When the Duchess of Sussex shared a picture on social media of all the wholesome vegetables that had been freshly plucked from the gardens of her Montecito mansion in California, not all of her followers were entirely convinced.
The post shows the Sussexes’ rescue beagle Mia poking its face into a basket laden with fresh produce, including red peppers, squash, carrots, spring onions, broccoli, sweetcorn and an assortment of herbs. The caption reads: “The unofficial quality inspector of this morning’s garden haul.”
Some pointed out that the contents of Meghan’s trug had a surprising lack of mud on them, and others that some of the vegetables in her “garden haul” weren’t yet in season.
This begged the question as to whether the Duchess of Sussex, who posted it on the Instagram page of her lifestyle brand As Ever, really grew them herself.
One follower wrote: “Huh. She’s so good at gardening she can grow all things from all seasons at once.” Another said: “I’ve never seen vegetables so clean after harvesting.”
According to the California Farmland Trust, corn usually isn’t ready until June at the earliest, so Meghan is forcing hers slightly early. Broccoli is usually picked earlier much in the year, say hardened gardeners.
But hang on. Even if she has “cheated” a little for the social media camera and popped off to the local farmer’s market instead of pulling the produce straight from her own soil, she’d not be the first to do it.
Who among us – including myself – hasn’t hoodwinked our friends into thinking we’re great gardeners, cooks, or party hosts in this way? Little white lies are what make the social whirl go round.
I was once in such a heightened state of panic before a dinner party that I bought a ton of award-winning ready meals from an upmarket grocery shop in Notting Hill, and still took all the credit for it – including the luxury mashed potato I simply squeezed out of the packet.
Abracadabra! The table looked fantastic when I removed all the food from the oven. My guests didn’t know I was only heating it up and merely decanting it all into fancy bowls.
I was trying to impress my then-partner’s work colleagues while also staying cool, calm and collected, rather than stressed from cooking from scratch. I’ve winged it like this after I famously made courgette fritters that were described by one dinner guest as “burnt matches”.
I also never think twice before ripping the packaging off supermarket cakes and passing them off as my homemade creations at school fairs. Last Christmas, everyone came up to me saying my carrot cake was the best.
I haven’t gone to the extreme of posting photos of me outside Holland Park mansions claiming it’s my front door, or creating video content of me in a pretend designer wardrobe with the price tags hanging at the back and clingfilm stuck to the bottom of my shoes so they don’t get scuffed.
But I did once buy a ready-made papier-mâché volcano from Hobbycraft for my daughter’s school volcano project and showed it off as if we’d made it from scratch. I swaggered around as if I just didn’t like cake or chocolate when I was on Ozempic. When my children have to grow something from seed for the classroom, I often produce a plant bought from Sainsbury’s.
I fluff it with the dog, too. My giant golden retriever, Muggles, will do anything for liver treats – which impresses people when they mistakenly think I’ve trained him meticulously. But cut to me dragging him like a deadweight towards my car when the treats have run out, and it’s a very different look.
For celebrities and influencers, a picture-perfect ideal is the norm on social media. I also rarely document the bad moments: the kids’ meltdowns and grubby clothes covered in food debris. Instead, everything looks picture-perfect – like the duchess’s vegetables.
Of course, idealised representations on social media can create unrealistic expectations about life, relationships, appearances, and even gardens – and make others feel inadequate. If the content is inauthentic, it can leave a bad taste. But when Meghan’s garden bounty is so delicious, who cares whether she did or didn’t grow it?
