Jemez Historic site begins new monthly series

JEMEZ SPRINGS — Jemez Historic Site is sponsoring a new monthly series that explores agriculture and food as medicine.

The first installment of the Gardens at Gisewa program is scheduled from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, March 30, at the Jemez Historic Site, 18160 NM-4, Jemez Springs. The series will be help monthly, March through September, on the last Sunday of each month.

Participants will get to eat a meal or corn, beans and squash stew while learning about the importance of the ingredients to Native American culture. The group will be given their own seeds to start a garden at home.

Christina Claassen, a public relations specialist with the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, said the program is meant to teach people about the traditional foods of the Jemez Pueblo people, who abandoned the pueblo that is now the Jemez Historic Site in 1640.

“(The program) will help people learn how to grow some of these traditional foods in their own garden and connect the history of the site to present day gardening,” Claasen said.

Admission is $7 for adults and free to children 16 and younger, residents who are over 60, Native-Tribal community members, disabled veterans and foster families.