Harvesting Our Heritage - Garden Launch
We are partnering with the Community and Cultural Outreach (CCO) Office and Secretary of Natural Resources to expand our seed sharing program. Our new program, Harvesting our Heritage, will provide additional seeds to you! As part of this program, we want to share helpful information and share updates from the garden throughout the growing season.
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:
“Each seed is a piece of our heritage. As we plant and tend these seeds, we also cultivate our traditional knowledge, tend our culture, and nurture our connection to our identity and each other: past, present, and future. It is our honor, privilege, and obligation to preserve and strengthen this relationship for generations to come.”
Late Fall through Early Spring: Build Your Soil and Plan
This is the time to build (amend) the soil, make preparations, and plan your garden!
Cover crops - Lay the building blocks for a successful grow this coming season. I planted some cover crops in the late fall. The fava beans and clover are doing well. These both provide nutrients and biomass back into the soil when you till them in while also reducing weeds and erosion. You can also add compost and organic fertilizer to your soil.
Plan - plan what, where, and when you’re planting. It’s a good idea to rotate locations on a three year cycle if you have the space to do so to limit pest burden and help the soil rebuild to meet the plants’ needs. Also plan your water delivery method. I use a drip system.
Be lazy - do not do early spring garden clean-up. Wait until temperatures are consistently in the 50s or higher. If you can stand it, let the leaf litter and weeds be until the weather warms more. Beneficial insects like bees made their homes in the soil and litter. Being a little lazy now means more pollinators and happy plants later.
Mid-Late Spring: Plant!
Most of our seeds want warm soil temperatures. That means about 65 degrees Fahrenheit at 4 inches under the soil surface. That won’t happen until the nighttime temperatures are in the 50s. The garden beds are being prepared over the next couple weekends by tilling in the cover crops and adding some compost.
You can help warm the soil by adding or keeping leaf litter on it, which also provides important nutrients. Straw is another option but one I’m not doing again. It was messy and invited pill bugs (rolly pollies) that decimated my emerging beans last year, forcing me to take on additional interventions like beer traps, picking them off by hand, covering them with plastic cups, and starting seeds indoors to transplant when they’re larger.
What we’re planting when -
I started tobacco seeds indoors in late February along with some non-heirloom seeds (summer squash, ground cherries, tomatoes, peppers, basil, parsley, cilantro, arugula, chard…).
Corn will be planted in mid-April (April 12th). Corn should be directly sown in the ground starting in late March to mid April depending on the temperature. It does not transplant well and prefers the ground over containers. I’ve heard it said that we plant around the full moon after the last frost was over. For three sisters planting, corn is planted first with beans and squash following in 3-4 weeks, when selu is about 8 inches tall, to allow the corn to start growing and provide the structure for the beans. When planting any of our special heirloom seeds, you want to take care to prevent cross-breeding. Pollen from a different variety will change the genetics of subsequent seeds. This is especially important with our heirloom corn.
Trail of Tears and Turkey Gizzard beans will be planted in late April to early May, around the corn after the corn has grown to about 8 inches tall. I will be planting additional beans in other spots throughout the garden.
This year, I’m starting some Tan Pumpkin and Squash indoors today and will transplant out when it has multiple sets of leaves. This is an experiment. They will need to be handled very carefully as their roots are delicate. I am using 4 inch pots for this rather than smaller seed starting trays to enable the delicate transplanting later.
I’ll start Dipper Gourds indoors this weekend and hope to grow basket gourd also. These seeds have a hard protective coat and I found success when I clipped the tip of the seed with nail clippers and soaked them for a day in water.
ᏚᏯ Duya
Cherokee Trail of Tears Beans and Turkey Gizzard Beans
Pole beans
Direct sow or start indoors - they grow fast. Plant 1 inch deep.
Give them something to climb - I tie three 8-foot bamboo poles together at one end to make a teepee shape for the beans to climb. It’s easy and low-cost.
Full sun (6+ hours a day) but note that excessive heat curtails pollination. When it is very hot (over 100), you will likely experience a decrease in bean production. If the beans have a little shade from the hottest of the afternoon sun during the summer, they’ll be happier. However, they will survive regardless and start producing beans when the weather is less blisteringly hot.
Is a nitrogen fixer - adds nitrogen to soil
Cross pollination is not generally a concern, meaning you can grow both and still have seeds that are true to type next year
Pests - generally not a concern but pill bugs (rolly pollies) have been known to decimate young sprouts.
Harvest - mature and dry in pod
Foods - store dry and cook like usual dried beans (soak overnight, rinse, boil then simmer with salt and herbs until ready ~60-90 min). Add to soups, stews, salsas and so much more.
ᏎᎷ Selu
Corn: Colored Flour & White Eagle
Colored Flour Corn is a flour variety while White Eagle is a dent variety.
Direct sow in Spring to early Summer, 1-1.5 inches deep
4” soil temps ~65F
Full sun (6+ hours), fertilize well, mulch to retain moisture and limit weeds that will compete for soil nutrients.
Pollination – if you have a small cornpatch, you may need to help with pollination or you will have ears of corn that are not fully developed (it will look like patchwork with some developed corn kernels among undeveloped ones). The easiest method is to simply shake the stalks in the early morning to drop pollen from the tall tassels down to the corn silks. You can also clip a piece of tassel and then drag it across as many silks as you can to hand pollinate. However, these corn varieties get tall (12-14’ for me) so the second method requires a ladder.
Cross pollination concerns – wind pollinated (>1200 feet distance)
Pests - I’ve had aphid trouble in the past but not so much that I would want to use pesticides
Harvest - let dry on stalk
Foods - not for eating fresh straight off the stalk like sweet corn. It is best when nixtamalized (long soak with pickling lime)
Make hominy, grits, masa, cornmeal, flour
ᎧᏴᏎᏆ kayvsequa Cherokee Squash (Georgia Candy Roaster)
ᎢᏯ iya Cherokee Tan Pumpkin
Cucurbita maxima & moschata
Direct sow in Spring to early Summer - they prefer to not be transplanted due to their delicate root structure
4” soil temps ~65F
Plant in mounds - they don’t want to be too wet and this helps
Can have a long germination
Fertilize well, full sun, mulch after sprouting
Grows out widely (10x10 and further)
Cross pollination concerns - may cross pollinate between each other and with other varieties of pumpkins and hard-skinned squashes. To mitigate, grow only one variety, plant varieties at a distance of over 1000 feet if you have it, or hand pollinate and bag so you know you have a true to type seed for next year.
Foods – soups, roasted, desserts
ᏦᎳ tsola
Native Tobacco
One of our most important and sacred plants
Innumerable uses in culture and medicine
NOT a smoking tobacco, 9x strength and recreational smoking is an affront to our culture
Warm season plant (4” soil temps 65F) – press seeds on top of saturated soil, keep humid
Germinates in 1-2 days
Put small fan on sprouts to strengthen stems
User rich soil and keep it moist. Feed well with compost and/or fertilizer.
Transplant when numerous leaves appear, 10-12” apart
Full sun (6+ hours a day)
Cross-breeding possible with other tobacco species
Pests - Tobacco Hornworm; check daily and pick off if you see them
Harvest leaves as they slightly yellow (bottom up) and hang to dry, harvest seedpods when they dry
About the Cherokee Heirloom Garden and Seed Bank
“You can’t be Cherokee without Cherokee plants. And without Cherokee plants, there can be no Cherokee.”
As we know, prior to our forced removal from our eastern homelands, we grew an abundance of plants for food, cultural ceremonies, and medicinal uses. Cherokees were among the first botanists and agronomists. The Trail of Tears significantly reduced the volume and variety of our long-grown crops. Cherokee Nation staff along with Pat Gwin, Senior Director of Environmental Resources, established our first Native Plant Garden in Tahlequah in 2006. I was blessed to be able to visit in 2023 and walk amongst our precious plants, deeply rooted in Cherokee tradition.
This garden is used to educate and forge a legacy for future generations to know the plants our ancestors used. Visitors, citizens, and students can take guided tours to learn about the traditional plants grown there, such as white eagle & flour corn, redroot, rivercane, Trail of Tears beans, rattlesnake master, tobacco, goldenseal, ginseng, New Jersey tea, jewelweed, sunchokes, Cherokee dipper gourds, senna, purple coneflower, sochan (cut leaf coneflower), poke, possum grapes, passionflower, elderberry, sassafras, and hickory trees.
The Heirloom Garden helps to preserve tribal culture and language through school programs, including with symbology throughout and Cherokee signage with each plant. Also, the heirloom plants grown each year help replenish our Seed Bank. The Seed Bank is a plant and cultural preservation program that provides seeds to citizens for growing traditional Cherokees crops. Seeds are requested every year through the Gadugi Portal. If you miss the opportunity, friendly Cherokee gardeners may also be able to share with you.
From the Seed Bank: A Word to the Wise
“Please note the Seed Bank contains rare cultivars that are not commercially available and represent centuries of Cherokee culture and agriculture. It is important to preserve these rare genetics, so please be mindful of the directions denoted in this planting guide. Any divergence from these instructions could result in hybridization and loss of the plants' genetic integrity. These seeds have been produced in the Cherokee Nation by trained staff and are made available to Cherokee Nation citizens for cultural uses. This seed stock is not to be sold or offered for sale. The propagation and cultivation of these rare plants is the only way to assure their genetic preservation and the continuation of a vital component of Cherokee history. ᏩᏙ Thank you.”
For more information, email seedbank@cherokee.org or call 918-453-5336.
Ꮭ ᎢᎸᏢ ᎤᏩᏌ ᎤᏓᏙᎯᏳ ᎠᏣᎳᎩ ᎢᎴᎯᏳ ᏎᎷ ᏄᏫᏒᎾ ᏱᎦᎩ
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la ilvtlv uwasa udadohiyu atsalagi ilehiyu selu nuwisvna yigagi
“No self-respecting Cherokee would ever be without a cornpatch.” - Cherokee proverb
Three Sisters Planting
Three Sisters planting has been occurring for at least 700 years, with iterations of the method being documented as found throughout what is now the Eastern US by around 1300.
Newer research has now shown that the indigenous peoples of our original Eastern Woodland homeland had been farming for more than 5,000 years! This research speaks to Traditional Ecological Knowledge, a modern term applied to our long-practiced scientific method of acquiring deep knowledge over hundreds or thousands of years through direct contact with the environment. We developed agricultural expertise independently of other areas like southeast Asia, Mexico, and the Fertile Crescent.
“The Sisters all have their own way of living, but they thrive together through their connection and support of each other, much like we do as Cherokees! We’re better and stronger together. We must care for and nuture each other as we do our gardens.”
The Three Sisters planting technique represents a balanced and symbiotic practice. Sister Selu is the oldest and tallest. Selu’s cornstalks provide a structure for Sister Duya’s bean vines to climb for the sun. The beans, with nitrogen-fixing rhizobia bacteria that live on their roots, give back by returning nitrogen to the soil and feeding the hungry corn and pumpkin/squash. Sister Iya’s broad leaves shade the ground, slowing evaporation and preventing weeds.
Often originally attributed to the Haudenosaunee (or Iroquois), the Three Sisters intercropping method is found in many Cherokee gardens today, including mine (our oral histories and language do suggest we spent time with the Haudenosaunee before traveling to our southeastern homelands). The Three Sisters are well known to us as ᏎᎷ se-lu (corn), ᏚᏯ du-ya (beans) and, most likely for us, ᎢᏯ i-ya (pumpkin) rather than ᎧᏴᏎᏆ ka-yv-se-qua (squash). Though we do grow some great Cherokee squash also known as “Georgia candy roaster”.
There are many ways to grow the sisters together. The diagrams above give you a few options.
ᏩᏙ wado and happy growing!
— Sabrina McKinney
