We left early to get their for opening and we spent the whole day at the show. My overall impressions were that the standard was not as high this year both in the floral marquee and in the show gardens in general. Nonetheless, it was a very good day out and there were plenty of ideas I have managed to take on board.
Last year the main themes that ran through the show gardens was that of growing your own in small spaces, however this year the 'grow your own' trend has been dug up and replaced with beneficial wildlife gardening and gardening during drought and the hosepipe ban.
I didn't take too many photos, and those I did were of course of gardens resembling the good life. My favourite garden was called 'Urban oasis' which resembled a small city garden which still made room for a veg patch and cleverly used tall plants and trees to hide the garden boundary whilst adding colour and height at the same time..
Another favourite of mine was coincidentally 'Best in Show' which was called 'Childhood memories' it represented a typical garden complete with a den, skilttles on the lawn, tadpoles in the pond, freshly cut grass. All of those memories you accumulate from your younger years..
I don't know if it is me, but it seems that grow your own has reached the very peak of it's fashion and perhaps is starting a decline slightly, there was notably a smaller presence of vegetable growing and vegetable exhibiting stalls and a couple of years ago our allotment site waiting list hit the 5 year wait mark, but I've heard that you can almost walk on to one now. We only had to wait about 6 months..
Anyway, the vegetable patches and products that were available were as always inspiring.
Quite often when I talk to a non-vegetable grower their excuse is that they don't have a big enough garden or that they just have a patio etc. I absolutely loved this idea of pulling up a few slabs on the patio and popping in some home grown lettuce..
The 'Mammoth Onion' company always put on a good display in the floral marquee, I wish I had a tomato crop like this..
Raddish this size wouldn't be too bad either...
Last year we went to a vegetable talk followed by questions and answers with Alan Titchmarsh, but this year we went to see Carol Klein istead, who was ever so pleasant and interesting, although perhaps not as inspiring as Alan was..
I have quite a few more photos to share and I also want to share my ideas about how I can bring parts of the show gardens and many ideas on to our allotment and in to our garden. Part 2 will therefore follow in a couple of days.
One last thing, I absolutely love reading gardening and vegetable growing/good life style blogs all year round but this time of year is particularly my favourite. So I will be reading and commenting on lots of blogs, but if I don't follow you as of yet, please leave me a link in a comment below!
Happy Growing!
Martin
My gardening, little as it is, took second place today to a post about soy dangers. I, too, love gardening blogs, especially yours. "Not enough room" is never a good excuse.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you think that "growing your own" has peaked? Do you think that people are tired, getting too old to manage an allotment, finding places at home to garden?