[Sca-cooks]2 - medieval herb garden

[Pixel, Goddess and Queen]

> > 
> > Also....does anyone on this list have a medieval themed garden or herb
> > garden at their home?  I don't as yet, but I am reading a book called
> > _The Medieval Garden_ and am in the process of planning one......
> > 
> > I am so enjoying cutting fresh herbs for cooking.
> > 
> > Phillipa

I don't have a medieval themed herb garden, mostly because I have a lot of 
pots and a small plot right next to the house. I have a red currant bush, 
a black currant bush, lots of raspberries, a Rosa alba (which is finally 
flowering, yay!) and lots of mint (spearmint, peppermint, ginger mint, 
apple mint, chocolate mint). I'm trying to grow weld, for dyeing, 
but the raspberries and mint seem to be shading it a bit too much for it 
to be shooting up to the heights. I tried lavendar, and it seems to have 
kinda sorta come back, but it's not doing well against the mint.

In pots I have a lot of New World stuff--tomatoes and peppers and squash, 
and then peas, and an eggplant, and lots and lots of basils. My sweetie's 
parents are discussing turning a useless bit of his yard into a larger 
garden, so I'm nudging him on that score because then I would actually 
have the space to grow more stuff. At the moment he has chives and the 
infamous bunny-eating sage.

Oh, and I have autumn crocus in the front window box, which has marigolds 
in it at the moment as well because I didn't want to be looking at blank 
dirt all summer long. So we'll see if I actually manage to harvest any 
saffron this fall.

If all goes well with the auxiliary garden, I may try to plant a 
grapevine for verjuice.

WRT hedges--there's a historical site in (I think) Wiltshire, although it 
may be Somerset) by the name of Donington Le Heath, which started life as 
a 13th c. manor and got re-done at various times during its life. It's 
mostly late 16th or thereabouts, at this point. And they've got a maze 
that when we were there, in 2000, was just planted. They've used rosemary 
for the hedge-y bits, and in that climate it grows to huge proportions. So 
maybe rosemary for the hedges? Practical AND useful.

Margaret