The Field Crop Garden @museum.de

M 1: Behind the pump house with its tall chimney are long rows of ground-level beds. They provide an insight into the wide range of field crops grown outside the walls of the monastery in medieval times. The canons owned large areas of the surrounding countryside. That was where cereals were grown, including kinds that were almost forgotten for a while, such as emmer or einkorn, -- all cultivated by Jerichow Monastery’s lay brothers. Those varieties have all been sown again here.

F 2: In the Middle Ages, the monasteries were significantly involved in transforming virgin countryside into the cultivated landscape that exists today. They were deliberately established in undeveloped regions to drain swamps, lay out fields and improve the local people’s farming skills.

M 1: Many types of cereal, such as rye, were found to be undemanding and high-yielding crops in medieval times. Actually, unlike most other cereals, rye wasn’t deliberately introduced as an agricultural crop; instead, it arrived by accident, as a weed. It found the conditions locally so beneficial that it overran the fields and adapted to the methods of cultivation and harvesting, developing ever plumper seeds. So it ended up being grown as a cereal used in bread-making. Oats were grown mainly as horse feed, so we should probably think of them as the fuel of the Middle Ages. The various cereal crops were utilized in a wide variety of ways: for flour production and oil extraction, but also, as in the case of flax, as a fibre plant.

Incidentally, next to the field crop garden there’s an old pump house. That’s where the monastery’s gardener has her work room. From the end of April to August, the chimney regularly provides a nesting site for white storks.

Voice (M) 1:

Behind the pump house with its tall chimney are long rows of ground-level beds. They provide an insight into the wide range of field crops grown outside the walls of the monastery in medieval times. The canons owned large areas of the surrounding countryside. That was where cereals were grown, including kinds that were almost forgotten for a while, such as emmer or einkorn, -- all cultivated by Jerichow Monastery’s lay brothers. Those varieties have all been sown again here.

Voice (F) 2:

In the Middle Ages, the monasteries were significantly involved in transforming virgin countryside into the cultivated landscape that exists today. They were deliberately established in undeveloped regions to drain swamps, lay out fields and improve the local people’s farming skills.

Voice (M) 1:

Many types of cereal, such as rye, were found to be undemanding and high-yielding crops in medieval times. Actually, unlike most other cereals, rye wasn’t deliberately introduced as an agricultural crop; instead, it arrived by accident, as a weed. It found the conditions locally so beneficial that it overran the fields and adapted to the methods of cultivation and harvesting, developing ever plumper seeds. So it ended up being grown as a cereal used in bread-making. Oats were grown mainly as horse feed, so we should probably think of them as the fuel of the Middle Ages. The various cereal crops were utilized in a wide variety of ways: for flour production and oil extraction, but also, as in the case of flax, as a fibre plant.

Incidentally, next to the field crop garden there’s an old pump house. That’s where the monastery’s gardener has her work room. From the end of April to August, the chimney regularly provides a nesting site for white storks.

Voice (M) 1:

Behind the pump house with its tall chimney are long rows of ground-level beds. They provide an insight into the wide range of field crops grown outside the walls of the monastery in medieval times. The canons owned large areas of the surrounding countryside. That was where cereals were grown, including kinds that were almost forgotten for a while, such as emmer or einkorn, -- all cultivated by Jerichow Monastery’s lay brothers. Those varieties have all been sown again here.

Voice (F) 2:

In the Middle Ages, the monasteries were significantly involved in transforming virgin countryside into the cultivated landscape that exists today. They were deliberately established in undeveloped regions to drain swamps, lay out fields and improve the local people’s farming skills.

Voice (M) 1:

Many types of cereal, such as rye, were found to be undemanding and high-yielding crops in medieval times. Actually, unlike most other cereals, rye wasn’t deliberately introduced as an agricultural crop; instead, it arrived by accident, as a weed. It found the conditions locally so beneficial that it overran the fields and adapted to the methods of cultivation and harvesting, developing ever plumper seeds. So it ended up being grown as a cereal used in bread-making. Oats were grown mainly as horse feed, so we should probably think of them as the fuel of the Middle Ages. The various cereal crops were utilized in a wide variety of ways: for flour production and oil extraction, but also, as in the case of flax, as a fibre plant.

Incidentally, next to the field crop garden there’s an old pump house. That’s where the monastery’s gardener has her work room. From the end of April to August, the chimney regularly provides a nesting site for white storks.

Voice (M) 1:

Behind the pump house with its tall chimney are long rows of ground-level beds. They provide an insight into the wide range of field crops grown outside the walls of the monastery in medieval times. The canons owned large areas of the surrounding countryside. That was where cereals were grown, including kinds that were almost forgotten for a while, such as emmer or einkorn, -- all cultivated by Jerichow Monastery’s lay brothers. Those varieties have all been sown again here.

Voice (F) 2:

In the Middle Ages, the monasteries were significantly involved in transforming virgin countryside into the cultivated landscape that exists today. They were deliberately established in undeveloped regions to drain swamps, lay out fields and improve the local people’s farming skills.

Voice (M) 1:

Many types of cereal, such as rye, were found to be undemanding and high-yielding crops in medieval times. Actually, unlike most other cereals, rye wasn’t deliberately introduced as an agricultural crop; instead, it arrived by accident, as a weed. It found the conditions locally so beneficial that it overran the fields and adapted to the methods of cultivation and harvesting, developing ever plumper seeds. So it ended up being grown as a cereal used in bread-making. Oats were grown mainly as horse feed, so we should probably think of them as the fuel of the Middle Ages. The various cereal crops were utilized in a wide variety of ways: for flour production and oil extraction, but also, as in the case of flax, as a fibre plant.

Incidentally, next to the field crop garden there’s an old pump house. That’s where the monastery’s gardener has her work room. From the end of April to August, the chimney regularly provides a nesting site for white storks.

Voice (M) 1:

Behind the pump house with its tall chimney are long rows of ground-level beds. They provide an insight into the wide range of field crops grown outside the walls of the monastery in medieval times. The canons owned large areas of the surrounding countryside. That was where cereals were grown, including kinds that were almost forgotten for a while, such as emmer or einkorn, -- all cultivated by Jerichow Monastery’s lay brothers. Those varieties have all been sown again here.

Voice (F) 2:

In the Middle Ages, the monasteries were significantly involved in transforming virgin countryside into the cultivated landscape that exists today. They were deliberately established in undeveloped regions to drain swamps, lay out fields and improve the local people’s farming skills.

Voice (M) 1:

Many types of cereal, such as rye, were found to be undemanding and high-yielding crops in medieval times. Actually, unlike most other cereals, rye wasn’t deliberately introduced as an agricultural crop; instead, it arrived by accident, as a weed. It found the conditions locally so beneficial that it overran the fields and adapted to the methods of cultivation and harvesting, developing ever plumper seeds. So it ended up being grown as a cereal used in bread-making. Oats were grown mainly as horse feed, so we should probably think of them as the fuel of the Middle Ages. The various cereal crops were utilized in a wide variety of ways: for flour production and oil extraction, but also, as in the case of flax, as a fibre plant.

Incidentally, next to the field crop garden there’s an old pump house. That’s where the monastery’s gardener has her work room. From the end of April to August, the chimney regularly provides a nesting site for white storks.