Growing herbs to improve boring food due to shortages might sound like a wartime measure.

       But Chelsea Flower Show designers say gardeners should learn from their wartime grandparents as the cost of living crisis bites.

       It came amid growing concern about global food shortages as fuel and fertiliser both rise in cost and supply chains come under pressure because of the war in Ukraine.

       Jekka McVicar, a designer and vice president of the RHS, said her own grandmother had written cookbooks in the 1940s and 50s advising people on how to make tasty food with rations, including a rice dish flavoured with herbs.

       She said: "If we're going to have a shortage of wheat and we're going to have a shortage of masses of things, we may have to revert back.

       "If we go back to one-pot cooking, to save electricity, and to save heating and everything else, then herbs will come even more into their own.

       "If you add some bay leaf, and some rosemary, and some thyme into stewed veg or stewed meat, it makes everything flavoursome, it makes it more digestible.

       "Today's society expects a huge range of food on tap, and I think we've got to reeducate our palate and our cooking skills to cope with less variety."

       A herb expert and the winner of over 60 medals for floral displays, she won a silver gilt medal in 2016 and this year supplied herbs to show gardens including the gold-medal winning Medite Smartply Building the Future garden.

       The Chelsea Flower Show featured seven gardens promoting edible plants, the most in recent years, including Ann Treneman's Wild Kitchen Garden and The Potting Balcony Garden designed by William Murray, which is meant to showcase how gardeners with small spaces can grow their own herbs and vegetables.

       Pandemic-era bare shelves had already led to heightened awareness of the food supply chain, he said.

       He said: "It's quite an efficient way of gardening because you're not just growing flowers to look at, you're actually getting something to eat at the end.

       "I think perhaps out of lockdown people started to think about where their food is coming from a bit more, and maybe when things weren't available thinking 'maybe that's something I can grow at home'.

       "From the pandemic, it's like a national traumatic event and that makes people think a bit more about those things and what we can be doing ourselves.

       "If you've got a small space you can definitely grow some herbs, and then you're not spending money on them and also not buying things in plastic."

       Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage is set to exhibit a market garden at the RHS's Hampton Court show, due to take place at the start of July.

       Adam Crofts, head gardener at River Cottage and designer of the show garden, said: "I think people have started to realise that food supply chains aren't as strong as they thought they were, and people want the peace of mind of being able to grow their own.

       "Try and grow some herbs that aren't just taken from the supermarket - I think people always fail by taking home those herbs which have been really badly looked after, so try and sow your own seeds or buy some herbs from a nursery and they should be absolutely fine."