Last week I read a news story on the UMass website about a student project at the Renaissance Center: under the direction of Professor John Gerber, Stockbridge School students raised historic fruit trees and vegetables for a full-scale sixteenth century kitchen garden on the Center’s grounds.  Director Arthur Kinney had first envisioned the project, and Mount Holyoke graduate Jennie Bergeron did most of the research to choose the plant varieties and plot the areas for the herbs and vegetables.

I had been to the Center earlier this year to attend a lecture, so I knew I could walk there from my office in twenty minutes.  “Today is the day I’ll visit,” I said to myself this morning, and as soon as lunch hour rolled around, I set out.  Fortunately for me, Jennie herself was working in the garden when I arrived, so I had my own private tour of the space.  It really was fascinating to hear about what she had learned about  the gardens of ordinary people living some 400 years ago.

Jennie told me that she tried to create a common kitchen garden, with crops such as garlic and onions, root vegetables such as carrots and turnips, fava beans for protein,  and other food plants that were staples in the Northern European climate.  In this garden, she said, there are more herbs than vegetables, including ones familiar to us today, such as hyssop, horehound, angelica, anise, tansy, yarrow, and coriander.

I was particularly interested in hearing about the hops and the fruit that is planted here.  These are particularly rare heirloom varieties, and I think it would be interesting to actually taste the fruit and drink beer made from the hops.

The project is ongoing.  For example, the students are working on building a wattle fence around the garden, as you can see in one of the photos below.

The garden is geometrically designed.

You can see some of the vegetables in this photo.

In the background are young apple trees.

This is the beginning of a wattle fence, made of hawthorn branches.

Note that the Renaissance Center will be holding an Open House on Saturday, August 17th, from 10 am to 3 pm; the street address is 650 East Pleasant Street in Amherst.  Turn down the dirt driveway to park near the main building.  The garden will be on your left.