The rain held off whilst Master Gardeners, guided by Head Gardener, Katie, enjoyed a tour of the very productive and colourful walled garden at Salle Estate.    Salle Park Estate stretches over 4,200 acres and includes an extensive arable farm and 6 acres of garden.

The walled garden is managed in an authentic and traditional way and it provides for all of the Estate’s fruit, vegetable and cut flower needs.  There is also enough left over for a small local box scheme.

Keen veg at Salle Walled garden

Katie explained how the garden is run on a 3 year crop rotation with a fourth bed given over to soft fruit.  Companion planting is evident with basil alongside the greenhouse tomatoes, geranium within the vine house and marigolds everywhere.

The centre pathways are bordered by rich, vibrant colours of crocosmia, verbena bonariensis, budeliea and hemerocallis. other bee loving plants such as cosmos, sweet pea wigwams and salvia added to the mix along with structure from giant stipa grasses.

Scarecrow keeping guard

Brigid invited one of her households, Claire and Ian, along and they collected great ideas for some new containers to continue their growing whilst they prepare for a house move.

Our tour was followed by refreshments and home-made cake in the Orangery.  Here we took the opportunity to catch up with what our fellow Master Gardeners have been doing and swapping tips on getting the best from current crops.

Master Gardener Steve was awarded his certificate for Innovation.

We also took a look at new resources available to Master Gardeners in their role as food-growing mentors.   Here’s a link to these new resources:

The new Garden Organic no-dig peat campaign where you’ll find information on why we gardeners need to consider urgently our use of peat.  You will find suggestions for alternatives to peat and have the opportunity to lend your support to the campaign.

The love food hate waste campaign a great website with innovative recipes for left-over food, guidelines on how to control portion size and lots more information on how the food industry (producers, packagers and supermarkets) are working to try to reduce waste.