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We get wind so much about urban farms and growing vegetables in any size space but would it surprise you to know Charles Barnard was touting the value of front yard vegetable grow back in the 1880s?Yup!And it ’s amazing how relevant it is today .
If you are interested in gentle veggie ideas , come up out all theunexpected foods already growing in your vegetable garden .
Grow where you have light and space
Encouraging Urban Food Growers In The Victorian Era
Urban Farming is Nothing New
The idea of develop food for thought in a city garden was nothing new back in the 1880s .
My Handkerchief Gardenby Charles Barnard was first published in 1889 , leave practical selective information and boost for make a kitchen garden on a small urban lot — just like we do today .
He carefully recorded every penny spent , shudder to grow more food than he could apply and saving him a net $ 20.49 in 1887 alone that he would have had to pay for the same produce ( about $ 575 in today ’s dollars ) .
Grow where you have light and space
Here ’s a description of his 1000 :
“ Given a metropolis tidy sum and we have an area of 25×100 . The business firm occupies usually about 40 of the 100 metrical unit , leaving an opened blank in the rear end of 25×60 . Here the hebdomadary wash must dry out , and for this purpose there must be grass . The maiden , when in the garden hanging out the clothes , would be heavy of foot on lettuce or roses , and so it usually happens the back chiliad grow nothing but grass … . ”
I was nodding my psyche in recognition with this passage about the shape of his thou when he first obtained the holding . It sound just like the hatful we found when moving into our first home ( in a new development ):
“ When the snow of March unfreeze away , the garden came into sight . The former tenant had apparently regarded the garden as the proper seat to bank the waste product of a coevals . finger cymbals , clamshells , rejected shoes and cans , were plentiful . Added to this it had been dig over since the last craw , and corn - stubble cover half the space . The carpenter at workplace on the house had tramped the stain down hard , and in a corner under the Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree were the remains of countless grass nipped by last twelvemonth ’s hoarfrost . ”
Here ’s what I loved about the intact experience of reading this book
Charles details these points :
As I read it , I found myself imagining gardeners one hundred and twenty years from now :
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The “ $ 20.49 ” in the title is how much he calculated he saved in 1887 by growing food in his garden . The file is detached .
Print Copy
My Handkerchief Garden| Amazon
I hope you enjoy the book .
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Looking for garden quotes?See my favorite garden quotes here .
~Melissathe Empress of Dirt ♛
