Spring gardens news

Diversification

This has presented us with blank canvas upon which to diversify and increase the vegetable , fruit and edible flowers which supply our chefs for our Michelin Star restaurant ‘Allium’ and our sister hotels, The George and Dragon and The Queens Head.

We are especially looking forward to a harvest of Alpine strawberries, Wine Berries, Aronia, and Saskatoon Berries this summer, and a heritage Potato  violetta , which we are trialling for the first time.

Hotbeds galore

After first introducing Hot Beds  in 2015, their success has proved invaluable where they extend our otherwise short growing season here in the north of England. After building four more hotbeds this spring and taking our total now to fourteen, we are in May already enjoying our first harvests of radishes,  baby leeks, spring onions, baby beetroots, baby fennel and turnips.

At the end of the summer, the enriched decomposed horse manure has done its job yielding heat to the hotbeds and will eventually provide a wonderful feed and mulch to all the growing areas of the kitchen garden.

It is an integral part of our ‘No dig’ and organic approach here at Askham Hall.

Increased vegetable production

In an effort to increase our vegetable production further we have also developed another small area of rather stony land where Jerusalem Artichokes grew.

In March our wonderful rare breed pigs made light work of cleaning up the ground and our hard working team has now built ten new beds some of which will be used for perennial vegetables including skirret a root vegetable much prized by the Tudors.

And fruit trees

And finally, this spring we have planted a number of fruit trees including crataegus cultivars and sorbus domestica on a strip of land adjacent to the hillside garden. This is to become our little ‘Forest Garden’.

It has been a very challenging spring with endless night of frost, but as we go forward and with our glass houses and poly tunnels overflowing with young seedlings and plants,  the anticipation of a bountiful season spurs us on. Exciting times ahead!

Diane – edible gardens head gardener at Askham Hall