The Victorian Kitchen Garden

1. 

   E1. The Beginning

   Sep 16, 1987 · 30m

   Once every big house had its walled kitchen garden. In an age before imports and deep freezers, the head gardener and his staff had to supply the household throughout the year. Today most walled gardens lie derelict. To uncover the secrets of the great Victorian gardeners, restoration was begun on a kitchen garden in Berkshire. With the help of a rich legacy of gardening manuals, plans were made to grow vegetables and fruit similar to the Victorians and to revive forgotten crafts and skills - hoping to find out what it was like to feed a large country estate without modern technology and well-stocked supermarkets.

2. 

   E2. January

   Sep 23, 1987 · 30m

   Harry remembers his life in the walled gardens and his rise from garden boy to head gardener. In the garden he tackles the winter jobs - building hot beds to bring on early crops of lettuce and carrots and 'tagging and nailing' fruit trees. Peter explores the garden's greatest asset - its four walls. He examines the elaborate system of boilers and pipes that heated the glasshouses, and unearths a very grand ice house.

3. 

   E3. February

   Sep 30, 1987 · 30m

   Winter locks the garden in its icy grip. It is an opportunity for repairing tools. Peter shows the range the Victorian gardener had at his disposal. Harry turns his attention to the forcing house where he plants chicory, asparagus and rhubarb. The Victorians had a taste for the delicate flavour of forced vegetables. They developed new methods of cultivation and gave the country its first purpose-made, artificial fertiliser.

4. 

   E4. March

   Oct 7, 1987 · 30m

   Harry and Peter draw up a cropping plan for the coming year. Harry expects to plant over 25 different crops including what he calls his 'fussy pieces', salsify and scorzonera. Tracking down the Victorian varieties takes Peter to a refrigerated seed bank near Stratford-on-Avon. Frost threatens the budding peaches, and Harry employs several old methods to protect them - a thatch of yew and laurel, straw mats and drapes of fine tiffany.

5. 

   E5. April

   Oct 14, 1987 · 30m

   It was called 'the hungry gap'. While the staff were fed tired offerings from the root store, the head gardener had to play a horticultural conjuring trick to provide his master with luxury vegetables. Harry grows marble-sized potatoes in pots under glass, cuts asparagus from the forcing house, and uncovers seakale shoots, the colour of 'carved ivory'. Using modern equipment, Peter demonstrates the effectiveness of hot beds in advancing young plants. In the glasshouse the peaches make good progress, while at the bottom of the garden a beehive is introduced

6. 

   E6. May

   Oct 21, 1987 · 30m

   A wet May frustrates Harry's attempt to sow seeds on the open land. Under glass he starts on the cultivation of what the Victorians called 'the noblest production of the kitchen garden' - the melon. Meanwhile outside Peter demonstrates an armoury of devices used by the old gardeners to combat the menace of birds and mice.

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