I thought I would do one final post for you, about the winners of this years Garden Media Awards and this one will give you lots to watch and listen to over the festive period, should you be in need of a plant fix (aren’t we always) when it’s too cold to be pottering around the garden. (The winners post 1 and post 2 are here.)

I don’t grow vegetables in my small shady London garden and truth be told, I would always reach first for a packet of flower seeds! But I am heading to an allotment on Monday with a friend in search of some plant stories involving vegetables! I’ll let you know how it goes. The friend is Alison who shared her hosta story in Episode 7 and if you remember she even asked award winning hosta grower Vicky Meads if you could eat hostas, so you know where her heart lies when it comes to plants. (Vicky said yes you could but don’t even think about eating hers!)

So for the vegetable lovers amongst my readers there are two winners to look out for. The practical journalist of the year award went to Benedict Vanheems. He is a gardener, author and editor and face of the popular Growveg.com Youtube channel. I having been looking at the Grow Veg website and Benedict’s videos and there is lots of great information. Just this morning, I was inspired to head out to the garden with my coffee grounds, learning that “this beautiful stuff is incredibly high in nitrogen”.

The second veg winner is for Garden Video of the Year which was won by: Can you be self-sufficient while working a full-time job? This is a great piece by Alex Grows Food. I suspect making this video was a labour of love for Alex, I like the way we join him in his kitchen with his early morning cuppa before work and how honest he is about the amount of effort the garden takes. He has several tips learned from bitter experience, I particularly love the one about choosing how many plants you have time to support - true whether you are growing vegetables or flowers. I recall on a course at Great Dixter being reminded that you don’t have to pot up every seed that germinates!

Finally onto Radio Broadcast or Podcast of the Year. This was won by Talking Gardens which comes from the magazine Gardens Illustrated (which also won Garden Publication of the Year) and is presented by the Editor Stephanie Mahon. The premise is ‘to ask the great and the good of the gardening world: if you could create your dream garden from pieces of all your favourite places and if you could grow any plants in the world, what would you choose? Who would you have as your imaginary headgardener or garden designer?’

There is a great list of interviewees from Piet Oudolf to James Wong and Jekka McVicar to Troy Scott Smith. Stephanie is a wonderfully warm presenter and I just binged the whole of the first series when I came across it and thought it was a great winner.

I hope you have enjoyed the past 3 blogposts. Next week there will be a new podcast episode to listen to. It’s a pick of year but as you will know if you have been reading the blog it is not just picks from Our Plant Stories but picks from 3 other plant podcasts too. I have really enjoyed chatting to those other podcasters, learning more about their work and why they have chosen a particular clip. I really hope you will look out for it next Friday 15th December and share it with friends and family.

In bulb news, there are still a few to go in but I have resisted buying anymore! The bad news is the holly on top of the pots did not deter the squirrels. It was flung to one side (see photograph) and they munched on some very tasty tulip bulbs…the chicken wire has been deployed and fingers crossed they won’t work out how to squidge through the holes or lever it off….