Bordas Gava Garden Centre

I’ve no excuse for not letting you in on this one sooner. I visit Bordas Gava garden centre once a month, sometimes more frequently as it’s on my way to the airport. I have a little patch of soil in the driveway of my garden but I am a hopeless gardener. I throw a few bags of horse manure at it twice a year and hope for the best.

It’s fascinating to see things grow. As much for me as for the kids. Sometimes I let things go to seed. Towers of lettuce are fun, like tender christmas trees. Cauliflower are fascinating, they keep their main head more or less intact and then have straggly shoots that fling themselves upwards and outwards.

Besides the edible plants and vegetables that I take home and try (and mostly fail) to grow, Bordas also offers perfect specimens ready harvested. Hand on heart, the best strawberries I have had in Spain (Spain being the strawberry bowl of Europe) were from Bordas. It’s one of these things that once it’s in your mouth, you suddenly remember what a strawberry is supposed to taste like: soft, yielding, juicy and aromatic. Be forewarned, you have to eat them on the day, they lose their beauty with an overnight stay in your fridge.

The offering is varying and seasonal. Sometimes I get there and there are just a few tomatoes left or I’ve missed the berries entirely. The hardier fruit and vegetables are around though and the apples they sell offer similar revelations.

There is plenty to do for children. Small plastic tractors to drive around. Two playgrounds. One with a defunct tractor painted in primary colours available for pretend driving or general horsing around. An insect hotel. A small patch of a vegetable garden, complete with a pumpkin headed scarecrow (with socks).

It’s a great place. The only trick they are missing is a garden cafe – perhaps emulating Petersham Nurseries is still to ambitious for this corner of this world. Really I would even settle for a National Trust style cafe. Anything really to linger among the bird song and the butterflies. As it is, all they have are a few vending machines (insert screaming in fear emoticon here) with water or coffee.

Maybe they’ll ask me to open a cafe for them. (Or not)

The centre is surrounded by functioning fields and sometimes they too sell their wares direct to the public. A lovely spot – even if you don’t have a garden to plant in.

Jardineria Bordas Gava 
Av. del Mar s/n (antigua Avda. Bertran i Güell)
08850 Gava
www.jardineriabordas.com