Growing and eating delicious food has been core to our life here since we started Cotna Eco Retreat, and we hope you make the most of our freshly grown organic food while you are here! We have learned to follow the seasons, and cherish our plants and their unique flavours as they move through the seasons – in the garden and growing as well as wild foraged plants in our Cornish hedgerows & woods. We offer a range of delicious vegetarian and vegan hand-made foods, including sourdough bread, salads, pesto & passata, jams, chutneys & vinegars, juice & cordials.
Taste of Cotna Hampers are available to pre-order at £15 each (serves 2-4) and include:
Breakfast Hamper: sourdough bread, organic eggs, home-made jam, milk / butter (vegan options), apple juice & watercress
Late Arrival Hamper: sourdough bread, salad, selection of local cheese / dips (with local beer, cider or wine on request)
Italian Hamper: ingredients for an Italian feast, including home-made pesto or passata, salad & nibbles
Indian Hamper: all you need to cook an authentic curry, including organic veg, spices & a simple recipe!
Garden Taster Hamper: make up your own order of seasonal fruit & veg picked from the garden, eggs, bread, preserves
Classes: You are welcome to learn more about growing or cooking seasonal & healthy food on one of our Cotna Courses in Sourdough Bread-making, Foraging, Cotna meets Kerala, No Dig Gardening, Preserving Summer.
Growing
We follow Charles Dowding’s ‘no-dig’ approach, which has revolutionised our gardening – our poly tunnels and vegetable garden are fully productive and healthy, providing sufficient food for everyone who lives and stays here, and our salads have a high reputation locally. It’s become increasingly important to know where our food comes from and to regenerate the land rather than deplete it, so we mulch the beds in winter and add as many natural organic nutrients as possible – compost, green-waste, horse manure, and we also collect seaweed from the beach in winter.
“Soil is the soul of our society. It is where life began – it is where life begins. We treat it like dirt at our peril.” (Sams, Ecologist 2015 No. 288)
