Veg takes gold every time by Steve Ott
By: Steve Ott
The gold medal-winning Bulldog Forge Garden by Bulldog Tools and Suttons Seeds
Glad to say veg featured quite prominently in many of the gardens at Chelsea this year, even a few of the bigger ones including my favourite large garden, the M&G garden. Well it had to be really since it was based on fruit and veg. Billed as a modern take on a traditional kitchen garden, it must have been close to the size of a standard allotment, but had a very different look to it than any kitchen garden I've ever seen before or am likely to see again (except perhaps at Chelsea 2012). With all that polished stone and raised beds made from woven willow, plus a 'floating' glass platform from which to view it all, each potato in this garden would cost a king's ransom to produce, but one can dream.
Actually although beyond the wildest dreams of 99.9% of the population of planet earth it was beautiful and did serve as a reminder that veg can be equally at home in the flower garden as they are on the allotment.
In the Floral Marquee, too, there was plenty to please the eye of any allotment gardener, but two which really caught our eyes were the one by Pennard Plants and another from British Tool manufacturer, Bulldog Tools in colaboration with Suttons Seeds.
Pennard Plants did a sterling job last year, too with a lovely garden based around traditional French allotment gardening. This year it was Dig For Victory and a fascinating insight into wartime food production it was – as well as a simply beautiful display. The Bulldog Forge Garden was a nostalgic flight of fancy – the blacksmith's garden filled with wonderful vegetables all in perfect rows and in truth, both were a much more comfortable setting for humble veg than the marble M&G creation could ever be.
Of course there were the usual celebrities from daytime TV and even a modern day film star in the form of Gwyneth Paltrow was there, but the plants, as ever stole the show – proving that even a well-grown, though ever so humble red cabbage can be as colourful and exciting as any star – as was evidenced by the fact that we failed to come back with a single picture of a well-known face, but hundreds of well-grown fruit and veg. Or maybe we are just very sad?
Much more on Chelsea Flower Show in the August issue of KG, out July 1.
Current Issue: June 2012
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