As someone who has a gardening site/blog, Hot Gardens, I am embarrassed to admit I had not been to Tucson’s Mission Garden. I corrected that by going to the Garlic Festival on Saturday where I saw a lot more than garlic.
First, the Mission Garden is not out by San Xavier del Bac Mission. It’s located at the foot of the “A” mountain (Sentinel Peak) where native people grew crops before the Spanish arrived. Much of what is grown in the Garden now are heritage plants, like corn, squash, gourds and datura (a sacred hallucenogenic that looks like big morning glory) from the native people’s agricultural traditions.
Naturally, there are mesquites with seeds to grind and use to make bread as well as trees like figs, pomegranates, and quinces plus grapes that hark back to the early agricultural activities of the Spanish. And were there ever fig trees at every turn!
As I wandered through the Garden I recognized corn, squash, sunflowers and even the caged chickens you can see in the photo at the top of this post. They were familiar from my childhood in Washington State.
The Bats and the Bees
But I was puzzled by the boxy log building to the left of the chickens. What was it? A bat house! While much has been written about saving bees because they are pollinators. It turns out that bats are pollinators, too, specializing in pollinating cacti like saguaro. So that log bat house is the equivalent of those square boxes humans make for bees: beehives. Think of it as a “bat hive”.
Best bread salad
A little more wandering brought me to the heart of the small Garlic Festival where I saw baskets of garlic- although many were already sold out and baskets were empty even though I had arrived early-ish.
A bit further along the path, a chef from the new Flora’s Market Run was preparing a super-delicious bread salad called the Summer Panzanella Salad with Mission Garlic vinaigrette. Free samples for everyone! I was a bit disappointed that no one was making/selling garlic soup or garlic ice cream, but glad I finally saw the Mission Garden.
Yes–garlic ice cream is a real thing! It’s featured at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in CA.
