* I was invited to the press preview for and provided with a pair of tickets to Gardeners’ World Live so I’m marking posts from the show as 'Ad’ - as usual my views and opinions are very much my own. Be sure to check out all of my posts from the show.
This isn’t any kitchen garden. It’s one that challenges what edible gardens can be, and does it really well. It was one of my favourite gardens at the show, and as is so often the case every time you looked you saw something more.
Initially the borders appear purely ornamental, but every plant in this garden is edible.
Every plant.
Wow.
And you’ll even spot some conventional vegetables in there, along with plenty of inspiration I’m sure.
As with every garden, and one that grows edibles especially, insects are important and so the bug hotel makes every insect welcome. The round corten steel exterior filled with pipes of varying sizes, themselves filled with insect friendly materials also looked good.
As I walked around the garden - in fact I went round twice - I kept seeing more and more plants, some challenged me as being edible, but they were. The cannas I struggled with but its the root that you can eat, and while not something many of us normally have on our plate, it met the criteria for the garden.
Clearly I was far too excitable about the mushrooms growing along the fence as I’ve chopped part of them off - unbelievably this is the best picture I’ve got.
In the greenhouse the plants were enjoying the very warm day, but I was more taken with the extra growing space that these pea shoots and micro herbs were in. I’m keen to get some of these when I get a greenhouse sorted for here - as my plan is to have a greenhouse on the smaller side, so being able to make full use of its space is likely to be key.
It really was a special garden, and well designed by Lucy Hutchinson from She Grows Veg - who also has a fabulous Instagram feed, so do go and check that out for plenty more growing inspiration. It’s also a garden I enjoyed revisiting today on this greyest of grey and wet days.
Roll on the spring!
* With thanks to Gardeners’ World for inviting me to Gardeners’ World Live, it was as fabulous as ever!