[Herbalist] What's the logic of gardens?

[Kathleen Keeler]

>Being able to fertilize, remove weeds and shade plants ect, enables
>gardeners to out grow natural means of production by large percentages
>(thousands to one )
> My hops plants tonight for example.
> http://personal.nbnet.nb.ca/jamy/pic/hops.jpg
>Wild (European) hops grow slowly here (zone 4b)6 feet and a few flowers in a
>summer but if you bring them home and fertilize, I have gotten 25 feet and
>massive amounts of flowers.
>If you look close you can see today's gardening labours, a mulch of wood
>chips and horse manure.
>:-)
>Sheepstealer

Sheepstealer,
   Medieval England before about 1300 was a poor agrarian society.  Food
was raised for subsistance, wool was the cash crop.  Manufactured goods
were brought in from the Continent. Growing crops was very hard work.  If
you spent all your time cultivating fields--yours and the lord's--tending a
few more plants isn't very attractive.  Your cultivated hops may outproduce
my gathered hops, but I simply walk until I have all I want, and put no
other effort into it.  Seems good to me.

If I were the lord, with wealth enough to feed everyone and delegate
someone to make a garden for me as either a sign of wealth or just a
personal luxury, I might.  That is part of what happened in England.  Its
also true that they wanted to grow southern European plants (grapes, most
of the herbs) and sheltered places are needed for those to succeed.  And,
as was already pointed out, the Moslems had developed gardens as places
resembling paradise and the Crusaders were suitably impressed.  Also
already suggested was convenience, and as my ability to walk far enough to
get all I want decreases (with age, with increasing population density so
that others pick hops too) makes that more attractive.

And if I'm into better hops--or breeding and selling them! a garden works.

All of the above, I suppose, answers my question

Its just weird thinking that gardens are relatively new yet agriculture
goes way back...since in many ways they're the same thing.  And the
development in different areas was different.


Agnes