Establishing and developing a farm garden in the Estonian Open Air Museum

Estonian Open Air Museum´s setu farmstead represents the time period at the turn of the 19th-20th century and was opened to the public in 2015.  The design and content of a museum´s garden is based on this research. As many plants as possible were collected during expeditions and brought to the museum.

Cēsis Medieval Castle kitchen garden

•The garden has the status of a Cesis History and Art Museum exposition;

•It is subject to all provisions for the maintenance of historical exposition of the museum;

•Visitors can view the garden from outside walking around the fence;

•From inside the garden can be visited individually (not in groups) on separate occasions with prior announcement and only with the responsible gardener;

From museum garden to kitchen in the museum "Den Gamle By"

In  museum Den Gamle By (which means "the Old Town") we decided to focus on how the gardeners can make the produce from our historic gardens more accessible to our visitors, through collaboration with both our modern restaurant "Gæstgivergården", the historical kitchens, exhibitions, and products available from the museum gift shop.

Kiltsi Castle garden

Nobody knows exactly how old Kiltsi Castle Garden is. Archeological excavations bring us back to the end of 14th century. There are stories telling about monks supporting that there may have been monks in Kiltsi Castle. Gardening was important in the monasteries for supplying the livelihood. Plants during that time had multiple uses: there were edible plants for the household, plants for technical use such as coloring or fighting pests, plants for medicinal use and ornamental plants for pleasure.

Importance of the aesthetic garden environment in the rural landscape - Latvian Ethnographic Open Air Museum

Latvian farmsteads were also planted with colorful flowers. The flower garden was the pride of every good hostess. 

At the end of 19th century the borders of the flower beds  were only  weeded   or applied with sod. Later, whitewashed wicker was squeezed around the beds in a circle, or torn slits were squeezed vertically or crosswise. At the begining of 20th centrury decorative flower bed borders from clay was made.  

Establishing 'MARGRETHES KITCHENGARDEN' at Kringsminde museum

Local members of the Danish Seed Savers have established a kitchen garden from the garden consultant Margrethe Hvid's ideas. As the first female garden consultant she taught and communicated about gardening for the Danish housewife in the 1930ies and during Second World War. She was a very special woman. She smoked cigar and rode a motorbike ... while instructing Danish housewives in gardening, self sufficiency and empowerment. In 1943 she wrote a book about gardening and and healthy food from garden vegetables.

Puukoland's heritage plant garden

We are here, in wonderful Pokuland, which was created following the ideas of artist Edgar Valter. 
Pokumaa is situated on the border of Kanepi and Antsla municipalities, so that Poku House with its round roofs belongs to Kanepi and these sedge tufts here between grass and willows are in Antsla municipality. People reach Pokuland along a spectacular forest lane – actually there are forest
lanes all over the twenty-hectare territory, where kindergarten and school groups in spring and mainly families in summer explore the nature, art and boost their creativity the same way as Edgar Valter did. Let’s have a look inside, too.

Old orchards – a valuable cultural landscape and a natural habitat site

Orchards of 80-100 years old or even older, growing in the territories of manors, monastery courtyards and other locations are valuable parts of their historic and cultural context and often have a high natural value. Orchards are an important element of Lithuanian cultural landscape and they are appreciated by the people, since many Lithuanians engage in planting trees and taking care of their gardens. Orchards are a place where people tend to spend their time and relax, thus historic orchards could be a place of recreation where the pomological heritage of local and foreign varieties is presented as well as the local history, cultural and culinary heritage.