In pursuit of winter garden greens
If you go down to the kitchen gardens, you’ll be warmly welcomed by Doris, the delightful wire-haired dachshund who belongs to our Head Gardener Daryll.
This frosty season is known traditionally as ‘the hunger gap,’ yet our productive gardens are in no state of hibernation. This month, the Garden team have been busy harvesting a variety of hardy vegetables and bitter leaves, including Jerusalem artichokes, cardoons, mustard frills and radicchio.
‘Very gently’, Daryll says to Kaman as they pluck the ruby-red squid-like radicchio from the earth, before they are lightly rinsed and tightly packed lengthways in a crate. ‘Now they’ll be covered and forced for three weeks.’ He tells us, Dorris wiggling with excitement behind him. The radicchio will soon be gracing our menu.
Borrow a pair of Le Chameau boots and join us for our Friday morning garden walk.
Beyond the beds with their protective cages fending off the pesky resident pheasant, the brave new shoots of the Swiss chard, kale, winter purslane and land cress bust through the soil in the polytunnels, destined for a multitude of thoughtful dishes on the Ox Barn menu. The seasonal produce blackboard in the Ox Barn is never bare.
