"newsets, doaskwatering,
with pot or with dish,
newsown, do not so,
if he do as I wish:
Through cunning withdibble,
rake, mattock, and spade,
by line, and by level,
trim gardenis made."

Medieval recipes are apt to be somewhat misleading. Meats were usually so tough that they had to be cooked until the flavor was boiled to oblivion, so recipes called for strong spices to make up for the blandness of the meat itself. But this was an option only for the very rich. More typical was a recipe given by the Goodman of Paris: 16 eggs, to which were added chopped dittany, rue, tansy, mint, sage, marjoram, fennel, parsley, beets, violet leaves, spinach, lettuce, and pounded ginger. The result must have overwhelmed the taste buds! But virtually all of the ingredients in the Goodman's recipe would have been grown in his own garden.

Spices like cinnamon (cassia), nutmeg (and mace), cloves, and ginger were hideously expensive. they had to be imported from the East. At each port, boundary, city, and river there was a toll; each time the spices were loaded, unloaded, inspected, taxed, and sold, the price went up. By the time they reached France or England only the very wealthy could afford them. Instead most medieval people relied on what they could grown themselves. Even city dwellers had gardens. Flowers, vegetables, and herbs were all planted together. The herbs were used in both medicines and food. In addition to those mentioned above, basil, hyssop, rue, savory, coriander, agrimony, and borage were also grown.

The petals of many flowers were used in cooking. among them were lilies, lavender, peonies, marigolds, violets, roses, and primroses. Most were just for decoration but some added flavors of their own.

Crusades, pilgrimages, and mercantile contacts introduced new plants, such as oleander and pomegranate. Description of England by William Harrions (1534-1593) reports the importation into England, during the reigns of Henry V, II and Henry VIII, of the rose of Damascus (unusual in the Middle Ages because it bloomed more than once a year), artichoke, musk rose, several kinds of plum, the apricot, "... and now within these foure yeeres there have bene brought into England from Vienne in austria divers kinds of flowers called Tulipas."

Herbs were dried in bunches, hanging from the kitchen ceiling. Spices were much too expensive to be treated so casually, and were kept in a locked cupboard. Even pepper was a luxury. It was sold by the peppercorn, and a housewife could buy just one if that was all she wanted or could afford. In the thirteenth century, when the price of an ordinary chicken was about four deniers, salt cost two deniers for five pounds (cheap), but pepper was four deniers an ounce. Sugar was even more expensive, and honey also cost a lot.

The most expensive spice of all was grown right in Western Europe! Even in the Middle Ages, saffron was the price king: it was worth much more than its weight in gold. this is not so mysterious when you contemplate its production. Saffron is obtained from the dried stigmas of a crocus. The stigma is a sticky shaft which collects pollen; it is the female part of the flower. there is one per flower, and only a few flowers per bulb. Moreover, the bulb blooms only once a year. Once acre yielded 100 pounds of wet saffron, and since the stigma is mostly water, this meant an eventual yield of only a couple of pounds. One planting was good for only two or three years; after that it was turned over to barley. Twenty years later, another crop of saffron could be gown on that ground.

The high price of saffron made the importation of turmeric, know in the Middle Ages as Indian saffron, practical. It had been used in Biblical times as a perfume as well as a spice, but it too had to be brought in from the East (it is obtained from a root of a plant in the ginger family).

Ginger was eventually grown in the Mediterranean areas of Africa and Europe. You can even grow ginger for yourself in California (I've done it). Stick a small piece of the root (choose one with an active bud or two) in an 8" pot (the rhizome gets a lot bigger) in the spring. The plant goes dormant in late fall.

At the end of the Middle Ages, many plants were introduced from the New world. Tobacco and potatoes were brought back, as was the tomato: "Apples of love do growe in Spaine, Italie, and such hot countries, from whence my selfe have received seedes for my garden, where they do increase and prosper." this is from the Herbal of Englishman John Gerard (1597). He goes on to say that "it is sowen in the beginning of Aprill in a bed of hot horse dung after the maner of muske melons and such like cold fruits." According to Matthiolus (a little earlier), the tomato "is eaten in the same manner as eggplant -- fried in oil, with salt and pepper."

Most of the methods of asexual reproduction, such as cuttings, layering, and grafting, were practiced in the Middle Ages. the fact that plants have a sex life, however, was not understood until after the end of the Middle Ages. Most medieval herbals were filled with magical lore and superstition. Many compilers simply copied their illustrations and descriptions from earlier manuscripts, usually inaccurately. The automatic replication of previously published admonitions is a problem not unknown to horticulture even today.

Some of the flavor of late medieval botany may be seen in the following excepts. again from Gerard's Herbal, discussing tomatoes. Reading between the lines, one might guess that the author is a little defensive. Perhaps his views were under attack by scholars less convinced by his idea of "coldnesse".

"The golden Apple with the whole herbe it selfe is colde, yet not fully so colde as Mandrake, after the opinion of Dodonaus; but in my judgment it is very colde, yea perhaps in the highest degree of coldnesse: my reason is, because I have in the hottest time of sommer cut away the superfluous braunches from the mother roote, and cast them away carelesly in the allies of my garden, the which (notwithstanding the extreme heat of the sunne, the hardnesse of the troden allies, and at the time when no raine at all did fall) have growen as fresh where I cast them, as before I did cut them off; which argueth the great coldnesse conteined therin. True it is that it doth argue also a great moisture wherewith the plant is possessed, but as I have saide not without great colde, which I leave to every mans censure."

finally, the following piece of advice, taken from Tusser's Calender (1573), as was the quote at the begriming of this article, never grows old:

"Goode huswives in summer
will save their own seeds
against the next year,
as occasion needs:
One seed for another,
to make an exchange,
with fellowly neighborhood,
seemeth not strange."