may 2021
Welcome back to the Dartington Walled Kitchen Garden Diary! What a lot of changes have happened since our entry last August.
Dartington Trust has now formalised the Kitchen Garden’s position within the greater scheme of things and we are now under the Head Gardener’s management as part of Schumacher College’s Horticultural team. The planning, coordination and implementation of the seasonal work will hopefully continue to be taken on by Sarah Coates, when she returns. Meanwhile Jan Hornby, a former Schumacher student and intern, is standing in. These changes have taken some time to come about.
Students from Schumacher College sort the compost
Spinach and Bull’s Blood beetroot
In May students from the Schumacher College Sustainable Horticulture course visited for a morning and, working in ‘covid-bubbles’, helped volunteers with seed sowing, compost sorting and the preparation of beds for the new crops.
If the weather continues to improve, (goodness, it is May!!), then hopefully the beds will soon be full of growing plants! Hopefully you can come and visit us soon when covid restrictions allow.
August 2020
August has been another productive month for the walled garden. We’ve been supplying tomatoes, cucumbers, chard, beetroot, black kale, herbs, peppers (sweet and chilli), giant red celery, green and purple French beans and summer squash. We also grew flowers to add colour and taste to the salads as well as pollen and nectar for the insects.
As August draws to a close the main growing season is coming to an end. The weather has changed, the nights and mornings are colder the days have shortened…. and we have started preparing for the winter salads.
The peppers haven’t ripened yet, as you can see they are still green, but with a bit of heat there’s still a chance they may redden. Blight has brought a premature end to the tomato crop, but all the unripe tomatoes will be converted to green tomato chutney at the Green Table.
July 2020
We are so pleased to be back in the Dartington Walled Garden and to be able to continue the diary.
The last time I was writing our news was in March. The beds were extended and improved, there were seedlings growing in the glass house, the days were getting longer and the plants were beginning to grow apace, and then…Covid-19 struck!
With no volunteers allowed onto the Dartington estate during the lockdown, Sarah had to manage all on her own – picking, planting, preparing and watering during the hot dry days of March, April, May and June! She was able to put produce to use as vegetable boxes and salad for the Roundhouse cafe. Well done, Sarah!
Below: lettuce bed in April. The fleece has now been removed and replaced with netting to keep off the birds.
We are now back to harvesting produce for the Green Table – salad leaves and edible flowers, beetroot, courgettes, summer squash, kale, french beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs, fennel and spring onions.
Here in the glasshouse we have peppers, purslane, beans and basil and courgettes, tomatoes and cucumbers. Everything is growing so well!
The Garden is now in its third year and is really looking at its best. All the beds are in full use – with both food and flowers blossoming, and a haven for bugs and minibeasts. Here is a particularly lovely bed of sunflowers, squash and heritage sweetcorn.
As the Dartington estate opens up, do come and visit us.
February 2020
Well that was certainly a wet and windy February, but with the help of waterproofs and cups of tea and biscuits, we have worked our way through a long list of seasonal jobs!
Paths and outdoor beds have been improved and extended, and we now wait for the new season’s crops. The hardy broad beans and purple and white sprouting broccoli have been braving the winds, rain and chills, and are looking good!
From the glasshouse we have harvested 5-6kg of salad leaves for The Green Table each week which – for the salad connoisseurs among you – includes purslane, pea shoots, a variety of lettuce leaves, land cress, spinach, rocket, golden and purple frills mustard. With the longer daylight hours we are now ready to resume two harvests a week!
The garlic has also been growing amongst the salad leaves, which makes you watch where you are treading – not easy if your feet are larger than average and you have on two pairs of socks and big boots or wellies!
The 14th February marked the start of sowing seeds indoors, and beetroot, chervil, turnip and sugar snap peas are now on their way.
However early sowing of hardy annuals (cornflowers, calendula, cerinthe, larkspur, love-in-the-mist, ammi and scabious) ensures that we have a healthy selection ready for planting as the weather warms up, to add colour to the garden, some to be added to the salad mix, but most importantly to attract the pollinators.
Another reason to come and visit us! See you soon!
January 2020
January is named from the Roman god Janus, who is represented by two faces looking in opposite directions – one as retrospective to the past, the other prospective to the coming year. Prospectively, we learn excitedly that we have funding for 2020 therefore can continue to plan and dig for victory. Retrospectively, we make good the damages of our westerly winds, whipping gales through our greenhouses. Many broken glass panes.
We dodge the wet weather and continue to form new raised beds and divert old paths, improving, creating and enriching raised beds. Seed planting will commence in earnest in February.We continue to tackle years of neglect but truth be known, we’re winning!
So we took time out for a ‘team jolly’ – a freezing cold day on a guided tour to Parke’s walled garden at Bovey Tracey. We were gleaning ideas for fruit growing and species types. The nearby Home Farm Café comes with a recommendation – in fact, Parke is a great trip!
December 2019
You may think December would be a quiet time in the garden, but in contrast to the sleepiness of most of the plants, the Walled Garden team have been industriously working on improvements for the year ahead.
Under Sarah’s strict supervision – she has an eye for detail! – we’ve been creating raised beds, clearing paths and sorting and spreading the compost.
The broad beans have sprouted and been planted in the new raised beds. Saved seed has been sorted and cleaned and some hardy annuals have been sown for planting and selling next year. The indoor salad harvesting for the Green Table has continued, although the yield is much reduced at this time of year.
And it hasn’t all been work, wind and rain – we’ve had a few lovely days sitting in the sun at break times. And ten of us celebrated the festive season with an excellent Christmas lunch last week.
November 2019
The weather has definitely changed and the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness is upon us, with the volunteers now packing away their shorts for another year; Sarah has even unveiled her bobble hat.
The high winds, which hit us over early November, caused devastation to the greenhouse. Olivier did sterling work collecting the broken glass and making the house safe.
Our compost, which has been decomposing for about 18 months, is now being put to good use as a top dressing and for our new seeds. We’re currently planting rocket, winter purslane and some indoor salad.
Other exciting plantings are garlic (Solent white) – we have done a few extras, which will be available to buy from the Walled Garden for home planting. Also broad beans have gone in, again we have done some extras for home planting. These will be available from mid December and will be harvesting in early summer 2020.
As always we are open on Tuesdays and Thursdays and everyone is welcome to pop in and see us, have a wander round and check out the plants.
October 2019
To celebrate the achievements at Dartington’s Kitchen Garden we (volunteers) have decided to keep a diary with monthly updates.
After much discussion, it was decided that it would be most accessible as a blog on the Dartington website which we hope you will find interesting – and even useful!
We are very pleased to have reached the end of the second bountiful summer since we started up in 2018. This year we have continued to develop and improve the soil and beds, and are growing an even wider range of seasonal produce for The Green Table and The White Hart.
Many thanks to the generous people whose donations helped make it all possible, and all the people who, under the instruction, guidance and expertise of Sarah Coates, have transformed this…
into this…
Other favourites for the restaurants have been rainbow chard, beetroots, purple and green French beans, courgettes, squash, cucumbers and Florence fennel.
Don’t forget to visit us on Tuesdays and Thursdays – even if it’s just to check on the cucamelons or the Bolivian Giants in the glasshouse! For the coming year we will also be trying out new seeds from Garden Organics and the Heritage Seeds Library so there should be lots of interest to come – we’ll keep you posted.
V ery informative – good to see how the garden changes throughout the seasons.
What a fabulous job the Walled Garden Team are doing! It looks amazing and the Green Table are benefitting from its verdant bounty! What a credit to Dartington Hall
Yes, a hard working team…and a great cause!
Great to be back in the garden and it is looking simply splendid. Especially the sunflowers!
Loving the blog, well done Barbara
Yes, the sunflowers are a great addition – so cheery, and I am looking forward to seeing how the heritage sweetcorn turn out! Love the way that there is always something new to look forward to. Best wishes to the Tuesday team, and hope to be able to meet up together soon!
What a transformation . Well done . Will def come and buy some produce soon
Thank you! Now you can see what I do on a Thursday and it’s such a lovely space to be working in – the produce is definitely worth trying too!
So glad the walled graden is getting at last the publicity and praise it deserves. Well done Sarah and the team.
Thank you so much for all your support, and especially for the recent donation of a beautiful apricot tree. What a generous and long-lasting contribution to the garden. It has of course been planted, and I took a photo for the blog but it unfortunately didn’t come out very well. Hope to include it in the following months – perhaps as it produces leaves and blossom?
Great work must come up some time soon and see what plants you have for sale
Thanks for the comment! Please do come and visit – the Walled Garden is open 9-4 every Tuesday and Thursday, (later when the days get longer and less chilly!) The table with plants for sale is in front of the glasshouse, and we will keep adding to the stock as it becomes available. Everything is clearly priced and I think there’s a box for coins if no-one’s around.
What a fantastic crop of salads and veg ,especially for such a wet and windy February.Well done team.Does the Green Table and the White Hart realise how fortunate they are to benefit from all these super fresh and Green greens!
Thanks Julia! Yes, it’s a great feeling to be able to deliver a freshly picked box of goodies straight to the kitchen – even though I’m usually a bit puffed from pushing them up the hill, but I try to look hale and healthy to match the vegetables! The kitchen staff are definitely pleased to get anything we can grow, so that makes those drizzly mornings all worthwhile!
The garden is looking amazing, well worth a visit.
What a transformation – some great work here! Looking forward to seeing seeds and shoots sprouting as the weather warms
Looks wonderful you’ve achieved so much in the last year. I shall certainly try and visit one Tuesday. What time do you close the gates? I’d probably visit before stewarding at the Barn at 5pm.
We are generally in the garden from 9 o’clock until 4 o’clock – a bit later in the summer.
Well done! Looks delicious and beautiful.
Thankyou – we are very proud of the improvements.
It’s interesting watering every week when you often have no idea what it is you’re watering. And unlike our poly-tunnel and veg beds at home there seem to be no weeds at Dartington! How is this done?….
Thank you for the watering – it would have been impossible to keep all those seedlings alive without your help! (That warm weather does seem a long time ago now-difficult to beleive!) We’ll make the labels clearer next year if this would be of interest!
As for the weeding… well no magic formula I’m afraid, just keen eyesight, patience and ‘tweaky’ fingerwork!
Sorry for delay in reply and thanks for all the watering – can’t imagine what would have happened the plants without the amazing watering team! Hard to remember how hot and dry it was, and perhaps we should put more labels out for you to identify them?
No magic formula for the weeding – just good eyesight, patience and tweaky fingers!!
What a fantastic transformation…. due to a lot of very hard work by your keen volunteers, not to forget the intricate and timely planning by their highly organised leader, Sarah Coates. Great work!
Thank you! Yes, Sarah keeps a careful eye on us all and knows what she’s doing!!
Such an amazing transformation, reducing food miles, providing fresh nutritious veg and breathing new life into such a glorious walled garden.
Thank you! It’s amazing to look at the photos and track all the changes – long may the garden continue to flourish!