A reminder that next week, on Friday 21st and Saturday 22nd February, the RHS will be marking the imminent arrival of spring with their London Plant and Design Show. There will be ravishing displays of spring bulbs and winter flowering shrubs from the country’s top nurseries, plus a preview of this year’s Chelsea and Hampton Court Palace show gardens. If you’re anything like me it will be impossible to come away empty handed or uninspired. This year’s show will incorporate London Potato Days; visitors will be able to chose from 75 varieties of seed potatoes, take part in chitting workshops and listen to talks about potato growing. In celebration of British chip week, there will also be freshly cooked fish and chips, served in traditional cardboard boxes. Try keeping me away!
Click here for more information, or simply enjoy my photograph of the sublime Crocus malyi at last year’s show.
Categories: alpines, Bulbs, Flower Shows, Flowers
OMG!!!! Potato Days – Do they have this every year on the same weekend?? I grew six varieties this year in a no dig fashion and was very pleased with the yields, and the flavour was beyond exceptional, Will not eat store potatoes any more.
Please include ‘lots of info’ on this part of the show please please please…..I love bulbs, but I love veggies even more…I will be dreaming of fish and chips all day no……..
Will do. I like a clear brief. Beyond King Edwards, Maris Pipers, Jersey Royals and Pink Fir Apples I know nothing about potatoes, so it will be an education!
Excellent…. my focus is heritage varieites – I have access to about 30 types through the Diggers Club here. See if there are any spuntas – this is a newie… looks very weird, huge, with lots of knobbly bits. Worth a look for the entertainment value. Do they do a chip tasting with the varieties that are most suited to this style of cooking??? How good would that be. This year I grew russett burbanks, pink eye, spunta, nicola, royal blues, dutch cream. Wish I had thrown some kipfler in, but I had some ’emerge’ left over from last year when i didn’t do a no dig bed and left a few behind when I was lifting them. The no dig method is the BEST… so easy and the potatoes are clean as a whistle when you lift them. No hard slog with the fork. Brilliant.. This year I averaged about 1.8 kilos per tuber. Hopefully I can improve on this next year.
Please enjoy your visit and your fish and chips because I’m across the pond with another foot of snow coming down right now. There are no beautiful crocus plants in my immediate future. 🙂
Hi Judy. Your winters are so much harsher and longer than ours, but at least your water is frozen, rather than ours which just comes in raging torrents from the sky. I dread to think of the damage this winter has done to gardens, as well as homes across the country which are flooded. We may have crocuses, but we have no sun to open them out. Keep warm 🙂