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I looked at my inbox this morning and my heart sank. It’s like the postman delivering you 20 pieces of post and in there, is one letter. I have emails for parking services from airports I once visited. I have emails from a t-shirt company in America - I did once order a very fun t-shirt from them. Nigel at Interflora wants my feedback on some flowers that were delivered to a 100 year old friend in Canada!

So I scroll through them hoping for something I want to see. I hope Our Plant Stories is something you want to see! Which brings me to a decision to fix a regular time for it to ping into your inbox. (Apologies of course if you are in a different time zone, as some of you are.)

I know that quite a lot of people are listening to the podcast via the website - which is great. But if I send it too early, it may get buried inbetween your equivalent of Nigel and airport parking! I know that some of the Potting Shed Crew in Suffolk have this as their morning coffee listen, at work on a Friday, so I’m going to go for 10am. (Evening for those of you in Australia and New Zealand, only good for insomniacs in the States but there when you wake up Friday morning!)

I love the conversations that this podcast has sparked. This week I was talking to an American now living in Berlin, who told me that growing up in Texas, there were so many ripe figs that he and his siblings used to throw them at each other! Bridget who you heard in the Passion flower episode sent me a photograph of a bare root peony, planted to Clare Austin’s instructions, just emerging.

Someone noted that there don’t seem to be any vegetables amongst the plant stories. A confession I am not a veg grower. As I think I have mentioned elsewhere, my dad bought me tomato plants EVERY year. Along with a growbag and canes. But in our rather shady garden, surrounded by other houses and trees, they never really seemed to amount to much. Dad and I once had hysterics as we ‘harvested’ the potatoes from a potato growing sack and they were so small that some of them fell through the colander.

We also have the most wonderful independent greengrocer close by. It was opened 11 years ago and the owner grew up on a farm in Turkey and really cares about the produce she sells. So my tiny tomatoes and potatoes can’t really compete as you can see.

However if I had more space and light I think I would try harder to grow something to eat. I may have found a story that will inspire me. The other day I was in a shop buying some envelopes and I put Janine’s lovely postcard on the counter. The lady serving me immediately picked it up and we got talking. She has a wonderful plant story and an allotment, though as a child, her mother grew this plant in their garden. So watch this space, I really hope that we can follow this up and I promise you will be able to eat part of this plant.

I hope you enjoy this week’s podcast about the Peasgood’s Nonsuch Apple Tree. Along with the peony programme, it was one of the first I made. As you may detect, I became slightly obsessed, looking for Anna, going to the RHS Lindley library - see episode notes. But that is what I love about these plant stories, you really never know where they are going to take you, or what you will find. I love that Anna’s grandfather had carefully put all the documents in a leather bag that he had made himself and that bag and its contents continues to be handed down through the family. I hope you enjoy the episode. Maybe you will be inspired to plant an apple pip!