Fort Larned Heritage Garden

Heritage Garden

• Post Gardens Past & Present

Solving a Unique Problem

Like a ship at sea, 19th century frontier forts sitting in the middle of a vast sea of prairie grass, found it hard to get fresh food. Before the days of refrigeration, or even the railroad for fairly quick delivery of goods, food at Fort Larned was mostly salted beef, bread or hardtack, and beans. And like the sailors on those sailing ships of old, this nutritionally poor diet led to a big problem with scurvy for the soldiers. It's no wonder that many of the officers and enlisted men took the trouble to plant vegetable gardens in the summer.

The experience of this year fully demonstrates that gardens may be cultivated at Fort Larned with results sufficient to warrant the labor. - Assistant Surgeon A.A. Woodhull, June 1870

Each spring we plant historic vegetable seeds and nurture them throughout the growing season to help tell this unique aspect of frontier miliary life - the struggle for fresh vegetables. You can find the garden behind the North Officers' Quarters in a fenced area.

During the summer it not only helps us tell this story, but on special event weekends visitor are encouraged to pick some vegetables and take a taste of Fort Larned home with them.

Using the Right Seeds

A bumper crop of cucumbers in the fall of 2013.

NPS Photo

Any historic garden needs historic seeds to grow the kinds of vegetables the people of that time period would have grown.

We use seeds varieties in our garden that were available before the 1870s. They're open-pollinated seeds that reliably reproduce seeds with the genetic blueprint for the same plant year after year. (Seeds from newer hybrid plants revert back to one of the parent plants, or are sterile and not reliable for saving.)

By growing open pollinated varieties and saving the seeds, Fort Larned is helping preserve genetic diversity as well as exploring the gardening aspect of military life

The Army got their seeds from seed catalogs or the post trader. Garden crops grown at Fort Larned included: beans, beets, cabbage, corn, cucumbers, lettuce, melons, onions, peas, radishes, spinach, squash, tomatoes, and turnips.