Prince Charles Reflects on a Childhood Bond with Princess Anne That's Still a Top Passion Today
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PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo Princess Anne and Prince Charles
Prince Charles found his green thumb at a young age.
The royal, 72, recently reflected on his childhood at Buckingham Palace while appearing on the BBC radio show The Poet Laureate Has Gone to His Shed.
"My sister and I had a little vegetable patch in the back of some border somewhere," he told host Simon Armitage of bonding with Princess Anne. "We had great fun trying to grow tomatoes rather unsuccessfully and things like that."
The royal siblings were helped by a "wonderful" head gardener at Queen Elizabeth's London residence named Mr. Nutbeam.
"He was splendid and he helped us a bit, my sister and I with the little garden we had," Prince Charles recalled.
Prince Charles and Princess Anne were born less than two years apart. Prince Andrew was born nearly 10 years after Anne, and Prince Edward arrived four years after that.
RELATED: Prince Charles Shares a 70-Year-Old Family Photo Ahead of Princess Anne's Birthday
Indigo/Getty Prince Charles and Princess Anne
That love for gardening only grew with Prince Charles, who has been an environmental advocate for decades and is turning the Queen's Sandringham Estate into a "fully organic operation."
"There's nothing to beat is there, I think, [than] eating what you have grown?" he said on the radio show. "This is another reason why I always feel it is so important to find ways of encouraging children to grow vegetables and things at school."
Lisa Sheridan/Studio Lisa/Getty Princess Anne, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles
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Prince Charles has been an environmental advocate for decades, recently supporting a new charter for the environment, which he called the Terra Carta, which aims to ensure big businesses are including green initiatives in their future plans.
In an introductory essay to his charter, the royal grandfather said we are at a "historic tipping point" in the lives and livelihoods of current and future generations" and today "must be the decisive moment that we make sustainability the growth story of our time while positioning nature as the engine of our economy."
On the radio show, Prince Charles said, "I don't want to be confronted by my grandchildren and other people's grandchildren saying, 'Why didn't you do something when you could?'"
