Former King Charles employee reveals ‘demands’ at Cotswolds home

David Pearce worked for The King in his kitchen garden, cultivating plants for him to eat.

The 29-year-old revealed that famously green-fingered Charles took a keen interest in the fruits and vegetables that landed on his plate, but a couple were off limits.

David managed mixed beds running down the middle of the kitchen garden.

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David Pearce. (Image: SWNS)

And although The King demands his produce be of a high standard, he is not a fan of all fruits and vegetables.

David, the youngest curator of Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens, said: “I spent about a year working for His Royal Highness in the kitchen garden, growing fruit and vegetables and wonderful things that went into his dinners and lunches.

“We were growing mostly things he requested himself, a whole bed of salad and two whole beds of asparagus; he was very keen on that. 

“Things like cauliflower, and he particularly liked his crudité carrots, we would have to grow them to a particular size, of your little finger. 

“He particularly liked spinach. We grew onions, leeks and Florence fennel. It was mostly working with him and his individual preferences.

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King Charles III. (Image: Tony Kershaw / SWNS)

“But squash was off the cards, and absolutely no courgettes.” 

David had a “feral” youth growing up on the edge of the New Forest.

He said: “I was running around having a wonderful time. Everything was wild and wonderful and exotic. 

“Weighing up my career options, I loved the idea of being outside, growing things – the science and the art of it.

“And on a bit of a whim, I applied for an apprenticeship at Ventnor Botanic Garden on the Isle of Wight.” 

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David Pearce. (Image: Emily Quance / SWNS)

He then worked in the gardens at Wisley – the Royal Horticultural Society’s flagship garden in Surrey, which runs one of the oldest horticultural training programmes in the world. 

David’s days were spent in the garden, surrounded by 300 acres of impeccably managed planting; his evenings tapping away at coursework on a laptop. 

After graduating during the pandemic, he found a job at Highgrove, the private residence of Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla, near Tetbury in Gloucestershire. 

Tucked into the woodland, the one-acre walled garden is geometrically arranged, dripping with blossom in spring, and runs along emphatically organic principles. 

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“When everyone else was primping lawns, he was cultivating wildflower meadows as far as the eye could see,” David said.

There was no spray – instead, electric gadgets for zapping pests and all manner of inventive methods for keeping on top of weeds without reaching for the chemicals. 

David says the then Prince of Wales was not always on site – this was a period when preparations were quietly underway for ‘the big transition’ – but when he was there, he insisted on a morning walk around the garden. 

“We would have the opportunity to walk around with him,” David added.

“He would tell us what particular things he wanted, when he wanted them.”