Homesteading expert Jackie Clay achieved a minor miracle in her garden this summer—growing pole beans from a 1,500-year-old seed. Obviously your local garden store doesn’t stock such a thing. Jackie says she got her hands on it when she was living in New Mexico. She emailed me with the full story:
When we lived in New Mexico, we were given a few seeds a neighboring rancher in Folsom, NM found in a sealed clay pot in an old Indian ruin in his pasture. The pot and contents were carbon dated back 1,500 years! I increased my store of these seeds, stunned by their productivity and the size of the beans. They are the size of the end of a man’s thumb! These beans are similar to a bean called 45/90 and we think they may be the same bean, grown by generations of a Missouri family. We love these beans we call Folsom Indian Ruin because of their initial “home”.
根据碳测定的1500年前的年代,这颗种子的诞生时间大约在公元500年左右,这一点意义重大。就在那个时候,新墨西哥州和亚利桑那州的土著文化——普韦布洛人,正在从他们的狩猎采集生活方式过渡到全职的农业生活。
The seeds Jackie’s neighbor found may have been among the first grown in the area. Eventually the Pueblo became very successful farmers, using a mix of sophisticated techniques.
The Pueblo built extensive canals for irrigation—more than 19 miles of them near modern-day Tucson. They terraced land for farming, often on the sides of cliffs. To prevent erosion and help their farmland retain heat, they covered their maize fields in lithic mulch—that’s rocks and pebbles. And sporadic floodplain cultivation made for quick harvests in areas where predictable flooding washed rich soil over the land—the same technique used by the Egyptians along the Nile.
As their farming sophistication grew, the Pueblo population grew as well. By around 1000 A.D. the Pueblo were building massive communities and temples like the ones you can visit atChaco Culture National Historic Park,Casa Grande, or the misnamedAztec Ruins National Monument.
The bean Jackie grew is very likely related toPhaseolus vulgaris是我们今天所知的大多数豆子的母种。Originally domesticated in South America 8,ooo years ago, then separately in Central America 1,000 years later, America’s first farmers grew this adaptable plant all over the continent by the time Columbus arrived, in dozens of different varieties.
Columbus gathered some from fields in the Caribbean islands and brought them back to Europe. Old world farmers saw what their new world counterparts already knew—that Phaseolus vulgaris is hardy, easy to grow, and very nutritious.
The plantspread rapidly to Europe and Asia. Old world farmers created their own varieties of this New World plant. The snap peas in your Chinese stir fry, the green beans in your Nicoise salad, the black beans in your taco—all, like Jackie’s pole beans, are descendants of these first domesticated beans.
Today’s homesteaders can buy both old and new world varieties, thanks to theheirloom seedsmovement. Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds sells73 different varieties of heirloom beans, from theDragon Tongue Bush Beanto theZuni Gold.
Jackie, whowrites an advice column for Backwoods Home Magazineand alsoruns an heirloom seeds business她把自己种的这种豆子叫做福尔松印第安废墟豆。“我这辈子从来没有在一颗豆子上开过这么多花,”杰基写道。“难怪那些古老的印第安人会不厌其烦地把它们保存得这么好。”
Nansays
Goosebumps! How thrilling! What a privilege that they were put in your hands and in your soil.