What an interesting topic! Good questions, too. I have some ideas, but I want to read through the links first and then will come back.

Whether or not you starved all the time would have had a lot to do with your social standing. Many, many people did not have land to grow a garden in (I am more familiar with English than French history). What land you may have been allowed to work actually belonged to the Lord and he was often able by right or might to take what he desired from your garden.

Earlier eras were also much more susceptible to the whims of the weather and pests. If a crop was devastated, if you were poor, you or someone in your family was likely to starve. If the rodent population got your food, again, not a good thing. If the harvest did not last through the winter, starvation again. Not to mention the inherent risks of fertilizing gardens with human feces that had not been properly composted.

A few things I am fairly certain of. Obesity was not likely a factor for the common man of days gone past and I am sure thankful that when my crop is not what I expect, I can run to the store and get what my family needs. I certainly would not mind travelling back in time to get a glimpse of what life was like back then but I certainly would not want to live it.

Rickets would result in lack of stature caused by lack of vitamin D as a result of poor nutrition . One of many reasons I'm glad to live in modern times.

I wouldn't travel back in time even to visit. They wouldn't even understand our English, it was partly German, not what we know as English now.

What I thought was important was the thicket and picker cane fences. How many people, including myself, have lost some good plants to rabbits? I know a lady whose son grew the most beautiful watermelon patch, almost to its ripest point, and in one single night a herd of deer wiped it completely out.

I think I would sneak out and plant shade loving vegetable and herb plants around forest trees if I had no land, maybe in an area less traveled, but I'm sure every inch of Europe was well traveled even in less populated days. That is such a crowded continent! Not like India, but very crowded.

I don't see myself in a good way ever when I think what it would be like. But their interest in flowers and their superstitions actually kept them healthy. They warded off evil by taking certain flowers or herbs that were full of nutrients, but I also imagine I wouldn't be as fat as I am in that era. They boiled their food and ate leftovers in a pot that was possibly 9 days old. They just kept adding to the leftovers.

Did you read the part about trench mouth? They ate off hard crusted bread as bowls, reused them for many meals, but they would develop maggots and eggs of insects on them causing the the trench mouth disease when they ate from it.

A good thing not to be rich in that era is that the rich drank from pewter cups, leaded pewter cups, putting them in a 3 day stupor where they were assumed dead and buried alive!

A true kitchen garden would not have potatoes, tomatoes, swiss chard, and any hybrid, so if you are planting a traditional garden, this information is very useful.

It takes a lot of land to grow enough beans for full pot, so it makes sense small root vegetables were grown close to the house, but in a larger plot farther out, the beans would grow.

I would imagine they didn't eat anything breaded because it took too much room to grow enough stalks of wheat to get anything out of them. Hummus is chick peas and it was used as a flour, so imagine what bread would have tasted like made from a bean?

If you are thinking to go back time in thought, you can have you a nice salad with vinaigrette topping, olive oil, and lots and lots of onions. They used a lot of onions in their foods. It seems so fadish to eat salads! You know how they always stereo type yuppies at salad bars! It was one of the oldest known food recipes that still hasn't been changed.

I love reading about things like this because if you are going all out to grow a traditional potager, you would not grow certain varieties like potatoes. I would like to keep my potager close to tradition, just for the sake of doing it, but I am planting modern foods for now.

I thought this topic would spark a lot of interest for this board. I love to see the pictures in this board more than the rest. The mix of vegetables and herbs with flowers really is decorative. I have an English garden book with huge color pictures and their gardens are a work of art.

I hope one day to have one as beautiful!

I found me some thistle seeds and plan to intercrop with stinging common nettle! What a mess that could make, but let's see if bunny can get to my green beans this year! I wondered how they could keep a garden. It's impossible without an expensive fence or hedges that take 10 years to grow to grow a garden. One good night, and the deer will wipe out everything.

It is true, indeed that when you read some very old books, part of the very earliest medieval ages, just out of the dark age, they were growing vegetables and sometimes in potager described settings in dooryards. Most often in monasteries. My brain is rusty on this, but I recall 7th century. For the most part we only studied feudalism for this time frame with "common" people (meaning not religious colonies) and so there wasn't as much need for potager since the Lord had people working the land and they earned some share of whatever they grew. Since they also lived on his property, what they would have grown at home would also have been his. I remember reading a lot about cabbages. I guess the Lords didn't take those!

I would imagine it was the herbs and flowers that protected certain plants from insects that inspired the potager. How else could they have protected their garden, so potagers must have been more popular then plain vegetable gardens, but that is my guess, that is only if there is really any certainty that the herbs worked to scare off the bugs.

A doorway garden sounds like fun, I don't think my dog would respect it. He has a chain in the front yard and leaves landmines. It might have been the only garden area for crowded neighborhoods with no backyards. It would make sense on the sunny side. That sounds like a nice garden project to make if you have no dog.

Wow, thanks for the info./inspiration. I guess they aren't called the "Dark Ages" for nothing! After reading this thread, I feel very richly blessed to have land enough for a garden....and at the same time I have to admire the ingenuity of the people at that time, even in spite of ignorance. The common people were probably pros at recycling and didn't even realize it. I was recently [very!] inspired by this article on making wattle fences, apparently an ancient art. Actually, I'm dyin" to try it! Wonder what one of those would look like around a potager?

Here is a link that might be useful: Wattle Fences

Here are more detailed how-to's.

Here is a link that might be useful: How to Build a Wattle Fence

I find history fascinating, and there are always the opportunities for comparing then and now, and how we got to where we are.

I don't think that anyone who doesn't plant their potager strictly as medieval people might have is not being faithful to the potager idea. I think it's actually embellishing on the original concept, and no doubt the medieval folks would have welcomed the opportunity to grow larger, prettier gardens than they had (and they wouldn't have to share the produce either).

This post made me think of a place near here - Plimoth Plantation - which recreates a 1627 English village founded by the Pilgrims, near Plymouth, complete with gardens right outside the houses' doors and larger crops farther out. The gardens near the houses have many herbs as well. I guess this would be about halfway between Middle Ages and our gardens!

You could put those wattle fences to good use as trellises for anything. I tried the milk thistle fence, but the rains killed off any seedlings, not one that I planted made it. I did buy another pack so next year, I will start them off growing on top of a paper towel or toilet paper.

When I shop for seeds, I look at the year some of them were created. I have one oldy but goody in the garden, white scalloped or patty pan, it's a nice producer so far, and I'm about to harvest my first maybe even tomorrow. It's bright white.

My garden looks like a cyclone hit it, I thought it would be so picturesque. The rains hit it, then overtime at work left it, now I'm battling squash vine borers digging into the stems of the pumpkins and squashes, even my resistant ones had a larvae in the stem, it must have just now this week started because I checked them last week, they were fine.

I doubt the normal family in medieval days grew yellow straight neck or crooked neck unless they grew them under cloth, or in another country less troubled by the insect. I guess the borer is worse in the south because they can overwinter, our winters aren't cold enough in Tennessee.

I have 3 marigolds that seemed to be heirloom quality, Cracker Jack, just ordered the Mexican Marigold, and then there is one created more recently, Pinwheel Marigold, but it's a seed saver organic type as far as I know.

In my medieval garden I don't see pumpkins growing being in a community garden area, they would infest every garden with squash vine borers and squash bugs, unless there are resistant types. My garden would be in Europe though, although I'm part American Indian.

I believe also the gardens were more picturesque because of the herbs and flowers being so much easier to grow, plus the folklore of chasing bugs away with them, potions or mojo bags to protect them from the evil eye.

My guess is they drank lots of good herbal tea, ate lots of salads with flower buds in them the whole growing season even for every meal.

I was lucky to find the old fashioned briars in an area of my garden, the rose bush with such a small petaled rose, not hips that I could find. They will be looking at a different home in the fall. I would hate to disturb them in this heat, and I would also think they would take better to be transplanted in the fall.

It's a dreamy idea to have a medieval garden, the seed man is against us. Most of what we have was created in the last 50 years.

I read a passage in an old cookbook that talked about the use of fats in the diet in bygone years. Today we shun fried vegetables, but in the past meat was not eaten in the amounts it is today so fried vegetables and vegetables cooked with fat actually served to stand in for meat.

If you were a true southerner, like Tennesseans, you would fry just about everything. Fish, hushpuppies, fries, squash, green tomatoes, even oreo cookies and twinkies. We have a carnival that comes through here with funnel cakes and fried oreo cookies, even fried candy bars, a snickers bar.

Not all old time cooking habits are forgotten, although they never had a twinkie in that day, but I speak of it wondering what year they created the "lady fingers" cake recipe.

What is strange today is that vegetables are more expensive than meat. A tomato is couple dollars a pound, eggplants weren't cheap the last time I ever bought one, I think 4 dollars to be exact and that was in growing season.

I don't think they had corn oil too much, so meat fat was the only fat for cooking, lard from hogs, they did a lot of boiling meals, pots of stews. Doesn't sound good in the summer for hot pots of soup!

Scarletdaisies- I've read that radishes around pumpkins, melons and squash are helpful when they're first planted. Also nasturtiums are supposed to be beneficial. For the squash borer, catmint is supposed to chase them off...I read this in a couple of different books, so don't know how well it would work, but if you don't already have catmint in your garden area, what have you got to lose?

I planted Nasturtiums next them in between every 2 plants, plus marigolds, but nothing yet has chased them away, possibly due to the flowers not yet blooming. I have 2 marigolds blooming, but most don't even have a bloom on them.

I just planted some small sugar baby watermelon seeds with shasta daisies, painted daisies, borage, and radish seeds around them, but only the melon seeds are sprouting yet.

The shasta and painted daisy blooms make pyrethin oil that kill off squash bugs at least, not sure about squash vine borers. I've got some bt, but had to operate before I got it in the mail, some success, now I have it, I have to inject it in the stems. I saved a few plants for sure by operating, but my yields will be much lower I think, it's still early to tell.

I wonder what a garden looked like with squash plants in that day? Also in Europe, I'm not sure they have a squash vine borer. Maybe we can move there for better growing seasons!

Have you tried catmint in the garden, near the squash and melons? I'm going to try a few by the zucchini and watermelon :)

I haven't tried catmint, but I ordered a few other things. I'm hoping the shasta daisies are going to do it. They are the maker of the pyrethrin, there really is nothing you can do to get rid of them accept make them get more sparse.

I just read over an article in the Vegetable forum showing even with insecticides, the only way to guarantee a crop is to catch them when they are hatching at the most or laying.

I think it's a southern thing too, it's hotter here giving them longer reign. In Washington, you probably don't see too many.

I may try some in a bucket next year, with a cover over that, throw in a handful of ants to pollinate, and see if that works. I like squash, but they are nearly impossible to grow. This is only my second year trying though I won't give up.

"squash bug is found throughout most of the United States, but may be less of a pest wherever its natural enemies are native, as in the eastern United States, or where they have been deliberately introduced and established. The beneficial tachinid fly, imported in the 1940s, parasitizes the squash bug in a wide area ranging from New Jersey into the state of Washington. Recently, the same natural enemy has been successfully established in parts of northern California. But if you dont live where natural enemies are sufficient to suppress the squash bug population, or if you grow the plants it loves the best, what can you do?"

Looks like I'll be buying me a pack of Tachnid Flies, it seems the best way to go.

I believe many vegetables, including squashes, tomatoes, potatoes, and peppers, are from the Americas and medieval individuals wouldn't have had access to them. That sucks!!!!!!

I think it was a scary time and I also feel blessed not to have to live in the period. Although it is certainly interesting to think back what it would be like.

I don't think many peasants had potagers or kitchen gardens, etc. They worked for the lord of the land and he could take the crops grown. Also, it may have been against rules.

Some of the writing said the lords would give his servants a small plot on his land, subject to him that he didn't throw them off before harvest. But I argee, I don't think most people didn't own their own anything and had to purchase food or let their employer feed them.

The squash came in the mid or late 1500s during the first voyages, in the Golden age, don't remember what years the medieval days were, but I believe long before.

I think a tomato was available, but they thought it was poisonous, not sure what year exactly. I'll have to look over the articles again.

They grew beans, carrots, cabbage, asparagus, leeks, shallots, and onions of every size. Not sure when the beet came into play. It's strange shopping for seeds reading how your vegetable wasn't created until the 1900s.

It would be nice to have a medieval garden, but I wouldn't leave my tomatoes out for anything, first time at potatoes, but we buy enough of them, it's a good investment in time.