O'odham Gardens

Maegan Lopez, December 2021

This path guides you through gardens that represent thousands of years of agriculture. Here, you see the Tohono O’odham Oidag (Desert People Garden/Field), a living link to S-cuk Ṣon (Tucson) history.

Maegan Lopez, Gardener and Cultural Outreach Liaison 

We share our foodways by showing how our ancestors planted seeds that have been passed down since time immemorial. We show how O’odham families and communities grew gardens in the desert. We coexist here. O’odham, wildlife and plant-life survive together during waves of many changes.

 From 1450 to 1692 AD, before Tohono O’odham came into contact with the Spanish, their missionaries, or people from other regions, there were O’odham villages established along waterways throughout an extensive area in what is now known as southwestern United States and northwest Mexico.

Sean Loer working in the Post-Contact O'odham Garden

In addition to farming, hunting and gathering were part of O’odham life. Skills were passed down from eldest to youngest. Here, next to hikdañ (Santa Cruz River), water was plentiful, and land and water creatures were also abundant. O’odham farmers built irrigation ditches leading to their crops, and they made use of runoff from S-cuk Son (Sentinel Peak).

Many O’odham farmers cultivate what you see growing in this oidag during the summer and monsoon season, the three sisters: ha:l (squash), bab:wĭ (tepary beans), and hu:n (corn).

Ha:l

Threaded upon the brown dirt are giant thick vines; at the end their leaves with star-shaped freckles sprinkled upon them, O’odham ha:l are known for their gorgeous enormous squash blossoms. Inviting to pollinators, they can yield beautiful striped fruit, fleshy and expectant with more seeds to sow in the next summer season.

Bab:wĭ

Our garden tells the stories of our traditional ties to tepary beans and their ties to the stars in our sky. Tethered to O’odham traditional foodways, teparies continue to thrive, now adored by all people. Climbing up and anchoring onto anything nearby, with strength and perseverance, their vines curl up and clutch each other. Bab:wĭ produce small, delicate purple or white flowers, then stretch out to long bean pods, first green and soft, then brown and brittle. Multiple long three-pointed leaves provide shade, creating a woven wreath of beans. A long time ago, Tohono O’odham harvested bab:wĭ in the wild; throughout time our people have kept the best-tasting and most drought-tolerant beans, which are well known and have distinct colors.

Hu:ñ

Large green cornstalks, with streaks of yellow, crowned with fuzzy pollen. Leaning on each other to brace themselves on a breezy day, 60-Day Corn is honored by Tohono O’odham in many songs. Known to produce milky kernels in 60 days, hu:ñ grows in full sun and with very little water.

Learn More About Some of the Plants in the O'odham Pre-Contact Garden

Learn More About Some of the Plants in the O'odham Post-Contact Garden

Text by Maegen Lopez. Photographs, unless otherwise noted, are by Dena Cowan. Design by Ellen Platts.

© 2025 Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace - Mission Garden.

Learn about special programs, educational opportunities, and getting involved at  MissionGarden.org .

Maegan Lopez, Gardener and Cultural Outreach Liaison 

Sean Loer working in the Post-Contact O'odham Garden