One of the most common queries that landscape designers receive from their clients is about the inclusion of a cooking area within the completed garden. This can be anything from a small space for a portable barbecue grill to a huge cooking area with multiple burners, a double oven, a grill, and possibly even a refrigerator.
Whichever end of the scale you think your garden might be on, you have to know that having a cooking area in your landscaped garden presents you with so many benefits, apart from the obvious one of the ability to cook outdoors. If you need further convincing then here are seven more benefits of including an outdoor cooking space in your landscape design.
Increases Your Property Value
So, we are going to go straight to it and highlight the benefit that possibly the majority of people reading this will find the most appealing. Having a landscaped garden is a huge selling point and it will certainly add value to your property. However, both of them are taken to much higher levels when that garden has a cooking area, with the obvious caveat provided the cooking area and the equipment therein have been well maintained.
Increases Your Cooking Resources
With just the cooker in your kitchen available for cooking meals, there is a limitation on what food you will be able to cook at any one time. For example, the grill in your cooker might not be suitable for flame-grilling steaks. That is not the case with most outdoor cooking options where the range of foods that can be cooked increases greatly, especially if a barbecue grill is present.
Provides The Means To Properly Entertain More Guests
Whilst inviting family and friends round to your home for a meal or dinner party is great, it becomes an ever better experience for everyone, including your guests, if that extends to the outdoor cooking area, especially on days when the weather is fine. Another important benefit is that it allows you to invite guests in larger numbers given that you can use both the outdoor and indoor cooking equipment to cater for more people.
Reduces Energy Costs
Your kitchen cooker uses more energy than most of the other electrically powered items in your home. This means that it adds more to your electricity bill than them too. If you have a gas cooker in your kitchen then it is the gas bill that it is impacting. However, with outdoor cooking, such as a barbecue grill, you can cook several meals and not cost yourself so much as an extra cent in energy costs.
Reduces Restaurant/Takeaway/Home Delivery Costs
Let us just say here that we are not suggesting you completely abandon eating in the many top-class restaurants or ordering out from the excellent take-away food establishments. However, an outdoor cooking area allows you to reduce your reliance on them and instead cook food for your family whilst enjoying the surroundings of your landscaped garden and saving yourself a considerable amount of money too.
Encourages Healthy Eating
When thinking about cooking indoors there is always the temptation to instead just place a processed meal into the microwave, which might be more convenient, but it is hardly the most healthy option. Think about the healthier possibilities that exist if you cook meals outdoors, plus there is an even greater way to eat healthily from what is cooked there. That is cooking produce that has been grown in your landscaped garden in a vegetable patch, for example.
It Is Fun!
We have looked at how outdoor cooking saves you money, how it can add considerable value to your property, how it provides greater cooking capacity, and how it allows many opportunities for you and your family to eat healthier meals. However, we could not go through several benefits of having an outdoor cooking area in your landscaped garden without highlighting the fact that, for almost everyone, it is much more fun than cooking in the indoor kitchen.