Fruit & Vegetable Gardens

Vegetable production is at the centre of The Walled Garden project. Our focus is on providing fresh seasonal produce for our on-site café, but we sell direct to local businesses and to our garden visitors via our Potting Shed Shop. We have four large vegetable beds, each one bigger than a standard allotment, which we crop in rotation to avoid the build up of pests and diseases. We grow over 200 different varieties of vegetable from seed every year; carrots, beetroot, pumpkins, squash, cabbages, kale, potatoes, peas and beans, you name it we grow it along with perennial crops such as asparagus and globe artichokes.

From June through to October our café is completely self-sufficient for fresh salad leaves, we grow 10 varieties of cut and come again salads and pick every morning to make sure they are as fresh as can be.

Tender crops are cultivated in our restored Victorian greenhouse. A dozen varieties of tomatoes grow alongside cucumbers, aubergine, chile peppers and even melons. As far as possible we grow using organic principles.

One of the greatest assets of a walled garden is the shelter provided for trained fruit trees. 250 mature fruit trees grow against the walls and almost 400 more have been planted as standard trees, step-overs and espaliers.

Our plums and gauges (including our very own ‘Gordon Castle’ variety) are used to make our delicious plum gin as well as being a firm favourite with our chefs and visitors for crumbles and compots.

We grow over 60 different types of apple, 25 or which are Scottish varieties, the majority of which are made into our sweet, crisp cider but we always save a few for juicing or chutney. Pears are grown on 8 long tunnels where the fruit are protected from the sun and can hang below the trees making for easy picking.

On the western side on the garden we have planted an orchard comprising of 50 fruiting cherry trees and on the south facing walls apricots, figs and peaches bask in the warmth. At well over 100 years old our apricot trees may well be the oldest in Scotland.

An area covering almost an acre in south east corner of the garden is used for the production of soft fruit. Raspberries for our jam, shortbread and Gin are grown in abundance with gooseberries, strawberries, blackcurrants, blueberries and many more. When we have a surplus we invite our visitors to pick their own so everyone can enjoy a taste of The Walled Garden.