Cultivating interest in gardening
The Kitchen Garden at Kelmarsh Hall.
A BEAUTIFUL two-acre kitchen garden brimming with fruit and vegetables is helping teach primary school pupils about the food they eat.
Kelmarsh Hall’s 18th century walled garden is chock full of produce chosen and planted to give a constant supply of seasonal produce. Right now they are harvesting potatoes, broad beans, peas, blackcurrants, cauliflowers, broccoli, garlic and an abundance of radishes.
And with the help of a grant from The Big Lottery Local Food Programme they are using it to open up the world of growing food to children from the surrounding area.
Head gardener Esther McMillan said: “They come in to look at where their food comes from. What would we do if there wasn’t a Tesco? What if you had to grow your own?”
The youngsters learn about the different parts of the plants that get eaten whether it is the flower of a cauliflower, the stem of some celery or the root of a carrot. And they have a tasting session to really get the idea.
It is surprising what they do and do not know about. Esther thinks a lot of the knowledge children have about growing food has been learned from their grandparents.
The Local Food Programme distributes grants to a range of projects to help make locally grown food more accessible and to promote growing food locally, education, healthy living and healthy eating.
As well as the schools events the gardens are used for regular cookery demonstrations on the first Thursday of the month where people can go along to find out more about cooking what is in season.
They are also used by mental health patients who come and do some gardening there as part of a peer support group scheme.
The funding has also paid for a part-time seasonal kitchen gardener and gives opportunities for students to do work experience.
The produce grown in such a relatively small space is varied. Currants and raspberries are just coming into their own. There are cucumbers, tomatoes, aubergines and peppers in the polytunnel and for later in the year cabbages and kale.
The garden also has some heritage varieties that are not commonplace in our shops and allotments and an extensive variety of each thing. There are not just lettuces, there are lettuces with interesting names like fat lazy blonde and drunken woman. There are purple, yellow and orange carrots.
The gardens are also used to grow flowers for cutting and putting on display in the main house as they would have been in days gone by.
Kelmarsh sells its produce in a veg box scheme for £5 a box and also puts the latest produce on sale in the shop on Thursdays and Sundays for the public to buy. It may not make a fortune but it pays for seeds and ensures nothing goes to waste.
Ten years ago the gardens were not in the cultivated condition they are now and over those years the gardeners there have worked on the garden adding to the varieties grown but always sticking to the layout it had in Victorian times.
It is, however, a balancing act between producing food crops and maintaining a garden that is beautiful to look at.
Esther said: “We want it to look attractive, we don’t want to do it intensively or as monoculture because you want it to look pleasant.”
It is an ongoing process and Esther has plans for more projects in terms of improvements to the gardens and educational schemes.
They have also recently received £50,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund to have part of the wall of the garden renovated this summer.
Alongside the staff, there are numerous people who give their time once a week to help take care of the gardens. There is no shortage of volunteers to come and work in this lovely place and they take a personal pride in it.
Esther said: “A lot of people might have done a gardening course and they want to get some practical experience. Some people feel their own gardens are too small but actually a lot of them keep coming for social reasons. A lot of people have been here from the start and they all think of it as their own garden.”
Esther has been a professional gardener for 17 years and at Kelmarsh for 10 years. She enjoys the satisfaction of doing active work and creating something visual and also the response from visitors. She said: “I know it sounds trite, but to see people enjoying it is really nice.”
She sees the garden as a constantly progressing and evolving place and as a gardener accepts the difficulties that nature brings.
She said: “The thing is you never succeed in gardening because every year there’s something that goes pear-shaped. Good gardening is a bit of art, a bit of science and a huge dollop of luck.”
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