The Victorian Kitchen Garden

Season

1989

UK

8.9

Television series following the restoration of a largely derelict walled garden at Chilton Lodge, Berkshire. The aim was to work the garden as it would have been in the Victorian era, using plants and practices from this period. Each episode follows a month of the year, and shows the tasks undertaken.

Episode List

S1 • E1

Introduction

S1 • E2

January

Harry begins by training fruit trees against the garden walls. This is done by using old pieces of jackets or trousers and folding them around the branch of the tree and the nail is then driven into the wall. It was known as 'Nailing and Tagging'. We are introduced to the Ice House at Chilton Gardens.

S1 • E3

February

S1 • E4

March

S1 • E5

April

S1 • E6

May

S1 • E7

June

The fruit is dry and needs some sun. The garden now has displays rows of vegetables. Harry takes Peter to see the first crop of Strawberries, Royal Soverign. Harry complains about the amount of birds in the garden and has to protect the strawberries and brassics with wire nets. He makes the point that in days gone by there was so much labour in the garden that birds kept away. Peter and Harry then tuck into a few strawberries. Peter shows interest in the peas he found at the back of a cupboard. They are now growing in the open ground. The sun now beats down onto the garden and we move into the glasshouses. After putting teak slat shades on the outside of the glasshouses Harry goes into the flower house and opens the air vents. Alison McKensie moves fushias plant pots into the cool show house. We see a selection of brightly coloured flowers in pots. Harry takes some petunias from the show house and plants an annual boarder on the central vegetable patch. Peter looks at the garden walls and is interested in find out how these walls retains the heat of the sun. He sets up a few wires against the wall and using some modern equipment he discovers that the heat from the wall is 10*c warmer. We leave the garden and visit another wall garden outside Liverpool. Here we see that chimneys sat on top of the walls surrounding their garden. Three out of the four walls around the garden had fireplaces within these walls and by having a fire within these walls helped raise the temperature from the wall. At Chatsworth we see a Joseph Paxton glasshouse against his "conservative wall". We then see Peter at a Melon Frame. A sort of glasshouse but without the front door. Peter enters the frame by lifting one of the frames up and craws inside. Peter informs us that in 1845 the tax on glass was abolished. Back in Liverpool we visit the Palm House at Sefton Park [now a concert venue] and see large palms and exotic plants. Back at Chilton Harry is watering the peaches in the glasshouse and shows us how they used a water syringe. Alison and unknown-elderly-helper gather the first peas from the open border. Alison heaps the old pea plants outside the garden wall for recycling. The only part in the entire series where we see pests in the garden is now as Harry shows us slugs on his lettuces. He used fresh soot scattered along the lettuce row. Back in the glasshouse we find wire-worm in the melon bed. Harry solves this by placing a carrot in the soil; removing it the next day and getting rid of the wire-worm that has entered the carrot. The bees in the hive are now swarming in a nearby tree. Alison gathers them by using an old box and a smoker. As the episode ends we see beautiful shots of the garden with colorful flowers. Harry pulls down the teak slat shutters on the glasshouses as the episode ends.

S1 • E8

July

S1 • E9

August

Harry tries out a Victorian invention, the 'Cucumber Glass', designed to help gardeners grow straight cucumbers. Meanwhile, the garden's fig crop is ready for picking, as is one of the garden's apple crop. Harry checks the peach crop for earwig blight and demonstrates the methods Victorian gardeners used to deal with them.

S1 • E10

September

Many of the garden's fruit and vegetable crops are now ready to be harvested and stored for use during the winter months. Peter Thoday explains how the invention of the glasshouse allowed the Victorians to grow grapes in the colder English climate. The garden's beehives are checked to see how much honey has been produced.

S1 • E11

October

S1 • E12

November

Peter Thoday explains how the Victorians introduced a fashion for mass planting of violets. Root vegetables are lifted and stored ready for the winter, and any left in the ground are covered for protection against the winter frost.

S1 • E13

December

In this final episode we see how the early Victorians discovered a way to produce rhubarb suitable for a dinner table delicacy. Alison is in the greenhouse making garlands using holly, ivy and moss which were used as Christmas decorations. Stored fruit and root vegetables are brought out and prepared for the dinner table. Presenter Peter Thoday and head gardener Harry Dodson look back over the year's achievements.