Our Kitchen Gardens
From the moment we bought the pub in 2021, we wanted to source our fresh produce as locally as possible, using independent suppliers and surplus from keen gardeners nearby. We believe in keeping food miles low, and cooking dishes that centre on fantastic seasonal flavours of just-picked herbs, vegetables and fruit. We also want the Kitchen Gardens to encourage other local people to try growing their own, so classes and workshops are a big part of what we do too.
Five years on, we are regularly butchering on site and serving Grizedale Forest venison, we have a freezer full of gifted local damsons and our own apple juice, pressed on site from apples gathered throughout our local Crake valley. Year round we have something to serve that comes from the land around the pub.
Our own site growing began in early 2022 a team of Grizedale Arts volunteers helped transform the pub’s soggy lawn into a veg plot, and throughout the season experienced vegetable grower Karen Guthrie (Grizedale Arts’ Head Gardener at Lawson Park) maintained a small supply of salads, herbs, root vegetables and edible flowers. We also planted some soft fruit, with good harvests in a short space of time.
In early 2023 our ambitions grew, and so we built two further vegetable beds in The Farmer’s Fields, again with Grizedale Arts residential volunteers who were keen to learn about establishing sustainable and chemical-free food growing plots. Amounting to about 80 square metres of growing space, these attractive, plant-packed beds near the beer garden can be enjoyed by customers stretching their legs or enjoying a pint in our fields. We have also made a new Herb Garden which includes many varieties of culinary mint for use in our kitchens and bar. These include Japanese mint (recommended to us by Michelin-starred Simon Rogan’s Head Grower at his local farm), ginger mint, orange mint and chocolate mint. We also grow basil, Asian herbs such as garlic chives and shiso, parsley and lemon verbena, the best herbal tea of all.
In 2023 we recruited Head of Veg Matt Turnbull for the season, to develop these areas and keep our kitchens well supplied with produce for as long a season as possible. Matt – originally from east Yorkshire – came from a market gardening background, and had a wide range of experience in sustainable food growing. His very successful pumpkin experiment at the pub will not be forgotten!
We have developed further food growing on site with a weekly edibles class for beginners and with the support of the monthly Gardening School who also learn all about edibles hands-on. A new soft fruit bed occupies one of the no-dig beds, and cut flowers have been added to this area too.
