The Kitchen Garden, Shed and Potting Shed

The original vegetable garden

Kichen Garden before teak and cane seat 

Robin's design for a teak and cane seat

The garden in 1971

A narrow path leads from the White Garden to the Kitchen Garden.  Here is Robin’s description of it:

“This is one of two kitchen garden plots, each about thirty feet by thirty, the two together providing just enough vegetables for a family of two or three for the whole year………

The backbone of vegetables for freezing are broad beans, peas and French beans, with smaller quantities of runner beans and broccoli.  Sprouts, courgettes, spinach, carrots, beetroot, leeks, onions, lettuce and cabbage, including spring cabbage, are all grown and gathered fresh. Cauliflower and celery are the only plants that do not do well for us. We also grow strawberries and raspberries, and freeze a few, but the strawberries are always disappointing frozen. The flower buds on the gooseberries and apples taken by the bullfinches, and it is some years since we even had a small crop; we make sporadic and varyingly successful efforts to grow tomatoes and sweetcorn outside, and celeriac.

Every effort is made to grow the vegetables as neatly and attractively as possible, and they add immeasurably to the cottage garden image we are constantly trying to create.  We always try, for example, to support our peas on the traditional pea sticks, not least because they are the best for the job.  In one small patch we usually plant some vegetables primarily for decorative effect; I have also tried to make collection of perennial vegetables, but have only found three: asparagus, cardoons (similar to globe artichokes, with the most decorative leaves rather like a grey acanthus), and Good King Henry, a spinach-like vegetable which I enjoy."

The kitchen garden was enhanced by the addition of a teak and wicker seat, designed by Robin and made by a local joiner. About it Sybil says "I think this was based on a Lutyens design. Robin was a great fan of Lutyens and several connoiseurs who have been round the garden said they can see touches of Lutyens.... How Robin would have loved to hear them say that!"

Site for Shed, 1969

Compost bays 1969

The shed and potting shed, 1970

About the shed Robin says "The shed is the most sophisticated of our garden buildings, basically open, supported on four massive square timbers, with a flat roof; there are compost bays at one end and a potting shed at the other, and walking through it is an integral part of a tour of the garden. This is a good example of making a virtue out of a necessity and an interesting feature of something that is usually tucked out of sight; it is also a good example of confined and restricted space used to create interest and surprise. The site of the shed was carefully chosen, bearing in mind the importance of compost heaps being placed as centrally in a garden as possible, to cut barrowing distances – and barrows and the like are stored nearby.

The Potting Shed, 1989

Selection of tools, 1989

Shell collage on the outside wall of the Potting Shed

Iris border viewed from the potting shed

The potting shed ( the gardeners’ kitchen), though small, is fitted with a stone potting bench and boxes for fine sand, coarse sand, wood ash, bone meal, broken bricks and crocks on a shelf beneath, with large compartments for plant pots and tools are hung on the other side.  In the end, is a round window which looks down on the iris border to the side of the Folly – a very pretty picture.”