Garden History: Looking back at backyard gardens was inspired by a single book, “Profitable Instructions for the manuring, sowing and planting of kitchin gardens” by Richard Gardiner, still relevant some 400 years after it was written.

Backyard gardens (and now increasingly front yard and boulevard and even guerrilla gardens) require the gardener to have some faith — that seeds will sprout, that weather will be favorable and that the harvest will be bountiful. Though science has been able to provide us with some assurances, increasingly people are looking to move away from chemicals and invasive gardening methods, and back to the way our grandparents or their grandparents gardened.

This blog aims to glean some history — not only about gardening but also about gardens themselves — from books and other writings from the past 400 years, give or take.

Your host, Cheryl DeWolfe is a writer, blogger, researcher, historian, library-nerd and gardener, not necessarily in that order. She was born and bred in Victoria, BC, aka the City of Gardens, where she lives with her husband, daughter and a sizeable backyard garden of her own.

You can contact Cheryl with suggestions of garden books or for interviews by email at triviaqueen at shaw dot ca or find her on Twitter @victriviaqueen.