Our two-acre garden yields vegetables nearly all year long. We grow over 60 varieties of fruits and vegetables, including a number of heirlooms that are hundreds of years old. With us you can enjoy Mr. Stripey and Mortgage Lifter tomatoes, old English sweet peas, and green beans, grown here in the cove for generations, that are found nowhere else. There’s also squash, cucumbers, okra, peppers, cabbage, lettuce, broccoli, greens, beets, onions, watermelon, cantaloupe, and all sorts more. When the sweet corn comes in we have a feast, roasting ears in their shucks over a wood fire, and all summer we have the pleasure of digging new potatoes fresh from the garden. We have spinach and a variety of greens all winter, even in the snow. Come Spring, there’s the glory of fresh asparagus.
We have a bounty of fruit, too. Early summer starts with strawberries and wild black raspberries, followed by blackberries, blueberries, and raspberries. The old apple trees start ripening in late summer, and in our young orchard we have a score of heirloom apples traditional to the Smokies, along with peaches, cherries, plums, apricots, pears, grapes, and figs. The fall brings wild grapes and a harvest of chestnuts and black walnuts to crack all winter. Whatever the season, whatever the bounty, our guests are welcome to share in our harvests.