What was grown in a family’s garden depended largely on their cultural practices. Though immigrants would settle in a new place, they held fast to their traditions from their homeland. White settlers hailed from all over the world, including Scandinavia, Belgium, and Poland. Most prevalent were those with German ancestry. In fact, 40 percent of Wisconsin residents today report German ancestry.

German gardens were practical, and organized into squares or beds often surrounding a central rosemary plant. From an 1867 German publication E. L. Rochholz describes the old German garden as having a “foot wide path which bisects the garden lengthwise and is crossed at right angles in the middle by a second [path], thereby dividing every garden into four main fields which are called beds. In the center of the four beds on the cross path stands the rosemary plant on her own boxwood enclosed circular bed.”

Of course, indigenous peoples have been gardening and utilizing medicinal native plants on the peninsula for thousands of years, and many of these found their way into early settlers’ gardens. These plants included yarrow, chickweed, and black raspberries.