Garden Notes

My grandfather was a keen gardener, and aside from growing vegetable crops for home use he also grew many flowers, successfully showing Chrysanthemums and Dahlias, and particularly enjoying Sweet Peas for decorating the home.

In his lifetime garden centres did not exist, only the wealthy could afford to buy proprietary garden manures, fertilisers and chemicals, and few of these products existed anyway.

Grandfather’s notebooks reveal not only the varieties of Roses, Chrysanthemums and Dahlias which he grew (along with a small selection of salad crop varieties), but also list some of his garden feeds and remedies, which he mixed himself from raw ingredients.

Clearly he used one of his notebooks when he was on Home Guard Duty in WWII because on the back two pages are instructions in the deployment of Hand Grenades, with meticulous diagrams!

To see his notes click the thumbnails to the left and below.