I had an amazing neighbor. Her name was Margaretta Thurlow and she died almost 2 years at 96.
I think of her often. When I had a question about plants, she was the person I called. She was better than the internet. Even at 96. Her dream as a kid was to work for Burpee seeds. So imagine, in rural Maine in the 1930's being a woman and going off to college(Margaretta was the first female graduate of the University of Maine Agricultural School) and then going to Pennsylvania to work for Burpees. After working in Pennsylvania for several years she went to California to help Burpee develop their big boy tomatoes. She had 100 staff under her cross pollinating tomatoes by hand. She came back to Maine in the 1950's and never left again. She had chickens, peacocks, and 2 huge gardens. Below is a photo I took years ago of her efforts to help her tomatoes survive the first frost. I call the photo the Tomato People. Never knew where she got all the old coats.
