THE COST OF GARDENING - 1920 TO 2011

I've had a few quiet moments to myself due to this cold weather and took the opportunity to browse through one of my old gardening books and came across this costings of tools and things needed for an allotment in 1920:
s. d.
"Tools [spade, fork and rake] 15 0
Manure [1 load] 6 0
Road Sweepings [1 load] 2 0
Lime [2 cwt] 4 0
Soot [1 bag] 0 6
Manure [1 load] 6 0
________

£1 13 6
_________


Selling prices of crops
£ s d
2 cwt maincrop potatoes at
5lbs for 6d 1 2 5
Onions 0 10 0
4 Cabbages 0 0 8
2 Cauliflowers 0 0 6
____________

£1 13 7
____________

Do you really want me to put up todays prices???????!! [hr]
As you can see my extraction from the book didn't come out at all as I posted it. But you can work it out, Don't forget in those days it was 20 shillings to a pound, 12 pence to a shilling, 240 pence to a pound, the guinea, half penny, and farthing will still in existence. Sorry about the error in presentation but you'll get the gist!

 

Hi Harry, according to the old book soot was used as a mild soil fumigant and later as a fertilizer. Can you imagine what you end up looking like trying to apply it if there was a breeze??!!

 

Oh my gosh.. Brilliant Armandii... 6d for a bag of soot... My chimney sweep still leaves me all his soot when he comes here & I am digging it into the veg plot up at the farm as the soil is very heavy up there... My soil in my garden here has had about 2 hundred years worth of of soot, ashes & farmyard manure dug into it & it is a beautiful fine tilth black loam soil now..... :D

15 bob for a fork or spade.. Wow now it is that in £s........ for a cheap one..!!

Great to see this I love a bit of nostalgia... :D

 

I reckon you've been doing the right thing, Marley. 200 years worth of soot is a lot of soot. I thought it might be nice to pick out bits and pieces from the old books that might be of interest, showing the attitudes, comments, and practices of that period. Some of the comments are about gardening and allotments during and immediately after the Great War. I'd have to be careful to choose interesting bits to ensure it isn't boring. Maybe a new thread called "FROM THE OLD BOOK" with entries as I find them? What do you think?

 

Armandii, a thread like that sounds as though it would be really interesting... I love the thought of that... Start your thread & I will put a Sticky on it so it is always at the to of the forum...

There is such a huge renewed interest in gardening & feeding yourself it will be good..

It will compliment Ziggys Victorian Garden thread very well.. This is what makes life & gardening & GC so interesting... Go For it Armandii..

I still have my WW2 Elizabeth Craig Ration cook book around somewhere too..! :WINK1: