Today I live here, looking after the house and property with my partner and our two beloved felines, and tending the garden which I grew up visiting as a child. For me it affirms the above quote by William Cobbett and the belief that a thriving vegetable garden, invested with the required love and attention, can rival anything in the world for beauty and fascination. Cobbett also believed (and I whole heartedly agree) that a kitchen-garden is not something that should be hidden away out of sight of a home but rather should be front and centre so that it’s intrinsic beauty, as well as it’s practical usefulness, can be easily seen and appreciated (more on this below). You can almost hear the bees buzzing and smell the smoke drifting slowly out from the incinerator. On the surface it is not much different than many other backyard gardens but still I love the sense of a tranquil summer’s day that radiates through it. This is a picture of the back garden at the suburban home of my grandparents in Oak Bay, BC, sometime in the early 1970s. Greco and Christine M.“If well managed, nothing is more beautiful than the kitchen-garden.” The Good Wife’s Guide translated by Gina L.

A Little Book on Rosemary by Henry Daniels (found in the last 2.5 pages of John Harvey’s Mediaeval Plantsmanship in England: The Culture of Rosemary).

De re herbaria, de arboribus, fruticibus… by Henry Daniels.

The Feate of Gardening by Jon the Gardener.

Liber Ruralium Commodorum by Piero de Crescenzi.

Le Dite de Hosebondrie by Walter of Henley.

De Vegetabilis et Plantis by Albertus Magnus.

Hildegard von Bingen’s Physica: The Complete English Translation of Her Classic Work on Health and Healing by Hildegard von Bingen, translated by Priscilla Throop.

On the Cultivation of Gardens by Walafrid Strabo.

Primary and Secondary Sources, Pre-Medieval Europe Early Medieval(-1200) A third group are published and there are links to purchase the published works. Others I provide a link to the original translator. Some of these are copyright free and provided here. If I can find a source for the text, I am also including it.

I am not including texts that were primarily available in just the Middle East. Here is a growing collection of all of the primary sources relating specifically to English or European gardening that I am aware of.

The Gardener's Labyrinth by Thomas Hill