Petrovsky Vegetable Garden In Strelna Opened Many Plants To Russians

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

The historic Petrovsky vegetable garden has been revived

In September, the magnificent palace and park complex "Peterhof" celebrated its 300th anniversary. On the site of the suburban imperial residence founded by Peter I, there is the State Museum-Reserve. It has the status of a national object of special value, is on a par with the largest museums in the world, and in Russia it occupies the first line in the ranking of the most visited federal monuments.

Peterhof is famous for its fountains, surpassing even those of Versailles, in the image and likeness of which they were created. Museums, of which there are about twenty, are no less famous. One of them is the Petrovsky vegetable garden, recreated in its historical place - in Strelna, on the territory of the passing palace of Peter I. The senior gardener of the Palace of Peter I in Strelna Elena Mikhailovna Kuzmenko conducts excursions around it, fascinatingly telling about Russian vegetable growing for 300 years. Often, tourists make notes to apply centuries-old methods and technologies of vegetable cultivation in their garden plots. I bring my notes, made in the Petrovsky vegetable garden, to the attention of the readers of the magazine, among whom there are many gardeners - Peter's followers …

On my way to the garden near the palace, I pay attention to ceramic Dutch vases decorated with slides of vegetables: fancy pumpkins, zucchini, squash. The fashion for roller coasters was brought to Russia by Peter I, having looked after them in Versailles. In turn, King Louis XIV of France resumed the antique fashion for vegetable and fruit slides. Modern museum gardeners have revived a beautiful tradition. When the harvest of multi-colored, unusual-shaped zucchini, squash, pumpkins ripens in the Petrovsky vegetable garden, they are used to decorate vases near the palace of Peter I and in the Lower Park - near Monplaisir, where they remain until frost. Elena Mikhailovna says that the Dutch, seeing vegetable hills at Monplaisir, took them for dummies - they are so incredibly beautiful for real people. To dissuade the guests, they had to sacrifice a pumpkin - cut it and give it to unbelievers to try.

The first bed in the recreated vegetable garden was laid in 1999. And initially the garden was laid out in 1711 - in the southern lowland of the palace complex. Simultaneously with the palace, economic services were laid to fully meet the palace needs: ponds in which fish were grown, a vegetable garden, an orchard. The vegetable garden only a couple of meters did not reach the Karpiev Pond. Its water was used for watering vegetables, and on spring nights the fog, rising from the pond that had heated up during the day, covered the garden with a blanket, protecting it from frost. Choosing a place for a vegetable garden, its creators foresaw that there would be favorable conditions in it. From the north, the beds are covered with a 3.5-meter high terrace, and the north-western winds do not get there.

The tradition of household services, including vegetable gardens, is Russian, and even the French regular style in the Upper Garden and the Lower Park of the Peterhof GMZ did not exclude vegetable gardens, which were also there: in the Upper Garden there was a vegetable garden of spicy crops, in the Lower Garden there was an orchard. And each residence had at least a small piece of land where vegetables and fruits were grown and served to the table.

The complex of the wooden palace of Peter I united a Russian estate of the 18th century and a French regular garden. In the upper part of the palace territory, there are strict geometric parterres, framed by barberry, inside of which there are carpet plants: beautiful silver sea cineraria, blue ageratum, pale pink begonia, emphasizing the beauty of Dutch ceramic vases in white and blue tones. In them, as in the times of Peter the Great, for the autumn festival of fountains, vegetables from their own garden appear.

The revived Petrovsky vegetable garden occupies its historical area of two hectares. It grows crops known in the pre-Petrine era (turnip, white cabbage, beets, carrots, sorrel, rhubarb), and crops that appeared under Peter. According to legend, Peter I personally planted the first sack of potatoes in Strelna manor. It is believed that it was from here that potatoes spread to the Northwest, but there is no exact confirmation of this. It is possible that Peter I brought potatoes and they tried to plant them, and they began to grow them during the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna - in the 40s of the 18th century. But we can safely speak about radishes - the emperor himself brought its seeds to Russia. And also - lettuce salads. All these vegetables have taken root on Russian soil. The situation is more complicated with the artichokes, loved by Peter abroad. In one of the taverns in Holland, the Russian tsar tasted an artichoke. I liked the vegetable, and he brought the culture home.

Elena Mikhailovna cannot understand how the tsar could have liked a product that tastes like not the most juicy cabbage stump (its edible part is closed inflorescences). Perhaps the secret was in the sauce under which the artichoke was served? Is it worth it for modern gardeners to cultivate this culture, they decide, but first, let's listen to the master. Elena Mikhailovna led us to a huge bed with plants that looked like thistles.

- The artichoke is thermophilic, its homeland is the Mediterranean, so we grow it on a huge pillow of horse dung. The plant requires a night temperature of at least + 15 degrees. In nature, an artichoke grows in one place for up to 15 years, and in our climate - one season. For seedlings, artichoke seeds are sown on the 20th of January, and the plants are planted in the ground after 10th June. Despite all the agrotechnical difficulties, on the outskirts of St. Petersburg until the middle of the 19th century, the artichoke was grown in large volumes and even exported.

For those who want to try to grow this plant, I tell you how a warm garden was prepared for it. In Peter's time, a trench with a diameter of 50 to 70 cm was dug. Fresh horse manure was laid in it, and 20 cm of soil was poured over it, into which the seedlings were planted.

Under Peter the Great, the vegetable garden served a purely utilitarian purpose - it supplied fruits to the royal table. The current one is decorative - it is a garden-flower garden. Combinations of plants are widely used in it. The beds look great, in which two inner rows are occupied by beets, and curly parsley frames it. Red cabbage and white cabbage are perfectly combined.

There is a lot of verbena, one of the oldest plants used in parks. It is colored blue, pink, white, red, and yellow. Along with its aesthetic purpose, verbena was used as a perfume for the linen of the nobility. Instead of boxwood, which freezes in our climate, barberry is planted around the perimeter of the garden. In autumn, its green "curtain" is painted in bright orange colors.

There are a lot of cabbage, including species that were not present under Peter, but he would have appreciated the novelties when he saw them in his garden, as he was a famous innovator. Elena Mikhailovna draws attention to the root vegetable version of cabbage - kohlrabi. In terms of vitamin C content, it is not inferior to lemon. It is no coincidence that one of its varieties is called "northern lemon". By the way, cabbage is the master's favorite plant, her song. She considers this vegetable to be fabulously beautiful. There are many types and varieties of cabbage growing in the garden - from traditional white cabbage to decorative. Openwork hats of the Coral variety seem to be woven by skillful lacemaker. By the fall, when many plants lose their attractiveness, ornamental cabbages - purple, pink, which have gained brightness of flowers …

Sorrel, onions were traditional vegetable crops in Peter's times. Since then, new varieties of onions have appeared. Many salads - from green to bronze and with a varied leaf shape - corrugated, cabbage, curly. Plants are combined not only according to the principle of color and shape contrast, but also taking into account a favorable neighborhood - mutually beneficial compatibility.

Elena Mikhailovna shares a recipe for a vitamin salad called "Petrovsky". Our wise ancestors prepared it in early spring from young plants of stinging nettle, dreaming, dandelion, white daisy flowers without a yellow core.

In winter, work in the historic vegetable garden does not stop: trees and shrubs are pruned, seedlings have been sown in the local greenhouse since January, and they work in the archive. Elena Mikhailovna says that they found in archival documents a description of a strawberry garden, which will certainly be arranged in the garden. Readers can try to build one on their site. A cobblestone pavement was laid out, a bed was poured into it, on which garden strawberries were planted. On each side, sides of large cobblestones were left, which were heated during the day, and gave off heat at night.

Elena Mikhailovna Kuzmenko explains the exposition of nesting bee houses in the garden by the fact that Peter I was also the pioneer of stationary beekeeping in Russia. Traveling to Western Europe, he collected a collection of 32 hives. These were Dutch straw hives, French cages, English glass hives. When he brought them to Strelna, the peasants saw them and created their own version of a bee house - a nest box. For the winter, the houses were brought into the log shed. There are dummies in the garden, otherwise the bees would not let people work and conduct excursions.

This summer has been unfavorable due to the invasion of pests. All cruciferous pests that could appear have appeared. We fought with them in the historical garden using old-fashioned, environmentally friendly methods. Dandelion and garlic were brewed, allowed to ferment for a couple of days, after which they added laundry soap and treated the plants with this solution.