Category Archives: Vegetables

Cecil Beaton at Waterperry House

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‘Pruning pear cordons in the walled garden. Angled method of training ensures maximum amount of sunlight on each fruit tree.’ Women’s Horticultural College at Waterperry House in Oxfordshire, 1943  All photographs by Cecil Beaton from the Ministry of Information Second World War Official Collection at the Imperial War Museum, London. Copyright: © IWM DB252.

Beneath a bright sky, scattered with light cloud, groups of young women dressed in a practical uniform of dungarees and short sleeved shirts are hard at work in the summer sunshine.  Captured by photographer Cecil Beaton, these scenes of wartime England in the early 1940s show horticultural students from the Women’s Horticultural College, based at Waterperry House in rural Oxfordshire, cultivating vital food crops for the war effort.

Engaged in an array of tasks, women are shown driving tractors, and operating other horticultural machinery such as the Plant Junior Hoe, as well as planting, pruning and harvesting by hand.  The gardens are recorded at a busy moment in the growing season, probably in June or July, with crops of lettuce and ripe strawberries ready for market, alongside onions and tomato plants still growing on.  New seed drills are in the process of being marked out with twine in the freshly turned soil, in preparation for successional sowings.

Better known for his stylish studio portraits of celebrities and royalty, Cecil Beaton produced these images of Waterperry for the Ministry of Information between 1940 and 1944.  He is thought to have made two visits to the site, one of which was in the summer of 1943.

In his role as war photographer, Cecil Beaton (1904 – 1980) produced over 7,000 images recording the war in the Middle East and East Asia, as well as the effects of the blitz in the UK and the domestic war effort.  These photographs were the subject of three books published during the war years and the images were transferred to the Imperial War Museum’s collection in 1948.  As well as people, Beaton had a lasting interest in flowers and gardens, including his own at Reddish House in Wiltshire, which featured regularly in his work.

Beaton depicts the young Waterperry horticulturalists bent double thinning rows of vegetables, leaning across cold frames to tend courgette plants inside, or heaving crates of produce into the back of a van, bound for the college shop in Oxford market.  As Beaton records the physical demands of gardening, his interest in performance and drama is also apparent, his choice of poses giving the women an emblematic appearance, like heroic figures in a patriotic wartime poster.

The captions accompanying Beaton’s photographs are written in the same style as a wartime news reel commentary, with the brisk delivery and clipped pronunciation typical of the era.  If some of the assumptions about women’s roles and capabilities seem dated today, so do the horticultural methods – it’s hard to imagine crop spraying now without any face protection for the gardeners.  There is hardly any plastic in evidence, however, with tomatoes tied to their supports with raffia and vegetable crates made out of wood.

The Women’s Horticultural College was founded by Beatrix Havergal (1901 – 1980) in 1927 at Pusey House, Oxfordshire.  The college moved to Waterperry in 1932, acquiring the site from Magdelen College, Oxford in 1948.  Havergal trained in horticulture at the Thatcham Fruit and Flower Farm near Newbury before joining Downe House boarding school as head gardener in the early 1920s.  It was here that she met her life-long partner Avice Sanders, the school’s housekeeper.   Havergal’s two year courses for women covered both theory and practice in horticulture and secured a high reputation for standards.  In failing health in her later years, Havergal eventually sold the site to the School of Philosophy and Economic Science in 1971, who remain the owners.

The formidable looking Beatrix Havergal appears in two of Beaton’s photographs; a portrait shows her in a glasshouse thinning bunches of grapes with a scissors and in another she is with students pruning pear cordons in the walled garden.  Head of Fruit Growing, Jo Cockin is shown in another photograph instructing students how to spray trees with noxious sounding Nico dust.

Alpine specialist and photographer Valerie Finnis was, of course, a student and later a tutor at Waterperry, joining the college in 1942.  Looking again at the composition of Valerie’s photographs from those early years of her life at Waterperry, it’s likely that Beaton’s wartime images were a significant influence in her portrait work.  Garden People (2007), the book about Valerie’s life, contains a striking image of two students balanced on stepladders in the walled garden tying in the shoots of a fan-trained peach tree.  Intent on their work and with their backs to the camera, this rather unusual pose, together with the stylised symmetry of the photograph is highly reminiscent of Beaton’s approach.

Waterperry is currently in the process of digitising their archive, which includes glass negatives of some of Beaton’s photographs taken in their gardens for the Ministry of Information.  As this work progresses, it’s hoped eventually to be able to attach names to more of the faces in these evocative images, and gain further insights into the lives of those who participated in Beatrix Havergal’s remarkable Horticultural College.

In the meantime, I hope you’ll agree Cecil Beaton has captured something uplifting in the achievement of these women working together as a team to produce much needed food for the nation.  Links to the photographs and other sources below:

‘The exterior of Waterperry House. A horticultural school for women now training students in all branches of agriculture and horticulture with special regard to producing disease free crops.’ © IWM DB243

‘Working on the beds which are planned for space saving. Lettuces are planted between tomatoes.’ © IWM DB246

‘Watering time in the frames for the cucumbers and marrows.’ © IWM DB247

‘Expert knowledge of all glass house plants is combined with practical experience of planting and growing.’ © IWM DB248

‘A girl is tying up tomatoes out-of-doors.’ © IWM DB250

‘Beatrix Havergal, Principal of Waterperry, trained horticulture expert, now trains girls to become efficient gardeners and students of both the practical and theoretical side of horticulture. Here she is tending to the grape vines.’ © IWM DB251

‘The tractors and machines used for haymaking in the fields are all worked by the students.’ © IWM DB253

‘Picking tomatoes for market day.’ © IWM DB254

‘Washing lettuces and vegetables before packing them up for the weekly market day in Oxford where they are sold at the school’s own shop in the market.’ © IWM DB255

‘Tomato plants ready for the van to go to Oxford market.’ © IWM DB256

‘Packing the van with vegetables for market. All fruit and vegetables grown for study purposes are sold in the market.’ © IWM DB257

‘The Plant Junior Hoe which saves time and labour and hoes fields of carrots in record time. Easily handled by women.’ © IWM DB258

‘Hard work but fun, digging a trough for seed sowing in the experimental vegetable growing fields.’ © IWM DB259

‘Two girls sowing seeds in a field.’ © IWM DB260

‘Disease free fruit is grown in connection with the research station at East Malling, Kent. Here a student is potting strawberry runners. All the plants are grown in groups widely separated from one another so that should any blight occur it does not spread and the whole group is destroyed.’ © IWM DB261

‘Under the strawberry nets. Pounds are sent to market in Oxford and used for jam making.’ © IWM DB262

‘A young girl carrying onion plants.’ © IWM DB263

‘Thinning onions and assuring a good crop and no more onion shortages for the housewives of Britain.’ © IWM DB264

‘It takes two to spray a fruit tree. One girl pumps at the barrel while the other holds the spray to reach the highest boughs. Spraying fruit trees is one of the most important steps in producing high grade disease free fruit.’ © IWM DB265

‘Dust-blower spraying fruit trees to protect them against insects and pests. Nico dust is one of the modern discoveries of pest control. Miss Cockin Head of the Fruit Growing Staff shows students the correct way to spray trees in the apple orchard.’ © IWM DB265

‘In the tomato houses trimming and training plants takes neat fingers, work for which women are especially suited.’ © IWM DB249

‘Food production demands full time work but the students work on the herbaceous border in their off hours. Learning about plants and flowers and preserving one of the most beautiful borders in Oxfordshire.’

Further reading:

Cecil Beaton’s WW2 photographs for the Ministry of Information at the Imperial War Museum here

Waterperry Gardens here

Beatrix Havergal on Wikipedia here

An American Harvest

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‘Farm, harvesting vegetables’ – a series of glass negatives from the Harris & Ewing Collection at the Library of Congress

It can be a dangerous moment for a photograph when no one can remember the identity of the people depicted in it or the place it was taken.  When the context is lost, its value and significance become eroded, with a real possibility that one day it might be thrown away.

Fortunately, these atmospheric photographs showing individuals and families harvesting vegetables have been preserved, even though they have become disconnected from their history.  Details of names, location, and a precise date for the photographs are now lost, but they remain a luminous record of a community and a glimpse into their way of life that existed in America approximately one hundred years ago, that might otherwise be forgotten.

Thought to date between 1915 – 1923, the photographs are the work of an un-named photographer from the Harris & Ewing photographic studio, whose archive is now held in the Library of Congress.  Founded in 1905 by George W Harris and Martha Ewing and based in Washington DC, the company supplied newspapers with portraits of well-known people to illustrate their stories – but sometimes ventured out of the confines of the studio to document events of interest.

The collective title devised by library staff for these photographs is ‘Farm, harvesting vegetables’, and it’s unclear if the harvesters are collecting vegetables as workers employed on a farm, or for their own use.  It’s interesting to see that, unlike today, the baskets, boxes and cloth sacks they are using are all made out of natural materials rather than plastic.

The harvesters in the Harris & Ewing photographs appear reticent in front of the camera, perhaps unused to, and uncomfortable with, the attention.  A girl with a large bow in her hair helps with the tomato harvest by placing the large, glossy fruits carefully into a basket, but cannot find the courage to look directly at the photographer, while her mother looks rather guarded at the intrusion into their quiet activity.

Others seem happier to co-operate – two men, both wearing ties, pose with a large basket piled high with squash and a young man empties a basket of beans into a wooden box attached to his bicycle.

These dignified people look as though their origins were once in Europe – but as they live their lives in a new country, adopting its clothes, and gathering its crops of sweetcorn, squash and beans, they have been transformed into Americans.

Family group gathering corn cobs and tomatoes

A man in a straw hat holds an aubergine as he inspects his harvest

Two girls, possibly twins, fill a basket with tomatoes while behind them an man harvests corn cobs

Young man filling a wooden box attached to his bicycle with beans

A man with a pipe carries his harvest along a road

Further reading:

The Harris & Ewing Collection at the Library of Congress here

Harris & Ewing Photographic Studio Wikipedia entry here

Martin Gerlach’s Festoons

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Festoon made from vegetables and beets, from Festons und Decorative Gruppen aus Pflanzen und Theiren, or, Festoons and decorative groups of Plants and Animals, published in Vienna in 1893 by Martin Gerlach. Images courtesy of the Museum für Kunst und Gerwerbe, Hamburg

These festoons with their sumptuous cascades of ripe fruits and fragrant roses suspended from a striped silk ribbon resemble at first glance sections of stone ornament, or plaster moulding.  But closer inspection reveals the roses to be cabbages, the delicious looking fruits are in fact beetroots and onions, the elaborate silk bow is a curtain cord, and a wooden finial has been pressed into service as a classical-looking prop, hiding the ends of plant stems at the top of the arrangement.

All the festoons, swags, garlands and other embellishments in Festons und Decorative Gruppen aus Pflanzen und Theiren, or, Festoons and decorative groups of Plants and Animals, are constructed using similarly inventive combinations of flowers, vegetables, taxidermy and domestic objects.  Published in Vienna in 1893 by Martin Gerlach, this book of elaborate photographic collages was intended both as reference and inspiration for artists working across a range of crafts using pattern, from wood carving, plaster work, textiles, illustration and wallpaper design.

Judging by the seasonality of the plant materials Gerlach used, the photographs were taken over the course of many months.  Early spring blossoms of apple and cherry with nesting birds give way to the lilac, roses and hollyhocks of summer, while autumn provides a profusion of gourds, sweetcorn, grapes, apples and pumpkins.  Winter is represented by arrangements of pine cones and stuffed squirrels placed amongst evergreen conifer branches.

Some of the most effective designs use only leaves – the winding stems of creeping cinquefoil form a delicate narrow border, while larger sprigs of oak leaves and acorns could be imagined as infill sections for fabric or wallpaper.  Peony flowers and leaves carefully spaced over a diamond grid background would have been helpful for an artist designing a repeat pattern.

Garlands of citrus fruits are shown in half-sections, the smaller fruits at the edges, gradually increasing in size towards the middle.  Some of the most elaborate festoons include tools and musical instruments – in one example a gardener’s spade intersects with a watering can, while a straw basket (or maybe an upturned straw hat?) overflows with produce, celebrating the bounty of harvest.

From the middle of the 19th century photographers such as Adolphe Braun (1812 – 1877) and Charles Aubry (1811 – 1877) saw a commercial opportunity to produce still life studies of flowers as reference material for artists.  Although photographs could not entirely replace living specimens, it must have been an immense advantage to be able to see forms of flowers, their leaves and the growing patterns of stems and branches throughout the year, especially in winter, when it was not possible to observe these from life.  Gerlach produced a number of reference books in this genre, including plant forms, trees, examples of wrought iron and other architectural details.

Martin Gerlach (1846 – 1918) was born in Hanau, Germany and trained as an engraver.  He established a jewellery business in the 1860s but this enterprise was unsuccessful.  Having become interested in photography, Gerlach started a publishing house in the 1870s in Berlin which produced his reference books and a crafts magazine, Die Perle.  He re-located his company to Vienna in 1872 and continued his work there, eventually publishing more than forty books about design and a series of books for children including songs, poems and fairytales.

By the end of the 19th century decorative motifs like those celebrated in Festons und Decorative Gruppen, and popular in Europe since Roman times, were soon to be swept away by new ideas and fashions associated with Modernism.  Today Gerlach’s plant and vegetable festoons and garlands have almost a contemporary feel to them – it’s not hard to imagine a photographer inspired, perhaps, by carvings or plaster work in a historic house, deciding to re-create them with real materials as a post-modern photographic project.  More than one hundred years after publication, this collection of images continues both to inspire and document the complex role of photography in design.

Links to source materials below:

Festoons and decorative groups of plants and animals by Martin Gerlach, Vienna. Gerlach & Schenk

Festoons and still lifes made from sunflowers, mallow, lilies, vegetables, paradise apples, melons, radishes, peppers, crabs, goblets, grapes, bottles, hay, etc

Festoon made of chestnuts, fruits, medallion and bird

Frieze and festoons made from pumpkins, medlar leaves, corn, etc

Frieze, festoons and vignette made of hazelnut, oak, grapes, pumpkins, paradise apple, Kukuk, etc

Group of apple blossoms with birds

Group of cherry plum and almond blossoms with a bird

Group of apple blossoms with medallion

Group of apple blossoms with butterflies

Infill and festoon of apple blossoms with fruits, orange branch with fruits and kingfisher

Festoons made from thorn blossom, lilac, garlic and pomegranate

Infill and festoon made from laurel, lemon and orange with butterflies

Groups of plums and Reine-Claude branches

Festoon groups made of quince, sweet chestnut, tulip tree fruit, lemons, pumpkin, pomegranate

Festoons made from vegetables, beets, cereals and garden tools

Threads made of grapes, apple of paradise and hops

Festoons made of musical instruments, palms, pomegranates, lemons, grapes, pumpkins, bay leaves, quinces, corn, coconuts, etc

Decorative stripes and threads made of roses with mask, shell and medallion

Hanging groups of pumpkins and cucumbers

Vignettes made of roses, sign, bottle, palette, palm and mallow

Borders and still lifes made of house leek, carrion flowers, orchids, water lilies, grapes, crabs, lobsters, fish, mussels, reeds, vessels, musical instruments, books, sheet music, laurel etc

Hanging groups and moldings made of thorn, peonies (seed pods), blackberries, marshmallow, mountain ash and apples

Festoon, vignette and group of coconuts, quinces, corn, animal skulls and conifers with birds

Frieze, group and decorative strip of laurel, animal skulls and butterflies

Group of hazelnut branches with squirrels

Festoons and conifer infill with fox heads and squirrels

Trims and infill made of strawberry, cypress and oak (note: I think the plant at the top of the photograph is actually cinquefoil which has strawberry-like fruits)

Groups of peonies

Friezes made from firethorn fruit, silver spruce, aralia, silver bush and trout

Group of acanthus

Further reading:

Festons und Decorative Gruppen aus Pflanzen und Theiren – pages from the book digitized by the MK&G here

Martin Gerlach on Wikipedia here

Gerlach’s photographs are collotypes – Wikipedia definition here

The Photographer in the Garden (EastmanMuseum/Aperture) here

Late Summer at Forde Abbey

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Glasshouses in the kitchen garden at Forde Abbey, Somerset

Last week temperatures soared, making the south of England feel almost Mediterranean.  Shade becomes invaluable in a heatwave, as we seek the relief of a garden seat carefully placed on a woodland walk, or close to the cooling sound of a stream.

Both trees and water are major elements at Forde Abbey gardens.   We arrived just as the Centenary fountain was due to be activated – at certain intervals in the day, a single jet of water powers 160 feet into the air, making this the tallest fountain in the UK.  Although the air was relatively still on the day we visited, the plume of water is sensitive to any variation in the direction of the breeze, changing its shape continually, and covering the surrounding area in a fine mist – a welcome effect in the 90 degree sunshine.

The Great Pond at the southern boundary of the garden was established over 800 years ago by Cistercian monks, and by means of channels, water from this source supplies the more recently added canal and ponds.  The gardens have been developed by a succession of owners over the centuries, including the most recent, the Kennard family, who installed the fountain.

The impressive walled kitchen garden was constructed in the 19th century and is now planted in a colourful, contemporary style against a background of traditional stone walls and glasshouses.  Sweet peas are trained against a tunnel made of rustic poles, covering a central pathway, and alongside the array of vegetables and fruit is a profusion of flowering plants.  Whether grown for cutting, or encouraging crop pollinators, all the blooms contribute to the sense of abundance and generosity which characterises the entire garden.

The large growing beds are edged with low box hedges.   Sometimes, hedging around smaller vegetable beds can look fussy as well as being a lot of work to maintain.  But here, and on this scale the box looks perfect, and has a practical purpose, in some areas acting as a retaining barrier for the soil which has been built up higher than the paths with the addition of compost over years of cultivation.

Permanent crops such as asparagus, rhubarb and peonies are planted in rows alongside annual sowings of brassicas, squash, courgettes and salad vegetables.  Orange flowers always seem to feel at home in a kitchen garden and there are many examples here, including French marigolds (tagetes), alstroemeria and Tithonia rotundiflora.

The outer walls of the kitchen garden form the backdrop for a spectacular herbaceous border and it was here that, rather unexpectedly, we met Alice Kennard, working in a large brimmed hat alongside her gardeners.  Alice tells us that the border is at least fifteen feet deep – about five paces from the wall to the lawn edge.  Ordinarily, without the complications of Covid 19, much of the produce from the walled garden would be used in Forde Abbey’s kitchens catering for visitors and events, but this year much is for sale in the estate’s shop and staff are encouraged to take home what they can.

In the intense heat, I found a few precious pockets of shade in the walled kitchen garden, from which these photographs were taken.  Forde Abbey’s Grade 1 listed buildings currently remain closed, but the 30 acre garden is open daily.  More photographs of the gardens and information about Forde Abbey’s history and opening times here: Forde Abbey   Some of the covetable plants seen in the herbaceous borders are available from the Abbey’s excellent plant nursery.

Low box hedges surround the growing beds

Aramanth ‘Red Army’

Sweet peas on a rustic framework

Rhubarb in a cooler section of the garden

Beautiful clematis on a shady wall

The peach house

Tithonia rotundiflora

A ripening squash

Further reading:

Wikipedia entry for Forde Abbey: Forde Abbey on Wikipedia

The Scarlet Bean

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The Scarlet Bean from Augustin Heckel’s Drawing Book for Young Ladies (1757)

Unlikely as it might seem today, the humble runner bean was grown in eighteenth century gardens alongside roses, carnations and jasmine for the beauty of its red flowers rather than for a crop of bean pods.  Now considered a vegetable and consigned to the allotment, the decorative history of this plant has been forgotten, but evidence of the Scarlet Bean’s previous role in flower borders can be found in certain books from the Georgian period.

The German artist Augustin Heckel (1690 – 1770) worked in England for the majority of his life, and was an accomplished flower painter.  In 1757 he published The Florist, or, an extensive and curious Collection of Flowers for the imitation of Young Ladies, either in Drawing or in Needlework, containing colour engravings of desirable garden plants.  The Scarlet Bean appears right at the end of the book, next to a flower stem of tuberose.

In The City Gardener (1722) Thomas Fairchild mentions the Scarlet-Bean as being suitable for planting in London squares.  He notes that if there is sufficient circulation of air around the flower beds the annual beans, along with the Great Convolvulus, can deal with the pollution from  the city’s coal fires (a reminder that air quality in the capital is far from being a new issue).

‘The Scarlet-Bean, so call’d from the Colour of its Flowers, makes a fine Appearance when it is in Blossom; the Spikes of Flowers are petty long, and well set; and if they have Liberty, and a Support from their beginning to grow, will hold flowering several Months.’

Although we might think of the runner bean as a quintessentially English plant, Phaseolus coccineus originates from the forests of central America, where in frost free conditions it is perennial.  According to the Royal Horticultural Society the bean was introduced into Spain by Columbus, from where it eventually spread across Europe.  It was known in England in the 17th century, and is mentioned in a list of plants grown at Tradescant’s London nursery in 1634.

There is some evidence that plants from these early seeds did not produce many beans, which might explain why Fairchild doesn’t mention removing the pods to prolong flowering.  As the runner bean was developed through breeding programmes as an edible crop for northern latitudes, with longer pods and tolerance to shorter day lengths, its popularity as a decorative plant in England seems to have waned.

But maybe the Scarlet Bean is now due a flower bed revival – in some of our period gardens perhaps?

Augustin Heckel’s Drawing Book for Young Ladies (1757)

The Scarlet Bean with Tuberose, Foxglove and Valerian

Heckel shows how to draw a simplified shape of the flower and add detail in stages. He stylises the flower stems slightly into decorative scroll shapes.

Interesting to see how the hyacyinth is relatively naturalistic compared with the columnar shape of today’s varieties.

Further reading:

The Florist by Augustin Heckel 1757

Augustin Heckel

RHS on Runner Beans

Permaculture in the Lea Valley

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Inside the glasshouse at Hawkwood Plant Nursery the home of Organiclea, fruit and vegetable producers in the Lea Valley, Chigwell.

Tempted outside by the February sunshine last weekend, the unseasonable warmth happened to coincide with an open day at organic growers OrganicLea in Chingford.  And so it was at the very beginning of the vegetable growing season I found myself with a group of visitors exploring twelve acres of fields and glasshouses in the Lea Valley guided by Tim Mitchell, one of the garden’s organisers.

The OrganicLea market garden is to be found, somewhat incongruously, between streets of semi-detached houses typical of the outer suburbs of London and the eastern edge of Epping Forest.  It occupies what was previously Hawkwood Plant Nursery, the London borough of Waltham Forest’s propagation centre for amenity plants grown for use in local parks and gardens.  When this facility closed ten years ago, OrganicLea saw an opportunity to expand – they had previously operated from a community allotment – and they now lease the whole site from the council.

The majority of the gardens are on a slope and several large oak trees, some of which experts believe date from the 17th century, punctuate the growing area.  According to conventional horticultural wisdom, this might not be considered an ideal position for a market garden.  However, by following principles of permaculture, OrganicLea has been able to work with the existing topography to create a productive garden.

Tim’s personal interest in permaculture came out of an interest in ecology. “I was interested in how humans can work alongside other species without destroying the habitats or poisoning those other species. Ecological food-growing  seemed to be the best working model. Although other species often thrive in our absence, it would be nice if we could join the party without ruining it.” he explains.

Permaculture is a term first used in the 1970s by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, the two Australian pioneers of the concept.  It stands for ‘permanent agriculture’ and seeks to find ways of cultivating food crops sustainably, in harmony with the natural environment.  Their book Permaculture One: A Perennial Agriculture for Human Settlements (1978) was followed by the establishment in 1979 of a Permaculture Institute in Tasmania.  Although Mollison spent some time as a campaigner against commercial agriculture, which he believed was damaging the environment in Tasmania, eventually he found it more worthwhile to develop ideas and teach others about sustainable growing practice, which is now a worldwide movement.

The diagram below shows how the permaculture design concept works, with the most intensive cultivation nearest to the house or settlement and much of the perimeter of the site left in a natural state, as a ‘wilderness zone’ for ‘foraging, inspiration and mediation’.

The French translation of Permaculture One: A Perennial Agriculture for Human Settlements (1978)

Standing at the top of Entrance field, the first part of the site to be cultivated by OrganicLea, Tim pointed out a swale, or ditch, running the length of the cultivated area.  This, he explained, is the first line of defence against the force of rainwater running off the wooded hill above, catching some of it and and preventing erosion of the soil.  Beneath this, long, curved beds of vegetables divided by bark chipping paths follow the natural contour of the hill and absorb the remaining rainwater, reducing the frequency the beds need to be hand watered.

All the outdoor crops are cultivated by hand using the ‘no dig’ method.  Compost is added to the beds annually which smothers weeds and builds up topsoil without disturbing the soil structure beneath.  These beds operate on a ten year crop rotation plan, with two years of this cycle devoted to feeding the soil using a green manure crop.

At the centre of the site are the commercial glasshouses OrganicLea inherited ten years ago.  Tim explained, “The glasshouse is a boon as it allows us to run a viable commercial operation.  We can grow higher value crops like tomatoes and chillies which are sold to the public but also to restaurants.”  Up to sixty varieties of chillies are grown and are popular at OrganicLea’s three local market stalls.  Except for some propagation tables, the glasshouse is unheated, but even in February many of the long beds bordered by old scaffolding boards are full of winter salads.

The surrounding woodland has not been cleared but is managed for wildlife.  Out of twelve acres, just six are under production and the OrganicLea team is trying to monitor and increase biodiversity.  At the edge of this ‘wilderness zone’ there’s a poet’s corner dedicated to John Clare.  Tim says, “We like to think he passed through the woods here when he was living in Epping Forest.”

So today the last word goes to Clare – these lines are from London versus Epping Forest written when Clare was resident at the High Beach Asylum in Epping Forest between 1837 – 41.  Although London has now overwhelmed so much of the natural landscape, from this spot surrounded by trees it is somehow possible to experience a sense that nature is still greater than human activity.

Thus London like a shrub among the hills
Lies hid and lower than the bushes here.
I could not bear to see the tearing plough
Root up and steal the forest from the poor,
But leave to freedom all she loves untamed,
The forest walk enjoyed and loved by all.

Rhubarb in the Old Kitchen Garden.

Lettuce, with garlic in the background.

Endive

Rocket and broad beans

Swiss chard

Propagators on heated bench. The black pots in the background will soon be used for the chillie crop.

Inside the glasshouse. The green string is used to support beans, tomatoes and cucumbers.

The glasshouse from the top of Entrance Field

Gloves drying out on trellis.

Further reading:

OrganicLea – well worth looking out for monthly open days and events.

Bill Mollison

David Holmgren

Permaculture Association (UK)

Parkinson’s Kitchen Garden

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1. Brassica capitata Close Cabbage, 2. Brassica patula Open Cabbage, 3. Brassica sabandica crispa Curled Savoye Colewort, 4. Caulis florida Cole Flower, 5. Caulis crispa Curled Colewort, 6. Caulis crispa variata Changeable Curld Colewort, 7. Rapocaulis Cole Rape

At this time of year I feel a certain nostalgia for my old allotment.  Late July would usually see a harvest of beans, courgettes, beetroot and lettuce.  And if the crops were disappointing, there was always the consolation of blackberries which could be gathered in abundance in the hedges around the perimeter of the site.

These woodcut illustrations from John Parkinson’s Paradisi in sole paradisus terrestris (1629) convey the character of home grown vegetables so successfully.  Many plants are drawn with their roots, foliage and flowers, giving a sense of their true scale, in contrast to the trimmed vegetables we find in supermarkets today.   Bold, dark lines evoke the texture of the cabbage leaves and the strong artichoke stems bearing their enormous flower heads.

Written in English, Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris (or, Park-in-Sun’s Terrestrial Paradise) by apothecary and botanist John Parkinson, describes how English gardens were cultivated in the early 17th century. Divided into three sections Parkinson discusses the flower garden, kitchen garden and fruit garden with instructions how to ‘order’ or set these out, as well as giving advice about improving the soil, garden tools and the cultivation of plants.  Most of the illustrations were original woodcuts by the German artist Christopher Switzer.  Parkinson’s garden was in Long Acre, London, close to Trafalgar Square.

Parkinson has plenty of advice to those wanting to establish a kitchen garden, or garden of herbes and his first consideration is where this section of the garden should be situated.  Parkinson has already suggested that the flower garden

‘be in the sight and full prospect of all the chiefe and choicest roomes of the house; so contrariwise your herbe garden should be on the one or other side of the house .. for the many different sents that arise from the herbes, as Cabbages, Onions, &c are scarce well pleasing to perfume the lodgings of any house;’

As well as the disadvantage of the smell of cabbages, Parkinson also points out that a kitchen garden is by its nature in a state of transition, with plants continually being sown and harvested, so it will not always always be neat and pleasing to look at – another reason for siting this garden away from the house:

‘As our former Garden of pleasure is wholly formable in every part with squares, trayles and knots, and to bee still maintained in their due forme and beautie: so on the contrary side this Garden cannot long conserve any forme, for that every part thereof is subject to mutation and alteration.’

As well as supplying the house with produce, another priority for Parkinson’s kitchen gardener is saving seed for future use. He recommends that the largest and best plants are chosen to set seed.  Here he explains how to harvest seeds of lettuce

‘Before your Lettice is shot up, marke out the choysest and strongest plantes which are fittest to grow for seede, and from those when they are a foote high, strippe away with your hand the leaves that grow lowest upon the stalke next the ground, which might rot, spoyle or hinder them from bearing so good seede; which when it is neere to be ripe, the stalkes must be cut off about the middle, and layde upon mats or clothes in the Sunne, that it may there fully ripen and be gathered; for it would be blowne away with the winde if it should be suffered to abide on the stalkes long.’

As an apothecary, Parkinson is well placed to advise on medicinal or physicall herbes.  He records that some country gentlewomen grow these herbs in sufficient quantity for their own families and to share with less well off neighbours.

‘These (herbs) are grown ‘to preserve health, and helpe to cure such small diseases as are often within the compasse of the Gentlewomens skils, who, to helpe their own family, and their poore neighbours that are farre remote from Physitians and Chirurgions, take much paines both to doe good unto them, and to plant those herbes that are conducing to their desires.’

The useful herbs Parkinson recommends include angelica, rue, chamomile, spurge and celandine.

The following images show some of the staple vegetables that would have been grown in 17th century England such as cabbages, root crops like carrots and parsnips, onions and leeks, together with more exotic introductions like potatoes and melons.  There are also indigenous wild plants like goat’s beard which are no longer grown for food.  The complete text can be found at the Biodiversity Heritage Library – see link below.

1 Cucumis longus vulgaris The ordinary Cowcumber. 2 Cucumis Hispanicus The long yellow Spanish Cowcumber. 3 Melo vulgaris The ordinary Melon. 4 Melo maximus optimus The greatest Muske Melon. 5 Pepo The Pompion. 6 Fragari vulgaris Common Strawberries. 7 Fragari Bohemica maxima The great Bohemia Strawberries. 8 Fragari aculeata The prickly Strawberry

Parkinson acknowledges that melons would be difficult to grow in the English climate and suggests a south facing slope with plenty of manure added to the ground.

1 Fabasatina Garden Beanes. 2 Phasioli satsui French Beanes. 3 Pisum vulgare Garden Pease. 4 Pisum umbellatum sine Roseum Rose Pease or Scottish Pease. 5 Pisum saccheratum Sugar Pease. 6 Pisum maculatum Spotted Pease. 7 Cicer arictinuum Rams Ciches or Cicers

Cicers or Ciches are chickpeas.

1 Raphanus rusticanus Horse Raddish. 2 Lepidium sine Piperitis Dierander. 3 copa rotunda Round Onions. 4 copa longae Long Onions. 5 Perrum Leekes. 6 Allium Garlicke. 7 Rapunculus Rampions. 8 Tragopogon Goates beard.

The roots of Goat’s beard or Jack Go to Bed at Noon were eaten cooked in butter.  This plant is related to salsify.

1 Carum Carawayes. 2 Battatas Hispanorum Spanish Potatoes. 3 Papas seu Battatas Virginianerum Virginia Potatoes. 4 Battatas de Canada Potatoes of Canada or Artichokes of Jerusalem.

1 Sisarum Skirrits. 2 Pastinaca latifolia Parsneps. 3 Pastinaca tenuifolia Carrets. 4 Kapum Turneps. 5 (unclear) 6 Raphanus niger Blacke Raddish. 7 Raphanus vulgaris Common Raddish

1 Portulaca Purslane. 2 Dracho herba seu Tarchon Tarragon. 3 Eruca sativa Garden Rocket. 4 Nasturtium sativum Garden Cresses. 5 Sinapi Mustard. 6 Asparagus Asparagus or Sperage.

The nasturtium (4) does not look like the plant we think of as a nasturtium today.

1 Cinara satina rubra The red Artichoke. 2 Cinara satina alba the white Artichoke. 3 Cinara petala The French Artichoke. 4 Cinara silvestris The Thistle Artichoke. 5 Carduus osculentus The Chardon

Portrait of John Parkinson

Paradisi in sole paradisus terrestris (John Parkinson) at the Biodiversity Heritage Library. (The section about the Kitchen Garden begins on Page 461).

A Cottage and Garden

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from An Account of a Cottage and Garden in Tadcaster. Sir Thomas Bernard, 1797 (Wikimedia Commons)

Picturesque cottages might be so disposed around a park, as to ornament and enliven the scenery with much more effect, than those misplaced gothic castles, and those pigmy models of Grecian temples, that perverted taste is so busy with: but it is the unfortunate principle of ornamental buildings in England that they should be uninhabited and uninhabitable.

This impassioned call for landowners to reject the fashion for ornamental garden structures and build cottages on their estates instead, to address a rural housing shortage caused by inclosure, comes from the social reformer Sir Thomas Bernard’s fascinating text An Account of a Cottage and Garden in Tadcaster (1797).  It was published for the Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor, a charity which Bernard helped to found.

The picturesque cottage garden is a powerful motif in English garden history.  The cottage garden represents a modest beauty, simplicity, a place of domestic production, supplying fruit, flowers and vegetables to the owners; perhaps some eggs, or honey.  It is unpretentious, a sanctuary, in harmony with nature and its surroundings; it possesses an essential integrity born out of hard work and self-reliance.  All these qualities are attractive, of course, and the cottage garden style is one many aspire to re-create today.

The first garden Bernard discusses belongs to Britton Abbot.  At the age of 67 Abbot is still working as an agricultural labourer.  The interview with Abbot takes place on a Saturday afternoon – his wife is sent to fetch him from a field where he is working a mile or so away.  Abbot’s fortunes had nearly collapsed when his previous house and land were enclosed.  He appealed to a local landowner, who gave him a strip of land upon which he was able to build his current house and establish the garden.  Without this generous assistance, it is likely Abbot and his family would have faced ruin.

Abbot’s garden is about a quarter of an acre and has a hedge enclosing the garden.  Cultivated by his wife and noted for its neatness, the garden contains, ‘fifteen apple-trees, one green gage, and three winesour plum-trees, two apricot-trees, several gooseberry and currant bushes, abundance of common vegetables, and three hives of bees’.

The produce the Abbots would expect to harvest annually from the garden amounts to, ‘about 40 bushels of potatoes, besides other vegetables; and his fruit, in a good year, is worth from £3 to £4 a year.  His wife occasionally goes out to work; she also spins at home, and takes care of his house and garden’.

Bernard appeals to other landowners to give land to working people to be used in the same way:

The quarter of an acre that Britton Abbot inclosed was not worth a shilling a year. It now contains a good house and a garden, abounding in fruit, vegetables, and almost every thing that constitutes the wealth of the cottager.  In such inclosures, the benefit to the country, and to the individuals of the parish, would far surpass any petty sacrifice of land to be required.  FIVE UNSIGHTLY, UNPROFITABLE, ACRES OF WASTE GROUND WOULD AFFORD HABITATION AND COMFORT TO TWENTY SUCH FAMILIES AS BRITTON ABBOT’S.

The second case study, contained in an Account of the produce of a Cottager’s Garden in Shropshire (1806) features Richard Millward’s garden.  Millward is a collier, and his wife Jane cultivates agricultural land, and a garden, which together amount to just over an acre.

The wife has managed the ground in a particular manner for thirteen years with potatoes and wheat, chiefly by her own labour; and in a way which has yielded good crops, and of late fully equal, or rather superior, to the produce of the neighbouring farms, and with little or no expense; but she has improved her mode of culture during the last six years.

Jane Millward has introduced the new cultivation method after becoming frustrated waiting for local farmers to have the time to plough the larger part of the garden for her.  Now she and her husband do all the work themselves.  In October, she sows wheat straight into the ground where potatoes have been, so the wheat over-winters in the ground.  Then the ground which has grown wheat in the previous year is dug for planting potatoes the following spring.  This excerpt gives an impression of the sheer hard work involved planting the potatoes:

The ground is dug for potatoes in the month of March and April, to the depth of about nine inches.  This digging would cost sixpence per pole, if hired.  After putting in the dung, the potatoes are planted in rows, about twelve or fourteen inches distant.  The dung is carried out in a wheelbarrow and it takes a great many days to plant the whole, generally ten days.  Her husband always assists in digging, after his hours of ordinary labour.

In the vegetable garden Jane plants peas, beans, cabbages and early potatoes for the family plus turnips which she boils for their pig.  Both accounts give us an unusual amount of detail about the gardens and the way they were arranged and used.

Sir Thomas Bernard (1750 – 1818) spent much of his working life on social projects to improve conditions for the poor.  He helped to establish the Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor and was treasurer of the Foundling Hospital in London.  He also established a school for the blind.  He was an advocate of vaccination, rural allotments and was instrumental in obtaining consents for the building of the Regent’s Canal.

Below is a link to the 1806 version of Bernard’s text which is very short and well worth reading.  Also some contemporary images of rural scenes and cottage gardens and a link to Margaret Willes’s The Gardens of the Working Classes – an extraordinary survey of gardens belonging to ordinary working people in the UK.

An Account of a Cottage and Garden in Tadcaster. Sir Thomas Bernard, 1797 (Wikimedia Commons)

Account of Britton Abbot’s cottage and garden : and of a cottager’s garden in Shropshire : to which is added Jonas Hobson’s advice to his children, and the contrast between a religious and sinful life. 1806 (Biodiversity Heritage Library)

The Natural History of Selborne 1789 (The Wellcome Library)

Hanging Washing with Pigs and Chickens 1797 Thomas Bewick (Wikimedia Commons)

Wheat, beans, peas

published by Yale University Press

Account of Britton Abbot’s Cottage and Garden 1806

(from the Biodiversity Heritage Library)

Sir Thomas Bernard

The Gardens of the British Working Class

The Seedsmen of Lower Manhattan

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The New York Public Library Digital Collections. Map of Lower Manhattan 1902

It’s hard to imagine today that the urban streets of Lower Manhattan might once have had a connection with horticulture.  But in the 19th and early 20th centuries the streets off Broadway were home to a network of highly successful seed merchants and companies offering services connected with domestic and commercial cultivation.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library’s Seed and Nursery Catalog Collection preserves thousands of colourful illustrated seed catalogues from companies across the United States, revealing which crops and flowers were popular in the past, and the locations where companies were based.  Many merchants, justifiably proud of their warehouse buildings and growing fields, described and illustrated them in their promotional literature.

In Manhattan, Burnett Brothers and Weeber & Don, both seed merchants and growers, were based in Chambers Street.  In nearby Barclay Street were J.M. Thorburn & Co founded in 1802, and Stumpp & Walter who specialised in flower and vegetable seed (and beautiful catalogues).  Dey Street was home to William Elliot & Sons Seedsmen and the retail premises of Peter Henderson and Co was in Cortlandt Street.

This list is by no means comprehensive, but gives some indication of the concentration of horticultural businesses in this area of the city.  All these companies sold seeds for domestic use and supplied wholesale grains and vegetable seeds to farmers.  Most sold grass seed for lawns and sports uses, garden tools, machinery, fertilisers and pesticides.

Henderson’s catalogues give some idea of the size of this particular business.  The illustrations below from 1905 show the five storey retail premises in Cortlandt Street plus the seed processing, packing and storage warehouses in Jersey City.  Also shown are acres of greenhouses in Arlington Avenue in Jersey City, then a centre for market gardening.

Peter Henderson wrote articles about gardening for magazines and published his first book explaining how to run a market gardening business Gardening for Profit in 1866.  Gardening for Pleasure (1875) was aimed at the amateur gardener and explains how to grow flowers, fruit and vegetables.  Henderson’s catalogues represented a significant part of the company’s marketing strategy, with 750,000 printed every January in the 1880s.

The company remained in family hands until the mid 1940s, but failed to move with the times.  An article in Life Magazine described employees in the Cortlandt Street store using the same scales to weigh out seeds that had been used in the 19th century, and ladies filling flower seed packets ‘using little ivory measuring spoons of different sizes for different-sized seeds.’  Henderson merged with Stumpp & Walter in 1951, but by 1953 this company had closed.

William Elliott’s catalogue of 1897 reveals an advertisement for Hitchings & Co, suppliers of glasshouses and heating systems for these structures – another contributor to the local horticultural industry.  In the late 19th century Hitchings & Co was based in Mercer Street.  The New York Botanical Garden records that this company was established in 1844, beginning as a specialist in the manufacture of ventilation and heating systems for greenhouses, and that it began making greenhouse structures in 1888.

These vividly coloured catalogues must have been an inspiration to gardeners when they were published and remain full of interest today, showing the scale and importance of the horticultural industry and the contribution it made to New York.

This image shows the Peter Henderson Co’s retail premises in Manhattan (centre) and the seed packing premises in Jersey City. From Everything for the Garden 1905. Peter Henderson & Co.

Everything for the Garden Peter Henderson & Co 1916.  Showing acres of glasshouses and cultivation fields in New Jersey supplying the business with seeds, bulbs, tubers, etc.

Everything for the Garden 1910

Everything for the Garden 1910

Everything for the Garden 1916

Everything for the Garden 1916

Everything for the Garden 1916

Stumpp & Walter, Spring 1912

Stumpp & Walter, Spring 1912

Peter Henderson Stumpp & Walter Co Fall catalogue 1951 shortly after the companies merged.

Peter Henderson Stumpp & Walter Co Fall catalogue 1951 announcement of the merger of the two companies.

Wm Elliott & Sons 1897

Wm Elliott & Sons 1897

Wm Elliott & Sons 1897

Burnett Brothers, seedsmen 1918

Burnett Brothers, seedsmen 1918

Weeber & Don, seed merchants and growers 1919

Weeber & Don, seed merchants and growers 1919 – showing detail of the company’s building on Chambers Street, New York

Thorburn’s century: J. M. Thorburn & Co one hundredth annual catalogue 1901

Thorburn’s century: J. M. Thorburn & Co one hundredth annual catalogue 1901

MacNiff Horticultural Company Seed Annual 1921

Further reading:

NJCU Peter Henderson

Biodiversity Heritage Library Seed Catalogs

Smithsonian Libraries Biographies for Seedsmen

Smithsonian Libraries Seed Catalogs