[Sca-cooks] medieval gardens

[jenne at fiedlerfamily.net]

>  Take a look through the PLANTS, HERBS AND SPICES section of the
>Florilegium. There are several articles there on medieval gardens and on
>growing your own. Of all sizes, from monstrously large to ones for
>apartments, although unless you are doing the minature tree thing, I
>guess pattern gardens are not to practical for apartments or suburban
>homes.

*grin* I just finished reading a new book, and I've got lots of exciting
ideas for garden-like thingies at events-- carved heraldic beasts on
poles, dug out sections filled with gravel, sand or brick dust to make
partierres, plants in pots, wooden cases held together with hinges and
filled with dirt to make turf seats.... :)

> Come to think of it, one, at least, is laid out in the geometric pattern
> that you (?) said earlier was more modern...
> <<<<
>  If I remember right, the geometric pattern is post-medieval but still
> was done prior to 1600. I think Akim's article above details some of
>this.

Formal patterns, both simple (usually heraldic) partierres and
checkerboards/windowpane check patterns are certainly documented to
period. It's the pattern with a central circular feature, surrounded by
square beds with the interior corners cut off, or pie-piece or triangular
shaped beds, that doesn't seem to be attested. :)

> >>>>
> What about the espaliered apple tree?
> <<<<
>  What is an "espaliered" apple tree? Sounds like you are doing something
>terrible to that apple tree...

An espaliered fruit true has been pruned to have branches only in one
vertical plane, and fastened to a wall. Espaliering does several things--
first, depending on the make of the wall and what direction it faces, it
can extend the season for the fruit-- trees on north facing walls will
ripen later, on south facing walls, earlier.

Susan Campbell's _Charleston Kedding: a history of kitchen gardening_
suggests that espaliers came to England with the Huegenots before 1600.
This indicates that espalier training was probably known within our
period, but possibly not until very late in our period...


-- Pani Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net
"But he's a human being and terrible things happen to him so attention
must be paid.... Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a
person."  -- Arthur Miller, _Death of a Salesman_