Seeds of continuity: An Istanbul gardener keeping alive an Ottoman legacy

For Dursun Kaplan, a long day kicks off at 6 am at the Yedikule bostan (garden in Turkish), a verdant stretch at the heart of Istanbul.

The 55-year-old Dursun Bey (Mr. in Turkish) is one of 32 gardeners living among the gardens located along what were once the great protective moats lining the Land Walls of the Yedikule neighbourhood. “These 32 gardeners are engaged in agriculture, from the Topkapı gate to the Yedikule gate,” he says.

Dursun’s own plot stretches between the Silivri gate and the Belgrade gate, a 5,000 sq m area devoted to a variety of seasonal crops, from rocket, purslane, radish and black cabbage, to Yedikule lettuce and tomatoes.

Gazing at the trees he planted, which include black mulberry and kavak fig, with plane trees on the fringes, he notes as a matter of fact: “I keep growing these crops during eight months of the year.”

A crunchy heirloom

Among all these seasonal crops, one is uniquely local: Yedikule lettuce. With characteristically crisp, long and yellowish-green leaves, this vegetable is a bridge between the past and the present and is grown only in the Yedikule gardens. Its seeds are priceless.

Dursun Bey strolls down memory lane, stating, “In the past, people would climb up the walls to watch this magnificent province while savouring this lettuce.”

“Yedikule lettuce, one of the vegetable varieties created in Istanbul during the Ottoman era, is still cherished by its senior citizens. It is a crucial part of the collective memory and experience of this province,” says Aleksandar Shopov, professor of early Ottoman history at Binghamton University in New York.

In addition to the heirloom seeds of lettuce, purslane and chard, which Dursun Bey carefully stores in a corner of his hut, he plants basil seeds that were brought from Malatya province a few years ago. Following the Ottoman tradition, he says seeds are survival and lives up to his word by contributing to the preservation and spread of heirloom seed varieties at the province’s oldest farm.

Shopov tells TRT World, “In the early-modern period of Ottoman Istanbul, a large number of people were involved in creating new varieties of plants, including vegetables and flowers. Seeds were collected, preserved and exchanged in the city. Besides, seeds of new varieties of flowers and vegetables were developed in the city, like those of Langa cucumber, Yedikule lettuce and Arnavutkoy strawberry.”

A living history

With his face shining from the sweat of a hard day’s work, Dursun Bey takes a break on the banks of a moat under the shadow of a vine. “Earlier today, I harvested and piled 750 bundles of purslane,” he says with satisfaction.

It is pretty tiring and challenging, but worth it, he proudly adds, revealing his enthusiasm for continuing a cultural and ecological heritage of the province that dates back to the 5th century.

The Yedikule gardens are one of the unique examples of Istanbul’s long tryst with vegetable gardening. Back in the 17th century, Ottoman traveller Evliya Celebi described in his famous Seyahatnâme (The Book of Travels) that Istanbul hosted 4,395 gardens, covering nearly 16,500 sq m of the great city with fertile greenery.

In the present day, these traditional gardens surround the Land Walls — a series of defensive stone walls around Istanbul built between the 4th and 5th centuries — in the area known as the historical peninsula that extends from the Golden Horn in the north to the Sea of Marmara in the south.

These stone walls, which have witnessed the rise and fall of several empires across 1,600 years of history and have withstood the test of time despite a multitude of disasters, ranging from sieges, wars, earthquakes and fires, were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1985, and to this day, stand out as key components of the urban fabric of this legendary city.

These formerly defensive structures, spanning 7.5 km in length, contain 10 spectacular gates whose historic names now adorn those of the surrounding neighbourhoods, as they have become integrated with the quotidian life of Istanbul’s citizens.

“The Yedikule gardens and the Land Walls are like an apple, cleft in two,” says Dursun Bey.

In this dynamic, teeming province of Istanbul, these gardens have persisted through constant transformation. Offering an impressive and ever-productive green space within a world-renowned heritage site, these gardens are truly unique.

Shopov says, “The Yedikule gardens can help us understand Ottoman agricultural history. Scholars have not paid much attention to this specific area. Ottomans are assumed to be warriors and conquerors. Yet, their contribution to agriculture is immense.”

He adds that urban gardening has been a settled practice around the city walls of Istanbul since at least the 16th century. And Dursun Bey’s garden, isolated from the noise and crowds of the cosmopolitan province, enchants visitors not only with its air of history but also its verdant environment.

A rustic repast

It is already close to noon, but Dursun Bey can barely sit down for breakfast with his wife, Kezban Hanim (Mrs. in Turkish), his employees and other family members due to the heavy toll the work in the garden has taken.

They heartily savour the belated meal consisting of radish salad, cekme halva, olives, honey and buttercream, and most remarkably Kezban Hanim’s flatbread, hand-made on the griddle. The aroma of freshly baked bread blends with the waft of flowers from the nearby garden in a heady bouquet.

The bounty of nature adorning the table, including the honey Dursun Bey has harvested from the hives set at the back of the garden, bears a rustic look that comes as a pleasant surprise.

My faithful beloved is the black earth, says Dursun Bey while sipping tea, quoting a line from a song by popular folk musician Asik Veysel.

Moving to Istanbul in the 1990s, Dursun Bey has, since 1994, taken a stretch of the Yedikule gardens, between Silivri gate and Belgrade gate, on lease from the municipality, and worked here ever since.

Besides his role as a protector of one of Istanbul’s cherished ‘intangible heritages’, he sustains his craft while helping pass this timeless knowledge to the coming generations through sessions with curious children.

“I learned gardening from my uncle and my dad. Since the 1960s, it is mostly gardeners from the Kastamonu province from the Black Sea region who have been employed in growing vegetables in the Yedikule gardens.”

A bridge across time

Dursun Bey’s activities raise hope that individuals can help build a sustainable urban ecosystem. He says he adopts an organic agricultural approach where, as much as possible, crops are cultivated without falling into the trap of industrialised agriculture.

For instance, instead of spraying pesticides, he simply plucks unwanted weeds from the ground by hand. This method begins to make more sense when one considers that some of the gardeners are using 18-20 m deep Ottoman-era stone wells for irrigation. Here, the key source of nutrients comes from animal manure.

“Those who visit here can taste both history and tradition,” says Dursun Bey.

When the tomato season arrives in the gardens at the end of July, customers from as far as Kadikoy – the Anatolian part of Istanbul district – pass by these organic vegetable patches to pick up their daily needs.

As for the continuing significance of these gardens, Shopov says, “The Yedikule gardens are one of the very few examples left of an urban space where agriculture has been done for centuries, and can serve as an example of how cities of the future can be developed.”

As the sun glows over this bountiful land, Dursun Bey rushes to transport the neatly bundled purslane and parsley to the nearby marketplaces of Zeytinburnu and Bayrampasa.

Production on this soil has its advantages, with the proximity of its leafy gardens to both consumers and retailers offering tremendous convenience. “While vegetables grown in Antalya take at least two days to arrive in Istanbul, the morning yield from Yedikule reaches the public immediately.”