Eden Project Founder Wants Towns to Grow Food, Not Asphalt

Imagine walking through your town center and picking fresh strawberries instead of dodging potholes.

That's the vision Tim Smit is championing at next week's Chelsea Flower Show. The Eden Project co-founder has designed an "edimental" garden where cabbages sit alongside chrysanthemums and strawberries bloom as beautifully as roses.

His message to local councils is simple but radical: dig up the asphalt. "When you look at towns, you realize you could dig up a lot of the asphalt and put up a lot of large growing boxes all over the place," Smit said.

The concept goes beyond making towns prettier. Smit believes these community gardens could get more people eating vegetables, create space for farmers' markets, and give young people something they desperately want but can't access: land.

Since opening the Eden Project in 2000, transforming a sterile clay pit into a world-renowned garden with giant geodesic domes, Smit has injected nearly £2 billion into Cornwall's economy. The attraction has welcomed 25 million visitors who've discovered that environmental projects can transform entire regions.

Now he's turning his attention to heritage vegetables, varieties pushed to near extinction by commercial farming's focus on high yields. He's grown a traditional strawberry so flavorful that one taste creates a permanent memory.

The Ripple Effect

Smit's Chelsea garden addresses something deeper than food production. He sees a generation "denatured" by lack of access to land, and he's watching young people push back.

"There is a movement of young people who want access to land to grow things, not just because they want to grow and eat things but because they want other people to as well," he explained. Getting land remains a nightmare for them, but Smit's template offers councils a practical solution.

The garden challenges the stereotype that gardening is "twee" or middle class. Growing food is fundamental and life-changing, he insists, not a lifestyle hobby for the privileged.

After Chelsea, the garden will find permanent residence at Eden Project Morecambe, becoming part of a 1.5-acre community space for learning and gathering. From there, Smit hopes the idea spreads to towns across the country.

Young people starting garden clubs, families growing heritage tomatoes in town squares, and communities gathering at local farmers' markets could become the new normal instead of endless asphalt.