The Larches - Environmentally Friendly Lakeland Cottage

It’s centuries old but climate change and carbon emissions have made it highly relevant now. I’ve just completed our new hi-tec haybox [Internal dimensions: 53mm x 34mm x 30mm] and it’s passed the proof of concept stage with flying colours. Two slow cooked dishes, a lamb and mushroom curry (see recipe) and a steak and kidney stew, have got friends clamouring for construction details – and invitations to dinner!

It’s a good recycling story too. A schoolboy’s sturdy tuck box in the 1920s, it was converted into a traditional haybox in the seventies and then re-purposed again into a cluttered toolbox in the nineties. Neither of these uses had worked that well (hay is not a perfect insulator!) and a recent purchase of two smaller wooden toolboxes got me thinking of a greener future for the old family friend.

I found the ideal insulation material at B&Q for maintaining the existing heat in a casserole dish – a sheet of Polyfoam XPS 222551 Space Board (Dimensions: 1200mm x 500mm x 52.mm). Designed for lofts, it has the same energy saving capacity as 270 mm thick mineral wool insulation; and subsidised under the Government’s Carbon Emissions Reduction targets, it costs under £4 a sheet.

With a ruler, tape and sharp knife I soon had a central chamber created with two small cotton bags full of polystyrene packing chips to cover the lid of the 2-litre Le Creuset dish. A precisely cut piece of Space Board (with handles provided) is eased down to form the final sealing panel for the cooking chamber. It’s a simple way to cut energy use and save you money! (See photos below of the haybox in use).

Making it work is easy too. Prepare the stew or curry in the morning, fill the Le Creuset dish to within ½ inch of the top and bring the contents to a bubbling heat in the conventional oven. Then transfer it (Photo No 2) to the chamber of the Hi-tec haybox in the bootroom at The Larches and leave for 7-8 hours. There’s plenty for six people.

The verdict from Petra and Diana, our visitors this week from Schwerin in Mecklenberg-Western Pomerania? “Why’s it so hot after 8 hours and the meat so tasty and tender? …we need our husbands on the job next week to bring out a German version”!

We’ve wondered for a while about the small unused plot of grass beside the garage at The Larches. Now it’s been given a new lease of life as a raised vegetable plot, adjoining the recently planted Himalayan rowan tree (The top photo shows the box in the process of construction). Two inch thick tanalised timbers to a depth of 18 inches should give it a long life and plans are afoot on the planting front.

Note also the pile of stones in the second photo. Rescued from an old building undergoing renovation, they’ll come in handy with a fellside rockery we’re designing for 2010. This will be on the left of the flight of steps leading from the Breakfast terrace up to the Belvedere. We plan to clear the ground of any bracken first. Let us know if you have ideas of particular alpine plants you’d like to see there.

This summer’s been warm – and wet at times – so plants and trees have grown rapidly. That’s not so good with the bracken which always needs pulling and cutting back, but the grass of the new south lawn (see photo opposite) has had a great start.

With the new containing walls, acer tree and seat it’s already looking like it’s been there for years!