Mrs. Beeton’s Garden – an Introduction

This year, the Heirloom Vegetable Garden at VanDusen Botanical Garden is an interpretation of a Victorian Era vegetable garden—one that might have been seen around the time of Mrs. Isabella Beeton (1836 – 1865) and containing vegetables and vegetable varieties available in that era.  It is located adjacent to the Canadian Heritage Garden opposite the Maze.

Mrs. Beeton is most famously known for The Book of Household Management—Comprising information for the Mistress, Housekeeper, Cook, Kitchen-Maid, Butler, Footman, Coachman, Valet, Upper and Under House-Maids, Lady's-Maid, Maid-of-all-Work, Laundry-Maid, Nurse and Nurse-Maid, Monthly Wet and Sick Nurses, etc. etc.— also Sanitary, Medical, & Legal Memoranda: With a History of the Origin, Properties, and Uses of all Things Connected with Home Life and Comfort, edited by Mrs. Isabella Beeton — a comprehensive collection of recipes, methodology and practical advice for the mistress of a Victorian household. There was not a subject on which Mrs. Beeton was not an expert; vegetables and their cookery being no exception.

Written during the height of the Second Industrial Revolution, The Book of Household Management was originally published in 24 parts in the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine between 1859 and 1861, with the master volume being published in 1861. This was a time of rapid change, great innovation and new found wealth; creating a burgeoning middle class which tripled in size between 1851 and 1871. Mrs. Beeton was the purveyor of knowledge to this new class of society. The Book of Household Management sold 60,000 copies in its first year of print, selling nearly two million by 1868.

Within The Book of Household Management, Mrs. Beeton devotes a chapter to Vegetables, followed by a chapter on Vegetable Cookery. As other well-to-do families of her era, the Beeton family had a gardener on staff who tended the vegetable garden.  Mrs. Beeton’s chapter on vegetables reads more as an ode to nature than a vegetable gardening how-to while within the vegetable cookery chapter, she offers practical advice on culture, harvest and seasonality for the various vegetables.

For more information on Mrs. Beeton’s Garden click on the links to see the Interpretation Panels

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