Tales From The Potting Bench

🪱🍄‍🟫 This week we’re discussing soil, soil health and the importance of proper mulching!

Welcome to Tales From The Potting Bench, a planty podcast where you’ll hear all manner of stories from knowledgeable, passionate and invaluable people who love plants as much as you and I.

We’re here at the monumental 7th season of the podcast and thanks to you, the listeners, we’re back with even more guests and this season promises to be even bigger, even better and with even more planty goodness! This season I'm focussing on those people who really know what they're talking about in a series of episodes I'm calling 'Experts In Their Field'.

Along with a brand-new season, is a brand-new sponsor, and I’m thrilled to share that I’m joined for season 7 by the powerhouse of the plant world, Westland Horticulture. Westland are dedicated to empowering everyone with the skills, knowledge, and tools to help every gardener give it their best, season after season. Great gardening starts with great compost, and Westland has a trusted range of composts for your every gardening need, from giving your baskets and containers the best start in life filling your vegetable patch with nutrients ahead of a bountiful season.

When we learn to garden, we start with the real basics – how to sow a seed, which plants work well in our gardens and so much more (theres a pun there if you keep listening…). But one thing that we know to be true, is that we need to look after your soil and in return our soil will look after our plants. And theres no one I’d trust more when it comes to advice on soil health than ecologist and soil expert, Becky Searle, otherwise known as Sow Much More on Instagram. In this episode, Becky shares all about why our soil is important, what we can do to improve and exactly how we can go about doing it. This is a really informative episode and one that is going to get your improving your soil with ease! Enjoy!

If you’d like to see more from Becky then you can find her on Instagram as @Sow_Much_More. Becky is also available for talks at garden shows and clubs too and you’ll find out more about that and how to contact her, via her website sowmuchmore.co.uk

Another way to improve your garden, other than with the soil is to attract beneficial insects and wildlife into your green space and what better way to do that than with Unwins Nature’s Haven Easy Wildflowers Mix! A perfect blend of wildflower seeds and seed sowing granules to bring both colour and wildlife to your garden. Simply scatter around your garden and achieve a stunning wildflower display, simple!

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Hello, and welcome to Tales From The Potting Bench, a planty podcast where you’ll hear all manner of stories from knowledgeable, passionate and invaluable people who love plants as much as you and I.

We’re here at the monumental 7th season of the podcast and thanks to you, the listeners, we’re back with even more guests and this season promises to be even bigger, even better and with even more planty goodness! This season I'm focussing on those people who really know what they're talking about in a series of episodes I'm calling 'Experts In Their Field'.

Along with a brand-new season, is a brand-new sponsor, and I’m thrilled to share that I’m joined for season 7 by the powerhouse of the plant world, Westland Horticulture. Westland are dedicated to empowering everyone with the skills, knowledge, and tools to help every gardener give it their best, season after season. Great gardening starts with great compost, and Westland has a trusted range of composts for your every gardening need, from giving your baskets and containers the best start in life filling your vegetable patch with nutrients ahead of a bountiful season.

Our gardens are all wildly different, from small spaces full to the brim with flowers and edibles, to sprawling acres with lakes and meadows and balconies, courtyards or even just a few pots. But, no matter the size, shape or contents, our gardens all give us such physical and mental benefits in equal measure, and my guest this week is all too aware of the magical properties a garden can hold. Leigh Johnstone, perhaps better known as The Beardy Gardener, is indeed a gardener, but hes also a mental health advocate and now an award winning garden designer too. For the last few years, Leigh has shared the highs and the lows on his popular social media channels and his posts present a refreshing account of all sides of our daily lives, the good, the bad, the rough and the smooth. In this episode, we discuss how The Beardy Gardener came to be and exactly why his garden is his safe space. Enjoy!

If you’d like to see more of Leigh’s and the adventures of beardy himself, then you can follow him on Instagram where you’ll find him as @beardygardener. Leigh is also a regular speaker at garden shows up and down the country so do seek out his website beardygardener.com, for where you may be able to see him next.

Also, why not boost your garden, as well as your mood with Westland’s Boost, All Purpose Liquid Plant Feed. You can achieve four times more blooms, giving you an even more stunning floral display and an abundance of healthy fruit and veg too. Using its unique Plantsense™ technology, Boost will feed all ornamental and ericaceous plants, plus all fruit and vegetables and give you incredible results.

Hello, and welcome to Tales From The Potting Bench, a planty podcast where you’ll hear all manner of stories from knowledgeable, passionate and invaluable people who love plants as much as you and I.

We’re here at the monumental 7th season of the podcast and thanks to you, the listeners, we’re back with even more guests and this season promises to be even bigger, even better and with even more planty goodness! This season I'm focussing on those people who really know what they're talking about in a series of episodes I'm calling 'Experts In Their Field'.

Along with a brand-new season, is a brand-new sponsor, and I’m thrilled to share that I’m joined for season 7 by the powerhouse of the plant world, Westland Horticulture. Westland are dedicated to empowering everyone with the skills, knowledge, and tools to help every gardener give it their best, season after season. Great gardening starts with great compost, and Westland has a trusted range of composts for your every gardening need, from giving your baskets and containers the best start in life filling your vegetable patch with nutrients ahead of a bountiful season.

In the first episode of this new season, I wanted to invite someone that I’ve known for a while now, through social media and someone who is going to absolutely help you grow the best tomatoes you’ve ever grown in your life. I’ve dabbled, sometimes good, and sometimes bad, but one thing is for sure, home-grown tomatoes are far superior to any you’ll eat from a shop and Niall Radford has become a master at the art of the perfect tom! From a simple beginning with one particular unique variety, more on that later, to now growing over 150 tomato plants of his own this year – it’s fair to say that Niall knows what he’s talking about and in this episode he shares his exact method for growing, including when to sow, how to sow, and what to do next! This is one you’re going to want to listen to, and maybe even make a few notes on too. Enjoy!

If you’d like to see more of Niall’s interesting toms, including his growing setup and much more, then do follow him on Instagram where you’ll find him as @niallradford. As mentioned in the conversation, Niall also sells seeds of the best tomatoes available, directly from his own fruits, and you’ll find all the details of that at nrtomatoseed.com

Hello and welcome back to a brand-new season - we’re back for a whopping sixth season of the podcast with new guests and brand-new stories and conversations and this time I'm using this as my chance to celebrate the amazing women of horticulture with a season I'm calling 'A Celebration of Women in Plants'!

Throughout this season we’ve featured all sorts of women from all sorts of plant backgrounds and in this final episode of the season we’re going into the world of TV! As long as I can remember, there has been gardening on the TV and as a little nipper I remember seeing segments on daytime shows with plants and garden tips. One person who shares their expertise and passion for gardening on one such show is Daisy Payne, gardening expert from ITV’s This Morning, my guest for this episode.

Daisy is a presenter, gardener and now author, with her first book being JUST published. In this episode we discuss the book, This Morning and much more, enjoy!

You can find out more about Daisy, by following her on Instagram where you’ll her as @gardentogarnish. Daisy’s new book ‘Start Growing’ is out now from ebury press and is available in all good bookshops!

💜 This podcast is sponsored by Plant Grow, producers of award-winning organic fertilisers made with zero chemicals. Great For your garden and even greater for the planet 💜 and don't forget to use code POTTINGBENCH on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠plantgrow.co.uk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for 10% everything on their site.  

Hello and welcome back to a brand-new season - we’re back for a whopping sixth season of the podcast with new guests and brand-new stories and conversations and this time I'm using this as my chance to celebrate the amazing women of horticulture with a season I'm calling 'A Celebration of Women in Plants'!

Gardening to lots of us – is a dream, something we spend hours doing, and in the process we’ve all taught ourselves so much. But, cast your mind back to when you first started gardening, did you know what to do and how to do it? I certainly didn’t and at first, I had no idea at all. In this episode I’m talking to landscape architect and co-founder of the new gardening app, Hota – Hannah Shaw. Hota aims to help gardeners, new and old alike, with creating new beds and borders in their gardens, with plant suggestions, design tips and maintenance advice right across the year. This app is about to change the way lots of us might garden, and I was interested to hear more about it, and I hope you are too.

You can find out more about Hota, by following them on Instagram where you’ll find them as @hota_app. You can download Hota now on the Apple App Store for iPhone and other versions are in the planning stages too!

💜 This podcast is sponsored by Plant Grow, producers of award-winning organic fertilisers made with zero chemicals. Great For your garden and even greater for the planet 💜 and don't forget to use code POTTINGBENCH on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠plantgrow.co.uk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for 10% everything on their site.  

Hello and welcome back to a brand-new season - we’re back for a whopping sixth season of the podcast with new guests and brand-new stories and conversations and this time I'm using this as my chance to celebrate the amazing women of horticulture with a season I'm calling 'A Celebration of Women in Plants'!

You can find out more from Kelly through Instagram and Twitter where you'll find her sharing her work and her gardening adventures!

Hello and welcome back to a brand-new season - we’re back for a whopping sixth season of the podcast with new guests and brand-new stories and conversations and this time I'm using this as my chance to celebrate the amazing women of horticulture with a season I'm calling 'A Celebration of Women in Plants'!

You can find out more from Anne by following her on Instagram and Twitter or X where you’ll find her on both as @anneswithinbank.

Hello and welcome back to a brand-new season - we’re back for a whopping sixth season of the podcast with new guests and brand-new stories and conversations and this time I'm using this as my chance to celebrate the amazing women of horticulture with a season I'm calling 'A Celebration of Women in Plants'!

You can find out more from Katie by following her on Instagram where you’ll find her as @katie_gardens. Katie’s website, katierushworth.com is where you can find out about the rest of Katie’s garden work and how you can book your own consultation.

The Cottage Herbery that Katie mentioned in this episode has sadly now closed its doors, but they are still active on Instagram where you’ll be able to find them as @thecottageherbery

Hello and welcome back to a brand-new season - we’re back for a whopping sixth season of the podcast with new guests and brand-new stories and conversations and this time I'm using this as my chance to celebrate the amazing women of horticulture with a season I'm calling 'A Celebration of Women in Plants'!

Hello and welcome back to a brand-new season - we’re back for a whopping sixth season of the podcast with new guests and brand-new stories and conversations and this time I'm using this as my chance to celebrate the amazing women of horticulture with a season I'm calling 'A Celebration of Women in Plants'!

You can find out more from Alice by following her on Instagram where you’ll find her as @alicehareflorist. You may also see her popping up on ITV’s This Morning from time to time too, so keep your eyes peeled!