Its adobe walls enclose four acres of heritage crops and heirloom trees that represent people who have lived in the Sonoran Desert over the past 4,000 years.

The agricultural practices featured in Mission Garden include those of Hohokam, Tohono O’odham, Spanish colonials and other Europeans, Mexicans, Chinese, and people of African descent.

[5] Mission Garden represents this early agriculture in the agave-covered hillside along the entrance path, an agave roasting pit, a reconstructed pithouse, and plots growing Hohokam crops such as corn.

[7] A few years after his first contact with these O’odham people, Father Kino established near the Santa Cruz River a chapel visited by priests from Mission San Xavier del Bac.

It eventually had a church, a two-story residence for priests, a granary, tanning vats, a soap factory, a blacksmith shop and smelter, as well as cemetery areas - all surrounded by a compound wall.

Mission Garden’s Spanish Colonial area features fruits such as grapes, quince, pomegranate, Valencia oranges, peaches, plums, and apricots.

Tucson's growing population included indigenous and Hispanic peoples who had lived in the area for many generations before the Presidio San Agustín del Tucsón was established in 1775.

A number of native plants grace the path from Mission Garden’s visitor parking area to the mesquite plank gates of the main entrance.

[20] As of 2023, the orchard grows close to 200 heirloom figs, grapefruit, limes, oranges, quince, pomegranates, olives, and stone fruit such as peaches and apricots.

[20] Originally funded by the National Park Service, this project aims to find and re-establish cultivars or stocks of these historically important fruit trees.

For example, the original stock for Mission Garden's Niagara grape came from Capitol Reef National Park’s Fruita Rural Historic District.

His letters asked for seeds of plants like flax, turnip, carrot, beet, cauliflower, fennel, caraway, anise, sage, mint, chicory, garlic, celery, chives, and marjoram.

[25] These early farmers populated stable, agricultural settlements in the Santa Cruz River’s fertile floodplain, and used canal systems for bringing water to their crops.

[27] A small-cobbed variety of corn, as well as squash and beans dated around the same time, show that early agriculture here included the synergistic three sisters used by various Indigenous peoples across Central and North America.

Mission Garden shows the field crops that the Tohono O’odham farmed before contact with Europeans, when they relied to a large extent on monsoon rains and therefore emphasized foods that grow in warmer months.

These crops include a fast-growing corn (ki:kam ku:n), greens such as amaranth (chuhuggia i:wagi), and tepary beans (bab:wi).

Their small gardens would likely have grown corn (maíz), squash (calabacitas), fava beans (habas), chard (acelgas), and prickly pear (nopales).

Plants typically growing in this area include jojoba, wild tobacco, desert verbena, damianita, Western mugwort, Indian root, and Mormon tea.

[34][35] The grocers kept gardens behind their shops to grow food for themselves such as amaranth (yin choy), winter melon (don qua), luffa, eggplant, and goji berries.

[41] Mission Garden honors these early practices by growing greens like collards, mustards, and spinach, as well as root crops such as onions and carrots.

[43] Many of the bottles in this tree were found during Mission Garden's development.To the left of the main entrance is an adobe brick building with a porch made of ocotillo branches.

For example, the gift shop sells orange, grapefruit, and lime marmalades, and the San Ysidro Festival shares pozole de trigo (a soup from Mexican cuisine that can be made with hominy or wheat).

[44] Mission Garden also has a granary and a chicken coop; these small buildings were originally a gift from the Tarahumara of Mexico to the Arizona State Museum.

Volunteers from Iskashitaa Refugee Network, for example, help grow and distribute Mission Garden's food; they also demonstrate traditional agricultural methods during special events such as the San Ysidro Festival.

Sadongei served previously in various roles at the Smithsonian Institution and the Arizona State Museum; she is a current member of the Historical Commission for Tucson and Pima County.

Exemplifying the latter are baker Don Guerra, a James Beard Award winner who is known for collaborating with farmers growing heritage grains;[54][55] Gary Paul Nabhan, a scholar who is known for his leadership of local food and heirloom seed saving movements;[56] and Linda Ronstadt, a musician who kept her home in Tucson for many years and remains connected to the community.

Coverdell Fellow Brad Kindler, for example, wrote his 2018 Masters thesis on sustainable and innovative ways that food might be grown in the future, as environments face challenges such as water scarcity and higher temperatures.

They do field trips in the area and regularly study materials on such subjects in order to orient visitors arriving at the gates to Mission Garden.

They give tours to families, classes, and other groups; they help plan and carry out events at Mission Garden, as well as supporting its presence at other venues.

Tasks that gardening enthusiasts typically do include preparing soil, planting seeds or seedlings, weeding and picking off bugs, irrigating, mulching, and harvesting and measuring the results.