Championing edible growing at RHS Hampton Court
A new partnership between BBC One’s Saturday Kitchen and the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) aims to inspire thousands to grow food at home at the world’s largest flower show – RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show 2017.
Award-winning designer, Juliet Sargeant, who won Gold at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show last year, has created the RHS Kitchen Garden, packed with simple and creative growing ideas and inspiration for visitors and viewers to take home to their own gardens and communities.
BBC One’s Kitchen Garden – made by Cactus TV – who launched the partnership on 6th May, will be broadcasting live from the RHS Kitchen Garden at the Show on Saturday 8th July, 2017. In addition, Cactus hope to produce a spin-off series called ‘Kitchen Garden Live with the Hairy Bikers’, which will be broadcast on BBC One at 11am from Monday 3rd to Friday 7th July.
Si King and Dave Myers, aka The Hairy Bikers, are thrilled to be presenting a week of live ‘telly’ from the RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show: “It’s gonna’ have everything we love: beautiful flowers and amazing gardens, delicious food, entertaining celeb guests and crowds of enthusiastic visitors that we can have a laugh with. We can’t wait,” they said.
Juliet Sargeant stresses how they want to demonstrate to people, communities and organisations, that it is easy, cheap and fun to grow what you eat at home: “Many people can be put off, especially if they have limited space, because they don’t expect an edible garden to be visually appealing. So we also want to show that growing food can be done in a beautiful, contemporary and stylish way.”
The 324m2 garden will feature vegetables like lettuce, chives and beetroot, edible flowers like lavender and nasturtiums, herbs including rosemary and thyme, fruits including gooseberry and blackcurrant and trees such as Silver birch and Juneberry. Small plant pots containing recipes for drinks and dishes such as pizza, stir-fry, Pimms and herbal tea will run along shelves, raised beds will contain lush fruit and vegetables and herbs will grow on living walls. An aquaponics system, where plants receive nourishment from fish, will also feature in the garden
“Our main aim of the RHS Kitchen Garden is to inspire and provide ideas to people who may not think they have the space, skills, time or money to invest in growing food at home, or in their community“, added Juliet. “I want to show that anyone can grow food anywhere!”
The RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, supported by Viking Cruises, will run from 4 – 9 July with an exclusive Preview Evening held on Monday 3 July, 2017.
For further information or to buy tickets, please visit the RHS website at www.rhs.org.uk/hamptoncourt
Picture credits: RHS Photo Library, banner credit Luke MacGregor.
