I am standing chatting to a young man. He’s the son of an old friend and though I have followed his progress through Christmas cards and chats with my friend, I haven’t actually seen him since he was knee-high to one of those hopping things. Felix asks what I do. He knows I used to work in radio. “I make a plant podcast” I say. “I make a plant podcast too!” he says. I know he works in radio so the audio bit isn’t a surprise but the plant bit is.

We immediately swap podcast names and search out each others on our respective podcast apps on our phones. (Just a quick note that if you are following Our Plant Stories on the Google podcast app you will need to switch as they are closing it but there are plenty of other places to follow it - details here: https://ourplantstories.captivate.fm/listen)

The podcast that Felix produces with NTS - a global music radio platform, is recorded on an allotment. How strange is that? I don’t go near a vegetable or allotment story for thirty episodes and suddenly they are now everywhere. ‘Digging with Flo’ is such a great idea. Flo the presenter, takes a guest, normally a musician, to the allotment and there they plant leeks or onions whilst chatting about the guests life and music. I listen to her conversation with Shy One; “an accomplished musician, DJ and radio host….who began making music at the tender age of 13..she now DJ’s at some of the most prestigious clubs around the world”. I love Shy One’s reaction to being on the allotment: “I feel like I have been let into a secret underworld. Honestly I’ve never been to an allotment. I always peek when I’m on the train and I look at them, I’m like, on my God, it’s like a secret club.” As they weed and plant and talk about early musical influences and school and university, Shy One suddenly says “Do you know what, I’m having flashbacks. I’ve done this. I haven’t been in an allotment but in my old estate in Herne Hill, Dorcester Court, I helped start a veg patch…yeah but I stopped soon after that.”

I wonder how old she was when she started and indeed stopped working on that veg patch. I ask because next month’s episodes are going to take us down the path of plant knowledge - where does it come from, how is it passed down through generations? A tiny plant and its story is going to take us on a fascinating journey and I hope celebrate the people who are determined to try to bring back what has been lost. How do you reach primary school children, how do you keep them through secondary school? A government funded survey carried out in England in 2016 suggested children spend less time outdoors than prison inmates. In 2019 in a study in which 1000 British children aged between 5 and 16 were shown picture cards of native flora and fauna, 83% could not identify a bumblebee and 82% did not recognise an oak leaf. We are back with the importance of green spaces in urban areas - a theme we have touched on here before.

In other news, I was re-listening to some old episodes this week because I am thinking of entering the Independent Podcast Awards. You have to find some 15 mins segments and I was listening to Philippa talking about her dahlias. I was reminded of her infectious joy and passion for these plants and I really hope some of you followed her idea of buying 3 dahlia tubers so that later in the year you’ll be able to harvest seeds. If you haven’t then you still have time - she talks about how tubers planted later will catch up once we get warm weather and let’s be honest that is still to happen! I am still nurturing the precious seeds she gave me and there was a minor wobble this morning when I put the seed tray outside and came back an hour later to find it had been attacked, I am guessing, by pigeons. They had thrown out some of the seedlings and pecked at others. Immediately I set up an A&E unit - repotting the survivors and luckily the damage was less than it seemed initially. You get invested in seeds!

I do hope some of you will take a listen to Digging with Flo and if you have suggestions of other gardening podcasts do pop them in the comments. I’d love to hear about gardening podcasts from other parts of the world too.

Have a lovely weekend

Sally

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