Gardeco Toledo Cast Iron Chiminea Review

Today I am sharing our Gardeco Toledo Cast Iron Chiminea review.

As autumn rolls in, one of the things that I’m always a bit sad about is that I feel I’m abandoning the garden until spring and I lose that entire space.

We all love being out there throughout the summer and spend hours in the garden, so it would be nice to spend a little more time there through the colder months.

That’s where our new chiminea comes in, so I wanted to share more about it today.

We’ve been sent the Gardeco Toledo Cast Iron Chiminea to warm us up this season and it was great timing as the Husband’s been making a few noises recently about getting a pizza oven and this combines those two needs perfectly as they have also supplied us with a pizza stone.

Gardeco Toledo Cast Iron Chiminea Review

The chiminea arrived well-packaged and in need of some assembly. Though it was straightforward to do this, do allow an hour for it.

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It comes with: BBQ grill, a rain-lid, hinged spark guards, a narrow spaced charcoal grill, hinged air vent to regulate the fire and stands at just under 1.5 metres tall.

gardeco-toledo-cast-iron-chiminea-opened

The pizza stone can be bought separately and sits easily on top of the grill.

gardeco-toledo-cast-iron-chiminea-with-pizza-stone

We also have a rain cover, as being cast iron these can rust so it’s well worth protecting them like this.

As you can see this one covers it completely. It’s easy to put on – not too tight so that it is fiddly, but not so loose that it will blow away in the wind.

gardeco-toledo-cast-iron-chiminea-with-cover

The instructions for use are very handy and advise you not to move it alone as it is heavy.

They also recommend that you do not burn it on decking  so we popped to get a slab to place underneath ours so that it can be used safely on the deck.

It was then time to get it going…

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We used charcoal to burn and it took a couple of firelighters to get it started. After the initial flames, we popped the pizza stone in so that it could warm up gradually.

We then had fun making our own pizzas ready to be cooked in the chiminea.

We all enjoyed this and it is a big part of why I like this new addition to our garden as we all got involved in each part of the process before handing the pizzas over to the Husband to cook them for us.

The kids were excited during every step of the way, from watching Daddy light the chiminea and seeing the smoke come out through to making and eating their lunch.

It did also get them out playing football in the garden whilst lunch cooked.

Here’s a little snippet of each stage and varying pizzas, from Boo creating hers, Little Man’s going in and mine ready to eat!

pizza-making
It tasted good! I have to say they took longer to cook than I’d anticipated but with hindsight I don’t think we had the chiminea hot enough before we put them in, so that’s a lesson learned for next time. And there will definitely be a next time soon as the children are already asking to do it again.

I’m so pleased that we have this now as it will definitely keep us going outside for longer this year and we get to enjoy delicious food.

I hope our Gardeco Toledo Cast Iron Chiminea review has helped you? 

Disclosure: I received the Gardeco Toledo Cast Iron Chiminea from Chimineashop.co.uk for my review but as always, all opinions, images and words are my own

 

 

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14 thoughts on “Gardeco Toledo Cast Iron Chiminea Review”

    1. I’d had my eye on one, too, so I’m really pleased that we now have one and can enjoy being out there cosy and warm!

  1. What a great way to keep the garden space going well into autumn. I know what you mean about closing up the garden.
    Does it get hot on the outside whilst cooking?
    I’m sure you’ll be using this again in the near future
    #triedtested

    1. It does feel as though the garden is still open now! It does heat up, though it takes a while and the kids know not to go near it!

  2. Oh I really love the idea of these. We were in homebase the other day and Oliver wanted to get one! We’ve talked about building a pizza oven but I reckon it would just end up being one of those things we never get round to doing. A chimenea seems ideal. Especially for me because I have raynauds so a bit of heat would be nice outside 🙂 And for toasting marshmallows!! Yum!
    #TriedTested

  3. I didn’t realise you could use a chiminea for cooking – which sounds stupid now I say it. I only really thought of them as being garden heaters.
    Enjoy your new found lease of autumnal garden life!

    Thanks for sharing your review on #TriedTested this week x

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