We were visiting the church and grave of Dorset priest and Dorsetshire Dalect Poet William Barnes. Pop over to You Tube to see William Barnes poetry. I love the West Country accent.
I have had a thing about walled kitchen gardens for many many years. Especially the one at the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall. I (we) have visited several of them in England, Wales and here in Ireland.
Walled Kitchen Gardens were often built in stately homes to hide the dung heaps and general productivity and of course the gardeners:
'Don't forget to doff your cap and pull your forelock".
The walls also create a unique microclimate and protect crops from wind and frost.
I love them and would love to restore one like the one in the picture to it's former glory. The nettles are a sign of high fertility. "Where nettles grow, anything will grow". So goes the old country saying.
I can't get on my Irish plot at the moment with days and days and weeks of rain. At least I can write about them though.
Would you like your own walled kitchen garden? We'll all have to have a go on the Lottery this week. Fingers 🤞.
Everytime I see a perfectly done garden, I want it. Walled, raised bed, nothing special at all...if it's a producing garden, I covet it.
ReplyDeleteI am itching for a dry spell here and get some ground prepared for vegetable growing next year Debby. Since I bought my polytunnel my veg plot seems been took over with all the perennials and shrubs that I have propagated. I would love to have been a walled kitchen gardener on a big country estate in somewhere like rural Dorset. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteWe have a walled garden but it encloses graves not veg!
ReplyDeleteYes JayCee you do. I would love a walled kitchen vegetable garden with it's unique microclimate and protection from frost and prevailing winds. Drier to day but rain still stopped play to do much gardening.
ReplyDeleteOh shame. We have had a dry day today but I have spent most of it on the sofa with a hot water bottle. Feeling a bit iffy after my booster jab yesterday.
DeleteA couple of hot toddy's down you JayCee and Mother Nature will give you a good night's sleep. I've had 3 Covid jabs and I'm not having any more.
ReplyDeleteThat's a lie. I had the Johnson and Johnson one shot then the Pfizer booster. So that's 2 not 3 jabs.
ReplyDeleteI like a nice kitchen garden. Early one morning Shirley and I had located the kitchen garden of Harewood House. Nobody else was there but an older couple. I said to the man that the kitchen garden was a big disappointment and that it was a shame it wasn't being properly tended. Only later did I realise that I had been talking to the Earl of Harewood!
ReplyDeleteYou name dropper YP. I once went for a gardeners job at Eaton Hall. One of the Duke of Westminsters daughters walked past us and the gardeners took off their caps and said in unision: " Your grce". I looked on rather bemused. She gave a nervous smile and walked on. I didn't get the job but at least I had walked round their kitchen garden. Great anecdote YP
ReplyDelete.."Your Grace".. Even.
ReplyDeleteI remember that visit you made Dave. I have a walled garden as you have seen. I like the wall even though I grow only grass.
ReplyDeleteYes we have followed each other for a long time Rachel. I believe Churchill's hobby was building brick walls along with painting pictures. There is something organised and gives protection from the elements when you build walls. I particularly like stone but I do like hand made bricks.
ReplyDeleteF would love a walled garden Dave (with alcoves for the beehives) and knows exactly what you mean about Heligan. There is an estate walled garden near where we live (the house was demolished decades ago) but it is only used for decorative planting these days, no food crops.
ReplyDeleteHeligan is incredible Tigger. I read somewhere that it would cost one hundred thousand Pounds a year to keep a walled kitchen garden. Wages would take a big percentage of that sum. They are incredibly labour intensive and probably why the one near you is now used for decorative planting.
DeleteOur garden is walled but just high enough to keep the goats out. It's nice to have a garden contained, seems easier to me to keep it all under control, even though this winter it looks like our main crop will be nasturtiums and clover
ReplyDeleteYou can eat nasturtiums and clover is like a legume and puts nitrogen into the soil via it's roots. It would make a very good green manure if you dig it into the ground.
ReplyDeleteTaming nature has always been an English obsession, hence topiary. I like walled gardens too.
ReplyDeleteDefinition of an hedge: A statement of man's arrogance against nature.
ReplyDelete