8 novembre 2020 dimanche

75 degrees, clouds

2 mph, N wind

On this warm autumn day in the Illinois Country, garden seeds are still being collected and processed for use in gardens in the new year. Let’s take a moment to celebrate our heritage seeds harvested all season long in the jardin potager! This garden year has been an important one to many gardeners, whether experienced or novice.  At times throughout the year, it has been difficult to find the seeds needed to plant our gardens, as the demand for seeds dramatically rose as home and community gardens grew and expanded. As a response, special attention was given to gather more seed from the jardin potager than usual this past season and the French Colonial Heirloom Herb, Flower, and Vegetable Seed Collections continue to be offered online at the Heart of Illinois Country Heritage Artisan Shop link, hosted by Les Amis du Fort de Chartres.

Announcing new this fall, garden volunteer Jennifer Duensing is offering my French Colonial Heritage Seed Collections in her Illinois Country Farm Stand in Prairie du Rocher. Jennifer and Jason Duensing’s Illinois Country Harvest small sustainable heritage farm is just up the road from Fort de Chartres on 4074 State Route 155, near Prairie du Rocher. Their farm stand will be open every Saturday morning from now until December 19, 9 a.m. to noon. Jennifer also has her farm gathered dried flowers, beautiful wooden barn quilt blocks, and barn ornaments for sale in her farm stand this season. Check out their farm’s Illinois Country Harvest Facebook page for latest information and activities. If you would like to shop in person for the seed packets or peruse the wonderful items in Jennifer’s farm stand, please stop by on Saturday mornings!

Offering heirloom seeds has been an important and ongoing component of this independently funded heritage garden project located at Fort de Chartres and it has been a disappointment these past two seasons not to be able to host the usual site garden events, where free small seed packets and seed growing information could be shared. Seasonal flooding and the current pandemic have restricted Fort site use but these seed sharing opportunities will resume once normalcy can safely return to our lives. So, for now, my La Jardiniere’s heirloom seed collections can offer a way to share the French Colonial and Native Garden seeds and their history. Currently these heirloom seed collections now include seven different types. Newly added this fall, a French Colonial Heirloom Annual Flower Collection showcasing the easy to grow and much-loved period annual flowers grown in the Fort de Chartres jardin potager. All of the heirloom seed packet collections are packaged in the typical manner of an eighteenth-century letter and sealed with red wax. The package itself opens to detailed information reflecting the history and additional growing details of each variety. Ten individual small seed packets are contained in each vegetable, flower, and herb collection packet. The Three Sisters Native Garden collections contain corn, bean, and winter squash varieties plus additional information about this Native Peoples tradition. This summer there was hope to add a Late Summer-Early Autumn Seed Collection but was unable to locate adequate seed for the collection, so this new vegetable collection will have to wait until next year.

Update: The jardin’s heritage seed collections are now offered at Sassafras Creek Originals in Ste. Genevieve, Wednesday through Saturday all year round as of November 20.

Kandye Mahurin, Sassafras Creek Originals

A sincere thank you for the continuing interest in the Fort de Chartres Heritage Garden Project and the support of my efforts researching and offering heirloom seeds that allows exploration of the area’s rich French Colonial heritage through its historic foodways. Merci!

Carol Kuntz

 

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