Mrs. Beeton's garden addresses a growing concern

(Vancouver, BC) -- In an era when global warming, monoculture agriculture and trans-national agri-businesses threaten food security and quality; the subjects of plant bio-diversity, growing and eating locally, organically and seasonally have become ‘hot button’ topics.  More people than ever are finding space in their own gardens (be it a yard, allotment plot, balcony container or window box) to grow a few herbs and vegetables. As a result, interest in heirloom varieties has grown by leaps and bounds. What makes a vegetable an heirloom vegetable? In the simplest terms, an heirloom variety has been in cultivation for more than 50 years with the same genetic makeup. 

This summer, VanDusen Botanical Garden invites you to travel back in time to the Victorian Era, when people naturally ate fresh and seasonally as well as preserved the summer’s bounty for the leaner winter months. Planted in early June and hitting its peak in late August through September, the Garden’s ‘time machine’ takes the form of the Heirloom Vegetable Garden located in the Canadian Heritage Area, adjacent to the Maze. This year’s vegetable patch recreates a garden that might have been seen around the time of Mrs. Isabella Beeton (1836 – 1865) – an era when there were no supermarket chains and most families grew a majority of the produce that appeared on their table. It contains only heirloom vegetable varieties that are known to have been grown prior to the mid 1860’s.

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; growing vegetables and their preparation being no exception.  Within the chapters on Vegetables and Vegetable Cookery, she offers practical advice on culture, harvest and seasonality as well as recipes for preparing and preserving.

The Book of Household Management sold an astounding 60,000 copies in its first year of print, selling nearly two million within its first seven years of publication. A journalist who wrote a weekly ‘how-to’ column, Mrs. Beeton was ahead of her time – a working mother with a career who found a niche imparting practical home management information to middle-class housewives. Contrary to popular perception, Mrs. Beeton was not some formidable Victorian matron; she was a young woman who died at the age of 28 following the birth of her fourth child. She was the precursor of all the women’s magazines and home ‘how-to’ books that followed. Without Mrs. Beeton – there would be no Martha Stewart today. 

The public are invited to visit Mrs. Beeton’s Garden where they will find extensive educational interpretation that explains the Garden and its importance. We hope it imparts a sense of the time, offering a brief history lesson and why it is important to protect, preserve and use heirloom vegetable varieties.

For more information on the Heirloom Vegetable Garden, Mrs. Beeton herself and a list of the vegetable varieties being grown this year, please click here

VanDusen’s Heirloom Vegetable Garden, now through late September 2010 – it’s a very tasteful garden.