The Great Blackberry Garden Treasure Hunt - Chelsea Fringe Festival Event 2021 15th

Remember I said I was celebrating the 10th Anniversary of writing this blog and that I had some projects up my sleeve? Well here is one of the things I have been working on. Starting on Saturday 15th May 2021 I am hosting the online Great Blackberry Garden Treasure Hunt as part of the Chelsea Fringe Festival.

Map c/o Naomi Hudson

There are few things as exciting as a treasure hunt and equally exciting is finding treasure in our gardens. There are moments of joy that we find in the smallest and sometimes largest of things when gardening.

For the Chelsea Fringe Festival I am hosting an online event where I want you to go out into your gardens, peer into your windowboxes or houseplants or your local greenspace and post photos on Twitter or Instagram or Facebook, or upload a video onto YouTube, of the treasure that you find with a brief explanation of why it is your treasure on that day.

Just remember to use the hashtags #blackberrygardentreasurehunt and #chelseafringe so that they be found.

This is not a competition and there are no prizes. The joy of this event is that the treasure is whatever you think is treasure. So if you want to post a picture of a ladybird that is great, if you get excited at finding a wormcast: that is perfect; if your idea of treasure is a fully white cloud floating across a blue sky then post that photo. It might be that the peony you planted ten years ago has finally stopped sulking and flowered or the ant that is wandering across the peony bulb. It might be you have signs that your quince tree will fruit for the first time. I can even get excited at the sight of slug-eggs as I will leave them visible for the robins to eat.

You know that time you got excited when you found some owl poo that proved you had owls – that can be treasure. What about that time you were stopped in your tracks by a roadside verge full of dandelions – that can be treasure too. If you get excited by the patch of nettles in the corner of the garden with ‘make nettle soup’ written all over them – then that is your treasure.

I am not looking for artistic skills, I am looking for treasure! Treasure can be tiny or huge and only you know what your treasure is and why it is treasure to you.

I will post a daily round up of the treasures on my blog www.blackberrygarden.co.uk and then a final round-up of some of the highlights on the final day. So keep an eye out to see if your treasure features.

At the end of the Chelsea Fringe Festival I will publish a blog post highlighting some of the treasures. I am not going to say they will be the ‘best’ treasures; I am going to aim for an interesting selection that demonstrate the breadth of treasure we can find when we look.

Use the hashtags #blackberrygardentreasurehunt and #chelseafringe so that we can all see each other’s treasures.