Transform Your Garden into a Chef’s Paradise

Food culture is more popular than ever, with cookbooks continuously dominating the bestsellers charts and primetime television slots seemingly always being given to the nation’s favourite cooks and their various cuisine competitions. Throughout the various lockdowns, this passion for food led many to begin baking sourdough bread and baking, pursuing new avenues of food that required the consideration a less busy life could offer.

Now, as residents continue to pursue their gastro-interests, gardens are being transformed into kitchen supports, not only food the growing of herbs but as a way of bringing nature closer to the plate. Neat lawns are being exchanged for polytunnels and garden ponds for pizza ovens. Garden culture is merging with food culture.

If this sounds like a great idea to you, then here’s how to transform your garden into a chef’s paradise.

Grow What You Eat

We often think of gardens as spaces to enjoy, whether to kick a ball or sunbathe. However, the soil by our homes can easily be utilised to grow the very food we cook and eat. No planning permission is necessary but it will be advantageous to plot your garden blueprints to ensure that your chosen seeds receive the right amount of sunshine and shade while still allowing you to walk around the garden unimpeded.

If your garden is particularly prone to weeds or you are renovating land that has been untouched for some time, consider hardy plants, such as potatoes, for your first crop. These will fend off weeds more easily and help to improve the soil overall.

Dining Al Fresco

Being able to host your family and friends outdoors, serving food beneath the sun or stars, is a wonderful luxury. High-quality outdoor dining furniture can be found in the form of renovated park benches, cast iron seating, and rattan corner dining sets, each of which gives you the utility to begin serving meals outdoors. Regardless of what type of furniture you opt for, it is important to consider its upkeep. Some materials will be more hardy than others but all will be affected by the weather in some way.

Be sure to consider weather mitigation, however, and install home defences against the wind, rain, and cold. By doing so, you’ll ensure that your garden dining furniture will get more use and is not only enjoyed on those, occasionally rare, sunny days.

Tools of the Master Chef

Taking your cooking to the next level can be achieved with the support of culinary assets. This could be an infamous Green Egg or a curing shed, such structures that are best suited to an outdoor space. Curing sheds, for example, can more easily be temperature controlled, especially since they require generally cooler temperatures.

BBQs are classic centrepieces for outdoor dining experiences, often being the reason to invite friends and family over. However, creating your own wood-burning oven or adobe clay stove can be a showstopper. These structures are becoming increasingly more affordable as they become more popular too, allowing a greater number of residents to begin cooking like restaurant professionals in their own homes.