Product Categories
Kitchen Garden
What we grow - In 2007 we will be growing very much the same crops as we did last year. This will include lettuce, various tomatoes, helda beans, fresh garlic, courgettes, peppers and salad crops.
However, the absolutely horrible summer we've had has made growing very difficult.
History - Our organic vegetable garden goes back to the time of Rector John Fanshawe who had the walls built in the mid-18th Century to enclose and shelter his new garden. In Victorian times it would have grown into an increasingly production 'kitchen garden' and orchard, feeding the successive generations of Marriotts and residents of the Estate until around 1914. In the early 1950's it was run as a market garden, producing tomatoes. 1958 saw the coming of the heavy traffic era with the building of the A426 which by-passed the village but divided the Estate agricultural land from the infrastructure of buildings, involved the removal of 100 trees and contributed to the gradual decline of the garden buildings and greenhouses.
In 2004 when we moved the shop to Cotesbach the right combination of a keen landowner, an expert horticulturist and our Soil Association license came together to bring the Kitchen garden into organic production. Despite no chemicals being used a monitored two year conversion period was required by the Soil Association so that by the end of February 2006 full organic status was achieved.
The Grower - The growing is in the very capable hands of Phil Sumption, who in his day job is a researcher and organic advisor at HDRA where he runs organic vegetable variety trials.
Phil also grows here many heritage varieties of vegetables for the heritage seed library at Ryton.
