Our Kitchen Garden

When there became the possibility that we could own our own home in Castleton a couple of years ago, we jumped at the chance!

It meant we could live in the village that we love and also start to plan more and more things we could do to enhance how things are done at The George.

We were very lucky to have such a large garden that came with our new home, a big part of why we chose it.

We had many thoughts of what we wanted to do with it and so we started on the planning.

Then, our very own 'Kitchen Garden' began to take shape.....

How it started....

When buying the house, we could see a vision of utilising the space in our garden to grow Fruit & Vegetables to use within our Specials Menu here at the Pub.

Little did we know at the time that we would keep going and end up with 3 Large Greenhouses, 35 Raised Beds, a Rooftop Garden, a Polytunnel, herbs and other plants dotted around the place in large pots as well as the 'few' sheds we now have that house other bits for other Sustainable initiatives we have since gone into further.

How its going....

We are so very proud of what we have managed to achieve in only a couple of years....

We have since starting the Kitchen Garden, fitted Solar Panels to our Roof to run the heating of the Greenhouses, the use of the kiln to slump our used bottles into serving dishes and quirky gifts to sell in the Pub and our engraving machine used to make all the signage, menus, salt & pepper pots and more items to be sold, all made using Sustainable Italian Poplar wood.

Last Year as many of our Customers and followers know, we managed to win the

Community Sustainability Hero Award

at the

Pub Aid Community Pub Hero Awards 2024 along with the Outstanding Contribution Award.

We sincerely appreciate having been honoured with these awards....

So much so that we decided to run again this year!

Produce....

We've been extremely lucky to be able to grow such wonderful produce including Potatoes, Broccoli, Strawberries, Chillis, Tomatoes, Gooseberries and many more.

But with running out of space to grow much more within the Kitchen Garden, we had to look at what else we may be able to do.

After speaking with the owner of the neighbouring field, we managed to obtain a piece of land to house our next 2 projects....

3 Bee Hives and to start a No Dig Allotment!

No Dig Allotment....

This has been another fun task to take on in our Sustainability Journey. The plan is in motion for what is being planted where and everything is taking shape!

Using as much Eco Friendly material as possible (especially all the cardboard we had to use to get started-kindly donated from a couple of businesses within the village along with any surplus we had from the Pub), we managed to get the beds in and sorted fairly quickly.

By using the method of 'no digging', it ensures we preserve the ground underneath as much as possible, which helps maintain the structure of the soil, leaving worms and other soil-dwelling organisms undisturbed and the ecosystem intact.

As well as growing the majority of our own fruit & vegetables, we do take surplus in from our Fruit & Veg Suppliers G. W Price of Eckington, Sheffield.

Anything they have that can no longer be sold, they hand over to us so we can use it to make our Jams & Chutneys and add to our Menus in different ways.

We also have a bit of a Community Swap Shop that our customers and local villagers know about. Any surplus produce they have, we take in and either swap for other produce or for Beer Tokens...

This seems to go down very well in the Village!!

Our 3 Bee Hives....

Currently we are working on our Bee Hives ready for them to arrive...

We have just got them painted and will be getting them situated to one side of our No Dig Allotment.

We have built a Bamboo Frame Wall to sit behind them, to keep as much of the wind away, which will hopefully help them feel comfortable enough to provide us with plenty of Honey!!

More updated photos to be added once they are situated and the Bees are with us!