The Victorian Kitchen Garden

I am fond of 1800's history, and was pleasantly surprised to learn about the program "The Victorian Kitchen Garden". This apparently was a BBC series of the mid 1980's.

Source: Wikipedia on Harry Dodson

Back in the Victorian period (1800's) there were large walled gardens in each large estate in England. Food production was on a very local scale, and a team of people were employed as gardeners. All of this was new to me, but what I found especially interesting was to learn the tips and techniques from master gardeners of a hundred years ago. A time when there were no commercial fertilizers, few pesticides and a lot of attention to detail and the crop. There was no mono culture in these gardens!

The head gardener was one of the highest seniority staff members on the estate, and he was tasked with producing all of the food needed by the estate-- year round.

I have enjoyed the program, so I will organize links to the videos on you tube. I would caution you to beware of inappropriate content in the "suggested" videos area. It is sad to have good resources thrown in with the filth of a morals lacking society. Click the video link, and go full screen as soon as you can, and of course skip the ads if they are thrust upon you.

Note as of Jan 21, 2013, these video links are not working. The interview with Thoday is working which would give you an idea about the program.

Series Intro

January

February part 1, February part 2

March

April

May (first 10 mins)

June part 1, June part 2

July part 1, July part 2

August part 1, August part 2

September part 1, September part 2

October

November

December

Peter Thoday Interview From 2002 Part 1, Peter Thoday Interview From 2002 Part 2

Pruning Fruit Trees

Pruning a fruit tree is a critical step for tree growth and fruit production. There is a variety of ways to prune trees, and some types of trees have different needs. I am a learner in this topic, so we will start with listing resources I am using to practice and learn techniques related to pruning.


Goals of pruning

• Remove dead wood
• Remove any crossing branches
• Open the tree to get even sunlight and good air movement

When to prune

You do not want to do heavy pruning during the active growing season, but you need to take care that you do not prune just before a cold snap either. Pruning is reported to lower a trees cold tolerance. It is suggested that you prune trees just before they bud out which would be after the danger of really hard freezes and very low temperatures. The larger the tree, and the older the tree, the more able it is to withstand cold after pruning. Apples can withstand winter pruning better than peaches.


General methods and techniques

• Training & Pruning Fruit Trees (web)
• Pruning Fruit Trees (pdf)

Apples

• Pruning Apple Trees part 1 (video)
• Pruning Apple Trees part 2 (video)

Cherries

• Pruning Cherry Trees (web)
• Pruning Cherry Trees (video)

Pears

• Pruning Pear Trees (web)

Peaches

• Second year pruning (video)
• Third year pruning (video)
• Fourth year pruning (video)
• Pruning old growth (video)

Plums

• Plum trees should be pruned in the spring, to minimize fungus attack.