Harry Dodson's Practical Kitchen Garden: Personal Guide to Growing Vegetables and Fruit

223 Pages·1992·101.04 MB·English

by  Harry Dodson, Jennifer Davies

PRACTICAL = ODSON'S
‘TO GROWING

‘aITGHEN ¥ D ccsniuss

_ GARDEN & FRUIT
-SARRY DODSON'S
PRACTICAL
KITCHEN GARDEN

Most gardeners who have grown their own fruit
and vegetables will testify to the enjoyment and
reward to be gained from the experience. But for
beginners, the planning and preparation necessary
for growing a variety of produce throughout the
year can be daunting. Where do you start? What
growing conditions are needed? How do you plan
your cultivation so that what you grow is ready to
eat when you want it to be?

‘Through this book, help is at hand from Harry
Dodson, the head gardener familiar to viewers of
BBC's The Victorian Kitchen, The Victorian
Kitchen Garden and The Victorian Flower Garden,
who has a lifetime’s experience of growing fruit
and vegetables. Starting with the essentials of
ground preparation and sowing, he gives his
personal advice on growing everything from salad
crops to root vegetables even reveals the
secrets of cultivating that tricky brassica, the
cauliflower. He will also help you to achieve
delicious harvests of apples, pears, raspberries,
blackberries and more exotic fruit such as melons,
grapes and figs. Harry, an RHS gold medal
winner, also offers help to enthusiastic gardeners
who are keen to show their produce.
Contents

eX

INTRODUCTION PAGE?
CHAPTER ONE VEGETABLE GARDEN BASICS PAGE 13
Soit — Digging — Maurer aad fertiiers ~ Sowing and planting vegetables —
Chap rotation — Intercopping
CHAPTER TWO + OBTAINING VEGRTABLES OUT OF SEASON PAGE 33
Using buthods — Pats — Coliames — Clacs
CHAPTER THREE + SALAD CROPS PAGE 41
Famatoes ~ Caconre — Latince — Redisies ~ Chives — Spring Onions
Mustard aud Crees — Larwb's Letuce — Ameen Land Cres
CHAPTER FOUR ROOTS AND TUBERS * PAGE. 53
Jerwsaten “rtihokas — Chines. Ariaokts — Bettrot — Carrots ~ Crleias =
“Koi! Rabi — Porruips ~ Potatoes ~ Suify and Seorganera — Swedes — Tarps
CHAPTER TIVE. BRASSICAS PAGE 69
Brasele Spronte — Brose — Cabheges ~ Savoys — Colovorts ~ Conve
Tronchuda — Calabrese — Caatifinsers — Kates
CHAPIER SIX + SPINACH, FLORENCR: FENNEL. PAGE 77
“AND GLOBE ARTICHOKES +
Kovoleal or Pricksy Spinach — Perpetual or Winter Spinach ~ New Zealand
Spinach — Seakals Bes — Rbubar’ Chard — Good King Henn ~
Florence Fend — Clabe Artichokes
CHAPTER SEVEN PLAS, BRANS AND SWEETCORN PAGE 85
Garden Peas — Parplepuclded Peas — Sugar Peas — Asparagus or Wingud
Peas — Broad Beant — Rosner Beaws — French Bears — Feria! Boons —
Butter Beaas ~ Ornancental Beans and od Peas ~ Svectrorn
CHAPTER EIGHT + ONIONS AND LEERS PAG 97

Onions — Welsh Onions ~ Exgyption Onions — Shallots —

Cicktil Onions — Leeks
TO SHOWING
Planning abvad! — Preparation — At the sho

CHAPTER NINE VEGETABLES FOR FORCING PAGE 105
AND BLANCHING +
= Chany = Asparns — Endives — Ricard ~ Sakale~
Cardoms — Mashroane
* CHAPTER TEN MARROWS, COURGETTES, SOUASHES PAGE 121
AND PUMPKINS
CHAPTER ELEVEN AUBERGINES AND CAPSICUMS PAGE. 125,
CHAPTER TWELVE HERBS PAGE 129
Anclva — Bal — Bast — Borage Corusrg) — Cloroit— Dill — Fen —
Giarke — Hamby Porsey — Horseradish — Marjorame — Mint — Onagawo
Parsley — Rosemary ~ Rae ~ Sage — Savory ~ Soret ~ Tarragin — Tave
CHAPYER THIRTEEN “INTRODUCTION 10 FRUIT PAGE it
Forms of tee — ie wall — How fo erect a fees to auppart
spate or cordons ~ Flclingén ~ Gencral instructions oa planting aed praring
CHAPTER FOURTEEN TREE FRUIT PAGE 149
“Apples — Pears — Chasree — Plane and Gages ~ Peaches and Nesdorines — Pigs
CHAPTER FIFTEEN + SOFT FRUIT PAGE 177
Rasplerics — Gaosebermes — Currants — Loganberies — Stawbwries
CHAPTER SIXTEEN + GRAPES AND MELONS PAGE 189
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN +“ STORING AND SAVING PAGE 201
Making a rm store and a lamp for vegies ~ Pking and string Apples
ancl Pears — Saving asd storing seed ~ String, bers
CHAPTER BIGHTDRN 4 BRIEF INTRODUCTION PAG 2

OF SUPPLIERS

PAGE 214

PAGE 219
Introduction

apes

Since making the BBC television
seties The Victorian Kitchen Garden
which saowed crops in an old
walled garden being taised 2s
they used :0 be, ’m often asked

for advice on traditional garden
ing methods, In fet is bevonse
apparent thar many of the skills
Llesent rom 2 young garden boy
upwards still have a value, For
example, not long ago T was
asked! how co plait up Onions on
a string for storing, Old-ime
gardeners used 20 make a lov

job of tha: ~ al those Onions
strung. a different size to cach string, so chat when

the time came to use them you enuld see at a

glince the ones you wanted. Making hothedls «0,

forward vegetables is anocher traditional
method which still scems to fascinate. It’s cereaink
energy-saving, the heat simply coming from fer-

manure! T also get asked how to pot

together home made composts, how t© prone

Figs and how to look utter fruit uncer glass. On
ass last point more people nowadays have p!

‘ouses and conservatories than they did, say,
swenty years ago, and they want to know how to
ine

grow Peaches, Nectarines and Grapes in them.

The gu

jes about Onion ropes and hotbeds
and fruit under pass arc answered in tais book.

together with, I ope, enough
practical informacion ro help
everyone who warns to grow
their own fruit ond vegetables.
The book hes one other clement
whick perhaps makes it a bit
differenr from other gardening
books. It’s that, in many eases, as.
wellas giving the mechod af how
to do things taday I've described
how they used :0 be done. This |
know interests maay people. Oaly
ast Cheistmas T received a easel
Geom a hudy who hindly said that
what she liked in the television
p:opzammes were my personal reminiscences
‘Well, I'm lucky on that score, because I’ve a deep
well to draw from. My father was a pardenes at
Byfectin Surrey, burs n his death, when T wes just
six years old, my mother went back t my
grandparents, hey lived on the Sclbome estate at
Blackmoor in Hampshire, and there T spent raany
of my boyhood days with my mother's brother,

Fred Norris, Fred was head gardener to the Bae
and Countess of Selbore and sis uncie had been
head gardener before hit

Uncle Fred taugat me all the rudimenss of
gardering, I learned them in between being, the
acden’s gofee (going for duis, going for thai),
scrubbing, pots and cleaning boxes. But I could
Practical Kitson Girden +

ter ab Sera

thin a bunch of Grapes and tie a Peach tree long
hefixe I left Blackmoos school. The school was
only & couple of hundsed yards Som our eouage,
so I dida't have far to go, but there were lots of
liede hamlets on the estate and some pupils had 2
jong walk morring and afternoon,

le Fred's training paid off be
Tens mede head garden ay at he sehool for the
shrce years before I left. Pupils Ieamed gardening
when they got to Captain Adlam’s class. Lessons
took place on half a day a week in summer and
ssuslly che same ia wincer but diea mainly isdoors,
boys did winter work

1930

although some of us ol
‘ourside on one own, such as compost making and
digging. There were two boys 10 cach of the boys
plots and two gies to ca vile’ plors. The
Tnoys? gardens were four times bigger dan the piss
gaedens, and whereas the girls grew Dowers, the
boys grew mainly vegetables. There were bush
Apples and Plums at the end 0? the boys’ ploss but
this arca wasn’t very productive as the
often stolen before it was mature

of the p

Lsfic My Unde Pred Nomis, bout

‘Below: Unile Fred and ot helper
patting weedkiller onto pats,

[igh ince Fre acd oe
pboingraphed with an onion cmp 9b
‘Far rights Stansted Park in
Hampshire where Las the garden's
efi” (sin fortis, ag for thet

‘All boys arew the same items, and theis garciens
were joined: one to another aad the line of crop
‘yas sowa or planted in one steaight line across
them, During the producing period, vegetables
could be bought at the school and from the
purchase money Captain Adiam bought all the
, planis and sundries needed for the next

ww to dig, sow, make
compost, lif, store and gacher produce and keep
a garden ti¢y, But most of che lads who had fathers
for other relatives working on Blackmoor estate

altezcy knew how to Took after a garden because

estate workers took lots of pride in their plots as

doing so meant cash savigg vo them. Estate

cottages bad lange gacders and many cortagers

hep: a pig in a sip provided. by the estate, oc
a. Tk was @ way of lf

you don’t

see today. From October through to January on
evenings when there was a moon you could
seateely go through the vilage of Blackmoor or
the sivall surrounding hamlets without heating
someone sewing wood up ox digging in their
garden, so lads got the hang of gardening early

I wen: from being garden, boy for Uncie Fr:
to gardea boy to the Rector of Blackmoor. At tha:
ime he also employed two fall time gerdeners and
part-time one. Ai
Rector’s custom to keep a boy only ewo years
because then his wage would have had to go up.
Also by thar time a hoy would need to move on
sw better himself

sats I leftas it was the

jon pleasure-grounel
and general arden work at Headicy in Hampshire
1 saw an advertisement for an improver journey-
moan in the Gardener's Chron, The Crane was
che bible ofall gardeners ase young journeyren
12 those days and cust 6d

big hole in your pocket money. ‘The job was at
Stansted Park, Rowlands Castie, Llampshire, in
the kitchen gardens af the Fae! of Bessborough.
T wis taken on as the boy ditetly under the
itches garden foreman. (There was a foremsn wo
cack deparement arden.) You went with

Qap) a week, quite a

i oth ui)

ia

ste

washed them and hung them up, eallecied vege-
tables with him and were general dogsbody. Thst’s
how L learned the job.

| lived in a bothy, That's the name given to the
hhause-youag, nnmarried garteners occupied. This
yazu where there was also «little forcing
pit and an enormous stoke hole fr che guetien’s
seating boiler. Every moraing the head boty boy
had to go out and ring the bell oa the stoke-hole
chinmey, and when it rang you had to be ous of
st bothy and away, Woe hevide a

hhorly who

time the head patdener, M'Tomain, oe there
10 see all his sta

Me Tomalin always told boys shat he would
keep thera for eighteen mamths tw two years and
\c end of that time of service, if progress had
been satisfactory, he would place them in one of
the hest jabs, of one oF the best of $0 =iany, in the
‘country, All the head gardeners who were high np

the seale were in coatuet wica one another. They
lary Ddson's Practica

Ganien

used to meet al shows where they judged or at
Royal Horciculsursl Society commimee mectiags
‘and they would pass on the names of young
gardeners who wanted :o betier themselves. The
post of journeyman ar Ashburnham Place near
Battle, Sussex, came ap and Mr Torna: did ul ths
‘writing and fing for m
and got che job, though
conclusion that I would.
‘The head gardener at Ashburnham was Mr
Creasy and the garden was enormuonis and very ald.
Pye never come across glasshouse:
ancient they were probably made by the estate
carpenter in days pone by. When I got there “he
pineapple pts

sywhere $0

bur there were still 9

0

great many vires. ‘There was also a very elaborate
tool shed where each man had his own. pegs for
bis tools which you were not allowed to tonic’

use and which, of course, were kez! 'p immaculate
condition, They were all polished and oiled and
looked lovely

At Ashburnham we didn't work ie depart
ments; we all worked under she inside foreman
ly worked together. That was very good
training hecause you gor the opportunity to de all
the fruit aed pot plants and 2lso to work in the
“flowering ous’. This was always staged up with
lots of flowering plants for Lady Katherine

Ashburnham to see. At that time T wes hoping to
geton thelist for Windsor gusdees, but Hid

Lsfte Ashburebsne Place sere 1
orked bufore the war.
pote: {jain the Rayad Susie

Regionnk

Rights My wedding day. My mater
a ted staging mts to
araterng cans ile wih enfet
Wen we walled eset of the church
he cans were turned spside das
Far rights Just married,

Prage 12: Chiliow Cardone — cl my
pride and jy.
Introdaction

other tings in mind and befoze I knew whese 1
vwas | was in the Royal Sussex Regiment serving in

r

When eventually I was discharged from the

amny I wens 0 work as general for the
gardens at Leigh Park in Hampshice, It was the
home of Miss Fitzwyram but when wat broke out

iu was taken over fos HMS Vezam’s Mines Design

Department, I was workin
thousand people to be fed sich é
in the cantecn there, I coulda’t Ieave until I gor
Admiralty permission and when that was grated
T went to work for Lord Harcourt at Nuneham

Par, Oxford, T was there ty 1d that’s

where I met Jane, the girl I was to mazry. Because

1 was general foreman ar Nuncham Park and
coulda’t get any higher and because | wanted 10
married, advertised fora head gardener’s job,
putsing in the aelver: ‘to be macried when seit:

ofen used in those days as usually

\¢ job you were in was for a single man and
ved with the other garde
Sometimes, of course, you could get mattied and
on he state, but usually
man wanted promotion sa he woulel
whatever his credentials were, whatever depar
meat he wanted, and the advertisement w
the words ‘to be mactied when suit

Tr was quite simple and it wos well understood at
that time

n
slated and i: wast’ nical 20. hear the
glasshouses ny longer. Eventually the gardens
romed over to

nursery
sand importance of ‘Thea in 1984 the BBC came along and I started

arden had a new career demonstrati the skills
houses, es, 2 Rose hous T had learned fom my work in kite dens
lock, Carnation honse, over the years, As I mentioned, Pi va
Meloa ho: il nearly five 1 being sner’, but Pin not
(7, hnwever, things had | really that o muse that I semernber how the

begun to wind dowa. ‘The price of wil bad | old hoys used co do things in kitchen erdenst