Garden Spot

Lancaster County is home to many Amish farms. Not only is a mule team required for spring planting on an Amish farm, it’s also often a family affair. Here, two boys follow their mom and dad as they plant tobacco for the growing season.

As one Amish man reins in the mule team, two people handle the planting on this tobacco farm. Tobacco was king in Lancaster County for the better part of 175 years, reaching its peak in the 1950s when nearly 35,000 acres of farmland was used for its production.

A four-mule team leads the tiller through this Amish man’s field, readying the soil for spring planting.

Nothing tastes quite like home-grown produce. Here, Anna Burg Fondersmith (left) and Ann Palmer inspect the tomato plants in the garden of the back yard of her parents’ North Duke Street home in July 1902.

In 1921, the Lancaster Playground Association (now the Recreation Commission) offered a new activity: gardening. Children could pay 5 cents for a garden plot and were given seeds and instructions for planting and growing crops.

If the Lancaster Playground Association had plots leftover, adults were allowed to sign up for them. In 1921, there were 311 plots in 7 garden locations throughout the city of Lancaster.

Growing crops isn’t the only form of gardening in Lancaster. The pleasing aroma and aesthetics of flowers can make a house seem more like a home. Here, Elizabeth Peale Ryder tends to her flower beds at her Race Avenue home in the 1940s.

During World War II, planting Victory Gardens to grow crops was encouraged as an effort to support our soldiers and the economy. Carl and Thelma Netscher admire their handy work in their garden in Grandview Heights.

Not far from Carl and Thelma Netscher’s garden was that of Elvin Wails. Mr. Wails also lived in Manheim Township and tended his Victory Garden along with the help of his wife and daughter.

Brethren Village Retirement Community was established near Neffsville in 1909. At one time, the community had its own garden in which to grow vegetables for its residents. These women are busy with spring planting in this c. 1920s photograph.

Local photographer Ella Ball was so proud of this boxwood that she grew at her home on Centerville Road that she snapped a photograph of it in 1918. It was bought by Longwood Gardens and replanted on display there in 1925.