Sea Spring Seeds at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026
We are proud to say we were awarded (with full marks) a Gold Medal
The story behind the headlines
It started in 2025 when, somewhat foolishly, Michael and I decided we needed a new challenge, so we applied to have a display at the 2026 RHS Chelsea Flower Show. We thought nothing more of it, until in October we heard we have been awarded a place – and then the reality set in. What had we let ourselves in for? In fact, it was a five month commitment of total obsession, culminating with me spending 10 days in Chelsea.
The immediate main problem was that Chelsea Flower Show is in May; a bad time of year for vegetables. Except for a few salad crops there are very few vegetables that are naturally at their best is May. In fact, in the vegetable growing world, May is called the “Hungry Gap” when overwintered crops are generally over and spring sown crops are not normally ready.
In particular, two of our specialities are chillies and tomatoes, and neither of those naturally have any ripe fruit in May! So on 15th December we sowed three varieties of tomatoes and seven chilli varieties. All the varieties were the earliest we sell: Cherry Falls, Micro Cherry and Lemon Sherbet tomatoes; and Hot Juanita, Hot Juan, Dawn, Dusk, Bullet, Sivri Biber and Hungarian Hot Wax chillies. These were germinated in a propagator set at 27˚C, and once germinated and pricked out the plants were kept in grow tents under extra lights.
In January the tomatoes and chillies were transferred to a heated greenhouse, insulated with bubble plastic, and by February all the plants had small fruit developing on them.
We also sowed Speedo and Nairobi carrots and Delikett peas in pots in early December, and kept them in an unheated greenhouse. For the next few months we sowed all sorts of lettuces, oriental salads, beans, fennel, edible flowers, onions, and everything else we could think of!
The weather in March and April was pretty good, and by the end of April all our plants looked great… which, sadly, was too soon. We did everything we could to slow down the plants’ development, putting the chillies and tomatoes outdoors during the day, and back inside at night. Sadly, though we couldn’t stop some plants going over. For example, we had some beautiful tat soi var. Rosette plants, but they bolted.
Our other plants looked magnificent!
At the Chelsea showground
I – that is Joy (Michael stayed at home to look after our nursery) – drove up to the Chelsea Flower show on Friday 15th May. I had a hired long-wheel based van, and it was packed literally to the rooftop with plants for the display. Becky, a friend, drove up in her car with our seeds for selling.
It took most of the Friday getting there, getting onto the showground, unpacking and generally sorting things out. So I had all of Saturday and Sunday to set up the display. I had help. As it was our first time at Chelsea the RHS arranged for us to have a mentor, Jon Wheatley, a wonderful man with masses of knowledge and experience with Chelsea. Jon watched me set things up, and offered timely and very useful advice, and the display area gradually become transformed.
The rest of the week
Judging was on Monday 18th May, but we didn’t know the results until Tuesday morning. The rest of Monday was for the press and in the afternoon the King and Queen, and Princess Ann had a look around.
The show was open to the public from Tuesday 19th to Saturday 23rd May. The show was open from 8am to 8pm – a long, exhausting day. Each day I came in at 6:30am to check the display, water the plants and restock my selling area. Then for 12 hours I would talk to the show punters (it was very busy). At the end of each day, I had to tidy up, count the money and generally sort things out. I never got back to my rented flat before 10pm. Thank goodness for microwaveable ready meals! I couldn’t do this on my own. I had help, two people each day (students on RHS courses, and from RHS Wisley and Kew gardens) come in for a six hour shift; they seem to really enjoy it and then as an extra had time to look around the show.
On Thursday I was on TV. The BBC Chelsea coverage devoted a full 8 minutes to interviewing me and talking about my display! If you want to watch it go to iplayer, BBC2, Chelsea coverage, episode 8, 11 minutes into the show.
Saturday was the last day of the show, and at 4pm I was allowed to sell off all my display plants. It was crazy, I had no idea my vegetable plants would be so popular!
Last day
At the end of the day I just tidied up a bit, didn’t try packing up. Packing up was my Sunday job. Two friends who live in London, Dodie and Fiona, came in to help. Thank goodness for them, it made such a difference – thanks guys, I really appreciated it. After saying goodbye to Fiona and Dodie I went to get the van. It was parked up a couple of miles away and took a while to collect, then on getting to the showground it took me over two hours getting my van onto the showground; not surprising as everyone was packing up on Sunday and Chelsea showground is quite small.
Eventually it was all done, I drove home and got back around 7pm, totally exhausted but truly triumphant!
We got a Gold Medal!!
