October 17th, 2010 by admin
“Few relishes are more appreciated than the Cucumber and those who like it generally contrive to have a long supply of tender fruits by sowing successionally in winter and spring.” — Wright Encyclopedia of Gardening
Cucumbers come in an amazing variety of shapes and sizes, from the diminutive Gherkin (great for pickling) to the smooth-skinned Long English variety, best for greenhouse plantings but most varieties will produce prickly-skinned fruit for several weeks through to the end of the summer and into the fall, if your region is free of frosts. The common cucumber, Cucumis safivus is, according to Thomas Bridgeman’s Kitchen Gardener’s Instructor (1847), native to the East Indies, introduced to England in 1573. Bridgeman also states, ”In March they are sold in the London Markets for a guinea a dozen; and in August and September for a penny a dozen” showing the higher cost for forced, out-of-season produce.
In addition to being tasty, cucumbers have long been celebrated for personal beauty. Think cucumber masks are new? Culpeper’s Complete Herbal, published in 1814 suggests that “The face being washed with their juice, cleanses the skin, and is excellent good for hot rheums in the eyes.” The manual also offers, “Take the Cucumbers and bruise them well, and distill the water from them … The face being washed with the same water, cures the reddest face that is; it is also excellently good for sun-burning, freckles and morphew.”
Aside: morphew is an archaic term for blisters that result from scurvy. Ew.
cucumber, health, vine
July 11th, 2010 by admin
Just wanted to note that the garden outside my back deck has been winning in the battle for my attention! I’ll be back to regular posts soon. Got a topic in mind? Leave me a comment!
June 20th, 2010 by admin
My daughter taught me about feverfew after she learned about it in a summer camp program. I’d always thought of it as a weed (and it does have invasive qualities) but now know that it is cultivated for use in herbal supplements.
illustration from the 1814 edition of Culpeper's complete herbal.
Feverfew (Tanacetum partheneum or Chrysanthymum partheneum) a.k.a. Fetherfew, Featherfew has been used for centuries as a treatment for migraines. John Hill championed it in The British Herbal, 1772, “In the worst headaches this herb exceeds whatever else is known.” A century earlier, Culpeper stated that, in addition to being helpful post-childbirth, feverfew
… is effectual for all pains in the head coming of a cold cause, the herb being bruised and applied to the crown of the head : as also for the vertigo, that is, a running or swimming of the head. The decoction thereof, drank warm, and the herb bruised, with a few corns of bay-salt, and applied to the wrists before the coming of the ague fits, does take them away.
Some texts also suggest making a tea, much like chamomile as the plants are related. The active ingredient in supplements made from feverfew is parthenolide which, according to Manitoba Agriculture, varies widely among genetic lines. For this reason, it is not expected that the results will be the same for every user of fresh feverfew.
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feverfew, medicinal
June 17th, 2010 by admin
photo credit Cheryl DeWolfe
Is there anything more heartbreaking than the sight of seedlings, stripped of their leaves overnight by slugs?
In the Wright Encyclopedia of Gardening (1933), Walter P. Wright has this to say about slugs and snails,
Gardeners are not yet satisfied of the useful part played by the slug in the economy of Nature. Knowing it as a voracious feeder on young plants, they have classified it as an enemy that must be rigorously repressed. But the slug takes a good deal of subduing. Nocturnal in habits, clever at finding hiding-places, it often ends triumphant.
Not exactly fighting words. Mrs Jane Loudon, in Gardening for Ladies (1869) was more blunt, calling slugs and snails “the terror of all gardeners.” She continues, “the destruction they effect in some seasons in small gardens is almost beyond the bounds of credulity.”
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pest control, slugs, snails
June 14th, 2010 by admin
photo credit: Cheryl DeWolfe
One of my favourite poems by William Carlos Williams features the plum:
This is just to say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
How can you not fall in love with a fruit that evokes such an image? Plums are a stone fruit, like cherries, peaches and apricots — in fact “pluots” are a hybrid between plums and apricots. A south-facing wall that reflects heat will provide the largest fruits but plums do well in almost any location that gets at least a few hours of direct sun.
In A Treatise of Fruit Trees (1757), suggests a wall with late afternoon sun in its plan for a small (two acre) kitchen garden:
The wall C receives but little sun, for it shines not upon it till three in the afternoon; but it may serve for fruits which ripen in summer, as cherries, plums, and some kinds of pears.
The book further suggests that by training trees against walls will provide protection from wind in addition to the reflected heat.
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plums
May 30th, 2010 by admin
For many years, the best way for a gardener to ensure a good crop in following years was to save the seeds from the strongest plants. It’s still the best way but for years, few people practiced this as it was easier just to buy new seeds from suppliers. (Speaking of suppliers, if you want to see some beautiful garden-related art, go browse the Seed Catalog collection at the Smithsonian. Click on explore if you want to waste an hour browsing!)
In addition to ensuring the plants are hardy for the region, the practice of seed saving also ensures a greater variety to the global seed stock. At a time when corporations like Monsanto expressly forbid seed saving by farmers using their “products,” seed saving has also become a political act.
Back in 1603 it was not political; Richard Gardiner, in Profitable Instructions for Kitchin Gardens, has this to say about “The best way to obtaine seede Beanes for Gardens”:
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seed saving
May 25th, 2010 by admin
photo credit: Cheryl DeWolfe
One of my favourite things in the world is strawberry-rhubarb crumble and I was very excited on moving into our new home to find rhubarb growing in the back of the lot. According to the neighbours, the last owners had tried to eradicate it — I’m glad they were not successful. Now you know how I ended up with rhubarb in my yard, but how did it get to North America?
Rhubarb is a perennial that grows from a rhizome – like ginger and irises. There are actually several varieties, all of which originated in Asia — the most famous having been used for centuries in China as a natural laxative. The varieties grown in North America are descended from English varieties which most likely came from Siberia/Russia. Fred S. Thompson says, in Rhubarb or Pie Plant Culture (1894):
The rhubarb commonly grown for commercial purposes under the name of Pie Plant is called by the botanist “Rheum Rhaponticum”; it is also called English Rhubarb and is a native of southern Siberia in Asia. Having been cultivated early in the seventeenth century in Padua, whence it was brought to England, the first plant being raised there about the year sixteeen-hundred and twenty-eight.
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medicinal, rhubarb
May 21st, 2010 by admin
“To determine the appropriate size of a kitchen garden is impossible.”
– George W Johnson in The Kitchen Garden, 1836
With the current popularity of food gardening, a common question from beginners is “How much space do I need?” The answer is, as Johnson suggests, impossible to determine without considering a number of other factors. Johnson suggests a few:
…it ought to be proportionate to the size of the family, their partiality for vegetables, and the fertility of the soil.
It may serve as some criterion to state that the management of a kitchen garden occupying the space of an acre, affords ample employment for a gardener, who will also require an assistant at the busiest periods of the year. In general a family of four persons, exclusive of servants, requires a full rood of open kitchen garden.
A rood, in case you were curious (I was) is a quarter of an acre where an acre is divided in four strips instead of four squares [Land Measurement]. This is the same amount of land suggested by the US Department of Agriculture for family Victory Gardens. In 1948, Henry Teuscher suggested that a family of five could build a suitable vegetable garden on a city lot measuring 25×100 ft (if my math is right, that’s about a third of the size suggested above) [Montreal Botanical Garden Bulletin no. 3] which may have more to do with agricultural improvements over the years than anything else.
However, I think Ida Bennett says it best when she states that the location of the vegetable garden, “is a point which admits of little discussion or advice, as, in the majority of cases, circumstances decide this arbitrarily” [The Vegetable Garden, 1908]. In other words, work with whatever you have. If all you have room for is a single container on the deck of a condo, fill it with herbs or mixed greens; if you have lawn to spare, start digging!
planning, size
May 19th, 2010 by admin
photo credit Cheryl DeWolfe
Tent caterpillars (a term used to describe more than 20 species in the genus Malacosoma ) are easily recognized by their bright colours and the distinct spun-web tents that provide shelter when they aren’t defoliating trees.
When I was little, I remember my Dad taking care to prune nests of tent caterpillars out of our fruit trees then throw them all into the incinerator. I’m pretty sure there were curse words uttered in the process. It’s not a particularly modern method but it’s still one of the most effective ways to deal with an invasion.
A hundred years ago, however, the most common suggestion I’ve found was to spray the tree with “arsenate of lead” which is exactly what it sounds like — a compound made with lead and arsenic. That people sprayed on fruit trees and other food plants.
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caterpillars, pest management
May 17th, 2010 by admin
USDA Victory Gardens (run-time 0:20:26)
This 1942 film produced by the US Department of Agriculture discusses the importance of Victory Gardens and encourages the whole family to pitch in — and they’d need to with a garden that size! I don’t know of many families now who have quite as much room as they have — about 1/4 of an acre.
A product of its time, this film also encourages the use of chemical sprays and fertilizers but that only adds to the allure for historians. Notice that the Victory Garden campaign was supported by the 4H club and branded as “Food for Freedom!”
Some statistics:
- In 1942, the program’s first year, about 15 million families planted victory gardens — in backyards, in empty lots, and even on city rooftops. [North Carolina Digital History -- 8.2 Victory Gardens]
- In 1943, 20 million victory gardens produced more than 40 percent of the fresh vegetables grown that year in the U.S. [North Carolina Digital History -- 8.2 Victory Gardens]
- By 1944 the value of home gardens was estimated at $68,000,000. [North Carolina Digital History -- 8.3 4-H and Home Demonstration Work during World War II]
- By the end of 1943, there were more than 200 000 victory gardens in Canada, producing about 550lb of produce each! [Home from the War: Victory Gardens]
- The number of gardens in Vancouver, including New Westminster, Burnaby, North and West Vancouver by the end of the year was 52,000; the value of the food they produced in the 1943 season was estimated (in the dollar value of the time) as $4 million.[City Farmer: Garden Warriors of 1942]
North America, video, wartime
