Engraving from John Parkinson, Paridisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris . . . (London: Humfrey Lownes and Robert Young, 1629), p. 505. From the collections of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

CONTENTS

The next
Electronic Field Trip is

Jamestown Unearthed
October 11, 2007

Most colonial Virginians lived on farms and were relatively self sufficient in provisioning their families with foodstuffs. Plantation accounts refer to kitchen gardens, but it is far more difficult to determine how common kitchen gardens were in an urban setting and, in particular, in eighteenth-century Williamsburg.

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Primary Source of the Month:
Engraving from John Parkinson's
Paridisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris . . .

This engraving is one of many that appear in John Parkinson's 1629 Paridisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris, a work describing the proper cultivation of plants in flower, orchard, and kitchen gardens. The engraving illustrates eight varieties of cabbage, cauliflower, colewort, and turnip. Such plants have one of the longest histories of all European vegetables. Cabbages were introduced to Virginia by the first settlers at Jamestown.

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During the colonial period, urban household gardens tended to be relatively small, while those in the country sometimes covered several acres. Kitchen gardens were often planted with a variety of vegetables, herbs, and fruits. Planning and planting a garden was just the beginning of the work. Extensive labor, especially weeding and watering, was required throughout the growing season. In this lesson, students design a colonial kitchen garden and develop a year-long plan for planting and harvesting its produce.

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Colonial Williamsburg offers a variety of quality instructional materials dealing with 18th-century life, including:

• Plants of Colonial Williamsburg (book)
• Williamsburg Art of Cookery (book)
• The Servants Directory (pamphlet)

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—Robert Beverley, The History and
Present State of Virginia, 1705