Salad Days: At Chelsea Flower Show


My final post about this year's Chelsea Flower Show - and suitably for this month's Salad Days - is to bring you this picture of salad looking at its very best - if you ignore the QR code!

There was quite a bit of salad on view, if you looked carefully enough. Sadly the living wall of nasturtiums didn't make it onto Tom Hoblyn's garden for Arthritis Research UK. I'd been looking forward to telling you about seeing them just after their germination last November and how Jekka McVicar had had to chop them back and eat them several times so they'd be just right for the show! However, having seen the garden on Monday, I can see how they wouldn't have fitted in with the rest of the planting.


So I had to hunt around a little for an alternative salad fix. The Crocus Kitchen Garden Blog has featured most of the prime spots from the Great Pavilion already so I'm not proposing to repeat them here, even though I was blown away by Jersey Farmer Union's 'stained glass windows' made up of various coloured peppers. As it's National Tomato Week, here's a picture from the NFU exhibit instead.


Show garden wise Diarmuid Gavin's tower had an entire floor dedicated to Grow Your Own with a greenhouse and coldframe to covet. The charming dog kennel on Jo Thompson's Celebration of Caravanning show garden had a wonderful edible roof, including lots of herbs and tempting strawberries.


The most surprising find was the salad in the top picture and is from an example of planting which usually doesn't get a look in as far as most of the Chelsea coverage is concerned. A lot of the larger sundries stands have some kind of planting to augment the products they're trying to sell. Often these are put together by designers without a show garden at Chelsea that year, or by one of the nurseries exhibiting in the Great Pavilion, so a closer look can be very worthwhile. The pictured salad was grown by the charity Thrive especially for the show and I'm sure must have helped Alitex achieve their commendation from the RHS for their stand.

How are you getting on with your salad this month? Anything you'd like to exhibit? Do a show and tell on your blog and provide a link to your post via Mr Linky below.

Comments

  1. What absolutely delicious photos!

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  2. Don't those tomatoes look just perfect. I'm currently mourning the end of the season here. Having said that I am having fun planning what to plant for next season.

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  3. A feast for the eyes!
    Inspiration for our own gardens!
    Thanks for hosting the Salad Challenge.
    Lea
    Lea's Menagerie
    Mississippi, USA

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  4. Love the photos, the leaves on those strawberry plants are huge.......
    What a show to visit, so much inspiration...............

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  5. Ooops! I posted an old salad blog post before I realised. Have posted the latest post too now. The old one is no3 on your list. Don't know how to get rid of it.

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  6. Hi, Thanks for adding my post. Despite promising to be around, I got called away for something urgent.

    I will spend a little time this evening going through everone's posts to make up for it. Looks like I need to do more penance!

    I think I'm also going to be late chatting next month, because my mum is 70.

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  7. Linda - thank you :)

    Liz - they look really scrummy. Looking forward to eating my own very soon. I see you've posted another interesting recipe - I'll be over to have a proper look very soon :)

    Andrea - it's a wonderful show. Looking back over my photos I'm still spotting new things :)

    Margaret - it's OK I can very easily edit the list, so it's fixed! Thanks for a lovely post - I've read it and will be back to comment later.

    ediblethings - don't worry, real life is much more important! I'll be over to have a proper read soon :)

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