GARDEN-AND-CROPS
Kitchen Garden
Soon after the reproduction kitchen was built, research began to design and plant a garden that reflects what might have grown at Magnolia Mound in the early 1800s. This carefully recreated space mirrors the foodways of late 18th- and early 19th-century Louisiana. Located beside the kitchen, the garden produces fruits, vegetables, and herbs once essential to plantation life. Visitors will find tomatoes, peppers, corn, onions, and seasonal herbs. Today, the kitchen garden provides fresh ingredients for cooking demonstrations and enriches our educational tours, bringing history to life through taste, smell, and sight. The garden is tended with care by the Master Gardeners of East Baton Rouge, the Friends of Magnolia Mound, and BREC, ensuring that this living link to the past continues to educate and inspire.
Magnolia Mound Honey Harvest 2025
On July 21, 2025, Camm Morton, head of the Master Gardeners at Magnolia Mound, led the year’s first honey harvest with the help of Kevin Langley and Gee Hargon. Together, they gathered nearly 130 pounds of honey from our hives.
From Hive to Jar
Magnolia Mound is home to eight beehives—some small with five frames per box, others larger with ten. The bees use these frames to raise their young and to store pollen and honey. We only harvest from the top boxes where a lot of the capped honey is found. Capped honey has just the right moisture content (17–18%), making it stable and long-lasting.
After the frames are harvested they’re brought to an air-conditioned trailer. There, the wax caps are carefully removed with an electric knife. The frames are then placed in a centrifugal extractor, which spins out the honey. The empty frames are then returned to the bees, who begin their work again. Once filtered and rested for a few days in five-gallon buckets, the honey is bottled and ready to enjoy.
Why It Matters
Our honey harvest is about more than sweet rewards. Beekeeping at Magnolia Mound supports the health of our pollinators, ensures food stores for the hives, and provides fresh, local honey for our visitors.
Visit the Gift Shop
Magnolia Mound honey is available in the Turner Visitor Center Gift Shop. The proceeds help the Master Gardeners care for and expand our historic Kitchen Garden, keeping this living part of our museum’s story thriving for future generations.
Crop Garden
In 1795, Etienne de Boré produced Louisiana’s first granulated sugar, proving the crop’s profitability and sparking a shift from indigo and cotton. Like many planters, Armand Duplantier invested in sugar, which required costly equipment and relied on the skill and labor of enslaved people.
The sugar cane garden at Magnolia Mound offers a glimpse into this transformation, illustrating how shifts in agriculture shaped Louisiana’s landscape, economy, and the lives of those who lived and labored here.
