Terry Porter

This was due to be our 14th year of our shows team building show gardens at venues such as Chelsea, Malvern, BBC Gardeners world and Hampton court. We have been successful over these years with many gold medals for our gardens and I have also provided exhibition vegetables for many other Gold winning exhibits. We had a full year planned for this year, but the Coronavirus has resulted in all of these shows being cancelled.
Having started growing some of these vegetables as long ago as November, then when the shows were cancelled, I had a large amount of them well underway. Having shared many of the plants with a colleague, I continued to grow the others on as something worthwhile to do during lockdown. We were not accepted by Chelsea for providing a virtual entry, but we were invited by the Three counties at Malvern to contribute to their virtual show.

A film company approached us to provide a considerable amount of vegetables for some of their filming which I did send to them. As Chelsea show is cancelled, this has been very disappointing for the Chelsea pensioners who always look forward to the show, so the RHS decided to plant a vegetable garden for them. I provided a van load of plants, many of which would have been in our show garden, and these have been planted by the RHS in conjunction with the Chelsea pensioners.

My plants are all grown in pots, so they can be transported to the shows, with some grown in greenhouses, but most are finished in a shade tunnel. Time goes on in lockdown, and many of my neighbours are being well supplied with fresh vegetables and will be for some time to come.We can all look forward with the hope for a more “normal” 2021.
Terry Porter