Join us on 4 & 5 October 2016 for two days of autumn delights, including giant pumpkins, apple bobbing, tasty seasonal food, and RHS Gardening Advice. Make a date, too, for the evening event on Tuesday, 4 October, which includes all this, plus delicious cocktails and toe-tapping live music.

Highlights of last year’s 2015 show

Giant vegetable competition

Giant pumpkins took prime position at the RHS London Harvest Festival Show. Weighing almost as much as two Shetland ponies was a pumpkin grown by Ian Paton from Hampshire. At 509kg (1,122lbs) his was the heaviest at the show taking first place and £1,000 prize money. In second came Beech Grove School from Dover in Kent with a fruit of 428kg (874lbs) and in third was Gregory Brown with a pumpkin of 201kg (443lbs).

RHS Fruit and Vegetable Competition

The competition featured an abundance of blemish-free specimens including apples and pears. Gardeners could seek advice from theRHS Gardening Advice team regarding common problems like apple scab, sawfly damage and bitter pit. Apple tasting was also on the menu with three cultivars of pear, eight dessert apples and six cooking apples being offered by the RHS Fruit Department.

Shopping

The show was the perfect place for buying seasonal fresh produce and stocking up on seeds. A display of autumnal treats for sale from Pennard Plants, Somerset included a selection of unusual quince, artichokes and cape gooseberries. More than 20 different colourful and unusual chilli plants could be found at the exhibit by Sea Spring Seeds, Dorset.

School exhibits

Schools taking part in the RHS Campaign for School Gardening, entered a variety of fruit and vegetable inspired art and fresh produce as well as preserves and chutneys. Colourful photographs of the children at work in their school gardens, showed how horticulture is part of everyday learning.

Read the full list of talks and exhibitiors who were at this year’s show (609kB pdf)