Traditional Allotment Veg

[maytreefrannie]

I'm making a stew today and it contains amongst other things, green bellpepper, chilli pepper, garlic, achocha, Highland Burgundy spuds, Green Zebra and Brandywine tomatoes, bird's egg and cherokee shelly beans - not what my Grandad grew!

Will you take me home and give me a plateful please? Sounds delicious.

[Jeanied]

Hi Matthew I have sent you a link on your page to somewhere listing the traditional varieties of veg grown in 1948 - interesting to see which ones are still around. I wonder what coleworts are?
Oh I forgot! How about couve tronchuda? I even found the seeds on sale here:
http://www.kelways.co.uk/products/hi...tronchuda/277/

[Snadger]

I'm making a stew today and it contains amongst other things, green bellpepper, chilli pepper, garlic, achocha, Highland Burgundy spuds, Green Zebra and Brandywine tomatoes, bird's egg and cherokee shelly beans - not what my Grandad grew!

That's a flaming yuppy stew Flum!!

[RedThorn]

Fine not 50 years ago but in the 70's, remember my mum proudly pointing out "those posh plum type" toms growing in the veg patch!

[bluemoon]

When we first got our plot the old boys grew, in the main; spuds, marrows, cabbages, Brussels sprouts and caulis, onions and leeks, runner beans, peas, tomatoes. beetroot, carrots, parsnips, celery and swedes. Salad crops were lettuce, spring onions and radish. One gave us a pepper plant on our first day, but he was considered 'a bit weird' by the others and peppers were unusual enough for him to feel he had to explain to us what one was. This was, I think, 1987, and by then allotments were hitting a bit of a crisis (at least they were round here), and when these long-term plot holders gave up (usually because they'd passed away) their immaculate plots went to ruin as so few people wanted one. Those men (and they were all men, with just one exception, on a 75 plot site) had a wealth of knowledge which was sadly lost along with them. So yes, I laughed when they thought that a courgette was a fancy name for a marrow that hadn't grown enough yet, but their combined years of experience are irreplaceable.

[Snadger]

........................... So yes, I laughed when they thought that a courgette was a fancy name for a marrow that hadn't grown enough yet.....................

Is it not?

[gojiberry]

Time moves on Bluemoon, but don't think that all the wisdom and knowledge of those plot holders was necessarily lost. I am 63 and the youngest on our 20 plots and I would like to think I know as much as those plot holders of 1987. I haven't always grown veg but have had some very intensive sessions in flower growing. Many years ago in my fuchsia period I had somewhere in the region of 200 named varieties, but don't grow them now. But the why and wherefore of how things grow is almost universal with slight differences. Today we also have so much information at our fingertips which they would not have had in the 80's, for a start there are 22,000 gardeners on this forum. Don't know what era you are from bluemoon but as you get older you will be one of those people of the 80's that younger people look up to for advice and experience if you aren't already.

Ian

[solway cropper]

My grandad used to grow his own tobacco but i'm not sure if that could be classed as a traditional veg. Probably been supplanted by cannabis nowadays.

[Duronal]

This lot I suppose:

Dig For Victory WWII layout of Allotment or Victory Garden

Interesting how the carrot in this picture is purple.

[bluemoon]

Don't know what era you are from bluemoon but as you get older you will be one of those people of the 80's that younger people look up to for advice and experience if you aren't already.

Ian

I'm 50 next month, Ian! . Prior to the late 80's I'm told that the only way to get an allotment on our site was for your Dad to die and you inherit his plot - this might be a slight exaggeration, but certainly they were difficult to come by - Presumably you'd have been helping him out for a fair few years beforehand and learned all you needed. Yes we can all learn from forums and books; and forums especially are wonderful because you can question anything you don't quite understand, or learn the tricks of the trade which don't make it into mainstream publishing. But for a long time that knowledge, if not lost, was certainly languishing and difficult to access. Most books until recently devoted one small chapter, tucked away as if in embarrassment in the back, to food growing, and now there are what feels like hundreds which deal with fruit and veg alone. As our old boys gave up one by one I certainly felt that their expertise was being lost, if not to the world in general then certainly to me; with no suitable books available and the internet only a distant possibility it was probably one of the worst times for the inexperienced to ever take on an allotment. The old boys were stubborn, dour and sexist - gardens were for men unless they held roses, kitchens were for women - my presence certainly raised a few disapproving eyebrows and Mrs Old-Boy only ever visited the plot on a Sunday morning to collect the veg for lunch. 'Organic' was something for them to laugh about - why mess about with horse muck and ladybirds like their Dads had to when there were all these efficient chemicals? Even so, I miss them, they taught me a lot....if sometimes grudgingly .

[Flummery]

That's a flaming yuppy stew Flum!!

A yuppy, moi? I'm a fogey!