Celebrating the International Year of Fruit and Vegetables


The United Nations have declared 2021 the International Year of Fruit and Vegetables. To celebrate fruit and vegetable growing in public gardens, this extra-long PlantNetwork webinar featured speakers from a number of different gardens and organisations who are all committed to productive growing and communicating their efforts with a wide audience – from professionals to garden visitors.

With presentations from:

  • Matthew Oliver, horticulturist at RHS Garden Hyde Hall, spoke about growing recognisable and less recognisable produce in the Global Growth Vegetable Garden as well as across the wider garden, including the planting of local cultivars;
  • Louise Ellis, Gemma Sturges and Kelly Fowler, from the garden team at English Heritage’s Audley End, introduced the Walled Garden including its history, current growing and the delayed celebration of its 21st birthday (since restoration in 1999);
  • Catrina Fenton and Don Murray, from Garden Organic, spoke about the Heritage Seed Library which aims to conserve heritage, heirloom and less common vegetable varieties as well as the wider aims of Garden Organic to support organic growing in public gardens;
  • Rose Szarowicz, from The Newt in Somerset, provided an overview of the ambitious edible growing project taking place across the gardens and estate of The Newt, which provides a ‘field to fork’ experience through sales of produce in on-site outlets such as restaurants;
  • Lucy Pitman introduced the Walled Kitchen Gardens Network and how to get involved in upcoming events;
  • Tom La Dell, a trustee of the Brogdale Collections, spoke about the National Fruit Collection and plans to communicate the importance of fruit growing to visitors.

Slides from some of the presentations are available below. The recording of the webinar is available to PlantNetwork members and webinar participants (password required). Please get in touch with PlantNetwork if you should have access to the password but can’t currently see it.

During the webinar, the INCREASE (Intelligent Collections of Food Legumes Genetic Resources for European Agrofood Systems) research project was highlighted as a project seeking stakeholder engagement. To find out more and to get involved, visit the INCREASE website.



Webinar recording


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