Garden Update: May 2025 Harvesting Our Heritage
ᏩᏙ ᏂᎦᏓ Wado nigad(a) thank you all for coming out in Fairfield and taking seeds from our little seed bank! I gave out hundreds of seed packets and am so excited and proud of you all for preserving our special heritage seeds. We carry forward our ancestors’ knowledge and cultivate our heritage by growing these important plants that we have been in relation with for thousands of years. It’s our joy and honor to continue that relationship and connection to our ancestors. Wado for your work in doing so!!
Please reach out with any questions and share your planting experiences with us!!
My little garden is growing well. I anticipate having many seeds to give away next year to the community. I have Cherokee Colored Flour corn that is a little over 6 inches tall. I’ll be planting beans around them soon. The beans I’ve started in other areas are popping up happily as are some that self-seeded from last year. I have Trail of Tears black beans, Turkey Gizzard brown beans, and Long Greasy white beans going.
I’m planting Cherokee squash and tan pumpkin in separate areas but will need to watch for female flowers closely. They will be separated by some trees and a fence but well within 1000 feet of each other. This means they might cross pollinate if I’m not careful. My process is to visit the garden every morning to hand pollinate female flowers and bag them. When I know I have a good pollination that was protected from cross pollination, I tie a very loose string around the stem so I know which I can later harvest for seeds and which are simply good eats.
Issues - the pill bugs (rolly pollies) really like to eat my baby bean sprouts. I pick them off in the morning and move them elsewhere, which helps as I don’t want to use any pesticides. This year, they are not as numerous as last year because more centipedes have moved in, in a beautiful demonstration of nature’s balance. Everything and everyone has a place. I’ll lose some bean sprouts in the process but most will thrive.
I’m happy to see that many of the tobacco plants I overwintered in an experiment are going strong and I had some new volunteer tobacco that self-seeded. I’ve noticed that self-seeded plants are the most robust. The purple coneflower seed I planted last year, given by a fellow Cherokee, looks like it will be flowering this year! And the strawberries are tasty.
The Cherokee Phoenix recently featured our efforts to grow and share heirloom seeds with the community. The mission is to nurture not just plants, but our culture, heritage, health, and food sovereignty. We recently gave away dozens of seed packets at our last membership gathering. There’s still more to give and next year will be even more fruitful through this program.
Related past features:
— Sabrina McKinney
