaves specifically applies to planting corn, not the garden in general

  9. Only one I remember was from growing up in the North. If the corn isn’t knee high by the Fourth of July, frost will get it before it bares corn. Now we know down South, that would very very rarely be the case.
    I can’t rightly remember any more.
    God bless.
    RB
    <><

  10. tipper.
    My dad would always try to plant his corn around the first of June. bless his heart he would hoe it to death, he would hoe it until it was almost knee high or taller. He would break the roots and my first husband Ed taught his to hoe it a lay it by and he had more yield. He said son you taught me something.course they keep the weed knocked down but didn’t disturb the roots system any more.

  11. Tipper, Mother planted her beans and potatoes and some other seed on good Friday and always planted her flower seed on rot Saturday that is the sat after good Friday, They will bloom and bloom.
    We planted potatoes on Rot sat. and all we had were the highest vines and no potatoes.Everyone marveled at the tall vines and no potatoes. We always watched the signs from then on. We planted in March one year ,after the potatoes were up and the biggest snow came and the man who layed our patch by said boy you will have to plant again. A year later I saw him and he said by the way Mary how did the potatoes crop do and I told J.C. Palmer we had the best crop with big fist full sized potatoes. He shook his head and said boy that surprised me.

  12. My grandma grandma would not plant until Good Friday. She also planted by the phases of the moon-plant by the waxing moon for beans, peas and all above the ground crops, plant root vegetables by the waning moon. She always had a great garden!

  13. Tipper,
    I’ll probably wait till Good Friday
    to plant my garden. I still got a
    lot of stuff to remove from last
    year. This has been the longest,
    coldest winter I can remember, but
    I can’t hardly wait for things to
    dry up and thaw out.
    Love all the sayings…Ken

  14. Tipper,
    Evidently Don has not seen the “Vacanti Mouse” or… uhhh…Mickey…!
    Thanks Tipper,
    PS…My elderly neighbor told me this after plowing our garden. He looked up at the two huge Oaks in the yard. After I questioned him about when he usually planted his garden he said…”See those Oaks, when you see the leaves just about the size of a mouse’s ear, plant your garden! If you wait any later, on this sunny hill it will be getting too late.” He said it worked for him for fifty plus ears…uhhh years! LOL
    Then of course, the next morning when you haul it to the garden to plant the overnight spring growth has jumped the leaves up to the size of squirrel ears…LOL

    1. That bit of wisdom on planting corn actually comes from our Native American brethren whose observations of nature are acute and accurate having been based on ready evidence for a long time. The old timers learned from those who knew and who were much closer to the earth and its cycles than many folks today. No matter where it originated, it is a good tip that has served me well for many decades.

  15. Planting folklore must, at least in part, be regional. If I waited until after the dewberries (aka blackberries) bloomed around here it would be way too late since they bloom around the last of March then ripen just in time to make dewberry cobbler for Mother’s Day.
    Otherwise, the one about planting after the white blooms are gone makes sense. Seems the white blooms are what help get bees revved up for the spring & summer season on the warm days between the last few chills of winter.
    As for nails, the old fashioned ones (just iron) help a lot of plants as they rust and release iron to the plants and help acidify the soil. Today’s galvanized nails are no help at all to the soil.
    Lots of good ideas in today’s blog. I’m eager to put them to use in the garden.

  16. I’ve heard that the oak leaves need to be the size of squirrel’s ears, which are a bit bigger than b. ruth’s mouse ears.
    Completely agree with Pap on the hand-spitting – and not just for axes, but baseball bats, and other such. And the good luck equation is pure elegance 😉

  17. I will probably get the shakes since this is the first year I can remember that I have not planted any veggies.
    Even with a stay in New York city I grew a tomato plant on the fire escape.
    My herbs are showing green so I hope they will help fill the void.
    I will enjoy hearing your growing successes even tho I will be just a bit envious.

  18. I have heard several of these . I firmly believe in these old ” ways”. Those wise ppl seem to know from experience what did and didn’t work. I enjoy this blog daily!! I remember so many of things mentioned here. Crys ~Arkansas

  19. Always plant your potatoes on Good Friday and never say thank you when someone shares a plant is very common folklore where I’m from. I doubt I will be planting anything on the first day of spring unless I move tons of snow from the garden. With 20.5″ on the ground and minus 0 temps, it’s hard to think gardening. With today’s bright sunshine, the time change and knowing spring is only a few days away will help me through this bad case of cabin fever.

  20. Tipper,
    My father-in-law said, “Always plant potato’s on St. Patrick’s Day and green beans on Good Friday!” Have English peas in the ground before the heart month is gone. I guess he meant Valentine’s Day. We always tried to follow this lore. One year we finally got the English peas in real early when the weather/ground cooperated, but we had to replant due to some cold rains that rotted the peas in the ground! He was raised in Alabama.
    However, my Dad raised in Mars Hill, NC…said his Mother always planted green peas very early on a warm sunny slope-side of a hill close to the house and always had the prettiest and earliest green peas. She kept, lettuce, eatin’ onions and green peas in a small garden.
    Thanks Tipper,
    PS…Always plant corn in the dark of the night while the crows are asleep. LOL
    Just kiddin’, I made that one up!

  21. My neighbor reminds me always not to thank him when he gives me plants, which is often. The plants seem to grow well even when I forget.
    My main comment is that it seems Pap is a knowledgeable and wise man. As we sometimes say in these parts, “He ain’t no slouch.”

  22. These folklore are very interesting. Sometimes I only dabble in planting veggies, but, flowers, however, I have done a lot of them. Sometimes I have better luck than other times. Maybe I need to pay attention to this folklore.

  23. Nothing else to add. I have heard a couple of these. I’ve heard the one about not thanking some for a cutting and not planting before Good Friday also the one about the nail making the hydrangeas blue. Well that’s three or four. We do like our traditions in Appalachia!

  24. I have been told not to say thank you for a plant. Also that you should get a cutting without asking or it wI’ll die. Must be why I can never get one to root.

  25. I have been told not to say thank you for a plant. Also that you should get a cutting without asking or it wI’ll die. Must be why I can never get one to root.

  26. I have been told not to say thank you for a plant. Also that you should get a cutting without asking or it wI’ll die. Must be why I can never get one to root.

  27. I have been told not to say thank you for a plant. Also that you should get a cutting without asking or it wI’ll die. Must be why I can never get one to root.

  28. I’ve always heard don’t plant your corn until oak leaves are the size of squirrel ears.

  29. I have always heard tht the Cherokee did not plant (tender crops) until all the white blooms were gone (dogwoods, briars, etc,) and my Pawpaw always said to not plant until after Mother’s Day.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *