Rough Patch - a book recommendation
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m not about to claim that kale cures everything. No ‘ditch the Prozac and eat blueberries instead’ mumbo jumbo here. Not on my watch. No, I mean that growing vegetables is, for me, a powerful antidote to the pressures of life. A way to re-wild my mind, reconnect with nature and lift myself out of the barrel of treacle that is life.” Kathy Slack
Kathy Slack’s book will be published on February 6th.
I first met Kathy Slack back in February 2024. It was cold in the Cotswolds but there were blue skies as we gazed at the raised vegetable beds in her garden. To be honest we agreed that there wasn’t a great deal to look at in early February but this podcast being audio and not visual - it didn’t really matter. We sat in the garden and she told me her story of growing radishes. As you will know if you have listened to that episode which I will link here, it is about a little bit more than just ‘growing radishes’. It is about how growing food lifted Kathy from a depression that had left her unable to function. She had been working as a Global Strategy Director in a London advertising agency.
Last year when we met, she told me she was writing a book and here it is. Called Rough Patch, it will be available from Feb 6th, though you can already order it. One of the things that I love about making this podcast is that I can go back to people who I have met and find out what happened next, which might mean talking to them about their new book.
So this week, Kathy and I chatted for an Offshoot episode for the new podcast series. (Do follow the podcast on your podcast app, if you don’t already, so you never miss these Offshoot episodes). The book arrived from the publisher on a Saturday morning and the following day, I curled up on the sofa, to read it. As perhaps you would expect from a writer who loves recipes, there are recipes in this book! And they range from ‘Mum’s Fruit Scones’ to ‘Courgettes stuffed with Lamb, Harissa and Apricots’ to ‘There’s always Chard’ Pie.
Kathy finds the words to describe how the depression gradually took hold. When we talked this week, she described it as ‘selfishly’ wanting to write it down, to keep a record. From a reader perspective, I see it as the opposite, generously sharing with us the reader, a deeply personal account of how that ‘invisible’ illness took hold and how it was the veg patch that offered hope:
“In the patch, you create something out of nothing. One single tomato seed can become two kilos of tomatoes for a soup, a tart, a salad. After that, just one of those tomatoes you have harvested has the capacity to become a hundred more tomato plants thanks to the teaspoonful of seeds it contains. Potential.
And then there’s the soil: seemingly inert, but in fact fizzing with life and full of nutrients just waiting to send your little seed rocketing into adulthood. In every seed packet you open, every patch of soil you rake, every watering can you lug, every wheelbarrow of compost you shovel - there is opportunity. Hope everywhere. The possibility for life.”
Kathy takes us through the seasons and the years, from growing in a small raised bed in her garden to working in the Daylesford kitchen garden, as she begins to grow and cook; leaving her old life behind her.
Do spread the word about her book amongst gardeners and cooks. And listen out for the Offshoot once Our Plant Stories series 3 begins. She also gives her top tips on deciding what to grow in your veg bed in 2025!
In other news the second plant story has been edited and scripted. It features a very surprising ‘how to grow’ at the end, I’ll make sure I give you some advance warning so you are prepared!
Have a lovely weekend
Sally
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