Hampton Court is always a great place to pick up ideas for widening your veg-growing horizons: but this year they’ve surpassed themselves. I thought I was doing pretty well this year what with my sweet potatoes, yacon and tomatilloes. But that’s nothing to the exotica on display in the Home Grown exhibit, right at the [...]
Archive for the ‘Shows’ Category
Hampton Court 2010: The wierd and the wonderful
Posted in Fruit, Shows, Unusual veg, tagged amaranth, amorphophallus konjac, Fruit, Hampton Court, heritage varieties, kaffir lime, medlars, okra, skirret, strawberry spinach on July 12, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Hampton Court Flower Show 2010: Veggie heaven
Posted in Fruit, Herbs, Shows, Unusual veg, tagged Hampton Court, courgettes, brassicas, Fruit on July 8, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Never mind all that Chelsea razzmatazz and flummery. If you grow veg, the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show is where it’s at. The show has always been where the GYO movement has found its natural home: probably as much to do with the timing as anything else, since there’s not much growing by Malvern (April), [...]
Chelsea 2010: Something to try at home
Posted in Shows, Unusual veg, tagged heritage varieties, Chelsea Flower Show, liquorice on June 6, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Guess what this plant is. I’ll give you a clue: I found it lurking in a corner of one of the courtyard gardens. The garden was the Welcome to Yorkshire Rhubarb Crumble and Custard Garden and it’s all about plants which have a special significance to Yorkshire. You’ll know it’s not rhubarb (d’oh!) So…. what [...]
Chelsea 2010: Ideas and inspiration
Posted in Herbs, Shows, tagged kale, strawberries, Chelsea Flower Show on June 2, 2010 | 3 Comments »
Garden designers are inventive folk. Especially when there’s an RHS medal from Chelsea at stake. That means every garden at the show is packed with innovative ideas which it’s hoped will catch the eye of the judges and win them points. All the better for us, as of course that means dozens of original features, [...]
Chelsea 2010: Veg on the catwalk
Posted in Shows, tagged beans, baby leaf salads, brassicas, kale, blackcurrants, Chelsea Flower Show on May 29, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Phew! Well that was a busy week. I’ve just spent four days up at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show generally glamming it up and having a good time. Well, OK, I was working, on paper at least – it certainly didn’t feel like it. There’s nothing quite like doing your job amid beautiful flowers, gorgeous [...]
Herbal remedies
Posted in Herbs, Shows, tagged cooking, fennel, Malvern Flower Show, rosemary, sweet cicely on May 16, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Before I leave Malvern behind for this year, I’ll just pass on a few useful little secrets I learned while I was there. I don’t usually find time to go in to listen to the talks and demonstrations at shows, though I must admit to the occasional twinge of envy at all those people sitting [...]
Something to try at home
Posted in Container veg growing, Shows, Unusual veg, tagged baby leaf salads, heritage varieties, Mexican tree spinach on May 12, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Spotted among some spectacular displays of salad veg and herbs in the Floral Marquee at Malvern: the latest ‘new’ arrival on the veg-growing scene. This is Mexican tree spinach (Chenopodium giganteum), and it’s only really new if you happen not to be from Mexico, where it’s been grown for hundreds of years, or indeed India, where [...]
Marvellous Malvern
Posted in Container veg growing, Shows, tagged Malvern, show gardens on May 7, 2010 | 3 Comments »
Greetings from the RHS Malvern Spring Gardening Show! This is the first time I’ve been to this, the first major flower show of the season, but I’ve always wanted to. Not only is it in a fabulous setting at the foot of the Malvern Hills in Worcestershire, it’s also a real celebration of spring: flowers are fresh, blossom [...]
Spud-ilicious!
Posted in Shows, Unusual veg, tagged peas, heritage varieties, beans, onions, potatoes, yacon, jerusalem artichoke on February 2, 2010 | 4 Comments »
I don’t know if you’ve ever paused to wonder how many potato varieties there are. Take a guess. Maybe 30? Or 50 if you count all those wierd knobbly heritage varieties? Well I counted 128 on offer at the 12th annual Hampshire Potato Day, held in Whitchurch, near Andover, at the weekend. There were French gourmet [...]
Totally tomatoed out
Posted in Shows, tagged heritage varieties, tomatoes on September 8, 2009 | 2 Comments »
If August is the month for obsession with onions, September is for tomatoes. (And courgettes, and beans, of course, but we won’t mention those for fear of bringing on palpitations). My toms are doing just fine this year: I’ve already been picking bucketfuls of my all-purpose ‘Elegance’, enjoyed some pretty good beefsteaks (‘Belriccio’) and snacked on bite-sized [...]
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Blackcurrants, calabrese, cauliflower, courgettes, French beans, garlic, globe artichokes, gooseberries, kale, onions, peas, potatoes (new and second early), raspberries (summer), redcurrants, runner beans, salad leaves, shallots, strawberries, tomatoes, whitecurrantsSowing Now
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