Highlights Archives
Wisconsin Gears Up for Gardening Season
April is the month that Wisconsin gardeners ache for all winter. Cooped up for months, gardeners can finally get back outside and dig their hands in the dirt now that spring has finally arrived. Although people have been gardening for thousands of years, the word garden, as a concept of managing land to create beauty rather than food alone, only came into the English language in the 14th century. Food remained the primary purpose of gardens for most people, however, until industrialization brought people to cities and away from plots of land where they could grow their own food.
Wisconsin's first gardeners were Indians who cultivated corn, squash, beans and potatoes. This was all in addition to the wild blueberries, gooseberries, raspberries, chokeberries, nuts, and rice that they could gather from the lush Wisconsin landscape. When white settlers arrived in the 19th century, establishing a garden was one of their first concerns. Most people, whether in town or in the country, grew their own garden crops, including potatoes, cabbage, beets, onions, turnips and rutabagas. From the Indians, settlers learned about Jerusalem artichokes, peanuts, sweet potatoes and sunflowers. Wisconsin's fertile soil proved especially fruitful to some gardeners, like this Madison family with their 14-foot-tall tomato plant!
Kitchen gardens contained not only vegetables but herbs that allowed settlers, especially European immigrants, to re-create the familiar tastes and aromas of the Old World. In fact, the appearance of ethnic dishes on Wisconsin tables was a tangible indication to immigrants that their transplanted lives were successfully taking root. For Germans, this often meant chives while the Scots and English grew sage. Almost everyone of middle and northern European descent planted dill for, among other things, pickling. A few patches of poppy appeared in Pomeranian, Belgian and Bohemian gardens in Brown, Kewaunee and Door counties. Current bushes were popular among Germans, British and Scandinavians.
Many Wisconsin residents also began planting gardens for ornamental purposes. Frances Kinsley Hutchinson detailed the creation of a garden and wildlife sanctuary at her country home in Lake Geneva in a series of books. Our Country Home was the first, published in 1907, is the only one that contains photographs of the estate. Though extremely wealthy (her husband was president of The Art Institute of Chicago), the Hutchinsons still felt it necessary to build a kitchen garden in addition to the formal gardens and wild areas. "Fond as we are of the wilderness," wrote Hutchinson, "when it comes to our daily food we have extremely civilized ideas, so of course a kitchen garden was a necessity."
You can learn more about gardening in Wisconsin and even experience the home garden for yourself this summer by visiting Old World Wisconsin, Pendarvis, Villa Louis and Wade House. Happy planting!
:: Posted April 19, 2006
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