King Charles’ former gardener reveals monarch’s niche vegetable demands

King Charles‘ former kitchen gardener has revealed the monarch ‘banned’ squash and courgettes – and insisted carrots were grown to an exact size.

David Pearce worked for The King in his kitchen garden – cultivating plants for him to eat. He revealed that famously green-fingered Charles took a keen interest in the fruits and vegetables that landed on his plate – but a couple were off limits.

David managed mixed beds running down the middle of the kitchen garden. And although The King demands his produce be of a high standard, he is not a fan of all fruits and vegetables.

David, the youngest curator of Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens, said: ‘I spent about a year working for His Royal Highness in the kitchen garden, growing fruit and vegetables and wonderful things that went into his dinners and lunches.

‘We were growing mostly things he requested himself – a whole bed of salad and two whole beds of asparagus, he was very keen on that.’

‘Things like cauliflower, and he particularly liked his crudité carrots – we would have to grow them to a particular size, of your little finger.’

The King had a particular affinity for spinach, onions, leeks and Florence fennel, he said.

He had two vegetables he wasn’t keen on, however: ‘Squash was off the cards, and absolutely no courgettes.’

David found a job at Highgrove, the private residence of Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla, near Tetbury in Gloucestershire a few years ago.

Tucked into the woodland, the one-acre walled garden is geometrically arranged, dripping with blossom in spring, and runs along emphatically organic principles.

David described the eco credentials of his royal boss as being ahead of his time: ‘When everyone else was primping lawns, he was cultivating wildflower meadows as far as the eye could see.

‘There was no spray – instead, electric gadgets for zapping pests and all manner of inventive methods for keeping on top of weeds without reaching for the chemicals.’

David says the then Prince of Wales was not always on site – this was a period when preparations were quietly underway for ‘the big transition’ – but when he was there, he insisted on a morning walk around the garden.

‘We would have the opportunity to walk around with him,’ David added.

‘He would tell us what particular things he wanted, when he wanted them.’

From Highgrove, David moved to Whatley Manor, a five-star hotel in the Cotswolds whose gardens sit squarely in the Arts and Crafts tradition.

Running his own garden, making design decisions and beginning to implement his own ideas.

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