Mike The Gardener - Gardening Podcast

Hello and welcome to this last episode in the current series of a Mic The Gardener - Gardening Podcast.

As I said last week, we have a great final guest today, in fact, it's my youngest guest on the podcast ever. 

Now, one day, when I was whiling away time on good old Instagram, I stumbled across an account in the name of The First Time Gardener. Now, there are two people behind this particular account, one of whom is probably more in charge of the shall we say administration, whilst the other person is the face of the account. So, completely bowled over by the contents of their page, I contacted them to ask if they would come and have a chat on the podcast.

So, today, I'm absolutely delighted to be joined by Joanne and her son Charlie. We talk about:

• How the account came about?
• What Joanne was hoping to achieve through the account?
• How Charlie became the face of the account?
• Their plans for the future (gardening and Instagram), and
• Charlie's plans for the future, and lots more.

In this week's episode, I head back to Otis and Ben's allotment to see how things are progressing so far this season.

I'm delighted to advise that for the first time in the series, so far, the weather was absolutely gorgeous. Clear blue skies, a very gentle breeze and temperatures soaring, especially in the tunnel.

Today we chat about:

• Some nifty little hacks, including how to make more cuttings from tomatoes
• Companion planting
• The impact of the current and prolonged dry spell in the UK and across Europe, and there's some food tasting along the way!

And of course, we have a good look around the plot to see what's cropping, what is due to crop and discuss any little problems along the way.

In this week's episode of the Mic The Gardener - Gardening Podcast, I chat with friend and nursery owner, Ruth Goudy.

In this week's, episode, I chat to gardener, cook, writer and author, Mark Diacono. 

We talk about Mark's career and how he first got into gardening and became a foodie. We also chat about music, which is a strong theme in Mark's life, photography and Mark’s love of the written word and of course lots lots more. 

In this week's, episode of the Mic the Gardener - Gardening Podcast I chat with gardener, writer, podcaster, garden coach, and now author, Andrew Timothy O’Brien.

In his own words, Andrew says he is the owner of a too-loud laugh. I disagree, it’s great to hear the sound of people laughing in a world where there’s too much sadness and bad news, don’t you think?

I chat to Andrew about his new book 'to stand and stare' published by DK books. There's a lot of gardening advice out there. But none that invites you to think about how to be while you're in your garden. With increasingly busy lives, yet another list of chores seems like the last thing we need when it comes to our own practice of self-care and relaxation. After all, aren't these the things we wanted to escape to the garden for in the first place? What if there was a more low-intervention way to garden, some reciprocal arrangement through which both you and your soil get fed - with minimum fuss, effort and guilt on your part, and the maximum measure of healthy, organic growth for your garden?

We chat about: 

• How the book came about
• Andrew’s love of the writer and spoken word
• Andrew’s podcast, Garden Weeds & Words,
• Our thoughts on gardening on social media and of course, lots more

In this week's episode of the Mic The Gardener - Gardening Podcast, I chat with hardy geranium expert, Gary Carroll of the Cranesbill Nursery.

Geraniums are a fantastic, genre with plants that fit into so many different aspects within our gardens and indeed in containers. In this episode, Gary tells us about:

• Geraniums for different places (dry and damp locations in sun, shade and containers)
• How to look after hardy geraniums
• Pests and diseases
• How to propagate hardy geraniums, and much, much more

In this week's episode of the Mic the Gardener – Gardening Podcast, I chat with best-selling novelist, Erica James.

Erica's latest novel, ‘A Secret Garden Affair' has just been published and unsurprisingly is already heading towards the top of the charts.

We chat about:

• Her career to date.
• How she first got published.
• How she writes.
• Her new novel, A Secret Garden Affair, and lots, lots more  

And, did we really record the second half of our chat in the shower? You'll just have to listen to find out more.

In this special bonus Slot From the Plot episode recorded on 29th March we head back to a cold, wet and blowy allotment for our second visit of the season to chat with Otis.

Sadly, all is not well at the allotment. And this I'm sure will be familiar to many allotmenteers who sow seeds for this seasons crops, only to find that something has got in there and nibbled their plans for successful seedlings. However, in better news, Otis tells me what has been planted, what is growing along well and what their plans are for the next few weeks.

We start this episode by reviewing the frustrating developments in the polytunnel. If you have any tips for success, especially around keeping mice away from your prize seedlings, do drop me a line and let me know, so we can share your tips on the next episode. 

Hello and welcome back to this weeks episode of the Mic the Gardener – Gardening Podcast.

This week, I chat with BBC TV Gardeners' World and ITV Love Your Garden TV presenter and horticulturist, Frances Tophill.  

We chat about:

• Her career
• How she secured roles with ITV's Love Your Garden and BBC's Gardeners’ World
• The importance of community gardening
• Her very own new garden
• Collaborating on a show garden with Grayson Perry, and
• Lots, lots more.

I also ask Frances, if she were given him the opportunity to appear on one of the following reality TV programmes, which would it be:

• C4’s The Piano
• BBC TV’s The Great British Sewing Bee, or
• C4’s The Great Pottery Throwdown

Hello and welcome back to this week's, episode of the Mic the Gardener - Gardening Podcast.

This week we return to the allotment to chat to Otis about:

• What went well last year
• What didn't go quite so well last year?
• What's new for the plot this year?
• What they learnt from Year One?

We also chat about some exciting new additions to the plot.

If you are an allotment holder or are thinking about starting an allotment, do let me know as I love to hear from you.

Also, if you can recommend any particular varieties of crop that have done, particularly well, and those which haven't, again, do let me know, so we can include them on a future episode.

Hello and welcome back to this week's episode of the Mic the Gardener - Gardening Podcast.

And so here it is, the one you've all been waiting for, including me!

So many of you have contacted me asking if we can do a special episode on hellebores. There's clearly a lot of love for our heavenly hellebores out there, and I'm a massive fan, that's for sure.

So, I racked my brain, wondering who I could approach to talk to about these wonderful plants. There was, in all honesty, only one person on my agenda, so I dropped him a line. And, lo and behold, he agreed.  I am, of course, talking about the wonderful, John Massey (VMH). John suggested, however, that he bring along his top hellebore breeder, Kevin Belcher, to join in the conversation. You wait just over two two years for a hellebore expert come along and then two come along at once!

This fascinating and insightful episode will have you reaching for pen and paper to jot down some timely and extremely helpful hellebore facts as we discuss:

• How to get the very best in your hellebores
• Planting tips
• Maintenance advice
• Dealing with pests and diseases
• Propagation, and much, much more

My thanks to John and Kevin for their time, and for making the recording of this episode an absolute delight.

Hello and welcome to this week's, episode of the Mic the Gardener – Gardening Podcast.

Hello there and welcome to this weeks episode of them Mic The Gardener - Gardening Podcast. 

Are you a fan of ITV's Love Your Garden with Alan Titchmarsh? Or, BBC TV's Garden Rescue with Charlie Dimmock? Well, this week I chat with Matt Young, Head of Factual Entertainment at Spun Gold TV, who bring us these amazing TV programmes. I'll be asking all of those questions that we think about when we're watching the programme, including: 

• How do they select the lucky garden owners? 
• Who designs the gardens? 
• Who actually does all of the work? 
• And when the TV production team leaves the garden, how does the owner know how to look after the garden? 

It's a fascinating insight, behind-the-scenes of our favourite gardening programmes. 

Thanks for listening and don't forget to follow/subscribe to make sure you don't miss forthcoming episodes. And, if you're able, please do leave a review with your preferred podcast provider. 

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Mic the Gardener – Gardening Podcast, it's lovely to have you here, as always. 

There can't be a single gardener out there, who doesn't love snowdrops, can there? Well, in this week's episode, I catch up with garden writer and friend, Val Bourne in her beautiful Cotswold garden which is crammed cheek by jowl with a stunning array of snowdrops. And, as you will find out, when you listen to this episode, what Val doesn't know about snowdrops, frankly isn't worth knowing. 

We talk about: 

• Where they come from
• Maintenance 
• How to get the best from your snowdrops
• Best varieties 
• Propagation 
• And lots, lots more.

In this second episode of the Mic the Gardener - Gardening Podcast I chat with award-winning garden writer, television presenter and wildlife gardening expert, Kate Bradbury.  

Hello, hello, hello and welcome to this weeks episode of the Mic The Gardener - Gardening Podcast. 

Hello and welcome to this week's edition of the Mic the Gardener – Gardening Podcast.

In this week's episode, The Slot from the Plot, we're heading back to the allotment to have a chat with… Ben! The rather elusive Ben Short finally makes an appearance and tells us about his experience of starting a new allotment with his partner Otis.

And in part two of this 'Slot from the Plot' special, I chat to new allotmenteer, Amy Wall about her new allotment. Amy shares her story and gives us some great tips for new allotment owners along the way.

To find out more about all of these wonderful allotmenteers, do you head to their Instagram pages:

Hello and welcome to this week’s episode of the Mic the Gardener - Gardening Podcast. 

This week I’m delighted to say my guest is award-winning, organic gardener  and lecturer Val Bourne. I was lucky enough to be invited to Val's beautiful Spring Cottage garden, high above Bourton-on-the-Water a few weeks ago to chat to her about her career, her garden, her gardening philosophies, her ‘best-beloved’ Joe and much, much more. 

Val is a lifelong, hands-on organic garden with a passion for plant. She writes for many publications including the Daily Telegraph, judges RHS floral and dahlia trials, lectures widely and writes excellent books with an organic theme, and always everything enthusiastically. 

Hello and welcome to this weeks episode of the Mic the Gardener – Gardening Podcast. 

Hello and welcome back to this week’s episode of the Mic the Gardener – Gardening Podcast. 

In this weeks episode we are: 

• Looking at how to make the best quality garden compost 
• Chatting with Ellen Mary about her new book ‘How to Grow a Garden' 
• Seeing what’s grabbing the horticultural headlines, and 
• Answering some of your gardening questions 

Click here to see a Instagram trailers for this episode. 

Hello and welcome to this weeks episode of the Mic the Gardener – Gardening Podcast.

Without a shadow of doubt one of the most popular BBC TV Gardeners' World TV presenters has to be the wonderful, greatly missed Geoff Hamilton.  Geoff was a gardener, broadcaster and author, best known as presenting the ever-popular Gardeners' World in the 1980s and 1990s.

In today's episode I speak to Geoff's son, Nick Hamilton, a horticulturist and garden writer in his own right. We chat about Nick's new book 'The Right Genes', which is a story about the relationship between a son and his dad and how, from the off, it was obvious that the son would turn out to be a 'chip off the old block'.

In this fascinating and humour field episode I chat to Nick about his father's career, the iconic Barnsdale Gardens, the writing of this book and much, much more.

Hello and welcome back to this weeks episode of the Mike the Gardener – Gardening Podcast. I

In this week's episode I return to Otis and Ben's allotment to see how things are progressing there. You'll recall, we are calling this occasional series, the Slot from the Plot.

Today I catch up with Otis to see what's growing well, what's not growing so well and more importantly, why and their plans for the season ahead.

Whether you're a tennis fan or not, it won't have escaped your attention that we're in the middle of Wimbledon fortnight. 

In this episode, recorded live at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club grounds, I chat to Wimbledon Head Gardener, Martyn Falconer about the incredible horticultural preparations to make Wimbledon what it is. 

Welcome back to the Mic the Gardener – Gardening Podcast.

In this episode I visit my best friends' Ben and Otis‘s brand new allotment to see how they are getting on with the transformation from turfed plot to productive plot. 

The ‘Slot from the Plot’ will be an occasional featurette where I will go back to chart the progress of the plot, see what’s going well, see what’s not going so well and why and share all of the gardening antics from Otis and Ben‘s new allotment. 

In this episode I also chat to neighbouring allotment is Lynn and Pete.

Hello, and welcome back to the last in the current series of them Mic The Gardener - Gardening Podcast.

Hello and welcome back to this week's episode of the Mike the Gardener – Gardening Podcast. In this weeks episode I speak to Chris Collins, horticulturalist, broadcaster and former Gardiner for the BBC TV programme, Blue Peter.

Chris is an extremely passionate plantsman and gardener who has travelled across the world and has some fascinating stories to tell about his exploits in Brighton, Scotland, Cameroon and Japan. He also tells us about his time as a gardener with your iconic British TV programme Blue Peter. 

This episode was recorded in the South Arboretum at the edge of Kew Gardens, on the banks of the River Thames, where Chris once worked. We were also on the London Heathrow flightpath, as you may hear during the course of this episode.