Victorian Gardener Shirley Hibberd

Everybody grows cabbage, and everybody eats it; but my lady never hears the word, for all cabbages are “greens” in polite society. But plain people call things by their proper names, and I, for one, rejoice in cabbage, even if I dine with a retired tailor. Now a cabbage is a thing that most people think they can grow well, and generally speaking, good cabbages are very abundant; but cottagers, not looking upon it as a precarious or particularly choice crop, too often get careless, and where they take one ton of cabbages, a little extra pains would enable them to take two.

 

(from ‘Profitable Gardening’ by Shirley Hibbert pub. 1878 - my copy calls him Hibbert, Interesting Wikipedia article on Shirley Hibberd also Internet Archive has a lot of his very influential books on gardening. proto-ecology etc)

 

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Profitable Gardening That might have been written by V.S. Pritchett. It’s that same sort of vigorous prose with two short sentences balanced by one long. The bed is layed out and then double dug. 

 

 For this crop, a newly-trenched deep loam is just the thing, and, if never trenched before in the memory of man, it will produce wonderful cabbages, as I know from experience, on an old worn-out soil, where cabbages had become a failure, but which, at the second spit, had never been touched with spade or fork, when trenched two and a-half, or three feet deep, and the lower hazelly stuff brought to the top, the cabbages took to it, and grew like wildfire. 

 

‘Trenching’ is also known as double digging or sometimes ‘bastard trenching’. A spit is the length of a spade face. 

 There’s a short story peering out of the brambles in the first two sentences. Let me dibble a little: 

 

Rennick the tailor was never called anything else. Even his wife used say ‘Rennick is up the town buying thread’. Rennick loved his bacon and cabbage which he ate in the middle of the day and when sitting crosslegged on a table set near the window would keep a roll of worn calico near him occcasionally ripping lengths of it. ‘For the mechanics’. I was in the room getting measured for my school blazer. It had saffron edging on blue, no crest. There was an optional cap in the Edwardian style which demanded launching into a tree.

 Now read on.

The Pneumatic Gardener and The Genteel Tailor

Shirley Hibberd (1825 - 1890)
shirley hibberd wiki
could move with ease from the high flown to the homely. His book of reflections on nature, Brambles and Bay Leaves, could edify in a delightfully, virtually pneumatic, vapourous manner and his counsel to cottagers Profitable Gardening was practical and to the point.

"Dr. Cromwell, in his '^Philosophy of a Future Life/' urges that there are grounds for concluding that plants are possessed of a principle closely akin to intelligence. I know not how far knowledge may lead us in this direction; but I am sure if vegetation ever comes to be regarded as the depository of sentient powers, it will be pronounced first of all that grass can think. It is an emblem, too, of all that is good in life and hopeful in death. We cannot conceive of human happiness, except in connection with verdurous scenes; we cannot conjure up a vision of our heavenly home, without lavishly clothing it with greenness. The truth is, that the story of the grass is the story of the world. Ere the creatures of the flood and field existed, the earth brought forth grass and herbs, so that when the earth should 'bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping tiling,' they should find sustenance and enjoyment; and man, waking up from chaos at the will of the Omnipotent, should find himself in a home of greenness, with a soft carpet for his feet, a refreshing verdure to gladden his eye, and a living beauty to imbue his heart with holiness and peace. Well! upon the green turf he worshipped his God at sunrise, and upon the grassy ground he slept at nightfall; and when that greatest of his benedictions came—a companion to make complete the sweetness of his hours—it was on the green grass they walked together, singing hymns of joy, and mingling their affections with the happiness of the creatures."

Chapter X:
The Cabbage (Brassica oleracea)

Everyone grows cabbages, and everybody eats it; but my lady never hears the word, for all cabbages are “greens” in polite society. But plain people call things by their right names, and I, for one, rejoice in a cabbage, and like to call it cabbage, even when I dine with a retired tailor. Now a cabbage is a thing that most people think they can grow well, and generally speaking, good cabbages are very abundant; but cottagers, not looking upon it as a precarious or particularly choice crop, too often get careless, and where they take one ton of cabbage, a little extra pains would enable them to take two.

(from Profitable Gardening)

Impeccable punctuation, wouldn’t you say. The reference to the genteel tailor might be understandable due to their sitting cross-legged on a table at the window to do their work. This ‘asana’, as those of you who practice yoga will know, can lead to a species of ventriloquy. For this reason tailors kept by them old shirts whose seams they would rip in an absent minded manner.

God's Heart

Having had a very mild winter and also warm weather in early spring the growth is remarkable. The calendula (marigold) survived and is now blooming, winter onions are flourishing and the young chestnut has put out 18 inch long new growth. Emboldened I have done a lot of sowing and planting. Leeks (Carentan) have been moved from trays to a nursery bed awaiting their final home when the early potatoes are cleared. Early broad beans are up and today I sowed some more to follow on. Petit Pois are showing well.

My stately home garden cuttings have struck. I never go anywhere without a sharp penknife. Call it opportunistic pruning; no herbaceous border is safe from my predation but I will occasionally buy a plant. If everybody did it – but they don't and it doesn't damage the plant.

I don't usually grow main crop potatoes but this year I was given some organic Robinta with good disease resistance. It will be interesting to see how they do. They are supposed to crop well but our soil is a bit light and potash deficient. I have some cheap organic potato fertiliser from one of those 'dealz' stores. The rather etiolate blackberry bushes for a mere €1,75 are recovering. The old established gooseberries are heavily laden and the plum that I pruned radically survived and is showing some fruit.

Tomorrow a new bed will have to be dug. The verse on kitsch garden statuary, (italic) I bring to ye by the power of the internet:

God's Garden

THE Lord God planted a garden
In the first white days of the world,
And He set there an angel warden
In a garment of light enfurled.

So near to the peace of Heaven,
That the hawk might nest with the wren,
For there in the cool of the even
God walked with the first of men.

And I dream that these garden-closes
With their shade and their sun-flecked sod
And their lilies and bowers of roses,
Were laid by the hand of God.

The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,--
One is nearer God's heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.

For He broke it for us in a garden
Under the olive-trees
Where the angel of strength was the warden
And the soul of the world found ease.

Dorothy Frances Gurney