War time garden.

Hello , I was a baby in the war and remember some things :
We had a goose and chickens . The shelter was ahump in the garden . I was crraied thre every night nearly . We were near a siren . There were bombs all around . We were always hungry.People had allotments . It was not a holiday !! Hundreds of my relatives were killed . Regards , Grannyline

This is a very interesting question, to answer it I have to give my age away, but I don't care.
Wartime garden vegetables were very plain, there were no exotic things grown.
If you work on a garden of a three bedroom terrace house, you may have had a shed, up against it were rabbit hutches, a small chicken house and run. Often in a danger zone you may have had an Anderson air raid shelter to house 4 to 6 people. This was at the bottom of a 100ft. by 20ft. plot.
The remainder would be a vegetable plot, no lawn or greenhouse, that would be the first thing to shatter in a bomb blast. Food was the main aim, "Dig for Victory", potatoes, cabbage, sprouts, carrots, turnips, swedes, onions, parsnips, beetroot and lettuce. A variety of fruit was usually grown, gooseberries, red currants, black currants, raspberries and a clump of rhubarb.
Hope this will help you, I am sure others will have their own memories.

They might have had a greenhouse Dr bob if the area had not been bombed - way before my time, but my mum says her dad had a large garden and also a large greenhouse - he was injured in WW1 and couldn't work, so he made a small living from growing veggies and flowers, tho it was probably all veggies and no flowers during WW2 I guess.....

Yes Sid,
If you lived in the country you might have a greenhouse, where we lived in Littlehampton we were very lucky to have glass in the windows much less in a greenhouse.
Those were the good old days !!

Hereford had a big munitions factory which was bombed - my mum recalls the windows on one side of the house being broken when a bomb hit an ammo store. I wonder if the greenhouse survived that? 'spose it might have done if sheltered by the house. Bleak days.

Gosh Sid, that would have been a big'un.
The blast would have been terrific, I doubt the poor greenhouse could have survived that, but stranger things have happened.
We spent a lot of our time under the stairs, with our earplugs in, worn round the neck like a necklace, and I don't even want to think about gas masks.
Sorry Roxpole, gone completely off the thread here.

I'm sure Chelsea Flower Show 2008 showed a war-time garden....or did I just dream that one? Every night I go to bed thinking of gardening.

Although I am only 21 (and a bit) I too remember my mother's wartime allotment (My dad was in the RAF). There was a greenhouse but it was not exactly like today's. Do you remember the old terrace house sash windows with 6 panes in each half, the panes about 12" by 9"? Well the greenhouse was built using those. I think they were rescued from bombed houses and repaired using bits of glass from the same. There were no W and Z clips. Everything was done with putty. Most seeds were started in a coldframe, same glass source. DrBob is quite right of course, no exotics, brassicas and roots were big but legumes took too much trouble so just a few peas or runner beans for a treat.

I just planted my new globe artichoke seed 'cos my old ones have had it. Nothing like that of course.

John

age is just a number doc. i sore a thing on telly in norfolk wear they were making sugar beet excuse my spelling soup as there wasnt much veg.i believe veg was a lot lot more basic anyway.even when i was a kid it wasnt that varied.i think the shelter was a dug out hole with a bit of brick work to hold the dirt back and the roof was a piece of corigated iron just bent in a half circle.i think you then layed sods of grass on top to hide it.i mite not be completly right as i wasnt born quite.i think ive sean it in madam tousards or something.it sounds like a brilliant idea.im a sculpter artist myself and this sounds great.id love to see how it turns out.why twelth size ? is it for a railway ?

Hi
Thank you all, for your help, I have enjoyed hearing from you. The stories are so interesting. I am a 12th scale Dolls House fan, and have created scenes like a 1950 beach hut cafe, memories from my childhood, I always came out of the sea shivering and asked for an ice-cream to warm me up,and a have made market stall. I have always wanted to make a garden, and I thought that the wartime garden would be different. I do realise how difficult it was for the people during the war, and can only say how pleased I am for not having to live through it. I admire you all so much, and thank you once again.

Answer to everyone. Thank you and do you have any more idea's for my garden.

Hi Roxpole,
Got to remember you must have a washing line across the garden, with a prop to hold up the line when you had heavy washing on it, the cotton sheets used to flap in the wind and make a lovely sound. In many houses you didn't have inside toilets, they were often down the garden with a bucket which had to be emptied, they were always emptied on the garden, if you put them round your Rhubarb you had the best Rhubarb in the street.
You always had a rainbarrel outside to collect rain for baths and hairwashing, the water had to be taken inside and boiled up in a copper. The Tin bath was hung on the wall outside for use once a week. There was no indoor plumbing so you had a well or pump to draw water from. You would have a well between several houses and you carried buckets to the well and dropped a bucket on a rope down the well and turned the handle to bring it up, then you had to carry your buckets back to your own house, very hard work as the menfolk were away so the women had to do it.
Hope this is OK.
It's fascinating let us know how you get on.

Bob. I know I just asked the other day about forcing rhubarb but both Boss Lady and I refuse..............

Come on John, you can do it you know you can.,
I am sure you know the old saying, Duncan make your rhubarb grow. Sorry about that everyone, but my childhood memories are all coming back to me.
I hasten to add we don';t do that nowadays. Lol.

The Harbour master's house on the Albert Docks in Liverpool has a tiny wartime garden with an amazing variety of vegetables crammed into the smallest of spaces. I was there in August last year when it was at it's best.

im most interested in this little project as it goes .i cant weight to see it

Me too - Roxpole, if you could post a picture of your project when you are finished I'm sure everybody here would be very interested to see it :-)

very

Yes, very, very.

im with ya doc

I'd like to mark this question, and the fascinating answers, so that I can come back again. But I don't know how one can do that, since I've just found out that the "flag" is for "inapropriate", rather than "very interesting" questions!