Gardening History: Traditional Native American Farming

Thanksgiving is upon us! While this holiday is all about giving thanks and cultivating gratitude for all that we have, it’s also in part a look at the colonial history of the United States and its interactions with the Native Americans who comprised the first nations on this continent. We’ve talked about about Native American agriculture before in our blog about the “Three Sisters” system of gardening, but in the spirit of the season we’re taking another look now. Let’s dig in and learn more about some traditional Native American farming practices and how they work with their crops and the ecosystem around them.

Rainfall management and water management are important for any garden, but in the more arid parts of North America the indigenous farmers developed sophisticated yet practical ways of getting the most out of the water they had available. Many of these traditional gardening and farming practices are used successfully to this day. Terraced gardening like that used by the Hopi is one such approach—by building terraces or swales into a hillside Native gardeners and farmers created agricultural spaces that caught and held rain and runoff. This reduced the need for irrigation while also helping to limit runoff damage and soil loss. This is a good example of a theme found in historical and traditional gardening practices around the world: conserving resources and maximizing their use in order to build a long-lasting solution. Extensive canal systems such as those developed by the Hohokam  were also used to move water to the agricultural fields in controlled and manageable ways. Some of these are still in use and new ones are still being built.

Composting and soil enrichment also have a deep history among indigenous gardeners and farmers across North America. As with all gardening practices, they varied from place to place and environment to environment. You may remember being told in school that the native peoples of what is now New England and the Mid-Atlantic US used to bury a fish in their Three Sisters polyculture mounds as a form of fertilizer. Other regions had similar practices—some involved burying soil amendments directly into the garden bed or mound and others had separate compost heaps. Approaches to this change over time—like all gardeners and farmers, Native Americans and First Nations People have always experimented with new techniques, crops, and approaches to agriculture.

Domesticating native plants and animals is a global practice for farmers and gardeners—we all love to work with the local beauty and bounty around us and incorporate it into our garden spaces. As the first people to inhabit the Americas, indigenous gardeners and farmers made good use of the native plants and animals, domesticating them for use in their agriculture and in their cooking. As you may know, many of these plants and animals are still eaten in contemporary North America. Thanksgiving feast staples like turkey, cranberries, potatoes, and squash are all plants first cultivated by indigenous gardeners. Native American and First Nations gardeners and farmers are still developing new strains of seeds and new varietals of plants and animals, often based on rediscovered historical varietals. Many of these are available from organic seed vendors, and we encourage you to consider them for your own gardens.

Indigenous Agriculture is a Living Traditional

It’s important to remember that indigenous agriculture across the Americas is a living tradition. Native American and First Nations gardeners and farmers are still utilizing their various traditional agricultural techniques while also developing new approaches based on them. From rural farms to urban community gardens, these practices are still alive and evolving. Furthermore, there’s been a growth of interest in traditional indigenous agriculture as a way of addressing the changing needs of the 21^st century. So, as we’re giving thanks this holiday season, let’s express some gratitude for all the farmers and gardeners everywhere who are keeping our world vibrant, beautiful, and bountiful.