Colonial Kitchen Garden

The kitchen garden was a useful source of food, seasonings, and medicinals for a London Town family in the 1700s. Corn, wheat, and other field crops could be acquired from surrounding plantations or purchased at area markets. The family could rely on meat from surrounding plantations, area butchers, and sometimes hunters. Fish and shellfish could come from the river. International and exotic goods such as sugar, pepper, cinnamon, and mace would be available for purchase in London Town’s stores.

Here in town, the kitchen garden is smaller than the one-fourth acre generally needed to support the average, 6-8 person, colonial family on a plantation. This is because the urban family was involved with non-agricultural work and acquired the bulk of their foodstuffs from the markets and plantations as outlined above. The plants in the garden would most likely be ones the family really wanted to always have on hand.

The garden is laid out with a southern exposure, in a modified foursquare pattern that has been used for centuries. The garden year begins in winter, when animal dung is heaped upon the center beds to enrich the soil and to build up the beds for annual crops. Muddy paths are paved with refuse such as oyster shells and broken pottery. The housewife of 1700 prized vegetables that could be stored for the long winter, so you will find many root vegetables such as turnips, beets, parsnips and carrots growing here. Cabbage was also easy to store. Summer crops include beans, squash, cucumbers and peppers. Beans and squash were introduced to early colonists by the Native Americans, and were easy to dry and save for winter. Greens were used fresh in salads and as herbs cooked with meat.

Herbs were important for medicinal and other household uses. Perennial herbs were planted along the perimeter of the garden along the fence. Valerian was used as a sleeping aid; comfrey, made into a poultice or a salve, was used to heal cuts and sores. Feverfew could relieve a migraine and mullein was valued for multiple “virtues.” Its flowers steeped in oil, treated earache, and its leaves, applied as a dressing, imparted antiseptic properties. The dried flower stalks, dipped in wax or tallow, were burned as torches. Other herbs were useful as dyes, cleaning products and insect repellents.

African-American Garden

One-third of the African-American Garden is devoted to tobacco. Tobacco was the driving force of the colonial-Chesapeake economy. It is also a labor-intensive plant. Its need for constant care and attention meant that a large workforce was needed to provide England and Europe with enough tobacco to satisfy their desires. By the end of the seventeenth century, thousands of enslaved Africans had been brought to the Chesapeake to fill this need. As the eighteenth century progressed, more Africans were brought to the Chesapeake and slavery became entrenched in the region.

As more Africans entered the Chesapeake, and as the Europeans learned more about African foodways, the European diet became influenced by the Africans. The African-American Garden contains crop plants that would have been familiar to Native Americans and African American, either enslaved or free. London Town uses this garden to teach how these plants were used for food and how they influenced our own diets today. Some of these plants have their origins in Africa and the Caribbean. In season, the garden includes sorghum, peppers, watermelon, pumpkins, gourds, black-eye peas and collards.

Richard Hill Garden

Dr. Richard Hill, a London Town resident from 1721-1738, prepared and dispensed many plant-based remedies for his patients. He shared his discoveries with the Royal Society, a scientific organization in London that was interested in the natural history of the Americas. Through Dr. Hill’s letters we know of four plants that he used in his medical practice. One dried plant specimen that he sent to the Royal Society still exists in the British Museum. Another of his plant discoveries was illustrated in the first color book on botany, published in 1728. This garden contains the four plants mentioned by Dr. Hill in his letters as well as other native and European plants. The plants in the garden were used to make dye, repel insects, curdle milk into cheese, or provide a soft lining for baby’s diapers.