Raised-Bed Agriculture

Modern vegetable production today uses a technique called raised-bed farming. But this invention dates back to the Native people in Central and South America. They invented a technique to enrich soil and pile it to build garden plots. They referred to these plots as chinampas. In addition to this type of agriculture, they were well-versed in the land. An interview on Mother Earth News with a Mogen anthropologist revealed, “Native American gardens were fine-tuned to their local micro-climate…Native peoples maintained a wide selection of plants because they often moved around, so what may have worked well in North Carolina among the Cherokee may not have been successful on the Great Plains. The Pawnee of the Midwest, for example, maintained four sacred corn varieties, of which their white-flour corn, called “Mother Corn,” was the most highly venerated. If one failed, they had others they could rely on.” Their small-scale farming made the land richer than we could ever hope of achieving in modern times (Mother Earth News).