A Regency Era Kitchen Cutting Garden

Hello sweet friends, I am so happy to be joining my friend Amber of Follow The Yellow Brick Home in celebrating Cozy Winter Homes. If you are coming over from Stacy Ling may I say that I am so glad that you are here. Didn’t her winter recipe sound delicious? As many of you know we are currently renovating the interiors of Storybook Cottage. So I have turned my attention to the winter landscaping that needs to be done. I hope you will enjoy A Regency Era Kitchen Cutting Garden.

The Queen of the Regency Era

In preparing to create a Regency era garden there was a bit of a challenge to find historical research. For reference some consider this period of time to be the years of 1795 through 1837. Others are more strict and limit it from 1811 to 1820. 

Forcing Garden, in Winter, 1816, by Humphry Repton.

Not coming up with very much I turned towards Jane Austen who had a deep love for gardens. Through her letters to her sister, Cassandra we know she was extremely interested in both flower and kitchen gardening. 

At Chawton Cottage, where Austen spent the last eight years of her life, the gardener uses only plant varieties known in Austen’s lifetime. 

A Novel Reference

Gardens also played a major role in all of Austen’s novels.

Consider the following:

• Mr. Collins parsonage garden in Pride and Prejudice. As well as describing Mr. Darcy’s estate, Pemberley. 
• Mr. Rushworth’s old-fashioned garden and park in Mansfield Park, waiting to be “improved”. 
• General Tilney’s acres of kitchen gardens and hot-houses to include the Pinery in Northanger Abbey.
• In Sense and Sensibility, the tall garden walls of Delaford were “covered with the best fruit-trees in the country”.
• Mr. Knightley’s home; his farm at Donwell Abbey captures the heart of Emma. 

Stoneleigh Abbey , the Hampshire estate of Austen’s maternal family, the Leigh’s.

The Georgian Garden at the rear of No 4 The Circus in Bath has been laid out exactly as it would have been in the 1760s. 

A Regency Era Kitchen Cutting Garden

During the Regency era cottage gardens were areas close to the kitchen/house that were separate from the rest of the residential garden. Such gardens often combined edible flowers, herbs and vegetable plants together. 

In recent years kitchen/cutting gardens have come into vogue again. 

In 2020 I wrote about my love of the edible kitchen garden featured in It’s Complicated.

The Giannetti home in Ojai, Patina Farm, features a lovely kitchen garden/chicken coop. 

Sanctuary Home Decor shared a small raised garden that is utterly delightful. 

Even container gardening can be quite charming. 

What To Plant

You can plant heirloom vegetables alongside flowers in a cottage garden setting.

In The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, published in 1747, listed potential produce month by month. 

In the Regency era they would have used what we now refer to as heirloom variety seeds. You can still find such seeds for sale. They are bit more expensive. At the very least look for organic or non GMO seeds to get closer to what would have been used. I easily found such seeds at my local nursery. 

The use of pesticides was vastly different in the Regency era as well. Gardeners instead often used companion gardening. This is a technique in which two or more plants are placed next to one another in the garden bed. Such planting then provides mutual benefits in the area of growth, pest repelling and nutrient sharing. 

This article as well as this one about Jane Austen’s flower garden were quite informative about which flowers were available in the writer’s lifetime. Many of our modern varieties were developed in the last century. 

Preparing The Winter Garden

Winter is a good time to plan for a garden. One can pour over seed catalogs and design a layout. It’s also a good idea to clean up walkways and entry’s. 

Preparing garden beds for planting can be done in the winter as well if you don’t receive much snow. Excess debris can be gathered up and fertilizer laid down. I did just that in our butterfly garden. After cleanup the only things that remained were two hyacinths and two peonies in the bed.

In a letter to Cassandra penned in 1811 Jane writes, “Our young Piony (peony) at the foot of the Fir tree has just blown and looks very handsome; & the whole of the Shrubbery border will soon be very gay with Pinks & Sweet Williams, in addition to the Columbines already in bloom.”

I shall be adding Pinks (Dianthus/Sweet William) and Columbine to my garden when the weather warms. 

For now, I decided to plant hearts-ease, as known as the viola or Johnny-jump-up.  Jane had brought these flowers back to Cassandra after a visit to Oakley Hall.

Mr. Decor made me this adorable potting bench for Christmas. He used leftover wood from a section of fence that he replaced. But the area needed a good tidying up. 

The quick clean up and some decorating made a world of difference. 

This Week’s Video

This week’s video shares me working in the garden and I couldn’t resist dressing up in Regency attire.

I made a new blue Regency exterior petticoat by altering some pieces from Butterick 6074. This same pattern is now available as McCall’s 8132.It’s not the most flattering look. Lots of layers were worn to combat the cold. I have plans to make a Regency short gown (blouse) to wear instead of the banyan very soon. 

Many thanks to my lovely friend Dartanyan for the fetching cap and talented Kelly for the warm mitts. 

My striped over the knee socks came from a clothing shop in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. They make me smile. 

Books I Found Helpful

 In the Garden with Jane Austen shares the types of gardens that Austen would have known and visited.

The Complete Kitchen Garden contains  images of classic garden designs as well as recipes for the home gardener and cook.

I hope you have enjoyed this post. It is the first installment for what will be an ongoing series. 

Up next is Rachel of The Ponds Farmhouse. You will adore her cozy decor ideas.

I’ll see you on Sunday. 

Laura

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