Cambo's captivating gardens

Janice Hopper visits a country house and estate in Fife and talks to the head gardener, Katherine Taylor, about the Edible Garden

- Janice Hopper

Cambo House and Estate lies on the east coast of Fife, seven miles south of St Andrews. It’s home to the Erskine family, but it’s the gardens, rather than the country pile, that attract the tourists.

Head gardener Katherine Taylor explains: “When Cambo Heritage Trust – a charity that aims to promote education and volunteering in horticulture, the natural environment, arts, culture and heritage – took over the management of the garden, it was decided to create a new Edible Garden in an unused area adjacent to the main walled garden. It’s a lovely sheltered site, surrounded on two sides by the Cambo Burn and on another by a south-facing sunny wall. We’re now very much an all-year-round visitor attraction. That means we’re constantly looking at how to make the garden look good in every season.”

Last year the Edible Garden produced cucumbers, three types of pea, kale and chard, five types of potato, eight types of tomatoes and nine types of squash – plus lettuce, rocket, mizuna, bok choi, radish, mustard, sweetcorn and more. There’s a polytunnel for salads, and the garden operates on no-dig principles.

Despite its beautiful situation, Cambo has gardening pros and cons. Katherine says: “We’re in a lovely sheltered spot here just a mile from the sea – and Cambo seems to have its own microclimate. We have very few frosts and lots of sunshine, and our soil is a lovely sandy loam, which has been cultivated for several hundred years.

“One of the main challenges is simply the fact that the garden is so big! The walled garden and Edible Garden are around 3.5 acres and we also look after another 2.5 acres of less formal woodland gardens.”