The Kitchen Garden at Dunkeld House Hotel
The Kitchen Garden is a new venture at Dunkeld House Hotel, Perthshire’s most scenic and romantic riverside hotel and grounds. Previously two under-utilised tennis courts, the space was converted to a productive garden in early summer 2021. The garden now produces crates of delicious and locally grown produce every week for hotel guests to enjoy in the hotel’s restaurant and bar.
Growing over 60 edible species in 2021, in fact around 3,500 plants have been harvested in the garden this year, including courgettes, kale, carrots, beetroot, salads, thyme, peppermint, tarragon, chervil, and lovage. New plants for 2022 will include Jerusalem Artichokes, Kalettes, Garlic and Shallots. Traditional and ancient herbs with both culinary and medicinal use will also be introduced to provide colour and interest throughout the year as well as providing unusual ingredients for the Stag Restaurant Kitchen & Bar.
The Kitchen Garden has a number of benefits for hotel guests including:
- Reducing food miles
- Environmentally friendly gardening methods following permaculture and moon gardening principles and organic methods where possible
- Visitor experience: learn more about what we grow and why
- Hand-made fertilisers from abundant local sources: chemical-free gardening
- Seasonal produce is grown on-site: soil to the plate in as little as an hour
- Cut flowers for hotel vases from April to October
- Composting facilities: healthy soil creation by recycling organic waste from the hotel
The Future Kitchen Garden
Lisa Laurie, a Herbalist trained at the world-renowned Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, tends Dunkeld House Hotel’s Kitchen Garden, passionate about sustainable and wildlife-friendly methods. Previous study and research projects include landscape botanicals, edible botanical ID (flowers, shrubs, trees, mushrooms, lichen and seaweeds), environmentally-friendly foraging, moon gardening, permaculture, local and native biodiversity and nutraceuticals.
The future ethos is simple in The Kitchen Garden at The Dunkeld House Hotel: grow healthy and delicious food in as environmentally friendly a way as possible. Home-made nutritious herbal fertilisers from common weeds are created to feed and heal the garden, foraged by the mighty River Tay or on the surrounding hills. New soil for our garden is created by recycling coffee grounds, t-bags, cardboard, eggshells and vegetable scraps from hotel waste.
Wildlife is encouraged in The Kitchen Garden: bees and other insects pollinate our crops and increase our harvest, whilst ladybirds, a beautiful and useful garden visitor, eat aphids which can be harmful to fruit and vegetables. Crucial to the success of the garden is the many herbs located in the beds. Herbs produce pollen and nectar-rich flowers which attract useful insects throughout the seasons: in fact, recent studies have shown that herbs in the landscape provide positive therapeutic effects to bees via their forage, bee bread, or nest architecture.
Visit The Kitchen Garden
The Kitchen Garden at Dunkeld is open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 9.30-3pm. Guests are welcome to visit to view the garden as it takes shape over the coming year.
Or why not book a short tour with Lisa, Dunkeld House Hotel’s Kitchen Gardener and resident herbalist, during your stay? Tours last approximately 15-30 minutes and are finished off with the creation of a cup of herbal tea or tisane, picked fresh from the garden during your visit.
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