Our Garden

In 2000, the living history volunteers of The Friends of Jerusalem Mill added a kitchen garden behind the Cooper/Gun Shop. The garden displays plants and gardening techniques used by families 250 years ago to provide food and medicine. The produce from our garden is used and consumed on site during our hearth cooking demonstrations.

Kitchen Gardens provide vegetables for immediate use throughout the spring, summer, and fall, and a few varieties of vegetables for winter, as well as herbs for seasonings and medicines.

Root vegetables can be stored below the frost line in a root cellar to prevent freeze damage, and herbs grown over the summer are hung to dry from rafters for easy access as well as to preserve them for future use. Other vegetables, such as beets and cucumbers, can be pickled for preservation, and cabbages can be preserved by making sauerkraut.

Raised beds are preferred for kitchen gardens to better shield the plants from animals and enable a denser planting. Raised beds are also easier to prepare, plant, and maintain. They are usually made with wood, although the walls of the beds were often made in earlier periods with well packed earth. Grass growing on the sides would help hold the beds together.

Kitchen Garden

Preparing the kitchen garden for winter