It’s all about the veg as Malvern celebrates its 20th anniversary in glorious sunshine.
The UK Giant Vegetable Championships have seen three world records smashed, allotment growing is celebrated in a feature garden by Pennard Plants and the coveted best in show has gone to vegetable experts Medwyn’s of Anglesey for the second year running.
Meanwhile, celebrity cooks and growers, including Mark Diacono and Joe Swift have been championing a fork-to-fork lifestyle with demonstrations and talks on using homegrown in the kitchen.
“The show is a celebration of harvest,” says Ken Nottage, CEO of The Three Counties Showground, “and of the wealth of produce in the Three Counties.”
Flowers are not forgotten at the show, the last outdoor RHS event of the season, with exhibits ranging from carnivorous plants to cacti and a total of 22 gold medals awarded.
Entries for the giant veg contest are up on last year with more than 300 exhibits and new world records have been set for the longest beetroot at 7.21m, heaviest cucumber at 12.9k and heaviest leek at 10.6k.
In the Home Grown section, there are more than 1,800 exhibits covering everything from chrysanthemums and carrots to beans and beetroot, while the winner of the vegetable trug championships had a staggering 19 different types of veg.
And the allotments that many of those exhibits will have been grown on are explored in Pennard Plants’ feature garden, which has been awarded a Highly Commended by RHS judges.
Divided into four, it has a traditional allotment with neat rows of crops, a container allotment showing how veg can be raised in a small space, an eclectic allotment with companion planting, while the fourth section is a feast of what has been produced.
