Dr Trevor George has a passion for edible plants, from growing, cooking, preserving and processing them to researching what happens to our bodies when we eat them. As a result, his Camberley garden is designed to produce and display a wide variety of edible plants, including fruits, vegetables, herbs, and plants for infusions.
He told the National Garden Scheme: “When I was growing up my grandad used to grow vegetables in the garden, then when I went to university, I studied nutrition. Then I started looking at growing plants with nutritional benefits and quickly became interested in how the different colours of fruits and vegetables affect health. After a while I became a bit of a collector of weird and wonderful edible fruit and veg! It’s really relaxing, very calming. I have quite a stressful job so it’s really good to be out in the garden. You can really lose yourself and it’s almost like meditation when you’re focusing on what you’re doing in the garden.”
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Trevor says that his favourite part of the year is when the produce is ready to harvest. “I like all aspects of harvesting, for example, taking dahlia cuttings is really nice”, he says, adding: “It’s also lovely to see things come through in the spring as it feels very rewarding when you start to see all of your hard work pay off.”
Conditions
Trevor says that the type of edible plants you grow should depend on how much time you have; “Growing vegetables takes a bit more time. Whereas growing edible plants or berries for example, can be more low maintenance. The only work you might need to do is cover the berries before the birds get them. So yes, the berries and shrubs are a great place to begin for people starting out.”
For a small garden, Trevor suggests daylilies, which can cope in so many conditions. They cope well with the dry weather but can also grow in boggy parts around a pond. “With the current climate we’re getting very hot summers with a deluge of rain afterwards, so daylilies are ideal” he says.
The Nutrition Garden opens by arrangement from July 2023 to August for groups of between 1 and 20. You can book through the National Gardens Scheme, https://bookings.ngs.org.uk.
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