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Coordinates: 32°12′51″N 110°59′10″W / 32.214124°N 110.986168°W / 32.214124; -110.986168
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Mission Garden (Tucson, AZ)

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{{Short description|Living agricultural museum}}

Mission Garden
Sign welcoming visitors to Mission Garden
Sign welcoming visitors to Mission Garden
Map
Location946 W. Mission Lane, Tucson, AZ, United States
Coordinates32°12′51″N 110°59′10″W / 32.214124°N 110.986168°W / 32.214124; -110.986168
TypeLiving agricultural museum
Visitors17,000 (2023)
Executive directorAlyce Sadongei
Nearest parkingOn site (no charge)
Websitewww.missiongarden.org

Introduction

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Mission Garden occupies four acres at the base of Sentinel Peak near Tucson, Arizona, in the Southwest of the United States. Its adobe walls enclose heritage crops and heirloom trees representing cultures that have lived along the Santa Cruz River (Arizona) in the Sonoran Desert for over 4,000 years. People who have lived in the region include the Hohokam, the Tohono O’odham, Spanish colonials and other Europeans, Mexicans, Chinese, and people of African descent. As a result, Mission Garden includes agricultural crops that originated in many places (Image 1). Some of the plants that Mission Garden educates visitors about are included in the Ark of Taste's catalog of heritage foods from around the world. White Sonoran wheat and O'odham pink bean exemplify such foods. Visitors to Mission Garden also come to learn about gardening in arid environments, as well as to explore agricultural and culinary aspects of their own cultural backgrounds. Mission Garden tends constantly changing garden plots and hosts both regular and special events about these various foods and how different cultures have grown them. The gardens and events demonstrate a combination of traditional and modern knowledge related to growing and preparing food in this hot and arid region. Knowledge about cultivars and methods that succeed in the Sonoran Desert are especially relevant in the context of food insecurity and climate change.

World map of major agricultural crop origins
Image 1. World map of major agricultural crop origins

[Mission Garden aims] to preserve, honor, protect, restore, re-create and promote the cultural heritages and historic landscapes of Tucson’s Birthplace at the foot of Sentinel Peak.[1]

Mission Garden's beginnings go back to 1999, when Tucson voters authorized a new tax district to develop cultural and recreational amenities and historic re-creations.[2] This living agricultural museum was among several projects whose design and initial construction were funded by those taxes. The 501(c)3 non-profit Friends of Tucson's Birthplace shepherded the Mission Garden project over several years, and this group continues to help fund and manage the place. This historical and cultural resource is also significant because it figured in Tucson’s successful application to UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network. And in 2015, Tucson became the first City of Gastronomy in the United States, noted especially for its culture and development of Sonoran Mexican cuisine.[3][4] People who come to Tucson from all over the world because of the City of Gastronomy designation often include Mission Garden among their food-related destinations. Recent media attention has included pieces in Bon Appétit, the Boston Globe, the Denver Post, Forbes, and the New York Times.

History of the Site

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Mission Garden is located in the watershed of the 210-mile Santa Cruz River (Arizona), an area that has been continuously farmed for over 4000 years.[5] The earliest inhabitants of the area whose agricultural practices are established by archeological research grew agave and corn. Mission Garden represents this early agriculture in the agave-covered hillside along the entrance path, an agave roasting pit, a reconstructed pithouse, and plots growing Hohokam crops such as corn and squash.

Plots also represent the Tohono O’odham, who were called Papago by the Spanish colonists arriving in the area in the 1690s. When the Jesuit priest Eusebio Kino first visited the area in 1697,[6] he found people raising onions, corn, and cotton with the summer monsoons and small canals to distribute the river's water. After the Spanish arrived, the O’odham people living near the mission added winter crops such as winter wheat to their diet.[7]

San Xavier del Bac mission in 1913
Image 2. Mission San Xavier del Bac - c1913
Mission San Cosme y Damián de Tucsón seen from Sentinel Peak, 1880
Image 3. Mission San Cosme y Damián del Tucsón seen from Sentinel Peak, 1880

A few years after his first contact with these O’odham people, Father Kino established near the Santa Cruz River a chapel visited by priests from Mission San Xavier del Bac, which was about 10 miles away (Image 2). That chapel would become the San Agustin Mission del Tucson (Image 3; the mission was later called the Mission San Cosme y Damián; see also Spanish missions in Arizona). The San Agustin Mission eventually had a church, a two-story residence for priests, a granary, tanning vats, a soap factory, a blacksmith shop and smelter, and cemetery areas - all surrounded by a compound wall.[8] Mission Garden is named for this mission and located in almost exactly the same place as the original mission’s gardens and orchards were. Mission Garden’s Spanish Colonial area features fruits such as grapes, quince, pomegranate, Valencia oranges, peaches, plums, and apricots. Vegetables such as carrots, beets, and cardoon also represent this influence on the area, as do medicinal or culinary herbs such as caraway, mint, chicory, garlic, and marjoram. Mission Garden's model acequia shows another way that the Spanish colonials influenced agriculture in the area (Image 4).

Model acequia
Image 4. Model acequia at Mission Garden
Gadsden Purchase area in current Arizona and New Mexico
Image 5. Gadsden Purchase area in current Arizona and New Mexico

The Presidio San Agustín del Tucsón was established in 1775, which eventually expanded to become the city of Tucson. Another historical event that informs Mission Garden is Mexico’s 1821 independence from Spain, when the mission system began to fail and Mexico claimed the area. In 1848, Mexico ceded this to the United States; and in 1854, the Gadsden Purchase added the Arizona Territory to the United States (Image 5). Mission Garden’s Mexican and Territorial gardens represent this period. Tucson's growing population included indigenous and Hispanic people who had lived in the area for many generations before the arrival of Union and Confederate soldiers. The railroad arrived in 1880, which brought Chinese workers to the area as well. By the 1930s, the farms that these Chinese people raised food on had disappeared. Mission Garden’s Chinese garden represents these influences.

Another influence on the area was the 1887 Sonora earthquake, which lowered Tucson’s water table. Human factors such as overgrazing and pumping groundwater for agriculture and industry also contributed to the Santa Cruz River’s decline.[9] For example, Tucson Pressed Brick began operation in 1894, mining clay and firing bricks just west of the river.[10] The company was an important employer for the region, and it supplied material for local buildings through 1963. But, its digging near the by then abandoned San Agustin Mission was detrimental to the buildings. Further, the farms near the river had become Tucson neighborhoods.

The land that Mission Garden occupies was part of a landfill or dump that Tucson used in the 1950s and 1960s.[11] This landfill included the bulldozed remains of Father Kino's San Agustin Mission. In the 1980s, neighborhood protests stopped a four-lane road from being built through the site. Then, the tax district approved in 1999 launched planning to use this land as the project that is now Mission Garden.[2] Archeological research begun in 2001 and finished in 2008 informed continued work on the plans for Mission Garden, but the construction that had been started in 2008 was stalled by a country-wide economic downturn. (References in this article to Archeology Southwest's Fall 2018 volume summarize that research.) In 2011, Friends of Tucson's Birthplace and Pima County entered an agreement to develop, operate, and maintain Mission Garden. Volunteers cleaned the area, improved the soil, and put in water lines. The first 120 trees, which the Kino Heritage Fruit Trees Project grew from 17th and 18th century cultivars, were planted in 2012.[12] Every year since then has seen additional work on various garden plots and special events.[13]

Grounds

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Visitors who come through the main gate are usually met by a docent who reviews a map of the grounds with them, pointing out historical timelines and thematic areas, as well as noting current and future events. Visitors can explore the grounds on their own or have docent-guided tours. Thematic areas are described immediately below.

Entry garden

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Image 6. Ocotillo flowers

A number of native plants grace the path from Mission Garden’s visitor parking area to the mesquite plank gates of the main entrance. These plants include trees that will eventually shade the path. Among them are desert hackberry, canyon hackberry, Arizona ash, and mesquites. Other plants growing along the entrance path include ocotillo (Image 6), brittlebush, bamboo muhly, and Fremont wolfberry.

Agave trincheras by entrance path at Mission Garden
Image 7. Agave trincheras by entrance path at Mission Garden

East of the path are hillside terraces showing a technique used by ancient Hohokam farmers to grow agaves for food and fiber. Each plant is set above a small pile of rocks that slows down the run-off as it rains; these small retaining walls are called trincheras (Image 7). Video by Justin Risley shows such planting and demonstrates one of Mission Garden's educational events as well as its collaboration with other organizations focused on the Sonoran Desert.[14] In this example, collaborators included Bat Conservation International and the Borderlands Restoration Network, groups that were helping plant agaves because these plants support migrating nectar feeders such as bats. Archaeologists have found entire hilltops marked by trincheras, as well as stone tools for processing agave and pits for roasting agave, all of which indicate the importance of this crop to these ancient peoples.[15]

Because Mission Garden is next to a former city dump, trash was exposed when the soil covering the landfill eroded. So, Mission Garden sought a way to stop the erosion. Because planting trees or shrubs there was not an option, rocks were piled where rivulets were forming in the hillside by the main entrance and extra soil was brought in for planting agaves. So the trincheras outside that wall of Mission Garden represent a restoration of degraded land that avoided potentially hazardous contact with the old landfill, countered erosion along the entrance path, and improved the path with plantings that show this ancient technique for harvesting water in a place where rain is rare.

Spanish Colonial garden and orchard

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Quince on tree at Mission Garden
Image 8. Quince on tree at Mission Garden

Mission Garden's main entrance opens onto an orchard whose first trees were planted in 2012. Collected by ethnobotanist Jesús Manuel García-Yánez in collaboration with the Kino Heritage Fruit Trees Project, these trees represent those that fed the San Agustin Mission, the mission for which this living agricultural museum is named.[16] As of 2023, the orchard grows close to 200 heirloom figs, grapefruit, limes, oranges, quince (Image 8), pomegranates, olives, and stone fruit such as peaches and apricots. Many of these trees were propagated from older trees found in Southern Arizona and Northern Mexico. For example, the Sosa Carrillo cultivar of the Black Mission Fig came from a centenarian tree at the house where Leopoldo Carrillo and his family lived in downtown Tucson. Photographs from the 1930s show this tree, and the family's descendants believe that the mother tree grew from a cutting from the San Agustin Mission’s orchard. The Kino Heritage Fruit Trees Project establishes the legacy of trees like that cultivar through such interviews, as well as by reference to accounts written 150-300 years ago, such as records for missions and mining towns.[16] Originally funded by the National Park Service, this project aims to find and re-establish cultivars or stocks of these historically important fruit trees. Mission Garden is one of several partners in this enterprise.

Canyon grape at Mission Garden (Tucson)
Image 9. Canyon grape on ramada at Mission Garden

Mission Garden also has close to 40 heirloom grapevines of two historically notable varieties. Franciscan missionaries brought to the West coast of North America what is generally called the Mission grape, which they made wines with for their missions. Spanish scholars determined in 2007 that the Mission grape is related to a Spanish variety called Listan Prieto. Mission Garden’s original stock for this variety came from Capitol Reef National Park’s Fruita Rural Historic District, in particular the Niagara variety. Mission Garden's other variety is the Canyon grape, which is edible even though it is small and seedy (Image 9).

Spanish Colonial area at Mission Garden, fruit trees in background and wild datura on fence
Image 10. Mission Garden's Spanish Colonial area, fruit trees in background and wild datura on fence

The Spanish Colonial garden also features vegetables and medicinal or culinary herbs, planted as they would have been inside older Spanish orchards so that they benefit from the foliage and soil of surrounding trees (Image 10). Mission Garden’s choices here are influenced by letters that Jesuit missionary Phillip Segesser wrote home. In these letters, he asked for seeds of plants like flax, turnip, carrot, beet, cauliflower, fennel, caraway, anise, sage, mint, chicory, garlic, celery, chives, and marjoram. Based also on gardens that are typical in modern Spain, the Spanish Colonial garden might also grow food like spinach, cabbage, artichoke and cardoon, fava beans, potatoes, leeks, peas, radishes, and carrots; and herbs like chamomile, calendula, basil, borage, dill, and parsley. Ornamental flowers also abound in and around this garden, adding beauty and attracting pollinators.

Early Agriculture and Hohokam gardens

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Wild cotton at Mission Garden
Image 12. Wild cotton at Mission Garden
Amaranth, onion, and 60-day corn
Image 11. Amaranth, onion, and corn at Mission Garden
Reconstructed pithouse at Mission Garden
Image 13. Reconstructed pithouse at Mission Garden

Archeological research along the Santa Cruz River has uncovered evidence of several strategies of foraging and farming that people who lived there used to sustain themselves.[17] For example, a small-cobbed variety of corn, as well as squash and beans dated around the same time, show that early agriculture at this site included the synergistic three sisters used by various Indigenous peoples across Central and North America.[18] There is also evidence in the archeological record that these ancient farmers grew amaranth (Image 11).[19] To show variants of these and other crops that succeeded in the arid environment of Southern Arizona, Mission Garden grows food crops such as grain amaranth, cushaw squash, chapalote corn,[20] tepary beans, and little barley. Cotton is another example of an early crop, and Mission Garden grows both wild and domesticated versions (Image 12).

In addition to featuring foods such as those noted above, the Early Agriculture and Hohokam gardens also show farming methods that were used to grow these crops. There is evidence by at least 2100 BC of Hohokam pithouses that were used for living in, for storage, and for ceremonies (Image 13).[21] These early farmers populated stable, agricultural settlements in the Santa Cruz River’s fertile floodplain, and used canal systems for irrigating crops with water from the river.[22] The archeological record shows that the canals were expanded and crops such as cotton and agave were domesticated shortly after. At that time, Hohokam homes along the river were organized around formal courtyards, with groups of courtyards having their own cemeteries, agave roasting pits, and ballcourts.[23]

O'odham gardens

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60-day corn at Mission Garden (Tucson)
Image 14. 60-day corn at Mission Garden
Signage for Tohono O'odham garden
Image 15. Signs for Tohono O'odham gardens

Mission Garden shows the field crops that the Tohono O’odham farmed before contact with Europeans, when they relied to a large extent on monsoon rains for water and therefore emphasized foods that grow in warmer months. These crops include a short and fast-growing corn (ki:kam ku:n) (Image 14), greens such as amaranth (chuhuggia i:wagi), and tepary beans (bab:wi). Food-related cultural details that a visitor might learn in this area is that O'odham farmers compare tepary beans to the stars in the Milky Way.[24] After European contact, the Tohono O’odham also farmed garlic and wheat. The White Sonora wheat is a noteworthy heritage grain now being used by craft bakers such as Don Guerra.[25] In addition to pre- and post-colonial crops, Mission Garden demonstrates methods for cultivating such crops, as these methods also changed over time. (Image 15)

Mexican garden

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Arbor in Mexican garden at Mission Garden
Image 16. Arbor in Mexican garden at Mission Garden

Mission Garden represents Mexican influences on food growing in the area from a relatively short period of time around Mexico’s independence from Spain and the purchase from Mexico by the United States of what is now the state of Arizona. It was a time when Mexican farmers grew some crops in small, irrigated fields or huertas, typically cultivating just enough food to support a family. Drought-tolerant crops such as winter wheat and barley were typical, as were beans, chilies, onions, and melons. Spanish Colonial canals or acequias distributed water to these fields. But the acequia-supported system of huertas collapsed as the population in the area grew.

Nopal varieties at Mission Garden
Image 17. Nopal varieties at Mission Garden
Mexican sweet lime at Mission Garden
Image 18. Mexican sweet lime at Mission Garden

Around that time, Tucson was a small town with dirt roads. Many people washed clothes and cooked meals in their backyards, activities that were often done under a small lean-to or ramada and under shade-providing plants (Image 16). Hispanic Tucsonans probably lived much as do the modern-day inhabitants of Magdalena de Kino, Mexico. Their small gardens would likely have grown corn (maíz), squash (calabacitas), fava beans (habas), chard (acelgas), and prickly pear (nopales) (Image 17). Culinary herbs such as rosemary (romero) and mint (hierba buena) would have been cultivated, as well as medicinal herbs such as rue (ruda) and wormwood (estafiate). Their fruit trees likely included Mexican sweet lime (Image 18), quince, mulberries, and loquats; their flowers likely included hollyhocks (San Joséses), geraniums (geranios), marigolds (cempasuchiles), and hibiscus (hibiscos).[26]

Moore medicinal garden

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Image 19. Jojoba in Moore medicinal garden

This area honors Michael Moore, an herbalist whose expertise included medicinal plants of New Mexico and Arizona. This garden samples plants native to the arid lands of Northern Mexico and Southwest United States. Plants typically growing in this area of Mission Garden include jojoba (Image 19), wild tobacco, desert verbena, damianita, Western mugwort, Indian root, and Mormon tea. Because plants such as these are adapted to the arid environment and require little water, visitors are encouraged to consider them for both landscaping and herbal remedies. This garden is another place showcasing combinations of traditional and modern knowledge.

Chinese garden

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Shrine and eggplant in Chinese garden
Image 20. Shrine and eggplant in Chinese garden

This area represents foods that Chinese Tucsonans grew between 1870 and 1930. Many of these people came from Taishan, in Southern China, originally to work on the Southern Pacific railroad and in mines. Some stayed in Tucson to work as farmers, growing and selling foods that Europeans had introduced such as strawberries, potatoes, carrots, lettuces, and spinach. They farmed small plots along the Santa Cruz River that they rented from landowners such as Leopoldo Carrillo. The Chinese farmers took their produce to town in wagons, keeping it fresh with wet gunny sacks. They sold this produce door to door, paying a percentage of their earnings to the landowners who they rented their small farms from.[27] They also kept fruit trees such as apples, peaches, and jujubes. Foods that these early Chinese farmers grew for themselves included bitter melon (fu qua), long beans (dou jiao), and Chinese broccoli (kai lan). Mission Garden also documents the history of Tucson’s Chinese grocery stores. There were 60 Chinese grocery stores in 1938, and 80 by 1974. Hispanic Tucsonans being their main clientele, the two communities developed an important symbiosis.[28][29] The grocers kept gardens behind their shops to grow food for themselves such as amaranth (yin choy), winter melon (don qua), luffa, eggplant (Image 20), and goji berries. They also grew orange, kumquat, grapefruit and pomelo trees, as well as stone fruits such as peaches, plums, and apricots. The choices in this area of Mission Garden reflect a collaboration with the Tucson Chinese Cultural Center that honors the legacy of the Chinese farmers who influenced the local food culture. Seeds that had been saved for generations were given to Mission Garden to grow, for example, heritage bitter melons, luffas, long beans and garlic chines.[27]

Z's garden of native plants

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Foothills palo verde flowers
Image 21. Foothills palo verde flowers
Screwbean mesquite
Image 22. Screwbean mesquite

Mission Garden also features an area devoted only to native plants. It emphasizes many of the wild foods that can be found in the Sonoran Desert.[30] Visitors studying these plants might imagine what they would be able to eat here if they had to survive in the Sonoran Desert. Answers might include mesquite beans, cactus fruit, and agave. This area honors Nancy Zierenberg, who worked with the Arizona Native Plant Society for many years. The Tucson chapter of this society helped develop this area of Mission Garden. The plants in this area include foothills palo verde (Image 21), ironwood, mesquites (including the screwbean, Image 22), jojoba, wolfberry, whitethorn acacia, creosote, and many varieties of cactus.

Territorial and Statehood gardens

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As of 2023, these gardens were still being planned. They will eventually explore agricultural traditions that characterized these periods in the history of the state of Arizona. For example, because the state's early economy emphasized the five Cs of copper, cotton, cattle, citrus, and climate (i.e., tourism),[31] cotton and citrus are planned for this area.

Yoemi garden

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As of 2023, this garden was being developed in collaboration with local Yaqui communities. First arriving in the area along with Spanish colonists, other groups of Yoemi people came at the end of the 19th century to escape unsafe conditions in northern Mexico. The gardening traditions of these people include varieties of basil, leafy greens, corn, and wheat. This garden will also feature gourds that can be made into ceremonial instruments.

Africa in the Americas garden

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Mission Garden's bottle tree
Image 23. Mission Garden's bottle tree

People of African descent have also influenced the Tucson area for a long time. First, Estevanico the Moor visited the watershed that Mission Garden now celebrates back in 1539. The expedition of Juan Bautista de Anza that went from Tubac Presidio to Monterey, California, and back again to Tubac in 1774 also included people of African descent. Among the soldiers who established the Presidio San Agustín del Tucsón in 1775 were four people of African descent.[32] Later arriving Black settlers brought their gardening practices and modified them to succeed in the desert. For example, grains such as sorghum and millet that are native to Africa could grow in the Sonoran Desert. But rice, which is also an African staple, needs more water than the region provides.[33] In part because of isolation from other groups of people, these people's gardening practices had to be self-sustaining all year long.[32] Mission Garden honors these early practices by growing greens like collards, mustards, and spinach, as well as root crops such as onions and carrots. Melons, gourds, cowpeas, and moringa can also handle arid environments and likely contributed to this diet. Two design details in this garden are of particular interest: First, the garden takes the shape of the continent of Africa. Second, the garden has a bottle tree representing traditions from Western and Central Africa, where glass bottles are sometimes used to deflect or attract spirits (Image 23).[34] Many of the bottles in this tree were found during Mission Garden's development.

Structures

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Tarahumara granary at Mission Garden
Image 25. Tarahumara granary at Mission Garden
Ocotillo ramada at Mission Garden
Image 24. Ocotillo ramada at Mission Garden

To the immediate left of the main entrance is a building made of adobe brick with a ramada made of ocotillo branches. This area functions mainly as a gift shop, but it is also a repository for information that visitors are typically interested in. Resources there include, for example, extensive plant descriptions and the archeological research that informed the establishment of Mission Garden. A number of free-standing ramadas and arbors are scattered around the grounds of Mission Garden, where visitors can find shade and places to sit (Image 24). Restrooms are located on the East side of a professional kitchen, the latter used for preparing foods that feature Mission Garden's produce and supporting various special events. For example, the gift shop sells orange and grapefruit marmalades, and the San Ysidro Festival sells pozole de trigo (a soup from Mexican cuisine that is often made with hominy). The reconstructed pithouse was built by middle and high school students, a project led by experimental archeologist Allen Denoyer. This replica was based on a pithouse floor that was excavated during the development of Mission Garden.[35] Mission Garden also has a granary and a chicken coop; these small buildings were originally a gift to the Arizona State Museum from the Tarahumara of Mexico (Image 25). Finally, a general purpose building has staff offices, a library, and indoor meeting space that is used for some educational events.

Public Engagement

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Regular visits

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A roadrunner named Kevin
Image 26. A roadrunner named Kevin

On-site visitor parking near the main gate is free. Although admission to Mission Garden is free, small donations such as $5 are appreciated. Open hours change with the seasons. For example, Mission Garden typically opens earlier in the morning during the summer than in the winter because Sonoran Desert temperatures can be extremely high. Visitors can explore on their own or ask for a docent to guide them through all or part of the gardens. Mission Garden offers weekly opportunities to learn about foods currently being harvested the origins through tastings and recipes and related material. Child visitors can follow the Bookworm Path whenever Mission Garden is open. This series of 20 stations feature books such as The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle and encourage activities such as finding a metate, a bee, or a roadrunner. (The roadrunners that visit or live in Mission Garden are named Kevin, Image 26.)

Special events

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Mission Garden hosts a number of monthly events. These include guided bird walks (the cited webpage links to a bird list with photographs),[36] presentations on traditional O’odham agriculture, and hands-on archeology activities.[37] Special workshops and other educational events occur irregularly but often. Examples with associated fees include workshops on propagation and grafting of fruit trees and on making herbal salves. There are also several annual events that are coordinated with the harvest of particular crops and usually involve other entities: Mission Garden contributes to the Tucson Agave Heritage Festival, which celebrates the cultural and commercial importance of agave, by roasting agave hearts and offering tastings of agave and mezcal. Honoring the patron saint of laborers and farmers, Mission Garden's San Ysidro Festival starts with blessings from representatives of the San Xavier District of the Tohono O’odham Nation. A field of heritage wheat is harvested, threshed, winnowed, and milled with traditional methods PHOTO. Visitors also enjoy foods using this wheat, such as craft baker Don Guerra's bread and pozole de trigo.[25] Another example is Mission Garden's Membrillo Festival, which celebrates quince with empanadas de membrillo and cajeta de membrillo. Mission Garden's website is kept up to date, and its calendar shows the regularly occurring and special events.

Also, fund raisers and one-off celebrations such as weddings can be scheduled at Mission Garden. Field trips for schools and other groups are also common; these can be arranged for particular emphases, depending on available personnel.

Community relations

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As described above, much of what Mission Garden accomplishes depends on collaborations with other organizations. Some of these organizations focus on animals. Mission Garden's model acequia, for example, hosts the Gila topminnows through a collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.[38] Other collaborating organizations focus on the history or culture of Northern Mexico and Southern Arizona. Volunteers from the Presidio San Agustín del Tucson Museum, for example, often contribute to festivals by demonstrating clothing and tools that were used by people who lived in the Tucson presidio built in 1775. Yet other collaborating organizations focus on the local foodscape. Volunteers from Iskashitaa Refugee Network, for example, help grow and distribute Mission Garden's food; they also demonstrate traditional agricultural methods during special events such as the San Ysidro Festival. Local, US-based, and international chefs also collaborate with Mission Garden on occasion.[39] Visitors often ask what Mission Garden does with the food that it produces. Much of it is given to food pantries such as those run by the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona and to refugee groups such as Iskashitaa. Some of the produce also goes to Mission Garden's volunteers.

Management

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Leadership

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Mission Garden's Executive Director is Alyce Sadongei. Sadongei served previously in various roles at the Smithsonian Institution and the Arizona State Museum; she is a current member of the Historical Commission for Tucson and Pima County. As of February, 2024, the staff also includes the following people:

The Friends of Tucson's Birthplace board of directors also helps Mission Garden with fund-raising and management. As of February, 2024, the members of this board are:

A number of donors and distinguished friends also influence Mission Garden's management. Among the latter are baker Don Guerra, a James Beard Award winner who is known for collaborating with farmers who grow heritage grains;[40][41] Gary Paul Nabhan, a scholar who is known for his leadership of local food and heirloom seed saving movements; and Linda Ronstadt, a musician who kept her home in Tucson for many years and remains connected to the community.[41]

Mission Garden also hosts several interns every year, many with connections to the University of Arizona. Some work in the gardens for course credit or through programs such as Americorp or the Paul D. Coverdell Fellows Program. Coverdell Fellow Brad Kindler, for example, used work at Mission Garden to write a 2018 Masters thesis describing sustainable and innovative ways that food might be grown in the future, as environments face challenges such as scarcer water and higher temperatures.[42][43]

Volunteers

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In 2023, over 300 people supported Mission Garden by volunteering over 11,000 hours in various roles.[12] Docents are typically experts in particular garden plots, types of food, a specific culture, or a specific era of history. They do field trips in the area and regularly study materials on such subjects in order to orient visitors arriving at the gates to Mission Garden. They give tours to families, classes, and other groups; they help plan and carry out events at Mission Garden, as well as supporting its presence at other venues. Because Mission Garden uses organic techniques and grows plants in areas representing different cultures and times, many gardening tasks are labor intensive. After some orientation and training, volunteers can largely choose schedules and tasks to their interests and abilities. Tasks that gardening enthusiasts typically do include preparing soil for planting, planting seeds or seedlings, weeding and picking off bugs, irrigating, mulching, and harvesting and measuring the results. Volunteers can also help with Mission Garden's seed saving enterprise or work in the library. Mission Garden's gift shop is usually also covered by volunteers, and every special event has opportunities for volunteers such as welcoming visitors and preparing food and cleaning up afterwards.

References

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  1. ^ "About". Mission Garden. Retrieved 2024-02-14.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  2. ^ a b "What is Rio Nuevo?". Rio Nuevo. Retrieved 2023-11-17.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. ^ Severson, Kim (August 23, 2016). "Tucson Becomes an Unlikely Food Star". New York Times.
  4. ^ Nalewicki, Jennifer (January 13, 2016). "What Makes Tucson Deserving of the Title of the United States' First Capital of Gastronomy". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 2024-02-15.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  5. ^ Doelle, William (Fall 2018). "Tucson Underground". Archaeology Southwest Magazine. 32 (4): 3–8.
  6. ^ "Eusebio Francisco Kino". National Park Service. February 24, 2015. Retrieved 2023-10-23.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  7. ^ Thiel, Homer (Fall 2018). "The Village of S-cuk Son and Mission San Agustin". Archeology Southwest Magazine. 32 (4): 31–33.
  8. ^ Thiel, J. Homer; Mabry, Jonathan B., eds. (March 2006). Rio Nuevo Archaeology Program, 2000–2003: Investigations at the San Agustín Mission and Mission Gardens, Tucson Presidio, Tucson Pressed Brick Company, and Clearwater Site. Tucson, Arizona: Center for Desert Archaeology, Tucson, Arizona.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: year (link)
  9. ^ Regan, Margaret (May 3, 2001). "A River Ran Through It". Tucson Weekly. Retrieved 2020-10-07.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  10. ^ Diehl, Michael (April 2, 2015). "The Tucson Pressed Brick Company at Work and at Rest". KIVA. 71 (2): 165–185 – via JSTOR.
  11. ^ Portillo, Ernesto (February 2, 2019). "Neto's Tucson: A park on the old 'A' Mountain landfill?". Arizona Daily Star. Retrieved 2023-11-21.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
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