Viral Gardening Grandad Gerald Stratford Shares the Vegetables Even Kids Can Grow

Gerald Stratford is a 77-year-old great-grandfather from the Cotswolds in England who loves growing vegetables. Five years ago, during lockdown, a simple photo of him digging up potatoes spread across the internet and made him famous. Today, he has more than 714,000 social media followers and wants to inspire children to grow their own food.

Gerald never expected to become an internet star. A friend talked him into sharing his garden online, and his nephew helped him figure out how to use social media. It was his partner Elizabeth who took the now-famous photo of him harvesting potatoes on his phone.

Gerald posted the picture on Twitter — now called X — with the caption, 'My first early Rocket, well pleased.' Then his phone started going wild. The phone kept pinging and pinging, so he panicked and hid it in the bedroom. But four hours later it was still buzzing, and he had gone from 96 followers to 9,000 in a single day.

Since then, Gerald has appeared on the TV show Gardeners' World and in the fashion magazine British Vogue. Luxury brands Gucci and Alexander McQueen have even featured him in their campaigns. His TikTok bio describes him as 'heavy into big veg.'

Now Gerald wants to share his love of growing food with the next generation. He has partnered with meal-kit company HelloFresh to create a free family experience called The Curious Kitchen, running until August 30 at the Natural History Museum in London. It is designed to spark children's curiosity about how food grows from a seed all the way to their plate.

Gerald believes the best way to get children interested in gardening is to let them do it themselves. 'It's no good pointing a finger at a blackboard in a school,' he says. 'A youngster needs action. Just having a go is worth 1,000 reference books.'

Radishes are one of the best crops for kids because they grow so fast — from seed to harvest in about a month. Gerald points out that waiting until next August for an onion is just too long for a child. Milder varieties like 'Cherry Belle' or the deep-purple 'Bacchus' are less spicy and better suited to young taste buds.

You do not need a big garden to grow potatoes. Gerald says children can plant a seed potato in a bucket right now and have potatoes ready in about 90 days — just in time for Christmas. He recommends a variety called 'Nicola,' which resists a plant disease called blight.

Tomatoes sound tricky, but Gerald says modern varieties make it easy. You just feed the plant and let it grow — no need to pinch out sideshoots. He recommends 'Black Opal' for its sweet flavour and the popular 'Sungold,' and says buying a young plant from a garden centre saves even more effort.

Cucumbers are great for lunchboxes. Gerald's favourite, 'Mini Munch,' grows only to the size of a pen and can be picked, washed, and eaten whole. Carrots are another favourite — and his tip is to plant seeds one by one so each seed has room to grow into a big, healthy carrot.