Heirloom Gardens - Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear

Heirloom Gardens

Heirloom gardens add authenticity and connectivity to your visit in the Port Oneida Rural Historic District. The current restored gardens are located at the Port Oneida Farms Heritage Center at the Olsen Farm. Enjoy a kitchen garden with colorful rows of vegetables and fragrant herbs; a perennial flower garden with Hattie Olsen’s flowers; restored rows of luscious berries; and a sea of white apple blossoms in spring. Harvest of these fruits and vegetables are used for demonstration of historic cooking in the Olsen kitchen.

Don’t miss our educational programs and tours of the orchards. Visitors can pick up to one bushel per family in the fall.

These gardens are planted and maintained by Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear volunteers. If you would like to help us with the gardens, please reach out to our lead gardener.

Visit the Heritage Center

Kitchen Garden

The garden next to the Olsen farmhouse contains a variety of vegetables commonly grown in the early 19th-century. These vegetables are grown from heirloom seeds similar to the original varieties. Among them are the indigenous “three-sisters” of beans, squash and corn. The garden’s wayside panel teaches the concept of companion planting for best results. The variety of herbs including dill and mint were useful for cooking, seasoning, and medicinal purposes.

Perennial Flower Garden

Hattie Olsen loved her flowers. Her original poppies continue to grow in the perennial garden, restored to include flowers from the period. A wayside panel describes the flowers planted which are often seen being painted by plein air artists.

Berry Garden

The restored berry garden boasts raspberries and black raspberries in a combination of heirloom varieties and more current robust types. We sell these at the farm stand along with vegetables from the kitchen garden! Stroll the gardens, bring a picnic lunch and enjoy the pastoral landscape.

Antique Orchards

Aging, remnant orchards can be found at many farms around Port Oneida’s landscape. Preserving these antique orchards is a large initiative between the national park, the Grand Traverse Conservation District, and Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear. Research by National Park Service employees and volunteers have cataloged over 80 varieties of antique apples. The restoration initiative is ongoing through a grafting and transplanting process. The nursery has been located at the Kelderhouse farm which has the largest orchard. Gradually, these young trees are moved to other farms in the historic district where orchards were historically located.