Brian & Carol Hansen, the masterminds behind Dirt2dining, asked me to write something about different approaches to vegetable gardening in Europe and America, based on my experiences of growing food in Canada, England and France.
 

​A Fundamental Similarity

I think it is easier to point out the similarities, as it seems a basic human impulse to create and nurture life, to love what you have created, and to appreciate and be proud of those creations as they mature successfully. 

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We all love our own veggies like our babies, no matter what continent you are on.  And in our increasingly global environment, there is much more commonality in what we grow and eat no matter where we reside in the European and North American continents.  So any differences are increasingly hard to discern.

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What's in a Name?
There are the obvious ones, for example in the naming of some vegetables.  The English say courgettes, like the French do, whereas North Americans say ‘zucchinis’. Confusingly, the name zucchini is Italian (i.e. European) for small pumpkin (yes, they are both from the same Marrow family). North Americans refer to ‘corn’ (be it for human or animal consumption), whereas the English call it ‘sweet corn’ if for humans. 

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Until very recently, the French would never eat corn, sweet or otherwise, as it was considered a food for cows and pigs.  My wife once served corn on the cob with roast beef to some young Parisian women at a Sunday lunch.

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They thought we were insane. 

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Other examples -- lima beans are called butter beans in England, and arugula in England is rocket.  But, regardless of where you live, everyone knows lettuce, carrots, potatoes and onions by those names.

Interestingly, only tomato is pronounced differently in England and in America.  Why don’t the English say ‘poh-tatto’ if they insist on ‘toh-matto’?

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History Rules Britannia

There are also some historical differences.  Many English tend not to grow vegetables in their own private gardens but on local authority owned land which is leased to allotment associations, who in turn for a small rent allow individual residents to have a portion of this land for growing fruit and vegetables. 

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One tends to associate allotments (or victory gardens) with England, largely because of the national government’s desire during the World Wars for individual citizens to grow ‘Food for Britain’.  And many English continue this tradition. 

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However, community gardens and other set-aside public lands are also prevalent throughout Europe and North America.  So the more I look for differences, the more I see similarities.

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English Order
Based on my own experiences, however, there are two gardening phenomena that if not uniquely English, are certainly prevalent in this country.  The first is tidiness.  A true Englishman’s vegetable garden is an extremely orderly one.  Rows of vegetables are precisely measured and symmetrical.  They are completely weed-free. 

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Structures for peas and runner beans (or ‘pole beans’ to North Americans) are formal in design, and they like nothing better than to shape their fruit trees into strange bows or angular lines.  In theory, this is to encourage fruiting and allow for easier picking, but I suspect it is more to do with the English gardener’s love for aesthetic construction. 

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Nature under complete control. 

​The greenhouses of some English gardeners look more like boutiques. The plants look beautiful, all neatly arranged like wares in an expensive shop window, and dirt is barely visible.  Hence the popularity of ‘grow bags’, where you cannot see the dirt at all! 

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​French Freedom
In contrast, the French vegetable gardeners tend to be more casual and informal.  Sometimes they don’t even bother attaching their pea plants to canes or other supports.  They just grow the peas more closely together so that the peas lean on each other!

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What about North Americans?  I suspect that their gardening practices will depend on when they or their ancestors came to America, and from where.  They bring their gardening traditions with them, from the Old World. There is one practice, however, which I think is still a predominantly English one.  And that is the almost obsessive desire to create gigantic vegetables of monstrous proportions. 

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​Gardening Large

My cousin has a neighbour whose back garden is only about 20 feet wide and 80 feet long. Within that space there is only a narrow concrete path stretching the length of the garden. No lawn, no flowers.  And comparatively few vegetables.​

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But what vegetables they are.  Cabbages about 2 – 3 feet wide, leeks the size of cricket (sorry, baseball) bats, and carrots which I think are about three feet long.  I say, 'I think' because I cannot fully see them. 

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Each carrot is grown within a three-foot cylindrical structure jutting out of the ground, resembling an oversized empty toilet roll or round umbrella stand. You can just see the greens of the carrot at the very top of the cylinder, sprouting outrageously from what looks like the top half of a small pumpkin.  That small pumpkin is the tip of the iceberg carrot. 

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Okay, not every gardener in England is like this. But gardeners like this do seem to live in England.  
 

​Vive la difference... or not​

I suspect that with every national gardening difference I point out, someone else will say, “ah no, we do that as well!”.  And, with every similarity, I can hear the response “No way, we never do that!” Gardeners may have much in common, but they are all unique, and not necessarily restricted by national practices,  especially in the world-wide-web we are all exposed to.

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