Food, culture and history
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| Master Gardeners from URI Cooperative Extension are growing connections with Rhode Island’s Indigenous community at the Pettaquamscutt Community Gardens, two miles from campus. Heirloom seeds harvested and saved there include Narragansett White Cap Flint Corn, Succotash Pole Beans, and Butternut Squash. (Photos Pettaquamscutt Community Gardens) |
As University of Rhode
Island students and employees departed campus for winter break, concluding the
fall semester — and harvest season — URI’s Cooperative Extension celebrated its
work partnering with Indigenous-led food sovereignty organizations.
Just two miles from campus is the Pettaquamscutt Community
Gardens, a non-profit organization on Broad Rock Road in South Kingstown. The
property is the site of a productive partnership between Pettaquamscutt
Community Gardens, an Indigenous-led group, and the URI Master Gardener
Program.
Pettaquamscutt Community Gardens is an Indigenous-led, multigenerational non-profit garden that uses traditional ancestral practices and heirloom seeds with a focus on the Three Sisters Garden: corn, beans, and squash. The project is led by Indigenous community members, including Shirley Brown, URI Master Gardener, Class of 2022, and a Narragansett Tribal elder. She’s keeping Narragansett traditions alive and well, and this year, partnering with volunteers from the URI Master Gardener Program to help support and expand the garden’s capacity.
“The Pettaquamscutt Community Gardens are focused on restoring the natural law and balance of Mother Earth, living in harmony with the Creator’s natural elements, promoting food sovereignty and health and wellness through community involvement,” says Wayne Everett, founder of Pettaquamscutt Community Gardens, also a Master Gardener, Class of 2022.
“The
Narragansetts are an acknowledged tribe by Congress, and we embed our ancient
ancestral knowledge and traditional growing methods to teach, preserve, and revitalize
our culture and way of life. Others are invited to join us in this healing
process.”
“What makes it special is the preservation and revitalization of our culture, a window to our ancestral traditions and way of life,” says Sonia Thomas, a board member of Pettaquamscutt Community Gardens.
“I’m very proud of these partnerships,” says Vanessa
Venturini, program leader for URI’s Master Gardener Program. “We have
emphasized the importance of ancestral knowledge alongside research-based
knowledge, a somewhat revolutionary act for the Cooperative Extension / Land
Grant University system.”
She credits Dinalyn Spears ’95 (MG ’15), the Narragansett Indian Tribe’s director of community planning & natural resources, for teaching about Indigenous uses of native plants as well as the Narragansett Indian Tribe’s food sovereignty efforts in the Master Gardener course.
The URI
Master Gardener Program is also working alongside the Narragansett Indian Tribe
to support their food sovereignty efforts at a tribal farm in Westerly and a
greenhouse and community garden in Charlestown. The Narragansett Indian Tribe
created an Agricultural Division under its Community Planning & Natural
Resources department in 2019 to continue its food sovereignty efforts to
provide access to traditionally grown food by using traditional indigenous
agricultural methods in the Narragansett Indian Tribal community.
“One of the priorities of the Narragansett Indian Food Sovereignty Program is to incorporate the historical connection the Narragansett people had with the land and the food that sustains us,” she says. “The goal of the Narragansett Indian Food Sovereignty Program is to provide access to healthy food which in turn will provide for the health and well being of the Tribal community through sustainable agriculture, community involvement, education, and economic development.”
Last year, Cooperative Extension’s Master Gardener training
program also expanded to pilot a new “Indigenous foods” module, inviting
individuals with traditional ecological knowledge to serve as instructors in an
effort to honor equally scientific and ancestral knowledge. The module came out
of focused work in the Master Gardener Program to better represent and serve
the diverse population of Rhode Island with a focus on social justice.
“This is an ongoing effort,” states Venturini. “We’ll
continue to support food sovereignty efforts around the state.”
Added efforts
URI Cooperative Extension grows seedlings for Indigenous-led
gardens in the URI Master Gardener donation greenhouse and also hosted a
popular group read of the book Braiding Sweetgrass that drew
more than 70 extension volunteers, faculty, and staff in partnership with the
Tomaquag Museum, to explore Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the
teachings of plants. Participants said the experience increased their
commitment to learn more about Indigenous knowledge and local foodways.
Several also said they were inspired to consider
volunteering with a local Indigenous-led project. Jeanne Sovet is one.
Sovet is a URI Master Gardener, Class of 2024, who made the
Pettaquamscutt Community Gardens a focus of her growing work this year.
“I wanted to help,” she says of volunteering in her first
year. The Exeter resident says she came to the Master Gardener Program with an
interest in Native American culture and helping people in need. She found the
chance to work with members of the local Indigenous community as instructive as
her Master Gardener training.
Sovet began working at the gardens in the spring, joining
with Brown, a Narragansett tribal elder and also a URI Master Gardener. Brown’s
son, Wayne Everett, Quenikom Pau Muckquashim (Standing Wolf), built the garden
with natural logs and made beds out of tree trunks, logs, and stumps, with
other Tribal and community members.
Brown, Sovet, and other community members started planting
on May 17, the traditional planting date for the gardens, Sovet says.
The day is the birthday of Brown’s mother, Mildred (née
Johnson) (Hopkins) Everett, Wesu Nquit (Great One).
“The reason for planting on my mother’s birthday is fitting
as it symbolizes the legacy of my grandparents, great grandparents, great,
great grandparents and so on,” says Brown. “We’re honoring our ancestors’
heritage of farming these lands from generations back. As we know Chief
Canonchet to have done when he walked these lands we’ve always known as
Pettaquamscutt.”
“We plant, grow and harvest heirloom seeds, our traditional
Narragansett White Cap Flint Corn, Narragansett Succotash Pole Beans and
Narragansett Butternut Squash,” she adds, the ‘Three Sisters,’ important both
traditionally and for companion planting.
The large gardens also include beans, swiss chard, kale,
pole beans, eggplant, strawberries, celery, and herbs and more; Brown saves the
seeds year to year. They also plant flowers and plants that attract pollinators
and other beneficial insects.
Most of the food grown is donated to marginalized
communities, the New Jonnycake Center for Hope Food Pantry in South Kingstown,
the Narragansett Indian Tribal Senior Meal Site, and local businesses.
Sovet, who volunteered weekly at the gardens with Claudette
Baril, says she would encourage more people to help at Pettaquamscutt or any
other native garden. She says being a part of the gardens and learning of its
larger goals spurred her on; she plans to return next year.
Celebrating the harvest
One of the highlights for Sovet was the “Second Annual
Culturally Grown, Multi-Generational Workshop” held at the gardens over the
summer.
“It was a celebration of the community and culture,” Sovet
says of the July celebration, which included a fire, dancing, and singing.
“Members of the Narragansett tribe came and cooked the veggies we grew in the
garden and it was all so good.”
At the gathering, Brown, whose Narragansett name is
Wekineaquat, meaning Fair Weather, gave visitors a tour of the squash,
tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and watermelon patches, explaining the value of
companion planting. Shynin Anockqus (Star) Thomas gave a presentation of The
Three Sisters explaining companion planting and how corn, beans and squash
complement each other. Jennifer Blunt gave a presentation on the Pollinating
Garden and its role encouraging the growth of the garden’s plants.
Beyond the bounty and the chance to learn more about
ancestral growing methods, Sovet, a retired teacher, says she most enjoyed the
chance to be a student and learn from Brown and other members of the
Narragansett Tribe. Learning about the seed saving that happens, year after
year, made an impression on her, reminding her of the agricultural lineage in
this part of Rhode Island, how it has continued and can continue.
“Seeing the traditional seeds passed down year after year is
really incredible,” she says.
In the year ahead, the gardens will rotate crops and start a
new season of collaborative growth — on May 17, as is tradition.
URI’s Master Gardener Program was established to educate
Rhode Islanders in environmentally sound gardening practices. Over 800
volunteers serve as community-based educators across the state while welcoming
diverse perspectives in gardening. Learn more about the URI Cooperative
Extension Master Gardener Program at URI
or about the Pettaquamscutt Community Gardens at their Facebook page.
