The Future of Agriculture Grows in our Past

THE FUTURE OF AGRICULTURE GROWS IN OUR PAST

ARTICLE BY JOEL JOHNSON PHOTOS BY KENDALL KROESEN

Near the start of the 18th century, Father Eusebio Francisco Kino—a Jesuit priest whose time serving in the Pimería Alta made his a household name for modern Arizonans— noticed a thriving O’odham rancheria bordering the Santa Cruz River. Kino decided the population, at the base of what Tucsonans now call Sentinel Peak (or “A Mountain”), was significant enough to require a local mission to serve it. He designated the village a visita, or substation, of Mission San Xavier del Bac, calling it San Cosme del Tucson, a name derived from the Piman (O’odham), Shukshon, meaning “at the foot of black mountain.”

©Kendall Kroesen

In 1767, the Spanish removed the Jesuits from the New World and replaced them with Franciscans, who later fortified and expanded the mission. But, by 1821, the location was abandoned. Just as the Spanish removed the Jesuits, Mexico gave Spain the boot. Left behind, the adobe structure eventually melted back into the desert, literally adding another layer of history to the site.

Though named for the Spanish mission that once stood on its ground, the history of Mission Garden, in Tucson, Arizona, extends far beyond European contact. Tohono O’odham farmers practiced ak-chin floodwater farming in surrounding washes. Rock terraces brimmed with cultivated agave during the Hohokam period. In addition to uncovering a network of irrigated fields, 53 pithouses, thousands of storage pits and more than 113,000 artifacts, the Las Capas excavation in the Tucson basin revealed corn fossils dating back to 2100 B.C.

For anyone who still thinks of the Southwest as an arid wasteland, thousands of years of agricultural diversity on this site beg to differ. It was exactly for that reason that I found myself tagging along behind a tour of exchange students and filing through the mission’s walls almost exactly two years ago.

Our tour guide Roger Pfeuffer, Co-Chair of the Board of Directors for Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace, began by telling us just how deep the agricultural roots run along the banks of the Santa Cruz River. “This is the only piece of property that has been continuously cultivated for 4,100 years,” he explained. “These folks were farming using water from the Santa Cruz River, diverting it using acequias (canals) and rainwater.”

Community Outreach Coordinator Kendall Kroesen recognizes that this can be a challenging image to reconcile with the now dry riverbed of the Santa Cruz. “Because of the profound desertification of the Santa Cruz River floodplain during the last 100+ years, many Tucsonans of today can’t imagine flowing water, canals, and agriculture in Tucson,” he acknowledges. “Yet we have a deep and diverse heritage of agriculture, stretching back thousands of years and diversifying amazingly over time into the City of Gastronomy that is Tucson today.”

Mission Garden allows visitors to walk backwards through this timeline. The garden contains dozens of unique plots in which plants from each period of Tucson’s history are still being grown and cultivated.

Jesus Garcia, Director of the Kino Heritage Fruit Trees project, identified trees throughout Southern Arizona that were descended from the trees established by the Spanish colonial empire, like quince and Seville oranges. In February of 2012, the first of these trees were reintroduced to the site.

In the pre-contact O’odham Garden, visitors will find 60-day corn, Ha:l squash, Pinacate Brown Tepary Beans, and Mountain Pima Wild Tobacco. Nearby, the much later Chinese Garden reminds of a time when fights broke out over water demand in the dry desert and water judges were appointed to arbitrate usage.

Of all the special places within Mission Garden’s walls, one spot is truly sacred: the Children’s Garden (full disclosure, I’m terribly biased—my mother, Camilla Johnson, helped design the space). In this inviting haven, kids from around the world get to plant maize seed in the same ground that received it four millennia before.

Welcomed by a sign that reads, “Unplug and get your hands dirty,” the Children’s Garden encourages participation in a food system that has sustained a long and diverse history of southwestern inhabitants. In a single afternoon, the next generation of agriculturalists, gardeners, farmers, and conservationists are able to witness the results of over 4,000 years of stewardship. And in-between lessons on soil, worms, and archaeology, those kids plant, harvest, and grow.

“Over generations we can collectively ‘forget’ what the world was like before,” Kendall Kroesen reminds. “Our baseline for the way things are—a river, a floodplain, where our food comes from—is often our own youth, and we don’t know that things were profoundly different in, say, the youths of our grandparents or great grandparents, and before. The garden teaches what the world was like before.”

No garden does this better than Mission Garden. Plans are currently underway to establish an actively flowing acequia through the heart of the property. The recirculating waterway will house rare Sonoran Desert fish, frogs, and turtles. It will also remind everyone who walks through the gates that life in a desert is only simple if we make it that way. The Southwest is brimming with diversity and life, and with every seed and species that finds a home in Mission Garden’s walls, those lives are honored and preserved.

Personally, I never intended to pursue a career in agriculture; but, at 23, I find myself with a degree in Sustainable Agriculture, working as an agricultural interpreter at a historic farm, and writing for publications like this. I didn’t get here because I loved tractorsor grew up listening to country music. Rather,with every hike through the Santa CatalinaMountains and every seed I watched mymom place in the ground, I was taught that Icould, and should, participate in the beautythat surrounded and sustained me.

Thanks to places like Mission Garden,agriculture snuck up on me, captivating myattention and vocation. With each school tour, pruning workshop, and quince festival,Mission Garden showcases the beauty of theSonoran Desert and the call to steward oursouthwestern homeland captivates anotheryoung mind.

Driving Roger Pfeuffer’s work in thegarden is a mid-18th century quote fromLord Orrery—“Trees are the best monumentsthat a man can erect to his own memory. Theyspeak his praises without flattery, and theyare blessings to children yet unborn.” At thebase of Sentinel Peak, those trees—mesquites,limes, pomegranates, and palo verdes—speak volumes of our past and blessings over ourfuture.

TO FIND OUT MORE CONTACT Mission Garden at: missiongarden.tucson@gmail.com or (520) 955-5200