The Herb Garden today, at the Job Lane Farm Museum, is the creation of the Bedford Garden Club with Josephine (Jo) Champney (pictured to the left) overseeing it since she planted the first herbs in 1978.  Jo, as we call her, turned 100 on April 30, 2021, and still is our advisor.  Jo rescued plants she found growing in the yard, and that includes many of the ones growing here now.

We love being part of this Garden.  The herbs date to the colonial period.  We are studying the use of herbs for the kitchen used in cooking, the medicines they created from them, as well as lovely, scented herbs for many uses.  Two of our four raised beds contain herbs used for medicine.  Very important as they had few doctors.

The plan of the herb garden is based on an early design, but as there is not a great amount of information on colonial gardens, no claim is made that this is the way herbs were grown in those days.   While we are still growing many of the same plants in name, the varieties have undergone hybridization and change, and appear today in different forms.  Therefore, restoring an early garden is almost impossible.

Most herbs would have been grown in garden rows, and some would have been gathered in surrounding fields and woods.  The herbs which might be picked daily, or that required special attention, were planted in the dooryard garden, which was fenced to exclude wandering cattle.  Some plants are native to this country.  Others are descendants of plants or seeds brought over with early settlers.

Gathered as they are here at the side entrance to the house, these herbs help to illustrate the life of the housewife in those early times.

Most plants were utilitarian; vegetables, herbs, and flowers that had a use as food, medicine, or refreshment.

The thrifty New England housewife harvested every useful leaf, blossom, and root, for the survival and health of the household depended on their availability.  Until the advent of the pharmaceutical industry, herbs provided the basic ingredients for most medicines.  Read a little more on the history of the garden.

Our Garden Pictures!