World Vision Garden Update

As well as being Star Wars Day (May the fourth be with you) Friday is day one of The World Vision Garden’s RHS Chelsea build. The big attraction will be Lupinus mutabilis. Not included in the original brief, the designers discovered the Andean Lupin on a recent trip to Bolivia, where they went to learn more about World Vision’s work and meet Ronald, the little boy that they sponsor with the charity. Unlike the “garish 1970s plant” (to quote designer, John Warland, Lupinus mutabilis is grown as a crop in the Andes, allowing families to supplement their children’s carb-dominated diet with the nutritious Tarwi bean it produces. The World Vision Garden team are the only commercial UK growers producing the edible lupin and are coaxing it into flower for its spotlight on RHS Chelsea’s main avenue.
You can grow your own Tarwi beans by visiting www.plantify.co.uk. and buying a packet of seed. 50p of each packet sold goes towards World Vision’s family food projects in Bolivia. Grow them for their flowers rather than the resultant crop – the beans contains alkaloids which need special treatment to make them edible.