I was thinking today about how different things are now compared with when I was a child living with my Grandmother. Well, considering that is over 50 years ago, they would be wouldn't they.
But I was really thinking about food, and what she used to grow and do with it.
My Grandfather was a great Gardener, he grew all their vegetables, soft fruit and loved to grow flowers, which he sold locally.
The garden was divided up into sections. As you opened the gate into it, the first part was like Aladdin's Cave, or so I thought as a child. On the right was a small shed that he used to kill the rabbits and chickens that he kept, so I don't remember ever going into there. Next on the left was a large shed, the size of a garage, full of old furniture and things that had been discarded over the years. My Grandparents lived in the house that had belonged to his parents, so had been in the family since it was built in the 1880's. I swear nothing had been thrown away, just out to the shed!
On the left side was a range of rabbit hutches that he bred the rabbits in, and sold them to the local butcher. I have never been able to eat rabbit, nor has my Mother, I remember choosing a smokey coloured rabbit and pretending he was mine, then coming back from holiday to find he had gone to the butcher's. Obviously I was so upset it has stayed with me for 55 years.
You then turned right and came to the hen house and the chickens, turned left and then it was a long path down to the bottom. Opposite the hen house, against the wall was a range of loganberries.
It seemed to me that the garden was from just past the hen house, as there was a honeysuckle arch that you walked through and there the garden stretched away for what looked like miles, but was probably about 130ft.
On the left you could walk through to a small lawn just behind the henhouse and rabbit hutches, and it was very small, just big enough for me to play on, then the soft fruit bushes of redcurrant and blackcurrents. Also rows of strawberry plants. One of my earliest memories is of sitting on a stool, helping Nanny to pick the currants. She used to make blackcurrent jam and redcurrant jelly.
The blackcurrant jam was often used to make what has been passed down through the family as Nan's remedy. She used to mix a spoonful with lemon juice, honey and hot water as a cure for colds. Doubt if it cures a cold but it does help to make you feel better. Nowadays I use blackcurrent squash in place of the jam. Still does the trick.
After the fruit came rows upon rows of flowers, then several rows of asparagus. Then it seemed as if the garden went into a third section marked by the rows of runner bean sticks. The other side of them came the veggies, cabbage, cauliflower, red cabbage, carrots, parsnips, swede, onions,
shallots, marrows and goodness knows what else.
Then at the bottom end of the garden there was a pig pen, although I can't remember any pigs ever being there when I was around, but apparently they used to keep a couple up until just after the war ended. Down this end was also huge rubarb patches.
Nan used to bottle the Loganberries and some of the currants, and the strawberries. She also used to bottle runner beans, carrots, and would make Marrow Pickle, Chow Chow, Pickled Onions, and Picallili. The Kilner jars used to be lined up on the shelves in the cupboard along with the jams and jellies. She probably would have loved to have a freezer, like we have nowadays to pile her bounty of fruit and veggies into.
