Walled Kitchen Garden TV series

[Cider Boys]

My idea of utopia is the traditional walled kitchen garden, we had one at school and in those days (the 60s) it was intensively cultivated. I recently visited the lost gardens of Heligan in Cornwall and was very impressed by it all but I still found looking at their Kitchen Garden the most satisfying.

I also remember the BBC series the Victorian Kitchen Garden and how I wish they would put on another series dedicated to this type of horticulture.

I am lucky in that my oldest son is also interested in gardening and we try and manage the now 6 allotments and gardens by adopting a ‘multi-tasking’ approach. He does the digging, sowing, hoeing and weeding, whilst I support him in a supervisory role. I gain great pleasure in watching him hard at work and I freely give any criticism that I consider warranted. I would also find a regular TV series where I can sit back and watch and learn from others working in a walled kitchen garden most satisfying. (Gardeners’ World is better than nothing, but not much better.) Perhaps there are some like minded individuals who would also enjoy a series dedicated to Kitchen Gardening.

Barney

[lizzie]

Count me in Barney. All for it mate

[Tigger]

Gosh Barney - it's such a temptation to respond, but you'd only be pleased that I'd taken the bait and anyway, I like being a member of this site and so I've put mittens on to prevent me pounding the keyboard at a rate of knots!

In case you want to know - I'm typing this with my nose.

As for a Kitchen Gardening programme - I'm with you on that one.

[oldherbaceous]

Hello Barney, i must admit after seeing the series the lost gardens of Heigan and aiso the victorian kitchen garden i was absolutely smitten. I got down to Cornwall last year to see Heligan gardens, but i was a little disappointed with the kitchen gardens.
I thought they would be immaculate, but i found it to be quite weedy and a awful lot of disease.
Maybe i had built up my expectations to much, since i had been waiting a long time to get there.
Harry Dodson the head gardener in the victorian kitchen garden died recently, what is a huge loss of gardening knoledge.
But it would be brilliant to have another series on the T.V again.
I have just bought a book called Charleston kedding a history of kitchen gardening by Susan Campbell, i have not read all of it yet, but it is a brilliant read.
We have also got a large walled kitchen garden close to where i live, it is completely derelict, it would be great if they would restore it.
Hopefully i might be the person to kick start something off in years to come.

Kind regards Old Herbaceous.

Theres no fool like an old fool.

[Jenny Green]

I've also been down to see the Heligan Gardens, but it was the middle of winter so not much on show (still beautiful though).
I know walled gardens sound good, but I'm sure there must be some disadvantages. Surely those walls would harbour lots of snails? And don't you think a plot benefits from a good wind going through it and blowing all the pests away once in a while?

[Allan]

I'm a lucky man in that I have all the land that I could possibly use and it's almost completely vegetables. No walls, but does that really matter. I sometimes wounder how I could get it featured on TV, perhaps one day I can get my own TV coverage done. These days it would be very easy to circulate such footage on a CD or DVD (I now have a DVD recorder). I still have all the tapes of the Veg Out series of a few years back including a large chunk of the Bristol allotments.
It is technically feasible to transmit these programmes via Internet and thus overcome the built-in BBC prejudices.
Meanwhile if anybody is that interested in a visit we can easily accommodate the odd caravan or tent for a few days in what we call the paddock.

[Geoff]

Last year I went to see the walled garden restored at Tatton. It could have been informative but the crops were labelled Tomato, Swede, Cabbage etc. Pretty labels, pretty useless labelling.

[Jenny Green]

In a way it's really sad, that people would need help to identify a tomato plant!

[Guest]

Thanks for all your responses; I am pleased that there are others who would enjoy a kitchen garden series on the TV.

Off course it does not need to be a walled garden. I enjoy vegetables whether they are in gardens, allotments or fields (but most of all on my dinner plate). However, surely one advantage of the traditional walled garden was that it helped support micro climates. They all seem to be constructed along the lines of a compass, so you had a South facing wall which warmed in the sun and favoured different plants than the ones near the North wall. You could also keep pests like rabbits out along with chilling winds and the walls also afforded some frost protection.

I intend to take the advice of friends and acquaintances and get out more. Therefore I hope to visit some walled kitchen gardens near me in Somerset. They are Barrington Court, Forde Abbey and Tintinhull, perhaps you may know of others I could visit.

Barney

[Cider Boys]

Sorry I had forgotten to log in.

Barney

[Clive.]

Hello,

For the glasshouse yard enthusiast take a look around West Dean Gardens in W. Sussex..

Lovely range of glasshouses and frames with all the old heating pipes in use..with the clever addition of an electronic thermostat in each house, sort of best of the old with the help of the new..

But on your visit don't do what I did....ie; take 90 digital photos on my new fangle camera only to delete the lot in a misunderstanding of viewing on this 'puter..

Anyway it was an ill wind as we had to visit again..!!



All the best,
Clive.

[lizzie]

In Croxteth Country Park there is one of the earliest walled kitchen gardens in the country. It still has the original hollow walls with the peaches, apricots and necterines against it.

The original greenhouses are still there, together with the long hothouse and the mushroom sheds. There is a small band of full time gardeners and loads of willing volunteers who are helping to restore the place to it's former glory. A branch of the Myerscough College is based within the grounds of the Hall and I think that the students help with the gardens too.

The Rose Garden is stupendous and is a very popular venue, together with the hall, for weddings and wedding photography.

[peter]

Audley End House, English Heritage have restored their walled vegetable garden, though its just up the road I have not managed a visit yet, but those who I know have are impressed.

Cambridgshire has Wimpole Hall see http://www.wimpole.org/

Norfolk has Felbrigg House and I can vouch that the walled garden is lovely as are the grounds, see http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w- ... garden.htm

[lizzie]

Hi folks

Here's the link for Croxteth Park. It's a lovely place and somewhere I go 4-5 times a week to walk the dog.

http://www.croxteth.co.uk/index.asp

Enjoy

[Johnboy]

Strangely if you wanted to make a walled garden today you would need planning permission and the Local Authority is likely to turn you down with the typical height walls required. A case in question came up a couple of years ago in this area. The LA would grant permission but with a the height restiction of 7ft. The whole idea was to have Grapes, Peaches, Nectarines and Apricots in glasshouses with the glass sloping back to the walls with the glass panels movable to take advantage of what English Summer there is available so it was like growing in the open on sunny days and in a glasshouse on bad days.
To cut the whole boring episode short the person decided to sell up and move because whatever was mentioned to the LA was rejected. This is called protecting Rural England. Needless to say the person bought the house and sold just 2 years later and walked away with a cool £500,000. profit. He moved to France and took his money there. The walled garden could not have been seen by anybody but the owner as it is a small estate of 25 acres surrounded by a belt of trees. So much for local planning!
In France he has bought a 100Ha estate for half the price and doesn't need the glasshouses which is what I think I shall be doing shortly.