Christian Douglas is redefining vegetable gardening with a focus on style and functionality. Drawing on examples from urban and rural gardens, including his own garden in Marin County, he offers practical advice on growing a variety of vegetables, fruits, and herbs. Christian talks about how to assess lighting and soil, pick plants suited to the climate, and discover creative edible alternatives to traditional landscape plants. Looking at spaces from small city gardens to large rural plots, and even a rooftop space, his new book 'Food Forward Garden Design' offers guidance on how to create a purposely designed and beautiful kitchen garden.

Links

Food Forward Garden Design: A Complete Guide to Designing and Growing Edible Landscapes by Christian Douglas, foreword by Tyler Florence

Christian Douglas on Instagram: @christian_douglas_design

Other episodes if you liked this one:

If you liked this week's episode with Christian Douglas, you might also enjoy this one from the archives:

214: Food Forests for Plant Lovers - This week’s guest is permaculture designer and author of ‘The Plant Lover’s Backyard Forest Garden’, Pippa Chapman. Growing our own food is becoming more and more important, and Pippa has tips on creating a year-round food forest that is low-maintenance and good for wildlife, that can work in a variety of aspects and that is an enjoyable and beautiful space for people too.

52: Crops in Tight Spots with Alex Mitchell - This week I’m speaking to Alex Mitchell, aka the Edible Gardener. Alex is the gardening columnist for the Evening Standard and author of five books on gardening, including her latest ‘Crops in Tight Spots’. I speak to Alex about growing edibles when space in tight and she has some brilliant tips and tricks about how to grow, what to grow and what not to bother with. Alex’s book is based on years of experience and I respect her approach of trialling, experimenting (including catching pupae in jars and observing them as they hatch!) and just giving things a go. As a result of this hands-on experimentation, she’s developed some nifty time, money and space-saving methods and she shares some of those with us in the episode. For the rest, you’ll just have to buy the book!

Please support the podcast on Patreon

Mitch McCulloch is redefining how we grow and cook with plants. He’s is a former chef, turned seed hunter and gardener, who applies his culinary knowledge when choosing and cooking with the produce he grows. Not only does he select the most diverse and interesting varieties, he gets creative with how he serves up his produce. His new book The Seed Hunter is properly inspiring if you’re both a cook and grower and you want to get the absolute most out of your edible plants.

About Mitch McCulloch

Author, seed hunter, and gardener with a passion for promoting and preserving rare heirloom food crops. A former chef from London, Mitch has turned his culinary expertise toward a quest to safeguard the rich, diverse flavours our world has to offer. Currently, he explores the globe in search of unique fruit, vegetable and flower seeds, documenting and preserving them to ensure that future generations can experience the delicious heritage and beauty of our past. Through his work, Mitch aims to champion and protect the biodiversity of our food system, one seed at a time.

Links

The Seed Hunter: Discover the World's Most Unusual Heirloom Plants by Mitch McCulloch

Mitch on Instagram: @mitch_grows

Other episodes if you liked this one:

If you liked this week's episode with Mitch McCulloch, you might also enjoy this one from the archives:

287: Heirloom Vegetables - This episode my guest is former jewellery designer to the stars, turned social media veg grower, Lucy Hutchings. Along with music festival organiser, Kate Cotterill, Lucy set up SheGrowsVeg, an heirloom seed company which is bringing the most unusual veg, fruit, and edible flowers to veg patches and plates everywhere.

188: Huw Richards on Veg Growing - This week’s guest is veg growing expert Huw Richards. Huw grows a vast range of plants in his garden in mid-West Wales and is always trialling and experimenting with new ways of growing. He has an enormously popular YouTube channel and has authored a number of books, the latest of which is ‘The Vegetable Grower’s Handbook’ which draws on his experience as very much a thoughtful and philosophical gardener.

Please support the podcast on Patreon

Andy Mitchell believes gardening has the power to be a uniquely beneficial arena for the addiction recovery journey. In this interview, we discover why he feels this is the case and why we have much more to learn about this particular aspect of horticulture.

Andy is Professional Addiction Recovery Coach and has conducted research into gardening as a tool to help people overcome addictions. Alongside having lived experience, Andy has extensive professional training within the field of Addiction.

About Andy Mitchell

Andy Mitchell is a Social and Therapeutic Horticulturalist (STH) and addiction recovery coach. His interest in how people in addiction recovery were using gardening through his work within the homeless and mental health sectors led him to do an MSc in STH within the field of Occupational therapy. His particular interest is how non-traditional recovery interventions, such as gardening, are helping people to help themselves through their recovery journeys.

Links

Andy Mitchell - www.myrecovery.me

Veterans’ Growth - if you're a veteran of the UK military or a family member/carer for a veteran and would like to speak to us about our courses or support services, please email hello@veteransgrowth.org

Making the hard work of recovery more attractive for those with substance use disorders -

PubMed (nih.gov)

Putting Down Roots | St Mungo’s

To view the video filmed at Veterans' Growth to see how gardening can help with the recovery journey click here.

Samaritans 116 123

NHS call 111, or 999

Text the word SHOUT to 85258

Perennial helpline - 0800 0938543

Veterans’ Growth hello@veteransgrowth.org

Forces Helpline - 0800 7314880

Other episodes if you liked this one:

If you liked this week's episode with Andy Mitchell, you might also enjoy this one from the archives:

A Therapist’s Garden - This week I’m chatting with New England-based horticultural therapist and master gardener, Erik Keller, who is also the author of the book A Therapist’s Garden: Using Plants to Revitalise Your Spirit.Over 20 years, Erik has worked with thousands of people of all ages and types, using horticulture and therapeutic techniques to help them deal with physical, emotional and mental challenges. Erik talks about using an outdoor space as a place for therapy and learning and about the downs and ups of bringing horticulture into peoples’ lives as a way to heal.

Social & Therapeutic Horticulture - In this episode, I speak to Damien Newman of Thrive, a charity responsible for promoting and providing Social Therapeutic Horticulture throughout the UK. Thrive is also the leading provider of training for those entering the profession. The Thrive website states;“Social and therapeutic horticulture is the process of using plants and gardens to improve physical and mental health, as well as communication and thinking skills. It also uses the garden as a safe and secure place to develop someone’s ability to mix socially, make friends and learn practical skills that will help them to be more independent.” – www.thrive.org.uk

Please support the podcast on Patreon