The Kitchen Garden Guide

About this Book

All of the advice that you'll find in this book is taken directly from 19th Century farm journals, books and garden magazines. In reading it, you'll be taking a firsthand look at the past and so you'll find many words that are not used today or that have slightly different meanings. To use this book you should know that...

COMPOST is typically a mixture of well-rotted manure with soil, ashes and sand. It was generally used as we use potting soil.

DIBBLES or DIBBLES are any pointed instruments used to make holes in the ground for seeds or roots.

DRILLS are lines scoured into the surface of soil to receive seeds.

HEAVY SOIL is earth composed largely of clay.

HILLS are simply the location where seeds or seedlings are planted. Unless noted, they are not raised from the elevation of the surrounding ground.

LIGHT SOIL is earth composed largely of sand or gravel.

NUBBINS are small, imperfect or underdeveloped fruits or vegetables.

MANURE in general, just means 'fertilizer. " There weren't many options back then. Typically, a manure pile was a mixture of stable waste, straw, leaves, weeds, household garbage and almost anything, else that would decompose - just like our idea of a compost heap. The product of the rotted heap would be used to make "compost" or would be worked into the soil to improve it. It was not used as food for individual plants.

SPINACH and SPINAGE are the same thing. So are Salsafy and Salsify, and Cantaloupe and Cantaloup. The spelling of many words varied, in time, through the 19th Century.
 

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