Wizard gardens and food

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 161796

---  "k12listmomma" <k12listmomma at ...> wrote:
>
> > Lana posted:
> > I would assume that they do have farms and such.  
> > Remember Hagrids pumpkins?? And don't forget the 
> > chickens at the Burrow.  If Molly has chickens, then 
> > surely she must have a garden.
> 
> 
> Shelley responds:
> Not necessarily! For me, I guess this gets to the 
> definition of a garden. In the States, a garden means 
> rows of vegetables. In Europe, a garden is often a place
> of well cared for plants and shrubbery, a resting place 
> or get-a-away outdoors, often with a walk and a bench, 
> ... While I believe that Hagrid did keep a garden in the
>  first sense ..., I don't think Molly did. 

bboyminn:

One slight flaw in your interpretation. To an Englishman
a /garden/ is a place where you grow /things/ and those
/things/ include grass. In the USA, we have flower 
gardens, vegetable gardens, and our 'yard'. It is in
our yard that we grow our grass, but an Englishman
doesn't make that distinction. He grows grass on his lawn
and that makes his lawn part of his 'garden'. Then Molly
and the gang had dinner outside in the 'garden' it simply
means they were in the back yard. 

However, with the reference to carrots being grown in the
gardens at the Burronw, we can fairly assume that Molly 
also grows vegetables.

As to the Hogwarts garden (vegetable that is), the 
references to what Hagrid grows are references to his
/personal/ garden, not the schools garden. We see many
examples in many books of the kids walking through the
large vegetable patches an their way to and from outdoor
places. So, the school certainly has it's own vegetable
garden independant of Hagrid's personal garden, and I
propose also separate from Madame Sprout's herb gardens. 

My central point is that when an Englishman says 'garden'
it can mean any one of several things including simply
his yard or lawn. 


Now responding to maria8162001:

> > Shelly:
> < Which them brings up the question of just how big is 
> > the Weasley property? For all the talk of them being 
> > poor, you can't be too poor if you own land that 
> > feeds you.
> 

> maria8162001 here:
> 
> I agree with Shelly that one cannot be poor if one owns
> a land that feeds them. But people ... someone's status
> according to their financial means. The Weasley may
> not be that poor but in terms of financial means they 
> are poor to some people standards, since financially 
> they cannot afford to buy other luxury or neccessary 
> things that their 7 children need all at once.
> ...

bboyminn:

For a moment, ponder suburbs and consider why houses there
are so much cheaper than houses in the city? Reason: 
because it is far cheaper to take corn fields and convert
them to houses than it is to by land inside the city limits
and build houses there.

The Weasleys land is just that /land/. It is undeveloped
agricultural land that sell for FAR FAR less that 
developed land in a city or village of any size. The 
Weasley's land seems to conside of undeveloped land which
means it has never been converted into fields. Most 
likely when it was used by the farmer, it was 
pasture/grazing land. 

There seem to be a few small out-buildings that are 
hardly  more that small sheds. The main house itself 
seems to be an old chicken coup or small hog barn that 
has been converted to a house and magically expanded on
by the Weasleys.

My main point is that you can by acres of this type of
land for the price of a small cottage in a village, town,
or city. In fact, in a large city, the price of acres of 
country land would likely just barely buy you a small 
apartment flat.

So, the Weasley's certainly made the wizest choice in the
application of their money. They have acres of land for 
their wild kids to roam and play, and they are 
sufficiently out of sight of prying muggle eyes that they
can live freely and openly without worry of detection. 
They can also live self-suffiently, but at the same time
do have the luxury of having a village near by (within
walking distance) in the event that some unforeseen need
arises.

Also, keep in mind that land price and real estate prices
tend to go up over time. The Weasley's land today is worth
far more than it was when they bought it 50 years ago 
(rough speculation). I suspect they made arrangements to
buy this undeveloped land from the muggle farmer. Unless
he cleared it and planted on it, it was probably of little
use to him. 

As a side note; I'm under the impression that logging or 
general cutting of trees is restricted in England. The 
British seem well aware that they have decimated their 
once vast forests over the course of their long history, 
and are now making an effort to stem that tide. Last I 
read, the government was determine to increase their 
wooded land by 20%.

My point is that if the government is protecting wooded 
areas, then the farmer could not clear the land, and if
the land wasn't cleared, it would have limited capacity
to generate revenue for him. I'm sure he, or more likely
his grandfather, saw cash in hand as better than 
restricted land.

Given how long I suspect the Weasleys have owned the land,
it is likely long paid for. Though it could have accounted
for some very lean years in the beginning, and that would
have certainly encourage an industrious woman like Molly
to start doing a little small scale farming of her own;
vegetable and herb gardens, and chickens.

Conclusion, the Weasleys most certainly do have a 
vegetable garden, as well as flower gardens and a grass 
'garden'. 

Just one man's opinion.

Steve/bboymninn