Chicago Botanic Garden Spring 2019

26 chicagobotanic.org Volunteer John Swenson knows his garlic John Swenson has driven from Illinois to a certain Italian grocery and liquor store in Wisconsin many times. It’s where he buys all of his garlic sauces, and it’s where he promises a delicious reward: the best garlic this side of Italy. You’d better believe him. Swenson, a longtime volunteer at the Garden, happens to be an expert on all things Allium, the genus that includes garlic, onions, and leeks. When he’s not tending to his home garlic garden, he’s sharing his passion with visitors at the Regenstein Fruit & Vegetable Garden, where he has served as a volunteer since 2002. Prior to that, he reviewed countless library books as a volunteer in Plant Information and completed the University of Illinois Extension Master Gardener program at the Garden in 1996. “My attitude is: What good is knowl- edge if you can’t share it? And the same is true of garlic,” Swenson said. Call it smelly all you want. Swenson loves to talk garlic with Garden visitors. “People want to know about garlic. On a busy day, I might talk with 30 peo- ple,” he said. “We talk about how to grow it, where to buy it. Most people think garlic originated in Italy but it didn’t—it came from Central Asia. It took thousands of years for it to get to Italy.” Swenson’s interest in alliums has taken him all across the globe. In 1989, Swen- son was one of three American members of an expedition to Central Asia and Russia to collect onions, garlic, and car- rots. e team came back with more than 180 plant materials and seeds, in- cluding new varieties of garlic and many wild Alliums , and all were added to U.S. Department of Agriculture collections. His passion has also taken him deep into the regional history of his hometown, Chicago. For nearly a decade, Swenson conducted research to better understand the origin of the name Chicago. In his essay, “Chicagoua/Chicago: e Origin, Meaning, and Etymology of a Place Name,” published in 1991 in the Illinois Historic Journal, he debunked the com- mon myth that Chicago is named after a wild onion. It is named after Allium tri- coccum , a wild garlic, he said. “I can prove it in court,” said Swenson, a for- mer lawyer. Swenson traces his love for alliums back to 1975, when he was ipping through the pages of a seed catalog. At the time, he was living in his Glencoe home with his late wife, Helen, and paying regular visits to the Garden (Helen was a volunteer at the Garden, which inspired him to volun- teer, too). He remembers seeing an ad for rocambole garlic bulbs, and he or- dered several. Later that year, he learned about the Seed Savers Exchange. Over 33 years, he has donated 150 varieties to the Seed Savers Exchange’s seed bank collection. e rest, as they say, is history. Now, he grows almost 30 di erent gar- lic varieties in his garden. And, come summertime, Swenson, who will turn 90 in May, expects to harvest, “Oh, lordy, probably 2,000 garlic plants.” What will he use them for? “I like to give it away to people who are growing garlic,” he said. “But the other day I did use some garlic with hot peppers, on- ions, and bratwurst.” After all, as the tile above Swenson’s cooktop says, “Cooking without garlic is like painting without color.” Learn more chicagobotanic.org/volunteer