Rustic Recipes Reimagined 2023

Sparsholt College is delighted to launch this year’s RHS Chelsea Garden entry ‘Rustic Recipes Reimagined’ for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2023 to be held at The Royal Hospital, Chelsea from 23-27 May. The garden is inspired by tasty recipes from medieval cookery books that can all be foraged from the local countryside or grown in our very own UK gardens.  

The 2023 garden has been designed by Sparsholt’s multiple-medal-winning-team including Chris Bird who is celebrating his 25th RHS Chelsea Flower Show Garden design this year. The exhibit takes inspiration from eating seasonally and sourcing locally to create fresh, nutritious and cost-effective recipes which have been used historically to make the most of our native surroundings.  

Discover the Horticulture courses with a national reputation for excellence and the incredible industry links that make opportunities like this one possible.

Eating seasonally and sourcing locally are themes that have gained a higher profile in recent years; this exhibit digs deeper, presenting refreshing new ideas and solutions. Revisiting sometimes centuries-old methods and tastes, it shows how we can connect with our heritage and seasonally to grow our own crops while making the world better for wildlife.

Garden Features

• Fruit Grove and Beehive:

  Can we return to a time before processed sugar and make life naturally sweet?

  Honey can be used as a natural sweetener and can even taste differently depending on the flowers and species the bees have visited.

  Also produced is beeswax – a multi-functional material that can be used in candles and food storage wraps that, unlike their plastic substitutes, are a biodegradable alternative which can break down in landfill.

  As our Fruit Grove demonstrates, the UK environment can support a wide variety of crops to be eaten seasonally throughout the year. Leftovers can be processed into jams, chutneys, fruit parchment, or frozen to enjoy at a later date.

• Modern Potager with Storage Shed:

  Combines expected and unexpected, heritage e.g. Chives, Allium schoenoprasum, edible crops with flowers and herbs grown together to give a functional vegetable plot with a year-round sensory appeal.

  Scent– Basil, Ocimum basilicum

  Visual – Lettuce, Lactuca sativa ‘Lollo Rossa’

  Sound – Fennel, Foeniculum vulgare, Parsley, Petroselinum crispum

  Touch – Nettle, Urtica dioica, Lavender, Lavandula intermedia Exceptional (‘HILLAV’)

  Modern potager gardens are more free form than traditional due to the increasing pressures on growing spaces and are independent of size.

• Flint Well Garden:

  By reusing flint sourced locally to Sparsholt, our well highlights the importance of a sustainable approach to protecting an essential resource – water.

  Other materials from local sources include hops for string, Hazel sticks grown on campus for supports and a re-purposed shed.

• Preparation Arbour and Seating:

  Local plants are not just for eating. Designed to enclose and seclude our Hazel, Corylus avellana, sensory arbour provides shelter and seating to enable enjoyable and pragmatic food preparation. Taking time to appreciate both the harvest and exquisite tastes of locally grown and in-season food are crucial ingredients in the recipe for life.

  Felled, milled, and prepared by our College students, our table made of local Oak, Quercus robur, accompanies lunch with the distinct texture of grain beneath your fingers.

  Did you know that all five senses are utilised while eating? In fact, nearly 80% of everything we taste is due to our sense of smell! The access to a tactile, tangible, and immersive space to dine can massively enhance the act of eating and the taste of the foods prepared.

• Hedgerows and Hedgehogs:

  Protecting local biodiversity is essential for ecological balance and growing locally. We created a wildlife corridor with a mixed hedgerow, featuring a multitude of species such as Hazel, Corylus avellana, Hawthorn, Cratageus monogyna, and Brambles, Rubus fruiticosus agg. Within this diverse corridor we have stationed three trees, Sweet Chestnut, Castanea sativa, Silver Birch, Betula pendula, and a Small-leaved Lime, Tilia cordata.

  Hedgerows are the backbone of local biodiversity, and provide shelter, food, and protection to wildlife such as hedgehogs and dormice, beetles and birds, pollinators and people. They are an essential habitat for interacting sustainability and locally. Without this multi-use outdoor green space, deadwood and leaves, the significant decline in wildlife species already happening will only worsen.

  Increasing the complexity of the local habitat – with more and denser hedgerows, for example, that offer greater shelter – can reduce the impact of predators on vital species such as Hedgehogs which are also known as ‘The Gardener’s Friend’. Sparsholt College is proud to hold a Silver Hedgehog Friendly Campus award through raising awareness of the species and taking part in environmental challenges set by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society.

• References

  RHS Chelsea 2023 Book References

   

  1. Purkiss, D. (2022). English Food A People’s History. London: William Collins.
  2. Stapley, C. (1998). HERB SUFFICIENT. Heartsease Books.
  3. Stapley, C. (1994). HERBCRAFT NATURALLY. Heartsease Books.
  4. Black, M. (1993). The Medieval Cookbook. London: British Museum Press

   

  Websites used include:

   

  The Woodland Trust

   

  https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/things-to-do/foraging/foraging-guidelines/

   

  Food Standards Agency

   

  https://www.food.gov.uk/safety-hygiene/guidance-for-safe-foraging

   

New ‘Local’ plants – RHS Plant of the Year 2023

Winner

Thompson & Morgan

SHORTLISTED

HILLIER NURSERIES, HAMPSHIRE

Innovative, new and low-input 2023 plant introductions bred by Hillier Nurseries, Hampshire. Providing enhanced sensory benefits, satisfying gardeners’ needs for curiosity, novelty and discovery – part of our recipe for life.

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