“The arrival of those first little seed packets is exciting but nerve-racking as they determine almost everything that we will cook for the rest of the year”

Harvest to table supremo Will Devlin, chef/owner of The Small Holding in Kent, takes us behind the scenes of his glorious kitchen garden - located less than ten feet from his kitchen

During winter the ground on our farm often freezes solid. After such a busy summer spent harvesting, pruning, eating, preserving (on constant, dizzying repeat) this is a time of year when work outside at The Small Holding almost grinds to a halt. The ground needs to rest and recuperate, refuel if you like, and we shovel on homemade compost and mulch to keep in heat, keep down the weeds and pile goodness into the soil. Our main job is preparing as much as possible for the year ahead, getting the ground ready and clearing away rotting leaves so as not to leave cosy places for the slugs.

It’s also the time when the seed packets start coming in. This is always an exciting but slightly nerve-wracking time as these little brown paper bags determine almost everything that we will cook throughout the year. Mark, the head gardener and I, placed our order with Moles Seeds back in October and have some new arrivals this year including ‘Red Blaze’ broccoli , ‘Graffiti’ cauliflower, ‘Passandra’ cucumber, ‘Viola’ radish, ‘Scarlet Emperor’ runner beans and ‘Midnight’ courgette. We’re also lucky enough to have the space to grow harder to come by herbs such as flowering cumin, hyssop, purslane and summer and winter savory.

January can be a lean time in the kitchen too, but we’re still getting plenty of roots such as parsnips, turnips, celeriac and beetroot; they actually benefit from a good hard frost in the ground. The cold essentially makes the plants grow their own antifreeze, which turns the starch into sugars for lovely sweet veg. We also have lots of leafy brassicas and January King cabbages ready for harvest - they always provide a welcome hit of green at this time of year. We planted 20 rhubarb crowns last year so we’re hoping for the first harvest soon; those bright pink stems never fail to make me smile when the skies are grey.

While it’s cold and quiet outside, the kitchen is a hotbed of activity. At times of year when the natural larder is a bit diminished we make full use of the summer and autumn gluts and the team are constantly inventing and experimenting. We’ve got some really tasty fermented wild garlic to add some funk to dishes and the pickled blueberries from last summer add some welcome acidity. We also have house-cured lardo from our Berkshire pigs - it’s so tasty we’re having to restrain ourselves from putting it on every dish!

Come back in March for when the first seeds go in…

About The Small Holding

The Small Holding is a kitchen and farm in one acre of land on a country lane in Kilndown on the Kent and East Sussex borders. The 26-cover restaurant has daily changing Full and Half Acre tasting menus, using home-reared and home-grown ingredients from the farm, which is less than 10 feet from the kitchen thesmallholding.restaurant