March 16, 2019
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Growing vegetables in your front garden is the latest trend aimed at showing up your neighbours
Vegetable patches are moving from back gardens to the front of people’s homes so they can show off to their neighbours.
No longer are gardeners hiding muddy vegetable patches at the bottom of their gardens with an abandoned spade and some slug-ravaged lettuce leaves. Urban gardeners, who often do not even have a back garden, are instead growing fashionable vegetables like chillis and sweet potatoes in hanging baskets and plant pots.
Experts say they are doing so to impress other people, as the ‘grow-your-own’ trend has seen fruit and vegetable seed sales outstrip flowers in Royal Horticultural Society garden centres.
Wyevale Garden Centres has reported that 40 per cent of homes now have hanging baskets, with the fashion for growing vegetables in them driving the trend.
Mark Sage, head of horticulture at Wyevale Garden Centres, said: ‘Gone are the days when gardeners need vast amounts of space and traditional Peter Rabbit-style veg patches to grow their own. Impressive displays of fruit and vegetables are guaranteed to gain the attention of neighbours when they are near the front door. Aside from keeping up with the Joneses, Brits are taking their displays one step further so they can put pictures of them on social media.’
Millennials are mixing up fresh produce and ornamental flowers in hanging baskets near their front doors, according to experts.
Favourites for ‘miniature vegetable patches’ in hanging baskets include tomatoes, strawberries, lettuce, pak choi and peas.
Wyevale Garden Centres’ Garden Trends report, based on survey data from more than 27,000 British gardeners, says a gardening project to create a ‘mini kitchen garden in a pot’ was one of its most popular social media items last year. The report says sales of hanging baskets have doubled between 2012 and this year.
Mr Sage added: ‘The nation’s space squeeze is moving the veg patch away from its typical spot in the corner of the back garden and into the spotlight by the front door. Innovative modern vegetable patches can fit into containers as small as hanging baskets, window boxes or pots by the front door or on the kitchen windowsill.’
Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk
