Chic Trugs for Harvesting Style

Gardeners often look for stylish ways to handle the daily tasks of harvesting flowers and vegetables. In my summer garden, the raised beds and the cut flower beds are the most exciting places to be, and gathering armfuls of elegant stems, the courgette glut, or punnets worth of juicy blackberries is summer’s reward. A trug has always been a staple for a gardener, but in themselves, they can be works of art, beautifully woven from willow or galvanised metal. They are the perfect companion for gathering fruits and vegetables or simply transporting your garden tools around, and who says you can’t look effortlessly stylish whilst doing so?

Designs for every garden task

Different basket styles serve different purposes. I adore my Crocus florist basket for laying fragile peony stems, and my traditional Kew trug for heavier vegetables. It’s my first year growing melons and the strong timber frame of this design makes it exceptionally reliable. One supposes you can never have too many baskets. And when harvesting season is over, they take pride of place next to my fire place, holding woollen throws. Collecting the harvest has never been more cheerful than with the beautifully woven kubu grey rattan Bembridge trug. Each one is unique and finished with a sturdy handle to cope with heavier autumnal vegetables or your elegant summer cut flowers.

This is one of my favourite garden trug designs, because it’s so shallow that it ensures that all of your freshly picked stems can lie flat without bending, which keeps them strong for your arrangement. It’s made from handwoven willow, and as it is such a generous size, it is perfect for crop harvesting, too. In a delightful antique wash, this hand-woven willow basket is a reliable and versatile companion in the kitchen garden. It has a flat base, which is perfect for harvesting autumn vegetables like courgettes and squash, or gathering fruits that won’t crush each other in a curved design. It’s 57cm long, 27cm wide, and 8cm deep, which is ample space for an abundant harvesting day.

From the always popular Burgon & Ball, who craft the most tasteful and reliable garden tools, comes this elegant trug that is a true garden classic. It’s made up of strips of shaped FSC populus wood held in place by solid brass pins and screws, which makes it robust enough for your heavier garden harvests of root veg. I adore that this traditionally woven willow basket boasts a lovely hessian liner, which makes it ideal for carrying all your garden essentials, including seeds and seedlings around the garden, or for harvesting your fruits and vegetables. It’s 48 cm long x 28 cm deep x 18cm high, and so it’s ideal for smaller kitchen gardens and harvests.

Material choices for durability

The open weave of this wonderful metal basket is fantastic for cut flowers as it allows the water to simply drain through the holes. It’s got a lovely rustic feel to the thing, and as a larger basket, it gives you a fantastic amount of room to carry your harvested fruit and vegetables. It also boasts a smooth FSC-certified beech wood handle that has been shaped to fit the hand, and the strong galvanized steel wire has a tough powder coating in a classic grey. This chunky harvesting basket has been made by hand from grey and buff rattan and is wonderfully sturdy for lugging around the kitchen garden as well as being stylish enough for use in the winter by the fireplace. It’s a fantastically sized 50cm x W 38cm x H 22cm basket which can hold your root vegetable harvest with ease.

From her secluded studio near Uzès in the south of France, Valérie Lavaure hand-weaves baskets that marry beauty with practicality. Colour is central to her work, and she delights in the subtle variations found across different willow varieties, as the softly shifting hues of this basket demonstrate. Designed with strawberries and other fruits in mind, its generous shape and sturdy construction make it incredibly useful for gathering, carrying, and storing all manner of things, both in the garden and around the home. Crocus was inspired by the iconic 1950s galvanised metal trug that boasted sleek contours, was lightweight, and, because it was crafted from metal, was incredibly durable and robust. Their version features a lacquered surface for extra protection against rust and is made from galvanised steel, so it will last for years to come.

Another must for harvesting season is a sharp pair of secateurs. Ideal for snipping and pruning, the Niwaki Sentei secateurs available from Amazon are a pair that I reach for time and time again. My fig tree is currently in full bloom, and they’ve been inordinately useful for snipping back leaves to reach some of the tastiest fruits hiding like jewels underneath.