On September 30, the second annual Harvest Folk Festival celebrated the products of the Jeffrey Wyman Memorial Kitchen Garden at the Allen Centennial Garden, with music, dancing, storytelling, and opportunities to learn about global farming traditions. Created in memory of former UW–Madison entomology professor Jeffrey Wyman MS’68, PhD’71, the garden features the crops, cuisines, and cultures of African American, Hmong, Indigenous, and Latinx communities.
Plants include cowpeas, a staple crop of Nigeria; lemongrass (tauj dub in Hmong); and chiplin, a green, leafy herb used throughout Central America. The event kicked off with a seed swap to encourage plant diversity in local gardens, and meals with ingredients from the kitchen garden were available for purchase from the Electric Eats food truck.
The festival is not only a celebration of plants — it also recognizes how food impacts cultures and people around the world. Presentations by Francesco Mangano, chef of Madison’s Osteria Papavero and 2023 James Beard Award Finalist for Best Chef; Yusuf Bin-Rella, owner of TradeRoots Culinary Collective and a UW chef; and farmer and horticulturalist Lightning NewRider demonstrated Italian, Afrodiasporic, and Ho-Chunk foodways respectively. The cultures represented in the garden were also showcased at the festival in performances by groups that included American folk and traditional Hmong music, West African drumming, and Peruvian dancing.
Enjoy photos of the Harvest Folk Festival and the products of the Wyman Kitchen Garden below.
Bloodleaf (knaj lab) is featured in the Hmong herb section in the garden. Photo by Jeff Miller, University Communications.
Three participants harvest collard greens: from left, Yusuf Bin-Rella; Ryan Dostal, outreach specialist in the horticulture department; and Reba Luiken, director of Allen Centennial Garden. Photo by Michael P. King, UW–Madison CALS.
A pumpkin and squash decorate the Allen Centennial Garden. Photo by Jeff Miller, University Communications.
Visitor-created and plant-themed artwork decorates the event. Photo by Jeff Miller, University Communications.
