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The idea of growing our own vegetables was always a dream when I lived in Sydney. I was a really good gardener; I lovingly tended my garden in our inner city terrace house – which consisted of six pots and a small garden no more than one metre square. So it’s not surprising that my ambitions to turn a bare paddock behind the restaurant into a vegetable plot were a much bigger challenge than I had thought.
I started reading some books for inspiration. I was fascinated by the Diggers Club catalogues and we travelled down to see their beautiful Garden of St Erth near Daylesford in Victoria.
Under my careful direction, Mark (aka the vineyard manager) did all the hard work to create the garden. I do say careful direction, because I am often accused of having these fantastic ideas and plans which I seem to skillfully fob off to others to complete. Mark is usually the target of my grand ideas.
We ploughed up the paddock and then using recycled hardwoods we created 28 rectangular garden beds, a herb parterre and planted many berries and fruit trees. We surrounded the beds by pure white gravel from a quarry near Gundaroo.
It took about three years of experimenting with quantities and varieties for the vegetable garden to come into balance. At times up to 95% of the produce on the GRAZING menu is straight out of the garden. The fresh vegetables are amazing and the old species have incredible flavour.
The Chefs look after the garden now. Tom grew up on a herb farm near Tamworth and apprentice Ian was a horticulturalist before a change to cookery. All the Chefs spend a day in the garden and it gives the young ones an amazing understanding of fresh seasonal produce. Because they have to work with what’s available, they become innovative with their menus.
Ironically we now have an incredibly large commercial kitchen garden for the restaurant and yet I still have about six pots to tend by myself at home.
This article has 4 comments.
“Ahhhh, a kitchen garden. I miss having one. Your pictures remind me of such great cooking memories!
-- Kitty (April 26, 2010) ”