The Kitchen Garden at THE PIG

* I was invited to the press preview of Gardeners’ World Live and provided with a pair of tickets to visit the show, therefore all my posts will be marked as 'Ad’ though as usual my views and opinions are very much my own.

I’m a sucker for a kitchen garden, as you may have realised from previous posts such as The Chef’s Table by Adam Frost, Challenging what kitchen gardens can be and the garden at River Cottage HQ to name a few, but there are many more posts here on my blog - just search for ‘kitchen garden’! And while I’d already seen and enjoyed Adam Frost’s garden at the show, I was in for another treat with this kitchen garden, complete with its very own large pig.

The garden was designed by Ollie Hutson and Fran Chilet-Olmos for The Pig Hotel, who admit that at THE PIGs they have an obsessive commitment to homegrown, local produce - which obviously isn’t a bad thing. I hadn’t realised until this garden that what they can’t grow or rear themselves, they source from local farmers and suppliers and it forms the basis of their 25 mile menu, and that is something to celebrate - and I bet it tastes as good as it looks.

One thing I’ve realised as I think more about how to add our own stamp on our garden here, is I’m a big fan of dense planting, and mixing edibles and flowers together - actually that’s two things, but it’s good to know that about myself. I think what’s holding me back in my own garden plans is how those tie in with a relatively low maintenance garden, or if I’m setting myself up for a challenge, or worse a fail - some more research and thinking is definitely required.

While I love the ordered structure of growing vegetables in straight lines like those I’ve (not literally) drooled over at Heligan and in the potager at Cheverny, I know that’s not really my growing style - I don’t have the patience, or the skill to replicate what I’ve seen there. This jumbled together approach is much more my style, but I’m not fooled into thinking it’s necessarily easier! But the results are fantastic, aren’t they?

Though I think I could probably manage to grow some basil in blocks like this - and I love the use of a crate for this too.

The chairs in the seating area caught my eye, I think partly because of their lived in look but also because they reminded me of my many years ago eBay purchase, which are still going. I was going to add strong to that sentence, but that might be a stretch of the phrase - they’re still in use though, in fact only this weekend they were put to good use as part of a ‘crochet blanketed fort’ by the youngest members of the family visiting for a barbecue. It’s amazing isn’t it, that three chairs and two crocheted picnic blankets can provide such fun - let alone when you throw in a tube of ‘bubbles’ to blow!

I told you the pig was adorable didn’t I, and I’m sure is more than happy with their surroundings!

So plenty of food for thought for my future garden in just a few photos, which have also evoked so many memories of other kitchen gardens, all of which will I’m sure help inform that part of my new garden - eventually!

* With thanks to Gardeners’ World for inviting me to Gardeners’ World Live, it was just as good as I expected! I’ll be sharing more from my visit to the show - I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Post Comment Love 11 - 13 April

Hello there, and welcome back to this week’s #PoCoLo - a relaxed, friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any blog post published in the last week. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked, comment and share some of that love.

Please don’t link up posts which are older as they will be removed from the linky, and if older posts are linked then please don’t feel that it’s necessary to comment on those. If you were here last week it was great to have you along, if you’re new here this week we’re pleased you’ve joined us.

It’s been a blossom-tastic week, quite literally.

We were out for lunch with family in West Sussex at the weekend and afterwards I managed to fit in a walk amongst the blossom which was just gorgeous. Though my photo this week isn’t from that, it’s from the bridle path just around the corner from home. It was such a nice day on Monday that I decided to walk the 30mins to yoga instead of taking the car, and I snapped this on the way back.

Suzanne and I are taking a break for Easter after today’s linky, we’ll be back hosting PoCoLo on Friday 2 May which is also a bank holiday weekend here in the UK. We’re definitely approaching the time of year when we’re spoilt with bank holidays, though it’s unusual for Easter to butt up against them.

So whatever you’re up to this week and over the Easter break, have fun and we’ll see you again at the start of May!

Blossom and magnolias in the gardens at Gravetye Manor

Last weekend we had a family lunch at Gravetye Manor - it’s a great place and the food is even better, but taking a wander around the gardens afterwards is equally as good. A while back I shared more of the Kitchen Garden here, and the pretty blue and while tiles in the loos, which are still the same though it was all about the tulips on our most recent visit. I didn’t make it to the kitchen garden on this visit, but I did enjoy a stroll around the garden full of blossom, and tulips as you’ll see.

We were lucky with the weather, which meant that although we didn’t get up to the kitchen garden, we did spend a good amount of time wandering around the gardens without the need to hurry.

The spring bulbs were very much in evidence, both in the garden and throughout the interior and on the tables in the restaurants. The restaurant makes extensive use of their kitchen garden (as you’d expect) and that clearly is the ethos for the manor house and hotel too.

While I’d walked through these gardens before, it was the first time I’ve really spent any time here and for them to be the main focus of my post here. I explored new-to-me paths, all the time my route bringing me closer to the blossom-laden trees.

And it was worth it.

Not only was there plenty of blossom, there were magnolias of every colour.

And the scent. Just fantastic.

The lichen also caught my eye - no change there then! - but also look, the giant snowdrops were still flowering too. Definitely a joyous overload of spring bulbs and flowers, and absolutely gorgeous.