Historic Gardens at Grand Portage

Historic gardener works in the kitchen gardens

NPS photo

Historic Vegetables

The Grand Portage historic gardens are located outside the palisade walls by the Anishinaabe Odena (Ojibwe Village), and inside the palisade behind the kitchen. The North West Company operated its post here from 1778 to 1803. Many vegetable varieties grown in the garden now date back to the 1700s and early 1800s. Vegetable varieties from 200 years ago and earlier are still available today because Native American and early settler families saved seeds from their harvests to plant in the following year. The seeds saved were handed down from one generation to another.

Historic Kitchen Garden for 2024. Vegetables described in the text.

NPS Graphic / G.M. Spoto

• Elecampane: Herb also known as elfwort or horseheal, used primarily as a medicinal for lung issues, also anti-bacterial. Tincture from the root used as a cough suppressant.
• Chives: A unique variety found growing naturally on the Grand Portage Reservation
• Lovage: also known as “mountain celery” this herb is a common 18th century flavor which has fallen to the side over time.
• Rhubarb: Because of sugar becoming more available and cheaper in the late 18th century, we find rhubarb recipes appearing by 1800.
• Sorrel: This perennial herb has a famed citrus taste. Used often when lemon is needed. Sorel is common in our salads and soups. It is usually the first green we see in the GRPO garden.
• Scarlet Runner Bean: One of the most beautiful and oldest heirloom pole beans known. A crowd favorite here with it’s bright red flowers.
• White Ebenezer Onion: The most classic onion amongst early heirlooms available in 1812 and by the 1860s was considered an old variety.
• Green Glaze Colewort: The Hudson Bay Company, a North West Company competitor often mentioned “colewort” in the gardens. “Cole” as in coleslaw. The Green Glaze is a variety of Collard (Cole…again) that is 200 years old.
• White Egg Turnip: All white and the size and color of a goose egg, this variety goes back to atleast the 1820s.
• Oxheart Carrot: Also called the Guerande Carrot, a very early 19th century French variety.
• Prussian Blue Pea: The classic 18th century pea. The pea of the 18th century, grown also by Thomas Jefferson. This are seeds collected from the first growing of this variety at Grand Portage in 2022.
• Black Spanish Radish: Visitor favorite, like a large black baseball, this 18th century variety always grows well here. A fantastic treat to slice a slab and fry in butter!
• German Bier Radish: Small red radishes are just about to become a more popular option, but these bigger root vegetable radishes were popular for feeding men at a Fur Trade or Military Post. Eaten raw or treated as a potato and baked or mashed.
• Bulls Blood Beet: The most beautiful and classic of the early heirloom beets.
• Tennis Ball Lettuce: A classic small bundle of buttery tender leaves, a variety grown in the 1790s by Thomas Jefferson.
• Rouge D’Hiver Lettuce: An early French romaine from the 1830s, likely older. A red leaf heirloom known in Canada.
• Cups Potato: A small light brown to pink tuber with russet skin, Cups is one of the oldest documented British heirloom potatoes. Dating back to the 1770s, Cups survived the Irish Potato Famine. This variety may be better suited for agriculture than the dinner table. Grand Portage is one of a very few historic gardens in the U.S. growing an 18th century potato variety.
• Bodega Red Potato: A rare early 19th century potato. It’s history from South America Indigenous farmers to the United States is fascinating and includes becoming by the 1840s the “Official” potato of miners during the Gold Rush.
• Arikara Melon: Mentioned being consumed by Lewis & Clark in North Dakota, this melon has been grown by the Mandan, Arikara, and Hidatsa people. It is debated if indigenous gardeners obtained these from 18th century traders coming up from
• St. Louis or early Spanish visitors to the Northern Plains.
• Flat Dutch Cabbage: Brought to America by early Dutch travelers. This variety appears in Canada’s first nursery catalogue of 1827. One of oldest cabbages in cultivation.
• West India Burr Gherkin: Cucumber variety believed to be native to Africa, and introduced to the U.S. in the 1790s. Pickled and boiled by the 3rd president Thomas Jefferson (who was known to be a lover of pickled gherkins).
• Kuttiger Carrot: A white European carrot variety dating back to the 15th century.
• Lafayette Bush Bean: Came from France in 1776. Rumored to have been brought to North Americas by French General Marquis de Lafayette during the American Revolution.
• Bere Barley: Common at Fur Posts, among the earliest known barley. 2024 is the first time growing it here at Grand Portage.

The Seed Trade

American Indian tribes had well established trade routes long before the first European explorers arrived in North America. Along with other items, seeds were traded among Indian tribes. The explorers and settlers brought their seeds with them to North America. When the Indians and early settlers started trading, seeds were among the objects exchanged. Indians adopted peas and parsnips, and the settlers began growing beans, squash, and corn in their gardens.

The Original Grand Portage Garden

According to diaries of fur traders who were at Grand Portage, the main crop grown in the garden was potatoes. Diaries of fur traders at interior North West Company posts beyond Grand Portage and a 1797 inventory taken at Grand Portage suggest that other vegetables were grown as well. The garden provided fresh vegetables for North West Company gentlemen who came for Rendezvous. The garden also produced vegetables for winter storage and use by the few Company employees who were stationed at Grand Portage for the winter. Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) women and sometimes voyageurs planted and tended the gardens.

Three Sisters garden – squash, beans, corn grown together

NPS photo

Today’s Garden

The present garden consists of two raised beds. The beds are not historic because the ground under the beds has not been completely excavated by archeologists. Raised beds are a way to re-create the original gardens and not disturb any artifacts that are still in the ground underneath the beds. Gardening was a traditional summer activity of the Ojibwe women.

The Three Sisters garden bed, located outside the palisade by the Ojibwe Village, shows a traditional Native American style of planting. The Three Sisters – corn, beans, and squash – are grown together in a field. The Three Sisters balance and nourish each other. Corn is planted in hills and feeds heavily on the soil. Beans send their runners up the corn stalks and add nitrogen to the soil. Squash is planted at the ends of corn fields and also between corn plots in a field. Squash sends its long, prickly runners through the small rows discouraging both small animals and weeds as well as helping to hold moisture in the ground.

The garden bed located inside the palisade behind the kitchen represents a typical fur trade kitchen garden. The kitchen garden is planted with a mix of Native American, European, and Asian vegetables and herbs. A more European-gardening style is used, with vegetables planted in rows instead of hills and beans running up poles rather than cornstalks.

Seeds saved from historic heirloom vegetables

NPS photo

The Importance of an Heirloom Garden

The historic seeds used in today’s garden are called heirlooms. Heirlooms are open-pollinated seeds that were grown before the 1940s. Plants grown from open-pollinated seeds will reliably reproduce seeds with the genetic blueprint for that same plant year after year. As a result, open-pollinated seeds are ideal for saving and using in next year’s garden.

Newer hybrid seeds were first developed and sold in the 1930s. Hybrids combine desirable qualities of their parent plants such as high yield under many conditions and disease resistance. However, hybrid seeds must be produced under controlled conditions and cannot be reliably saved. Seeds saved from hybrid plants tend to revert back to one of the parent plants, or be sterile. Hybrid seeds must be obtained each year from various seed companies. Because of their desirable qualities, farmers started using hybrid seeds and stopped saving Heirloom seeds. As a result, many older vegetable varieties were lost forever.

The loss of older open-pollinated vegetable varieties has resulted in less genetic diversity in the world’s food crops. Genetic diversity is needed to help maintain a stable world food supply and to provide breeding stock to produce hybrids. The danger of disease wiping out a whole vegetable crop is high if there are only a few open-pollinated varieties of that vegetable remaining.

By researching, locating, growing, and saving heirloom seeds, the historic gardens at Grand Portage National Monument are helping to preserve the genetic diversity in the food plant world.

What You Can Do

• Support or join a non-profit seed saving organization
• Consider growing one or two heirloom plant varieties, saving the seeds, and handing them down to the next generation