What is a kitchen garden?

In Laura’s time, kitchen gardens had a bit more form than your average cottage garden, and were as much for aesthetic pleasure as they were for function. The better your garden looked, the better it reflected on the lady of the house and her ability to be a good wife. Thinking about it, the garden would have been one of the only areas that most people would have seen of your home.

As you can see by the above picture, the grounds here had very little space for plain old grass. At the time Laura lived here, grass would have been a bit of a faux-pas and those with a yard full of grass would have been considered lazy people who were trying to get out of gardening. The front yard would have been dedicated to growing every sort of flower to use in arrangements for when guests arrived. Roses were Laura’s favourite flower and were used in much of the garden. The back yard would have been dedicated to growing vegetables but decorated with edible flowers to offer some attractiveness to the garden.

Fruits: These would most likely be bordering the gardens. They were great to use for jams and teas. Some of the more common fruits and fruit trees in Regency gardens were: Strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, grapes and raspberries as well as peach, apple, cherry and pear trees. In Newark (now Niagara-on-the-Lake) there was even a woman collecting various forms of peaches and bragged about the trees she had originating from Holland.

Vegetables: These were most likely heirloom vegetables that were grown with seeds from family, friends and neighbours. There was also a wide sharing of clippings throughout Niagara at the time. Any local vegetables would suit here but some original heirlooms were also incorporated here, such as purple carrots, black tomatoes etc.

 

Herbs: These would have been used to flavour food, for medicinal purposes, to make potpourri, and for teas.  Some of the more popular herbs for the time period were: Basil, Chives, Cilantro, Dill (which attracted bees for pollination), Fennel, garlic, ginger, horseradish, jasmine, lavender, lemon balm, liquorice, lovage, mace, marjoram, mint, oregano, parsley, penny royal, rosemary, sage, savory, spearmint, thyme

Why not swing by the homestead and see the beginnings of our NEW kitchen garden?  Our garden is not quite as large or as impressive as Laura’s would have been… but in a few years we hope to work up to it. Make sure to check out our future blogs on how we use our new garden for preserving, keeping heirloom seeds, and pest control of the time.

If you have any questions about gardening of the time or historical resources to start your own garden, feel free to drop us a line: laurasecordhomestead@gmail.com