I do hope that you enjoy this month’s Plant Tattoo’s Offshoot episode - I think you can sense how much Hannah loves her trips to New Covent Garden Market and it was great to get Hannah and Maya’s perspective on being florists.

I hope you will forgive me for putting a small ask into this weeks blog. It’s the first time I have done this during the making of this podcast and certainly my main aim is that you just enjoy these stories whenever and wherever you listen to them but if you do feel that you would be happy to offer a little additional support that would be amazing.

Buy Me A Coffee is a way to ask listeners to support your work. You can find the link at the top of the page in the navigation bar - click on it and it will take you to my ‘buy me a coffee’ page. Coffee in person would of course be great but ‘donated coffees’ will help towards paying for the podcast hosting platform which costs £19 a month or help toward the editing programme which costs £30 a month.

There is no question that this has been and still is a labour of love. But as I begin to plan for a second series of the Plant Stories, making the podcast sustainable is part of the planning. Many podcasters begin with enthusiasm but sadly don’t last the course. I can see the number of downloads on Our Plant Stories increasing as the months pass. Everyday new listeners are finding the podcast and several episodes have now been downloaded over 500 times.

I think the other reason for asking, is that a ‘coffee’ is also a show of support from a community of listeners. I appreciate that doing that takes time and effort when there are so many things vying for our attention but like reviews, the impact on the creator is immense. I don’t know who left the review on Apple Podcasts which I am about to share with you, I have no idea if they are subscribed to this blog. But I can tell you that I have read it several times already and their words mean a great deal and help me in the moments when one needs a little extra motivation.

I’m loving this podcast - such an apparently simple idea of blending personal stories with the story of a particular plant. Contributors are allowed to tell their own stories without being over-interviewed. Often the family histories are moving and show the power that gardening has in our lives. It’s well narrated and not over long. Each episode has just the right amount of enthusiastic expert input to set me off on growing plants that are new to me without feeling intimidated. Thank you!

It is I who need to ‘thank you’ kind reviewer. You have captured what I hope this podcast will continue to do - to show the power that gardening has in our lives and the beautiful stories that we all have to tell and share. I hope it offers something to those who have gardened all their lives and those who are new to this plant world because when people genuinely share their passions I believe it can be infectious.