victorian kitchen garden vs permaculture

[safronsue]

on the recommendations read on here i downloaded and am in the process of watching this and am fascinated! those victorians certainly knew their stuff and achieved so much but i can't help but compare their methods with what i am attempting with permaculture. i can see where traditional modern day gardeners world methods come from now! but of course in the main we can't hope to keep up such labour intensive methods if we have a reasonable size garden and want to produce food. there again, some methods i guess are common, like the hot bed idea. only on episode 3 so maybe there will be others. what an inspiring resource! god i wish there was something of this quality using permaculture methods..or is there and i don't know it??

[Green Aura]

I don't think any one method has all the answers, although I'd lean more towards permaculture if pushed. The Victorians were very fond of their chemicals, using all sorts of noxious stuff.

I loved the series too, though, and the Edwardian one that followed. No series on permaculture that I know of but if you go on You Tube there are loads of mini films.

[boboff]

Indeed, I think you have to take from these things what you will, at the end of the day you have an objective, and want to find the quickest easiest and most enjoyable way of reaching your goal, that isn't the same for any one person. Read a bit, look around a bit, do a bit, review, repeat.

Time is a magnificent bucket for making mistakes.

[oldjerry]

I think this is a thought provoking and interesting subject(well it's made me think anyhow).Without doubt the Victorian gardener exhibited the attitudes towards the enviroment that were prevalent at the time(honourable exceptions such as Thoreau ).
At the same time I can't help but admire the idea of the 'husbandry' of a small area of land in order to feed a family or group of humans.For me, a sort of fusion fits the bill,the 'husbandry' without the chemicals,encapsulated,for me,in L.D.Hills,a visionary gardener.

[British Red]

I loved the series too, though, and the Edwardian one that followed. No series on permaculture that I know of but if you go on You Tube there are loads of mini films.

Are you thinking of "Victorian Farm" GA? I don't think there was a series on "Edwardian Kitchen Garden" (unless I'm unaware of it - if so I'm delighted - I really enjoyed the Kitchen Garden, Victorian Kitchen and Victorian Flower Garden series)

Red

[Green Aura]

You're right BR - the kitchen garden one was the really nice old bloke with the gentle voice. I was thinking of the series with the academics playing house (or rather farm ).

[sarahkeast]

Could you share the linky to what you have been watching please ?

[British Red]

You're right BR - the kitchen garden one was the really nice old bloke with the gentle voice. I was thinking of the series with the academics playing house (or rather farm ).

Thats the one...awesome gardener. I have the box set of that show and its two follow ups. Great show!

[Thomzo]

You're right BR - the kitchen garden one was the really nice old bloke with the gentle voice. I was thinking of the series with the academics playing house (or rather farm ).

The late Geoff Hamilton did a series about victorian kitchen gardens. It was really good and he did show how to achieve similar results using more modern methods. Geoff was one of the first celebrity gardeners to embrace organic methodology.

Zoe

[sarahkeast]

Just found it on Love Films ! Ordered and soon to be on its way. Excited.

[safronsue]

Permaculture gardening philosophies are known to have been utilised for centuries in asia where out of necessity families had to survive on the produce of an amount of land. they developed their methods driven by their own constraints whereas our colonial masters back home could just throw the whole caboosh at a walled garden because they had the work force and the means to go carting stuff about. guavo from south america! boiler houses, ice houses, glass houses! i came across permaculture as i too was driven by constraints as we suddenly inherited a large area of land, which had been worked using traditional dig and monoculture ways and i just couldn't see a way forward in that way whereas with permaculture it is manageable.

yesterday the episode i watched had them measuring top soil.....within the wall it measured about 3 feet and outside the wall only 6 inches. in my garden it is sightly more than 6 inches generally but over a foot in the layered beds i created last autumn. not bad for just little me, journey man, head gardener and pot boy all in one.

thank you OJ for referencing more gardening heroes. i will look them up.

[oldjerry]

If you want to look into above bloke,he always referred to himself as Lawrence D. Hills,The HDRA he founded sadly morphed into'Garden Organic' after he died,and for me has somewhat lost it's way.However, at Ryton there is,or was a couple of years ago at least when I was last there,an organic garden built as a small replica of Barnsdale.Geoff Hamilton held Hills in great respect.
If anyone has,can find,original 80's recoordings of 'All Muck and Magic' a C4 program fronted by L.D.Hills,I'd be fascinated to watch them again.....(sorry to go off topic,yet again..)

[contadina]

I'll plump for victorian over permaculture because it is, in my opinion, a more practical, hands-on organic approach to gardening, whereas permaculture seems more interested in design than practicalities. Far too much Emperor's new clothes, with a bit of woo thrown in for good measure, for my liking.

[Green Aura]

That's weird, Contadina- I see it as exactly the other way round. Permaculture does indeed need a bit of design work at the outset to work out how best to utilise the available space, whereas the Victorian Gardeners did everything they could to bend nature to their will - a lot more faffing in the long run.

And all those straight lines!

[British Red]

I'm not sure I agree that one is more "bending nature" than the other. If you don't "bend nature" then you don't need to do anything - nature will provide - no permaculture required. For me, the Victorian walled garden actually achieved what most of us talk about - feed people year round with produce in a locally sourced, wood heated, low air miles, seed saved kind of way. A walled garden of the size in the show would be my ideal!