One of Britain’s most respected and well-loved chefs, Raymond Blanc, is spearheading this year’s RHS Britain in Bloom campaign, Edible Britain. During April, RHS community gardening groups are planting 1,000 mini edible plant plots in public spaces across the UK with seeds provided by the RHS. Michelin award-winning chef Blanc believes that the public needs to reconnect with where their food comes from. He gardened with RHS Britain in Bloom volunteers from Team London Bridge to launch the initiative.
The scheme kicked off as the Minister for Agriculture claimed Britain needs to urgently focus on food security and educate children about the importance of knowing the origins of food.
David Heath’s view closely mirrors the tenets of the RHS, which runs both Britain in Bloom and the Campaign for School Gardening – initiatives aimed at encouraging British children and communities to grow their own fruit and vegetables.
Mr Heath says the public needs to ‘dig for survival’, a comment which harks back to ‘Dig for Victory’. The RHS was a pioneer of this World War II government campaign, which encouraged people to transform gardens and parks into public allotments.
Mr Heath said: “We need to be able to produce enough to deal with the requirements in this country. Food security is going to be an issue of increasing relevance.”
He also pointed out the need for school gardening, saying that children should be able to “get their hands dirty and share in growing vegetables”.
Andrea Van Sittart, RHS Head of Regional Development, said: “We need to become more self-sufficient and where best to start than at the grassroots level, by gardening with neighbours. We support more than 3,300 RHS Britain in Bloom groups across the UK in growing their own food for their local communities. They hold Grow Your Own sessions and workshops and we’d like to encourage the public to find their local group and get growing.”
She added that it is also important that children learn from a young age about where their food comes from.
“A crucial part of this is giving children the chance to grow their own food at school and through the RHS Campaign for School Gardening, more than 17,000 schools are already doing this,” she said. “We support schools with a range of resources and also train teachers to incorporate gardening and food growing into lessons.”
Anyone can join their local Britain in Bloom group by typing their postcode into an online map and schools can sign up for free to the RHS Campaign for School Gardening.
