Poppy Okotcha and Adam Frost at the British Library

Episode 14 • 19th August 2025 • Our Plant Stories • Sally Flatman

Sally Flatman: 00:00:04

Welcome to our plant stories.

Sally Flatman: 00:00:07

Back in April, I received an email, totally out of the blue from John Fawcett at the British Library in London.

ll the beginning of August in: 2025

He'd come across the podcast earlier in the year, thanks to a review in the observer magazine from Miranda Sawyer, and he wondered if I'd be interested in hosting a conversation between Poppy Okocha and Adam Frost. What a lovely offer. The invitation to sit and read two books.

Poppy's is called A Wild How Gardens Grow Us and Adam's is called for the Love of Plants and then have the privilege of talking to the authors about their work.

So that conversation took place in July, and thanks to the British Library, who recorded it in fabulous quality for allowing me to share it with you here as a podcast episode. Our conversation took place over an hour and a half and regular listeners will know that most of our plant stories are half an hour long.

I think it's the Radio 4 producer bit in me.

Sally Flatman: 00:01:15

I thought about splitting this in two.

Sally Flatman: 00:01:17

But then decided to leave it. You might be on a long walk or a car drive, or perhaps you'll listen to it in a couple of sessions.

But the conversation between Poppy and Adam was so easy and they were so interested in each other's stories that I don't want to split it up. I learned so much from both their books. There are many pencil marks in the margins and more again from our chat.

They talk about their gardens and I'll put some photographs on the website ourplantstoys.com along with links to their books. But I think it is about more than just gardening. It's about our safe spaces, our connections to nature and to special plants and people.

I really hope you enjoy it.

Jon Fawcett: 00:02:00

Well, good evening. I was going to say warm welcome to the British Library. You probably don't want that. A nice, cool and refreshing welcome to the British Library.

My name is John. I look after the events program for the Library.

It's an absolute pleasure to be hosting tonight's session, which is one of the last things we're one of the public events we're doing in connection with our exhibition the Power of Gardening, which is running over in the main building until early August. So a little bit longer, if you haven't seen it already, totally recommend it. I have no credit at all for the exhibition.

My colleagues have done an amazing job.

It's a story about how we grow plants, how we have grown plants and why, from food to beauty to medicine to community, where the plants have come from and how we use them. It's absolutely full of fascinating things. You will learn something within the first minute, I promise you, if you haven't seen it already.

So that's open outside.

So tonight we have the wonderful Papio Kaccia and Adam Frost here to talk to you about the way they go and the gardens that they have and of course, the books that they have written about that journey, which will be outside afterwards and they'll be doing some signings later. I'd also like to welcome everybody who's watching tonight online, wherever you are in the world.

Our host for tonight's conversation is Sally Flatman, who is the host of the amazing Our Plant Stories podcast, which is a podcast about stories about plants. And very, very well. It's very, very highly recommended. Lots of amazing things to discover there.

So I'll hand over to Sally to take you through the rest of the evening and enjoy.

Sally Flatman: 00:03:36

Good evening and thank you so much for coming. Thank you, John, for the introduction. As he said, I I do a podcast called Our Plant Stories. It kind of says what it does on the tin.

Over the course of three series, I've discovered that plants tell very beautiful stories about the places they come from and the people who love them. So when I was asked to host this conversation between two gardeners, I knew it would be a wonderful opportunity to hear some more stories.

And reading Poppy and Adam's books, I have not been disappointed. So welcome to those of you here in person, those of you watching online and watching in public libraries as well.

This is a conversation entitled for the Love of Plants and Gardens.

nd of our conversation. So in: 2016

Beginning to grow food and connecting with the city was the beginning of a new journey for her. She began to study horticulture and spent time in community gardens.

I think I first saw Poppy on Gardener's World Gardening on a narrowboat, which must curtail impulse buying, actually, because there's a limited amount of space. Poppy has now moved to a home and garden in Devon and describes herself as an ecological home grower and community gardener.

Poppy's new book, A Wild How Gardens Grow Us, follows her through a year, month by month, as she gardens in this new space. I really Enjoyed your book.

I love that there are recipes in it and I also love it when you talk about the difference between your garden and an overgrown one. You say it's that there are telltale signs of human collaboration with wildness in this garden. All are welcome.

It's the sort of space that can tend and mend a sore heart. And I think gardens are very powerful places.

Adam, your book, for the Love of Plants comes out of a moment of relocation from a very big garden and from what you describe in the introduction to your book as burnout and a sort of depression to a much smaller garden. And you say, the moment I walked into that garden, I felt connected. It became my safe place. It is my warm love.

Many of us will have seen Adam Frost on television, most recently darting in and out of show gardens at RHS Hampton Court, presenting for Gardeners World. He is brilliant at deconstructing those gardens for us, showing us how the designers have created that space.

He's also an award winning designer himself, designing gardens all over the world with seven Chelsea Golds to his name. In his new book, he shares his new garden, walking us through the different sections, the courtyard, the terraces, introducing us to the plants.

It's all accompanied by a wonderful playlist because music along with gardening is. Is very important to him. So welcome. I've really enjoyed your book.

I've put lots of ticks beside plant names and I've loved the music and I'm looking forward to hearing more about the garden.

Adam Frost: 00:06:43

I've got lots of growers.

Sally Flatman: 00:06:48

So a question for both of you, I think, to start off with. How did you first connect with plants both in terms of people and place? It's kind of your earliest kind. Gardening memories.

Poppy, do you want to start?

Poppy Okotcha: 00:07:01

Yeah. Thank you for the introduction. Thank you everybody for coming. Earliest gardening memories, probably.

I mean, I speak about this a bit in the instruction of the book.

I started my life in London, and despite being like a very small me in a very big urban landscape, what I really remember was the garden, our little back garden. It was just like an ordinary modest garden and it had this gigantic buddleia bush that my mum would take me out and eat.

You would spot the butterflies on it.

And then the other kind of like key memory would also be, I think, a classic childhood activity of clambering into a hedge and sort of like carving out little pockets. And this is the dining room and this is the kitchen and mum would come in and have her cup of tea.

So those kind of like memories of being immersed and Interacting with various, like, living landscapes were, like, really important, despite being in an urban space.

And then we moved to South Africa and there was kind of like this real excitement about being in a landscape that was so alien and, you know, smelling different, smells of flowers, everything looked different. And we had various fruit trees in the gardens that we lived in and they were just like my siblings, I were obsessed with them. So we had like.

Yeah, I had some very formative early experiences. And then when I got older and we left South Africa, there was a really tricky period in my.

Within my family and my mum was really suffering with her mental health. And there was one particular garden that we moved to, or a smaller bungalow with a garden.

I always seemed to refer to gardens we moved to rather than houses. Yeah, it needed a lot of love. And there was a plum tree that was kind of dying and she basically sort of wilded it in a way.

She let the lawn grow and these wildflowers came up and a honeysuckle grew up around this plum tree. And the experience of watching how her growing this garden actually hugely transformed her. I think that for me as a teenager was probably the moment.

I didn't know at the time, but it meant that in my later life, I always returned to gardens as like a safe place that was nurturing. So, yeah, that's probably my first.

Sally Flatman: 00:09:00

I love those memories of that kind of, you know, that den that you create.

Poppy Okotcha: 00:09:04

Yeah, yeah, it's wonderful.

Sally Flatman: 00:09:06

Adam, how about for you earliest gardening memories?

Adam Frost: 00:09:08

I suppose childhood, really. East End family slowly moved out, so Lee Valley really was where my two grandparents.

I spent a lot of time with my grandparents because of my upbringing, really. And so it was them. It was sort of tidy Nan. I know I had scruffy Nan, you know, and tidy Nan and Granddad were sort of classic social housing.

Rectangular lawn, concrete path, washing line, everything in order. Little greenhouse down on the left hand side where she grew alicante tomatoes. And you're allowed in the morning.

Can you remember those plastic strippy things that used to keep the flies out, pushing those back and then running down. And then come the weekend it would be my granddad, when he retired, sort of Saturday morning.

But after we'd had the tea and the Scotch and the eggnog with the Scotch in it. So we were talking about cowpole out the back. I said my name, just used to give me Scotch, you know. Yeah.

Normally in an eggnog in the morning, just to start me off, but Granddad, we'd have breakfast, Granddad would put his jacket on, his tie on. And that meant we were going up the allotment. So that's where I learned to grow potatoes and the leeks and. And all of that magical. And.

And that word, safety. That that house was the safe place I could talk to my granddad about anything.

But if I wasn't there, I was along the road at Scruffy Nan's, and that was a completely different environment. Granddad was a gun engineer at the Royal Enfield, so he had the best shed you've ever seen. But sort of their garden was.

It's a nice sized suburban garden, but I suppose a bit like sort of heligon, but before they found it. But what I can remember is this wild. And yuccas. We were talking about yuccas out the back when we're yuccas growing up.

And then you'd be allowed out there from the moment it was light, when it was dark, and then it never threw anything away. So there was these Belfast sinks that she'd get Granddad to block the holes up and then plant them up. And they were like these worlds.

And, you know, as a nipper, you could cover yourself in newts and frog spawn and all those. And I think the. That. And you'd come in at night smelling of lemons.

And I realize, you know, now that she just let lemon balm seed all over the garden and then at the end had two greenhouses. So she used to quite like traveling, that Nan, and she used to go to Gran Canaria and places like that.

But she was a bit of a nightmare for bringing stuff back.

Sally Flatman: 00:11:46

Cuttings in the handbag.

Adam Frost: 00:11:47

Yeah, she's a nightmare. Yeah. I mean, I do stuff for Defra now and I think my nan was the underlying problem.

But yeah, so we had cacti in one and then coleus painted nettle in the other. So the first thing I ever learned to propagate was cacti, you know, and it was the 70s, so it was just pick the babies off that.

And then she'd give me a knife and I'd go and take tip cuttings.

And then I'd set up a sort of little stand outside their place on a Sunday morning and sell to all the old boys and all the old girls coming back from the church, you know. So that was my. So, yeah, that's that really strong early connection, really.

But that word safe, weird, the word safe, but then also the idea of freedom in one sort of, you know, in one hand, one and one hand the other. So that was that connection. And weirdly, as I get older, I go back there a lot more in my head, I think, than I ever I ever did did.

Sally Flatman: 00:12:46

So what was the next step for you in to becoming a gardener, then?

Adam Frost: 00:12:51

Wow. I sort of. Sorry. You made me laugh early when you said you'd moved to Devon and you chose to.

So I'm 15 years old, I'm a quite happy lad at school in Harlow in Essex, and my mum and dad decided to move me to North Devon and change my life, which I felt at the time ruined it. At the same time, I wasn't impressed. I didn't really go to school for the last couple of years. Years. And then my mum and dad then moved down.

They sent me to live with an auntie to start with. Then they moved down. They got really into. Said this way, put this nicely. They got really into village life.

And then my mum and dad did a swap with another couple. So this bloke was moving in and then me mum with me mum and then. Yeah, I know it's confusing. And then obviously, you know, my dad.

My dad was moving in, which was a surprise because when we grew up, there was never a time we had a pampas grass in our front garden. Yeah. So I'm not sure that's true. So I left home.

I left home and I went in and I think I had that connection with gardening, but I literally went into Barnstable to join the army and an old sergeant.

I took the exams a couple of weeks later, went back and an old sergeant said, you know, you can come in, boy, and you can do this, this and this, but why don't you get an apprenticeship? And I left there, went up Barnstable High street, bought the North Devon Journal and it was still the back end.

Maggie Thatcher hadn't managed to privatise the parks departments down there by then because they were about four years, as you know, Devon's about four years behind the rest of the world, isn't it? Which is a beautiful thing as you get older. So, yeah, I literally applied for the Parks Department.

So my proper horticultural life start, you know, as professionally started at 16 and not really necessarily by choice, you know, it was be a gardener, chef or join the army.

Sally Flatman: 00:14:47

Poppy, what about you? What motivated you to get into gardening?

Poppy Okotcha: 00:14:50

Yeah, well, so I was working in the fashion industry as a model at the time, and I was having a lot of kind of like internal tactics, turmoil, because I had this idea, having grown up in South Africa not so long after the apartheid, that I really wanted to do good for the world. And more and more I was understanding That I wasn't. Basically, I was encouraging people to over consume.

I was probably making people feel pretty crappy about themselves and the industry wasn't good for me either. So I was experiencing this kind of like internal turmoil and also a period of ill health.

And I suppose that kind of experience meant that I was really searching, I was searching for something else I could do, something that would be good for me, but also give back to the rest of the world.

And in that process, I was starting to understand more and more about food and how eating well can have such a transformative effect on our well being. Like not just as individuals, but communally sharing food, et cetera. And that kind of took me down this road of like, okay, how's the food grown?

How there were different ways of growing. Food has different health outcomes. And. And then ultimately I was like, wait, I kind of want to try growing some. So that's what I did.

And I was on the boat in London. So it was kind of, I mean, I think that was actually a blessing in a way because they weren't slugs and snails.

I was just growing in containers and it limited my ambition. And I think that that can be something that really like sets us back as gardeners.

You, you know, you dream of the world and then you, you know, real life happens and the season never goes exactly as you expect. So I think it was quite like a nice gentle introduction. But yeah, really I came at it from a perspective of wanting to do good in the world.

I started learning about permaculture and basically wanted to follow this thing that I was starting to see could have such a positive impact on people and planet. Because when you tend to garden well, you're increasing biodiversity.

You can potentially sequester carbon in the soil, you can produce good, healthy food, you can connect with your local community, you can connect with other life. And it's just this incredible, incredibly enlivening experience. And I sort of wanted to share that and get more into it.

So that was where I came at it from. It was definitely a choice.

Adam Frost: 00:16:56

Can I just ask. Yeah, what was the, what was the first. Because you said you started looking at. What was the first thing that, that sort of.

Can you remember the first thing that dragged you back in? Because you obviously had the charm stuff. Can you remember the first thing that dragged you back in?

Poppy Okotcha: 00:17:09

Like the first plan?

Adam Frost: 00:17:10

No, just that first sort of moment. Actually, I might pick this up and read this.

Poppy Okotcha: 00:17:14

Yeah, okay. So it was probably like we were. Well, there's two things.

We went to India and I was at a alternative community called Auroville, and there was a dude there who'd set up a permaculture food forest, which is this way of growing plants in, like, multiple layers. They're all edible, medicinal, useful crops. And he'd been growing it for many, many years.

He was actually a British guy, but you couldn't tell because he was just outside all day, every day, learn the local dialect, dressed like the local people. And he gave us a tour of this food forest.

And he was just so passionate about this garden he'd created, and it was creating jobs for the local community, producing incredible food. And the way he spoke about the plants, the way that he was holding the soil, I was like, whoa, this guy is onto something.

And that really sort of sparked something in me.

And I remember at the end of the talk, he was like, you know, I think that the meaning of life is like, grow good food, enjoy it together, and then celebrate. I was like, okay, I can sign up for that. Sounds pretty nice.

And then following that, I went home and I became, like, really obsessed with permaculture food, forest gardens. And I started to remember that I'd had. So I had a bit of Steiner education when I was a kid and there's an emphasis on biodynamics.

And so I went back and I was like, oh, hang on, I kind of remember biodynamics. And.

And I bought a book and then sort of followed the breadcrumbs from there because there was like a little bit of, like, foundational understanding from, you know, being in South Africa and learning biodynamics at a very, you know, young age.

Sally Flatman: 00:18:41

Wonderful.

Poppy Okotcha: 00:18:42

Yeah.

Sally Flatman: 00:18:42

I mean, we're going to talk about both your gardens, but it's really nice to be able to see.

I've had the joy of reading the books and therefore hearing the descriptions and seeing the pictures, but we wanted to share that with you all as well. So we've got some images of the gardens we're going to start with. Poppy.

And perhaps you could just talk a little bit about how you got to know this new space and create a garden. How do you really kind of start to get to know a place?

Poppy Okotcha: 00:19:05

Yeah, this is something that, you know, really became the kind of absolute fascination of this book. I think as somebody who's grown up in multiple places, I had quite a transient life in my early 20s.

What with living on a boat and also traveling huge, like, tons with work and then also with mixed race heritage. It's meant that I've, like, really at different times in my Life grappled with this question of belonging.

And the garden has been like a, I guess, an avenue for me to find a sense of real belonging. And I realize now that I can kind of carry that anywhere.

I don't necessarily have to stay with this garden, but now I know how to create a sense of belonging. I can replicate that, if that makes sense.

So, yeah, the garden and belonging have been, like, totally intertwined, and it's kind of like, probably one of the primary themes in the book, but. Should I flip through the slide?

Sally Flatman: 00:19:56

Yes.

Poppy Okotcha: 00:19:56

Yeah, yeah. So this is, like, just to give a little. Well, actually, that's inside the book.

Some lovely illustrations, wonderful illustrations by Brilliant Francis. He's an incredible artist. And we've got some, like, sewing calendars in there, which are helpful. So this is the garden through the seasons.

To give, like, a context or, you know, the space I'm talking about. It's about 30 meters long, about 5, 6 meters wide. So it's a bit of one of those kind of like, tricky, long, narrow corridor gardens.

So I've kind of ended up dividing it into these little pockets. At the very end, there's the orchardy area. It's like four little apple trees, which kind of goes wild.

It did have the chickens blow it, but they scratched up. So they're gone now. Yeah, they're with the God kids.

And then after that, there's like, the annual veg patch area, the greenhouse, and then the kind of, like, wilder area that's been more experimental. Where previously I was growing a lot of herbaceous plants, herbs and things that, you know, it was kind of towering above me.

A lot of goldenrod, fennel, evening primrose, all just, like, you know, swaying together since having a baby that's been chopped down.

And we're trying to cultivate a bit of a kind of, like, garden meadow space that is a bit more tolerant of human penetration, because the previous one was a bit more of, like, a gardener's garden. And then sort of central to how I garden is soil health. So which I have here. Communities. This is the community garden that I was working at.

I've sort of stepped back a little bit this last year and a bit since having a baby as well. And these are just some pictures of how we've kind of. Soil health is important at the community garden.

So when we got there, this clay, it was clayey soil, and it was getting very dry and not so great for growing vegetables in.

So we had this huge mission of getting municipal compost and going to the seaside and collecting Tons of seaweed, taking it back, which is a traditional way of adding fertility gardens in the old days. And then there's all the hay from the meadows which we also spread and mulches of cardboard. And that's a massive worm in Sasha's hand.

Very happy with all the mulching. We're doing an example of some layered mulching there with the dog on top. Cardboard, hay, dog.

And then on this side, this is a path that we've kind of did an experiment with where we took up the plastic pathway and we mulched it with like just tons of green vegetation and then put wood chip on top. And it seems to have worked really well.

And the idea is that of course, like if you're growing beside an area, the nutrient and the sort of liveliness of the soil you're cultivating, the pathway is going to benefit the plants either side of the path. So that was kind of like a little experiment. It's worked well. It's not been too sluggy so far.

This is just more community garden seed, which is another important part of how I grow. Trying to source seed that is from ethical origin.

Because if I'm growing a beautiful garden, I want to ensure that the seed that is generating that garden is also coming from somewhere beautiful. It's good for people. By beautiful I mean like kind the. The environment and the people. Diversity is also really important. That's Freddy Dog.

Very cross with a hedgehog up there. The chickens which were contributing to diversity, which in the end didn't because they scratched everything up.

But to begin with, the idea was that they were helping me manage the slugs and snails, which would mean that there'd be more vibrant plant life in the garden and then there's the sort of vegetable herb garden and there again. And I think that's all the slides. Oh yes, that's all the slides. There you go.

Sally Flatman: 00:23:22

Wonderful. Looks amazing. It really does. And I love you.

You describe it beautifully in the book because we haven't seen the pictures, but you really do kind of take us through there. Adam, do you want to share some pictures of yours?

Adam Frost: 00:23:33

Mine are just going to go, aren't they?

Sally Flatman: 00:23:34

Yeah, we're going to have some pictures of yours. Yeah, they're going to appear. Tell us. Oh, there we go.

Adam Frost: 00:23:41

I mean, ours was obviously I had, you know, I'd been that sort of. Well, the 16 year old toe rag that I was talking around had worked up to getting a massive farmhouse and a garden and then in lockdown my.

I mean, this garden really in lockdown My wife was really poorly, so she ended up in hospital for about 12 weeks with sepsis. And I could go in for half an hour a day. And during that time life was sort of chaotic.

And my number three, that's what happens when you have 40, you just give them numbers. Ran out of names. So. Yeah, so she was what, 15, started self farming. That turned into a full blown eating disorder.

So during lockdown it was sort of rather mad. And then we came out September 21st and then I.

That everybody was getting better and then I got locked in a room with COVID and then the next thing I sat in front of a psychiatrist and talking and diagnosed with burnout and depression, which technically only went in the room with COVID So, you know, it was a surprise and I, and I think I never really, I'd never really stopped thought about stuff. Yeah. And sitting down with a psychiatrist, ultimately that's what, what this book is really was that idea. And that's why music plays its part.

So the creation of this garden was the simplification of life. Obviously everything I've learned before about professionally how to design gardens, but this was more about fixing a family.

You know, we've been there four years now, so.

And so as I put the garden together, yeah it was first about, about understanding the space out of the sun, you know, where the wind comes from, how the microclimates work, all those little tucked away spaces, you know, then you talk a lot about soil. You know, I, that drives me hugely. When I understand then, then it's driven. Not necessarily about how something looks now.

It's like how it, how it feels. So the spaces have all got a feel something. But also I, I'm sort of feel like I more or less have to grow for the family. So everywhere's got a veg.

So actually the garden now I suppose as well add to that that, you know, it was, it was a garden that was created around diversity. Ultimately how, how can I create a smaller garden but still giving an awful lot back, you know.

And actually the picture you can see there up the top there is coming in the front gate and you know, it's a little mini meadow in there and. Incredible. So I mean again, you know, the songs break up.

So something like that, you know, in my head it's a wonderful life, you know, so it's, it's sort of Sunday morning, you've got the sun on your back, you're coming around to have a cup of coffee, you know, and then you come in now you've got A wildflower meadow. You've got some pear trees on one side, you've got some herbs, you've got some fan fruit on the other side, you know.

And actually you've got the sound of the church bells. I don't really like the sound. I don't necessarily most religious person, but I love the sound of the church bells. So that's that sort of image.

Plus also my granddad on a Saturday tea time used to put vinyl on, you know, so I have all that sort of stuff going through. And then you go into our front garden which has really become an ornamental kitchen garden.

So it's sort of a lot of the principles you're talking about. But that goes back to working with Geoff Hamilton and ultimately. But you know, I can.

So that really is that space and that's, you know, I aim to plant everything and I think that's my place to go to. That's all south facing. And then you go into that lovely little courtyard that you can see there.

That's got a song by Springsteen called Secret Garden. But weirdly that was created from when Mrs. Frost was getting better.

I would be out in the garden doing stuff and there's a little seat just in the porch and I would go out early and then on a Saturday she'd come out from probably about. Well I'd be working probably from about 7 or 8 and then she'd come out about sort of midday, ish really.

And she'd sit on this little box and she'd call me down, we'd have a cup of tea. Obviously I'd tell her what I'd been doing, she would then tell me what we're going to do and I'd spend the rest of the day being a good boy.

But actually there was something magical about every time she sat there. She just looked a little bit better. And you know, she was a lady that when she met me she didn't know what a.

Definitely didn't know what a landscape gardener was. Definitely didn't know, you see. And she looked like she just walked off the makeup counter at John Lewis.

So the idea of her getting her hands mucky now she's completely and utterly in it, you know, so. So that sort of secret garden thing. But some of, you know, a little green space, there was a peaceful, you know, so that.

And then you go out to the back garden and it starts. Become far more family orientated, you know, there's little terraces and. And then you go up a level.

There's lovely sort of little seating areas, places to cook, where all the family come together and the garden sort of layers up and then you get up to. There's a gravel garden. We live in a graveyard. Very sort of dry part of the country. And then really at top end, there's the greenhouse.

That is my sort of escape. So, yeah, the garden's really driven. It all needs to feel something. It needs to work for the family, but it definitely needs to.

Yeah, and it has fixed the family. So much so that Mrs. Frost is now talking about moving. But, yeah, so I think for me, that's. That idea of creation is a personal thing.

Sally Flatman: 00:29:46

I was really struck, actually, in both your books by, I feel the way you really watch the plants. And I wondered whether you think gardening is as much about observation as it is about doing. Is there an important element of really observing?

Poppy Okotcha: 00:30:02

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think that of course it's important in the design part of it, but I think that in the actual, like, doing of it as well.

I think that, you know, often I get asked questions like, oh, no, where to start, how do I start? And I think that that is the starting place. It's like watching.

Because I think, you know, so many of us, we're not necessarily in our society accustomed to really, like, sitting back and taking in anymore. And I think that we can often also come to gardens or landscapes with, like, an idea of, like, this, how it should be.

But of course, like, if we don't sit and watch and you know, the things like you say, like the sun moving through space, how water moves through space, et cetera, the type of soil you've got, then it's going to be a hard job.

And I think that's when so often we become so disheartened because we're, like, trying to impose our idea rather than sitting and watching and moving. And I also think that, I mean, I find in my garden, like, you know, it's been five years now, and there's so many things I miss.

And like, for example, this part of the garden that we're trying to, you know, do like a little garden meadow in, when we first arrived there, it was screaming. That's what it wanted anyway.

You know, it had these plants that were, like, enjoying, you know, fairly free draining soil, like low fertility, but I kind of ignored it and started piling on compost and trying to grow vegetables very much adhering to this idea of, like, increase the fertility, increase the organic matter content, when actually I could have stepped back and looked at it and be like, actually, this part of the Garden wants something else because it's, you know, it's behaving in a different kind of way. And only now, five years later am I finally like, oh, like yeah, I got the hint.

And you know, by now it could have been a five year established meadow, but obviously it's just getting started.

Adam Frost: 00:31:49

But you had a. Yeah, I'm in total.

I mean, yeah, I think I totally agree that the idea that, you know, when people, you talk to people about their gardens and sitting down and taking a moment and so many people reply saying, well, I haven't got time and you go, well, you're missing the point really. And I think as well we have this idea of chasing, you know, these sort of perfect pictures and really gardens are about moments.

That's all they're about. And it's how many moments you get out of that, you know, 12 month period or, you know, and rolling sort of cycle.

So and, and I think you're totally right. If you pay attention, the garden tells you what it needs. I think in a sense, you know, we're there just.

I just feel like I'm there just to give a, I set it up and then I'm there just to give a helping hand where I need to and, and not trying to control too much and backing off. And I think, you know, we live in, we now, we definitely transition from that, that period of control and everything into, into.

No, we need to back off, we need to stop cutting up, we need the diversity. We need to leave the gardens alone in the winter because we're taking away habitat and we're taking away food.

Sally Flatman: 00:33:04

So does that feel very different to how you were trained?

Adam Frost: 00:33:08

Wow. Yeah, on lots of levels. I mean. Well, I mean, interestingly in some ways, yes.

Well, yes and no, because I obviously parks training, you know, you blitzed everything and everything was moan and this, that and the other.

And then I went to work for Jeff Hamilton at 21 years old and this fellow was obviously, you know, on Gardeners World at the time, but he was, he was organic, he was peat free and he was already talking about destruction we were doing into the countryside and also talking about farming and soil. So as a 21 year old, I just got redirected and he said, no, this is the way we do it.

So I've never, I've never gardened any different from, from that. So, yeah, I think so.

But then saying that then being taught design by a great designer called David Stevens, at that point it was all about less is more, more, you know, three silver birches and An Acer compestris adrift to this drifter that go home, you know, and whereas now. And that's what it was, you know, but now it's about diversity, diversity, diversity. So the garden that I've created there.

So the fascinating sort of, I suppose the designer bit in me that, you know, that idea of trying to create something that, that carries you through the seasons, that has these little moments, but that influences how you choose plants.

If you choose plants, you know as well when you're, you're thinking about the plant, you know, we too drawn in by color, you know, so we think about the plant as the flower. And I always think that's the most unreliable part of the plant because it doesn't necessarily do what you want it to do, you know, so.

So for me the fascinating bit is, is how you plug these things together to create, you know, shape, form, texture and all of that stuff. That's the bit. Yeah. So yeah, life's sort of gone like that really. I suppose. Yeah.

Sally Flatman: 00:35:01

With me I think it's interesting because you, in your book Poppy, you talk about yourself as a garden assistant rather than a gardener. And Adam, you describe self seeders as fairy dust. So I mean there's a similarity there, both of you in the way that you're thinking.

I mean, and it's that line, isn't it, between the kind of we should all be rewilding or we should all be very regimented. How do you find that sweet spot in a way between those, Poppy, how do you.

Poppy Okotcha: 00:35:28

Yeah, I think I've come. Yeah, I think that I've had to kind of bring myself a little bit.

I think a lot of us these days can carry a little bit of like a shamey guilt feeling about oh, we're the bad humans and we're trashing the planet and you know, our gardens would maybe be better off without us because then they can go wild and be great for great habitat.

And I think I've gone on a bit of a journey of realizing that actually there's the possibility of humans having a really profoundly positive impact on landscapes. Like for example, hedgerows. They can be kept alive for very, very long time. Incredible for biodiversity, beautiful things. And that is human work.

So I think that's like a really great example. And gardens are the same if we are tending them in a sense way and listening and observing. There's the possibility of, yeah.

Of finding that balance between wildness and overtamed, I suppose.

And I think the beauty in gardens, it kind of comes back to that what you're saying before of, like, freedom and safety is that there are places where we get to feel the freedom of wildness, but the safety of the human touch. And I think that that's something that's really special and like, powerful medicine.

Actually, you know, we're living in a time where we're experiencing, like, loneliness, extreme levels of loneliness, like ultra processed foods, pandemic, so many ultra processed foods, so many issues around access to green spaces.

And I think that our gardens can provide a real kind of, like, healing environment if we tend them in this way that cultivates that, like, really special balance. And I think going back to the observation thing also is like, I think a big part of that is also rewriting what we consider to be beautiful.

And I think that observation plays a part in that because, you know, if we go around with a sense that, you know, everything has to be straight and orderly and no weeds at all, but then actually start to think of the lemon balm itself seeding as beautiful, then all of a sudden the space is less. It's less pressurizing and the wildness can feel wonderful rather than, like, threatening.

Adam Frost: 00:37:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're talking to the converted girl.

Poppy Okotcha: 00:37:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Adam Frost: 00:37:35

Actually, there's a picture. It's the next one over. You talk about sort of leaving for winter. I. I talk about that a lot. There's a picture will come in a minute. But there's.

There's. There's a little border in the front row in. Outside the front window. And. And also, I don't cut anything back.

And I would say that the backing off and not cutting back gave me my best moment of the winter by an agastache sat in the middle, some lime balm around one side, some fennel up above it. It's that border there.

Poppy Okotcha: 00:38:09

I love that one.

Adam Frost: 00:38:10

Yes, that border there. So if you imagine in the winter, that's just brown. Yeah, yeah, that's brown. All right. So I'm sat there on a Sunday morning and I'm there with.

With the dog and the cat, and all of a sudden there's this flutter out the window. And for 20 minutes a load of finches came in and they pillaged all those little seed heads. And it was absolutely. I was just transfixed.

And if you tidied that up, you got no finches, you know, and you got no. That magical, magical moment. Moment. And I think that's what needs to drive us.

Poppy Okotcha: 00:38:49

Yeah. I suppose it also comes with that beautiful element of surprise when we, like, step back a bit. We get the. And that's like, wonderful in a garden.

Oh, I didn't mean to do that. But actually. Yeah, that's lush.

Adam Frost: 00:39:00

Yeah.

Poppy Okotcha: 00:39:00

And I love in this picture the way that you have the edibles and the herbs.

Adam Frost: 00:39:04

Yeah.

Poppy Okotcha: 00:39:05

And ornamentals all crowded together.

Adam Frost: 00:39:07

And that's an old Jeff Hamilton. So when I first went to work for him, so say 21, he just created this ornamental kitchen garden which was all about interplanting.

And actually, if you go back and watch the old film of him doing this garden, he's literally walking around. This is like walking around a suit 30 years ago, walking around a supermarket, just going, more or less, what's this crap? What's this crap?

Literally, it's bizarre to watch it back then, what he was doing. And they said, now this is what we should be doing. And, you know, and. But again, at the time, I come from a park. Smart. I thought he was raving mad.

I thought, what you're doing, you're a nutter.

Sally Flatman: 00:39:50

His influences, do you think?

Adam Frost: 00:39:52

I don't know. He. I think as I got to know him, he had a huge.

A very, very inquisitive man, but he had a huge connection with the land and not, you know, he was brought up in sort of. Well, same sort of area, to be fair, I was brought up in. So, you know, But I don't know, he just seemed to have. He seemed to have a wisdom.

I think if I look back and think like he seemed to, you know, in a way, if we. We get this right, you know, it can change things, you know. And strangely, you know, with. Well, 96, he passed away. So there we go. So next.

Next year, next August will be 30 years, and it feels like the world's been playing catch up with Geoff Hamilton, you know, And I think that's the bit when I go to the Chelsea Flower show now. And I love the fact that so much as this is in.

In the fore and it's being talked about, but it saddens me a little that he was Talking about it 30 years ago, you know, and that's. That's the sort of bit that I play with. I throws in my head.

Poppy Okotcha: 00:41:08

And I do wonder if now that we're like, you know, I think the stage has changed, like the backdrop has changed for these conversations. I think there's a sense of pressure. You know, we all, we.

We can see that there is genuine change in the climate and we're seeing, you know, sort of we're not in a politically comfortable spot. And I wonder if that's going to help to usher that conversation and that action on. I hope so.

Adam Frost: 00:41:35

Yes, so do I. Yeah.

Sally Flatman: 00:41:38

To go beyond your gardens for a moment and it will lead back to that, to what's happening in the future, I think. But I noticed both of you foraged from a young age, I have to tell you. There is wild garlic peaches in both your books.

Poppy shares how to make wild garlic salt. Adam, you talk about garlic pesto, but I just thought, how important was that?

Foraging as children to connect you to that wider landscape, which is part of what we're talking about, isn't it, Is being connected to the landscape. Do you think that was part of.

Adam Frost: 00:42:07

Yeah, I mean, I was a proper little naughty lady. I was really bad, really. I used to poach as well. I was terrible, really. I had ferrets as a kid, so. I had ferrets.

I went at school in Harlow, I had ferrets and I used to go poaching on the railway lines. Seriously? Yeah, I did. But I used to stay with an uncle. That was the uncle, I said she was more like my dad.

That's a bit poorly at the moment, bless him. And they were publicans and they lived near a farm, so I would work on this farm for through the summer holidays.

And I think he connected me a lot with that sort of stuff because he was a chef, so he connected. But also my nan would always have us out, you know, Right. From blackberries to this to that. It was always that.

It was all, I suppose, with my uncle and that, you know, tidy nan. I was told quite early on that, you know, there's stuff out there for you to go find.

And I suppose that's why it's always been part of what I've done, really.

Sally Flatman: 00:43:08

Just grew up with it. It was just part of life.

Adam Frost: 00:43:11

Yeah, I suppose I did, really. Yeah. But even, like, say, even the Ferritin thing, it wasn't a. It was. You know, we weren't.

We didn't really have any money or this, that and the other, you know, and it was. It was another way of me, even as a nipper, you know, going and playing my part, really, which. Well, it sounds mad, doesn't it, really.

Sally Flatman: 00:43:30

Now, but possibly the bit about the railway lines. Definitely, yes.

Adam Frost: 00:43:35

I used to sell the rabbits to a Greek hairdresser in Potter's Bar. There you go. Used to pay good money because he couldn't get rabbits.

Poppy Okotcha: 00:43:43

He made a good stew out with him as well.

Sally Flatman: 00:43:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Adam Frost: 00:43:46

See, they use a lot of them, so. Yeah.

Sally Flatman: 00:43:50

How about you, Bobby?

Poppy Okotcha: 00:43:51

Foraging, Yeah, I mean, similarly, the money thing played into it. I think that now it's quite like glamorous. Yeah, we didn't have the word foraging.

We just, you know, when we came back from South Africa there was like no money and so there was, it was a huge luxury to go and get like a sack of blackberries, you know, that soft fruit, it's cost a fortune at the supermarket and, you know, fill the freezer with it. So I think, yeah, there was an element of that.

And then there was also like my mum, she grew up Raf family, like moving around a lot and sort of it was important. They were always just turned out the house just go.

And so she kind of like, I guess grew up gathering stuff as well and so, you know, just sort of naturally passed on to us. But when we were in South Africa, of course that didn't happen because it was a different environment, like different plants.

And also the way you live, it's. You don't just wander around the place the way you came can in England. So it's definitely like a part of my British upbringing rather than in Africa.

And then I suppose when like, yeah, when I was a teenager I was wanting to save up to go to music festivals.

And so one sort of mission that a friend and I went on was we went elderflower picking to make some elderflower cordial, which we then took to the local classic car sale and sold. And that's what I used to go to my first music festival. Yeah. Along with working in a tea room for long hours.

But yeah, so it was, I guess it's like a kind of an industry. That's part of it.

And then when I got older and, you know, started being curious about gardens and gardening, I had this sense of like, okay, so how can a garden be soup? How can it produce a crop, a harvest, but be super hands free?

So I was like, okay, well we were experiencing that when I was a kid when we're going out foraging. And so I became really fascinated by wild edible plants and how we can incorporate them into our home gardens.

Because then of course, you know, we all work, we all have lives outside of our garden. So how can it be useful and edible, but low maintenance in the way that, you know, hedgerow you pick blackberries from is.

Sally Flatman: 00:46:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's going to be a bumpy year this year. I was out in my sister's fields the other day and it's looking fabulous for blackberries.

How do we pass that knowledge though, down to the next generation?

Because Poppy, you Quote, a natural England report in your book called the People in Nature that finds that only 16% of the people surveyed actually spent time in green or natural spaces daily. That's a tiny number. I mean, how do you pass that knowledge down? How do you think about that as well?

You've talked about Geoff Hamilton passing that knowledge to you.

Adam Frost: 00:46:32

Yeah.

Poppy Okotcha: 00:46:33

And you've got your four kids and.

Adam Frost: 00:46:34

I've got my four kids. Yeah, I have, yeah. Thanks for that, I suppose. Yeah. And that, that part of it's been easy because I've, you know, I mean, even with Mrs. Frost. Mrs.

Frost was in the garden and then Mrs. Ross worked out the best way to spend some time with this lunatic was to go to garden because that's where he would be. I'm sort of quite a simple soul, really. She's not gonna have to phone up, you know, and find out where her husband is.

She could walk to the end of the garden most of the time. So that. And actually the kids have been the same. They've all played their part, they all like cooking, but they'll all. They'll all go to.

I feel like they'll go to the right stuff to cook, if that makes sense. That's been the easy part. I think for me, the most difficult part has been a strange. Suppose my professional life where, you know, I've been.

Been asked to, you know, help play my part in getting younger people into it, you know, and into the industry and into gardening that way. And I feel. I feel we're quite good up to the end of sort of primary education and then we lose kids because, you know, it's getting better.

But I suppose when I first started doing it, it's sort of. It's not cool.

But it always used to frustrate me that, you know, television made cooking cool, you know, because it wasn't when I grew up and then it was Jamie Oliver and a few others and coming on the telly and, you know, bish, bash, bosh and the occasional swear word. And then it was really cool to leave school, work in a boiling hot kitchen, not earn a lot of money and not see daylight.

And we couldn't seem to sell. The gardening, we couldn't seem to sell. So that's been the tougher part. And all I do really is keep on talking about it.

And to be fair, the only reason I do telly is because I love talking about gardening. And someone might come up to me and go, do you know what I said to you, didn't I, out there?

My favorite thing is when people say to me, you're right, you are, you're right. Yeah. Because you. You talk about it normally.

Sally Flatman: 00:48:44

Yeah.

Adam Frost: 00:48:45

So why wouldn't you? It's just like, I want you to have a go. And. And I think so. I think in my head, it's just, I get every opportunity I get.

I. I will go to a school, I'll go into this and. But I think that's all we can do as individuals, is just keep spreading the word, really.

Sally Flatman: 00:49:03

The passion is contagious community.

Adam Frost: 00:49:05

And, you know, you're using your platform and I suppose, you know, it's all we can do, isn't it?

Poppy Okotcha: 00:49:13

Yeah.

Sally Flatman: 00:49:13

Do you find that with the community garden? Is that space for you?

Poppy Okotcha: 00:49:16

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. I think for me, the thing of, like, spreading the word is, like, absolutely essential.

I think partly because when I came to it, as I said, I was, like, experiencing my own hard time and really searching for purpose in the world. And it was just like, whoa, where's everyone been hiding this from me and wanting to share that excitement and just all the incredible benefits.

I mean, now there's so much science backing it all up, you know, all the good feelings we get from engaging with gardens. But, yeah, I mean, I didn't know that at the time. At the time, I was just like, oh, this feels lush and. Yeah. So wanting to share that.

Also being aware that I think there's this really valuable thing in gardening where you start to feel like you belong to nature, you're part of it, you're part of the tapestry. And I think that's just like one of the most important pieces of the puzzle when we look at trying to cultivate healthy, sustainable societies.

So there's that, for me, of the. That I think that actually, like, it's maybe, maybe the most important thing as a human today is to be able to understand.

Understand that we're part of nature and that our actions can, you know, have this incredible positive exchange. And then. Yeah, so that's kind of like why I'm like social media. And then the community garden is more actually wanting to create access for people.

I think there's like a conception that, or an idea that in the countryside everyone's got access to all this greenery, but actually it's all farmland, it's sprayed, you know, no access.

Even in the short time that I've been living in Devon, like, you know, the footpaths that I go down, barbed wire, you know, beautiful tree that goes, sit under, chop down, like it's a. It can be. It can feel hostile.

And so yeah, wanting to create a space where it was accessible for people to like, really just like this place is just going to stay how it is. You can come.

And the idea at the community garden was actually that people, rather than having a veg box delivered to the them are coming and learning how to grow their veg boxes themselves. They come each week and get to take the veg home. So that's also creating access to good food.

So that's the community garden bit and the education piece. But then with my son it's been really interesting watching. Yesterday we're at our friend's place and we sat down, we're having dinner.

He didn't want to eat anything because he was just like, you know, I'm in London, strangers, strange food, what the hell? Running around the place. He's 15 months old. Chaos. I was thinking, oh God.

We stepped out and they had these like little plant pots outside their door with red currants in. And he's going, he just guzzled the red currants, wouldn't eat his dinner, stepped outside and starts eating all their red currants.

And then we're walking around Hyde park this morning and there's some blackberries, none of them are ripe yet but again he's pointing at them. I want that. So, you know, he's really small but he's already understanding like that's food, that's food.

And I'm not really like making a massive effort to teach him. He's just watching and you know they're copycats, aren't they? So I suppose I hope he keeps that.

I think I have this understand like an idea that mostly kids rebel and then that's okay and hopefully he'll come back to it.

Adam Frost: 00:52:25

I think you're totally right. I think it's that idea that if you can put it in early doors, yeah you know, they will go some point but. But ultimately they will come back to.

So he's Talking about the 26 year old that's gone away now. You know, just qualified as an architect.

You know, he went off to Leeds, he did all that, wasn't really that interested but he would always help me as a kid. But now he's coming back, he's going to move to, you know, he's now he's been home for a while, he's now qualified, he's going to move to London.

But the instant thing I said to you earlier on then I. He said to. I think I'm gonna have to get an allotment, dad.

Sally Flatman: 00:53:01

Yeah, yeah.

Adam Frost: 00:53:04

But then he followed it by saying, but it's really hard in London. Yeah, yeah, it is. And he said, but you're. But you're like a patron, aren't you, of the society. He cheated. So I said, all right, Andy again now?

Yeah, yeah. Garden's call again. Dad can get you an allotment. But it was lovely. Him and his girlfriend, you know, both 26, she's already down here and.

And they're. They're excited and, you know, and. And so, yeah, you think, boom. And he drifted away. He did what he did and he's now back.

Sally Flatman: 00:53:36

Come back to it.

Adam Frost: 00:53:36

Yeah. You know, my daughter Abs, you know, though, she runs a business. She's. She mad about plants and. And it. And she wasn't.

At one point, it was all about horses and this, that the other. Now it's. At the moment it's dahlias. Oh, what's not to love? Yeah, but, yeah, and they grow. Her and her partner grow food.

And, I mean, he's just trained to be an agromonist, but, yeah, so he's. But, yeah, so I think it's just sharing around you, isn't it?

Sally Flatman: 00:54:06

Yeah. Sharing your passion, basically, for others, that's.

Adam Frost: 00:54:09

All you can do.

Sally Flatman: 00:54:10

I know this is called for the love of plants and gardens, but I think it perhaps misses one thing that both of you are very passionate about, which is soil. And poppy. You have a wonderfully detailed section on compost and composting. And I love.

You say that compost made by you speaks of alchemy, whereas a bag of compost speaks of decay. And, Adam, you end your book. Sorry, spoiler alert here.

But the final sentence is, caring for your soil is the single most important thing you can do to have healthy plants and a beautiful garden. Do you think we haven't been paying enough attention to soil?

Poppy Okotcha: 00:54:50

I don't know if I've been in the game long enough to be able to say that. I think from the minute I entered horticulture, like, soil was just like. I mean, that's part of why I entered. I was like, whoa, soil is so cool.

Adam Frost: 00:55:01

Yeah, Soil that's become cool. You're right.

Poppy Okotcha: 00:55:03

Yeah. And I think that. God, there was actually an exhibition.

Adam Frost: 00:55:07

It was.

Poppy Okotcha: 00:55:07

Yeah. At where? Somerset House.

Sally Flatman: 00:55:11

Yeah.

Poppy Okotcha: 00:55:11

I can hear being whispered. Yeah. And I think, you know, part of that question of how to make gardening something that young people want to get involved in.

I feel like this soil compost thing has been. I mean, I know it really sparked something in me.

I think maybe it's to do with the Fact that it is less pretty and prim, and it's kind of like destruction and, like, dark and gritty, and it can, like, speak that part of youngness that is, like, wanting to, like, smash stuff a bit. I don't know. So I think that there's something grungy there that. That lends itself to, like, cool marketing, which is valuable.

But also, of course, you know, as you say, it's absolutely essential for growing healthy plants. And there's also, you know, the side of it where it can sequester so much carbon and also be an incredible ecosystem of its own. Own.

It's like, you know, there's so much life there. We talk about biodiversity so much above ground, but actually below ground, it's absolutely. There's so much. If it's healthy, there's so much of it.

Sally Flatman: 00:56:12

Your passion in that part of the book is just wonderful. There's virtually compost recipes. It's just fabulous.

Poppy Okotcha: 00:56:17

You go for a swim, you imagine yourself getting really small and putting on goggles and swimming around in a compost seat.

Sally Flatman: 00:56:22

Yeah. It's a lot of detail.

Adam Frost: 00:56:24

Yeah. I always talk about it, like, if you pick up. It's like a Walt Disney movie. It could be a movie, couldn't it?

Sally Flatman: 00:56:31

Yeah.

Adam Frost: 00:56:31

You know, all these little characters, dramas playing out. Yeah, all this, like. All this.

Sally Flatman: 00:56:35

So do you think we lost it for a bit? Do you think we kind of.

Adam Frost: 00:56:37

Massively. We came out. I mean, ultimately, we. You know, we did in farming. Let's be honest. We came out of the war. You know, that's reality. If you look at.

If I look at my sort of nans and granddads, you know, and. And by that time, we'd learned a lot about chemicals and. And it was about.

We had to grow a lot of food, and the easiest way to grow it was to pile all the stuff on top, and we stopped feeding our soils. And we did go in that direction as gardeners, and that's why I think Jeff was definitely trying to draw a line there.

But he would always say his stock reply to everything would be the answers in the soil boy. Boy. Even when I was about 27 ounces in the soil boy. And.

Yeah, but so actually, if you look at some of Jeff's early books, he writes about soil science.

Poppy Okotcha: 00:57:28

Yeah.

Adam Frost: 00:57:29

Wow.

Sally Flatman: 00:57:29

So he was. He was completely.

Adam Frost: 00:57:31

Completely. Yeah. And, you know, and. And it was. It was about mulching, it was about getting in, but it was about understanding what you had to start with.

And that was everything from testing it, getting your hands in it, knowing where you lived in the country, realizing, you know, different parts of your garden behave in different ways. All of that was. Was a huge thing for him. And. Yeah. And ultimately, yeah, if we. If we. We look after ourselves, like you said, there's.

There's a whole world going on underneath. But. But, yeah, I mean, I think sometimes what we do is we. It's a bit like building a house in a way. You know, we.

If you were going to build a house and you saw the price of the footings, you'd think, well, do I really need to stop see, have that much concrete because, you know, you can't see it.

Whereas actually, your house would look lovely for a couple of years and then probably start to lean or fall down, you know, so if you don't invest in the soil, then you're always going to be on the back foot. You're always going to be on the back foot. Yeah.

Sally Flatman: 00:58:31

Yeah. I think people will come away from your book if you want to compost. Poppy does have very good instructions in that book.

He really will read something cool about. There is something. Yeah.

Poppy Okotcha: 00:58:41

One of the slides that was missing from. We couldn't get the pictures to load. But I really love composting, like, household items, often clothing.

And that's like, a really interesting process. I think it also helps us to understand circularity, you know, in terms of sustainability in a really tangible way.

Like, polyester clothes do not decay. Like, you know, it becomes very real.

Sometimes I have, like, socks that I'll put in there, and then all that stuff left is this, like, cobwebby plastic mesh after the cotton part degrades or, you know, the zip of a bag. It's quite a cool experience. It's like my little mini art project.

Sally Flatman: 00:59:20

Just looking at plants for a moment. I know.

When I made the first episode of the podcast, I talked to a friend of mine, Lynne, and she was telling me a story about a peony that she was never allowed to go near. She was never allowed to touch, she was never allowed to pick. And her mum grew in her garden, and her mum had since died.

And Lynne really wanted this peony but didn't know what it was. So I took that clip and I emailed it off to Claire Austin, who's written a book called the Peony.

And she wrote back immediately and said, oh, it's Peonya ficinalis rubruplena. And the reason her mum wouldn't let her go near it was because if you get too close and touch it, all the petals fall off.

And clearly her mom had been waiting for that moment of that penny to bloom and a small five year old go, that would be gone. And so I wondered, you know, Emily now has that plant in her garden and it's a really important plant for her.

I wondered, in your gardens, are there plants that are there for a particular person that remind you of a particular person that are there for that kind of reason? Are there plants that you kind of think that reminds me?

Poppy Okotcha: 01:00:21

There's actually a few plants in my garden, maybe I'll say the strawberries. I've got strawberries. Strawberries that were taken from runners from my late mother in law's garden.

So they feel really, really precious because, you know, she, she used to bring strawberries around to us and she's no longer here. So somehow they feel very connected to her. Yeah, I don't know what variety they are. They're just delicious.

Adam Frost: 01:00:45

Yeah, yeah, I'm the same. There's a few, there's quite a few really. But yeah, if I had to, I sort of. The one, the one plant that I have to grow is the Alicante tomatoes.

Sally Flatman: 01:00:56

Okay.

Adam Frost: 01:00:57

Sad. Is it?

Sally Flatman: 01:00:58

No, not at all. I love it.

Adam Frost: 01:00:59

Literally have to go. Yeah, so that's the first tomato that.

Sally Flatman: 01:01:02

I will grow every single year.

Adam Frost: 01:01:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And strangely I've just got back. I've just started collecting really cacti again.

Sally Flatman: 01:01:10

Have you?

Adam Frost: 01:01:11

I think it's because you're getting older, isn't it?

Sally Flatman: 01:01:13

Well, I, I had a really bad experience with cacti as a very small child. I, I, we were meant to be going to see a film that afternoon and I was in. My grandmother had cacti like yours and I picked one up like this.

Yeah, exactly. I spent the whole afternoon having all of the. And my sister has never forgiven me because we didn't get to go and see the film.

It's Robin Hood, the cartoon.

Adam Frost: 01:01:34

Very education.

Sally Flatman: 01:01:35

I kind of still hold it against them slightly. I really sorry, but I just can't quite let that go.

Adam Frost: 01:01:40

No, no, no, I think they're good. That should teach you something. You just go grabbing things.

Sally Flatman: 01:01:45

No, it did, it did. It taught that lesson very well.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:01:49

Do you save seeds from your tomatoes, the same tomatoes you're growing each year?

Adam Frost: 01:01:55

Weirdly, I don't because I, this sounds really sad now. Like, so what we used to do is so when nangrum. So they, where they worked, it was like say leave Alice.

So they, she used to go and work in the tomato. So it was a big sort of tomato and cucumber area. So A lot of Italian families and Nan would always bring hers back from work.

So I would go down and I would prick things out with her while she was doing a few hours at work. So she even worked in her retirement and then she would take the physicality. So weirdly, I have to go and buy the actual plant and the actual plants.

So once year I go to the.

One of the early shows, I'll go and find someone like Robinsons or, you know, the ladies I know really, really, really well and go and buy the plants off this part of the rich.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:02:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Adam Frost: 01:02:46

So other things I save seeds from all the time. But. But yeah, that particular plant has to. Yeah, yeah, it's part of. I have to go and buy it.

Sally Flatman: 01:02:55

I know you've got a bit of a love of tomato. No, no, no, no. You've got a bit of a love for tomatoes. Do you want to tell us more?

Poppy Okotcha: 01:03:03

Oh, I don't know. Yeah, I could do. I've got a tomato tattoo.

Sally Flatman: 01:03:07

The starting point.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:03:08

Yeah, they were one of the plants that I just like loved growing on the boat roof. And I've got like a kind of collection now of different plants from like, there's Ukrainian purple, which are just like super delicious.

Picked them up from an old lady in Paignton during COVID I think, and I just sowed the seed from them. They're like the most beautiful, like purplish, but they get really plump really quick. They split their skins, but they're so delicious.

And then there's another variety, the. The Santorini Tomatiki or Tomatiki Santorini. I never remember which way around it goes, which.

I was sent the seeds by somebody in the post that I didn't know, but she messaged me on Instagram, was like, my friend gave me these seeds. Can I share some with you? I didn't know what it was going to look like. I was just like, yeah, okay, I'll throw them in.

One day I was a bit bored, so I googled on the computer what they are. Turns out that they're like a protected variety and you're not technically allowed to sell or you, yeah, sell the seeds with that particular name.

Unless they're grown on this particular island with a particular method. And I had them there in my greenhouse and they weren't quite growing as they do on this island. They were like, really?

I mean, enjoying a moist Devon summer, really a lot of foliage, but they're cool because they're a variety that's been bred to be sun dried. So they're not very moist. So I put them in the dehydrator and they have a really brilliant sharp flavour but not tons of moisture.

So I've kind of renamed them to the South Devon to my tiki. And I keep saving seeds. Yeah. So I've got a few different from around the world. Moonglow is another one that is just like delicious.

Really popular in the States.

Sally Flatman: 01:04:46

So tomatoes are my father winner.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:04:49

Yeah. I mean, like, you know, like a genuinely fresh picked. The sunshine tomato is one the of otherwise great.

Adam Frost: 01:04:55

It's like.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:04:56

Yeah. Compared to those cold hard ones from the fridge and supermarkets.

Adam Frost: 01:04:59

Oh.

Sally Flatman: 01:04:59

Which I completely. Yeah. My dad always used to bring up tomatoes, actually to me every single year.

He'd bring the tomato plants and the grow bag and I've got a really small garden with a very shady garden and he'd look at me and he'd go, well, they've got two chances. But maybe actually, Sally, you'll share your garden. Less than two chances. But I am growing some this year, so. Yeah, I think that's right.

Those kind of memories are really important. Important, aren't they? Those kind of people.

Adam Frost: 01:05:24

I go up and have water. Yeah. If I'm watering up there in the. Yeah. I'll have a conversation with. In my head when Nan or something.

If I just need 10 minutes, I'll go up in a greenhouse and. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely.

Sally Flatman: 01:05:37

I wondered. You talk a little bit about just returning for a moment just to kind of the climate change that we talk about.

Adam, you talk in your book about how your grandparents had a very traditional way of the time at which you did things. And that is shifting and changing you, seeing that both as gardeners. But you talk about it a little bit.

Adam Frost: 01:05:54

Yeah. I mean, it's just gone.

I mean, ultimately, even on the Parks Department, you know, we knew what we were doing, you know, January, February, March, April, May. Now. Now, I think as a gardener, you've got to be of, you know, light on your feet in a sense.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:06:09

You've.

Adam Frost: 01:06:10

You've got to learn. And that's why that whole idea of paying attention is, you know, you've got to be reactive.

Not you can plan to a point, but actually in reality, so much of it is being reactive to, you know, the weather, the extremes. You know what? This year's proved it. You know, last year we didn't have a stream. This year, you know, where we are, we're just about.

I think today's the hose pipe ban, you know, and so gardening now is a very, very different thing. And I think that's why paying attention, you know, developing the garden, adding the biodiversity.

I mean, if you look on, you even look at that side of things, if you look on sort of death for lists for pests and diseases, it's now over 2,000. And if you look at our oak trees are under threat, our larches are under threat, looks up into our ashes, you know, so it's around us.

So again it's that, you know, I like that your description of being an assistant. But it's, you know, you have to be an assistant that reacts, not controls.

Sally Flatman: 01:07:15

If that makes sense. What's your kind of feeling?

Poppy Okotcha: 01:07:19

Well, yeah, I mean, I suppose, yeah, mirroring everything that you're saying. And I think that the climate crisis can feel really abstract.

I think to many of us who are living our day to day lives in the office, maybe somewhat disconnected from the seasons and the reality of how life is impacted by weather.

And I think that one of the great values and gifts of gardening is that it connects us to the very tangible reality, you know, what you're just describing, that jeopardizes the security of our food ultimately.

And so I think that something that gardens can do is help to us to understand the absolute, you know, the scale of the problem we're facing and hopefully also a safe haven to process that because that is an intense reality to face.

So yeah, I think that gardens kind of like sort of put it in our face in a way that most of our day to day life, it's easy to shy away from the realities of climate change in this country anyway.

Sally Flatman: 01:08:21

And certainly in your book, I love the fact that you go through each month by month. There's a real feeling of, I really feel that you are very connected to each month as you pass through the seasons.

It feels like it's very important to you to really connect with that.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:08:33

Yeah, for sure.

I think that that's also partly to do with when I was coming into gardening, I was also like wanting to understand because I was coming into it partly as a response to the climate crisis and seeing that the fashion industry was one of like a huge driver of the crisis and wanting to understand a way of relating to land and resources that wasn't, that was kind of post industrial, that didn't have the same sort of tinge of extraction and that was more rooted in a necessary relationship for the longevity of a landscape because the people were dependent on it for survival.

And so through that process of becoming curious of that, I started to like, want to unearth the cosmology or the Worldviews of people who, like, live in that way today or in the past in Northern Europe.

Adam Frost: 01:09:19

Europe.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:09:20

And part of that process was reading about folklores and rituals through the year, things that helped tie people to the kind of reality of the scarcity of some resources, helping people to respect the land.

And a lot of that was, like, seasonal rituals, the wheel of the year, which is actually a neopagan sort of thing, which constructed from all these different fragments of history that people have picked up from the past, the way that people used to celebrate harvests and things like this.

So that weaves through the book throughout because it's kind of like helps me map my place on earth, helps me to understand how I'm connected to everything.

Adam Frost: 01:09:57

Yeah. Makes perfect sense what it does to me.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:09:59

Yeah.

Sally Flatman: 01:10:01

We're going to open up to questions in a moment, and there may be online questions or there may be questions in the audience. So while you have a think for that, I wanted to ask you, what piece of advice would you give to somebody who is new gardening?

Because it can feel a little overwhelming, to be honest. There's so much advice out there. So if you.

If you had someone who was, you know, who's watching perhaps from wherever, and they're thinking, I haven't really had a garden yet, or I'd like to have a garden, what. Where would you start?

Adam Frost: 01:10:28

I suppose if I say to anybody, just treat gardening as one big experiment, because that's all it really is, really.

And give yourself the freedom to experiment and take it the direction that you want to take it in, and you'll learn, you know, you learn as you go along. And. Yeah, you know. Yeah, that's. Yeah, it's one big experiment.

Sally Flatman: 01:10:56

I've noticed the gardeners are not afraid to talk about things they've killed.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:10:59

Yeah.

Sally Flatman: 01:11:01

Have you killed things?

Adam Frost: 01:11:02

Yeah, I kill things all the time. Yeah. It is literally just one big experiment. I think that's. That it's about having a go. It's about getting your hands in the soil.

It's about having a go. It's, you know, it's. It's. There's. And chase. Look for the moments. Don't. Don't try and chase the big picture. Just little bit at a time.

A little bit at a time. And it, like, say it might be that tomato that you grow. It might be a herb on a windowsill that at some point that will suck you in. And then.

And ambiguous. Curious. Be curious because, like you said that that one little Indian.

That's what I wanted to know, what that moment Was that one little Indian conversation was like, bang. Yeah, right, right. I mean, yeah, you know, and mine was. I wrote an article about. It was Nan and granddads. But then I used to work for.

When I worked in the Parks Department, there was an old. My old foreman was called Jim. Yo. Jim was 62, 63 when I was work there, so. But he used to, he used to row Ilfakum lifeboat in his youth.

All right, so this bloke had arms on him bigger than my legs. But he would always come to. He had. His allotment was a joy. He would keep me supplied in fresh crab and lobster because he had a boat all the time.

But he loved herbs, so he would literally supply me with herbs and he would say, take that home, boy, give that a go. And so my little bedside. I had herbs all over and he got me growing standard fuchsias, half standard fuchsias.

So, I mean, to be fair, I've just written in this article, I look back, my mates must have thought, I'm 16 years old, I've got fresh crab and lobster in the fridge. You know, I've got two canaries because Jim bred canaries.

I've got a kitchen full of herbs and really close to the window, little half standard fuchsias. Yeah, exactly.

Sally Flatman: 01:12:50

The image is great.

Adam Frost: 01:12:51

I think the only thing that my mates understood was the picture of Linda Lucardi on the wall. You know, I think that's the only thing my mate's got, you know.

Sally Flatman: 01:13:00

Which was.

Adam Frost: 01:13:00

Yeah, but I. It. He. He would send me home with stuff and, and he would always get me. And that's. I think you, if you're into it, you'll meet.

You'll meet a gym, you'll meet a, you know, an Indian grower. You will meet that person. I think that's what. Yeah. Be curious. Yeah.

Sally Flatman: 01:13:18

Advice from you, Poppy. What would yours be?

Poppy Okotcha: 01:13:19

Yeah, I wanted to say that I love the moments thing because I think that's something that's also so valuable for like just day to day life, like focusing on the moments rather than the end thing. And that's something that gardens are just like wonderful for, isn't it? They show us these things to do in the garden.

You're like, oh, should apply that to day to day.

Adam Frost: 01:13:35

Actually, mind you, to be fair, the psychiatrist has helped me with that.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:13:38

Yeah, okay, exactly.

Adam Frost: 01:13:40

So there you go.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:13:42

But, yeah, I think I would say, yeah, what I was going to say was to find your hook.

So whether that is that you want to be able to feed your family some food or Whether that is medicinal herbs or whether that is beauty, I think it is to find a thing that just makes you excited and don't see gardens and gardening is just like this 2D thing. But I think when you find the thing that is exciting, they become alive and multidimensional and so full of potential and opportunity.

But I think until you find that thing that like, really, I think it can be hard to understand, perhaps. And then I think once you do have that thing. So for me, initially it was food.

I think it's very quickly just easy to start picking up more things, herbs and flowers and.

Sally Flatman: 01:14:30

Yeah, it will grow from that point.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:14:33

Yeah, yeah, I think so. And then again, it's a thing of not being afraid to make mistakes. And I think that that's again, a wonderful medicine for our modern lives.

Of like, yeah, there's compost, the plants die, they come compost.

Adam Frost: 01:14:44

That's fine.

Sally Flatman: 01:14:46

I like that. Have we got any questions that anyone is. Oh, there we go. There's a microphone coming towards you. Hi there.

Speaker F: 01:14:57

So, firstly, funnily enough, actually the only two books I was gifted for my birthday in May were both of you yours. So that's definitely a good sign. As soon as I saw this event.

Adam Frost: 01:15:06

As long as you weren't disappointed.

Speaker F: 01:15:08

I'm certainly not. I'm learning so much from both and they're both absolutely lovely. I love both of your philosophies towards gardening and they couldn't.

The books couldn't have come at a better time for me, which is related to my question and it's kind of linked to what you just spoke to, but with a bit more specificity. So I've just moved to rural Kent into a cottage with a modest but decently sized garden about six weeks ago. Ish.

From previously living in a new build block of flats in southeast London with just a shady balcony, I've now got this lovely sunny garden which is a bit of a blank canvas at the moment. And I feel like this time of year, you know, you were speaking about the different energies at different times of year.

I feel like this time of year is like a real. There's a bit of a rush and it's like before the harvest season and kind of wanting to get things done before the autumn comes in.

And I'm really feeling that energy now that I've just started tackling the garden. I'm like, that's what I've turned my attention to now. But I'm also very aware of this idea of just waiting.

But I'm also super impatient And I want to know what specifically now at this time of year, if I was to just focus on a couple things so that I could by late summer, early autumn have something to enjoy, what would be something good to kind of do now?

Poppy Okotcha: 01:16:38

Potentially, if you want food, maybe dwarf French beans could be nice.

Speaker F: 01:16:43

I actually just planted them yesterday, hopefully.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:16:49

And then just like successions of salady crops. And then you could also be sowing things that you would then harvest through the wintertime.

So hardy vegetables like kales, chard might make it where you are. I think it probably would in Kent. And there's another one, winter purslane, which is like you can't buy in shops and it's just so delicious.

You can sow it outside or undercover and it will self see, seed and become like a really lush ground cover. And then it has really pretty little flowers in the springtime which are also edible. So that's a nice one to sow.

It doesn't like the hot weather at all, but then like to the rushed feeling, I know that so well and like gardening can almost sometimes feel kind of claustrophobic because like the plants and the garden have their own timeline. They're not waiting for you. So like if you want to fight that, it is horrible because you lose.

But you can also just accept it and just be like, okay, well this is a year I'm going to learn something and still move with some pace because we don't want to just sit there and not get anything done. But just with the acceptance that the garden has its own will and you're working with life. Right. It's not like a canvas you're painting.

So you kind of just have to have a degree of acceptance. And that I find helps to free up from that suffocating, like, oh God, I've got to do all the things and the years, the years moving. Yeah.

Hope that's useful.

Adam Frost: 01:18:15

And I, I would say if I go, I'll go ornamentals, because you've covered the. So I, my, I suppose my advice would be, was don't, don't disengage from whatever nurseries you're using as we go through.

Not just now, as we go through the winter, keep going and keep just picking yourself. That gives you a highlight of a month, is a really good way of building.

But I would say that two things really, when you're starting to buy plants now and you're collecting plants, instead of just looking at the flowers, look at leaf shapes, forms, finishes. So every time you go down, you're not just Looking at the flower. Yeah, you're looking.

And so if you're buying a few and you're putting them together, make sure you're constantly playing with different shapes and forms and you'll build a tapestry over the years, you know. But then even because everybody ignores me about the flowers, just make sure that you're buying lots of different shaped flowers, you know.

So now what you should be doing, if you're going down, start to look at what's going to sort of arrive like the asters in September or, you know, whatever it might be, and just start to think about, you know, know, as we go in. Grasses are another good thing, you know, that's going to start to come alive.

But don't necessarily rush to get them in the garden, maybe bring them home, containerize them, just get to know them a bit, you know, a lot of the time I've got a lot of pots on the go, especially with new plants, before I commit them to the garden. So I just learn a little bit about that plant. You know, I always talk about plants as friends.

Some are like old friends, some are like new ones, you know, and, and, and that's how, if you start to think about your plants like that, you get to know them, get to understand them and, and don't rush to put them in the, in their final sort of destination. All right, hope that helps a bit.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:20:07

Thank you so much.

Speaker F: 01:20:08

Yeah, that, that's both, like, really, really helpful and yeah, definitely the flowers are so alluring, but I know I need.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:20:15

To kind of think beyond that because.

Speaker F: 01:20:17

They'Re not to be here for that long again.

Adam Frost: 01:20:19

If you just have that in your head, it's amazing how quick you, you build an incredible tapestry.

The flowers are always, you know, the flowers are there, but they come, they go, you know, treat them as the bonus and then the rest of it happens and you will still have an incredible garden.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:20:35

Yeah, wonderful. Thank you.

Sally Flatman: 01:20:37

I've got a question.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:20:38

Can I just say that it made me think, you said the nurseries you're visiting so often, nurseries now, or garden centres, only display the plants, plants when they're flowering, don't they? Then they just like take them away.

So I suppose part of it would also be finding that there's one near me that is like a small independence that just keeps them all year round.

Adam Frost: 01:20:56

Yeah, I would, I would say if you can find. There's quite a few in Kent, to be fair, you've got some good growers in Kent, so I would. Yeah.

I mean, the garden centers are great and and, you know, they. They do us all a great service as well.

But when you get into your plants as well, that realization that we have got so many great growers in this country and, yeah, they're the places. But even the garden centers, there's some fantastic garden centres. It's just sometimes going and walking past the seasonal specials. Yeah.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:21:26

And going to the sale aisle.

Adam Frost: 01:21:28

Yeah.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:21:28

Well, I recently picked up some everlasting sweet peas, half price.

Adam Frost: 01:21:34

I normally wait till the back end of the year when all the herbaceous stuff's looking really, really rough, go and buy it cheap and then take it home, divide it all and make about three or four pots out of one. There you go. Something else you could look at doing.

Sally Flatman: 01:21:47

That's the top tips for you, isn't it? We've got a question down here on the front as well. I think. This is someone online.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:21:56

Hi, thanks. This is a question from the online audience.

Jacqueline Gray says any ideas or advice for a secondary school teacher trying to build on the brilliant work that primary schools do and get teenagers interested in gardening growing?

Sally Flatman: 01:22:13

Good question.

Adam Frost: 01:22:14

It's a brilliant question and I'm trying to remember his name. He'll kill me now. There's a fella in Norfolk. Oh, dear. We'll have to learn how we share this afterwards. My mind's gone blank.

So I. I met him, to be fair, if somebody goes back and finds a podcast that I did for Garden of Swell magazine, and one of them was about young people and it was the fellow that I met who at the time was part teaching and he was part setting up this little charity thing, he's now totally nightly set this charity up. And in Norfolk, I went and did a thing for him over there and he's literally going into secondary schools.

So he's going into secondary schools and he's setting up garden things and it's really, really working. So I suppose what I would say to somebody is, look around you, look around you. Because I think now as well, there are people doing things. Yes.

So I think, as a secondary school teacher, speak to the RHS Royal Cultural Society, because obviously we were talking about the fact that there is a GCSE or whatever coming online as well.

Sally Flatman: 01:23:25

There's a gcse, I think they've approved. Well, I mean, for March, there will be a GCSE in Natural History History coming down the pipeline. It won't be immediate.

Adam Frost: 01:23:33

The Welsh have now definitely got it. So I. I would say rhs great port call for education and to be fair, community. But just type in Norfolk, Gardner Schools. Something's pound to come up.

It'll come to me. It'll come to me. But I do apologize to ever, you know, I'm tired.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:23:57

That's what I'm gonna say.

Adam Frost: 01:23:58

Have you got anything to add to that?

Poppy Okotcha: 01:24:01

Not majorly. I suppose the one thought would be to find the like, catch, like the purpose for the kids.

Because I think that, you know, teenagers want something substantial that feels, you know, they don't just want pretty flowers. They want like, okay, like, how am I part of this? So I think it's finding that like passion. Yeah.

Sally Flatman: 01:24:22

Do they want compost?

Poppy Okotcha: 01:24:23

Yeah, they might want compost. Yeah.

Sally Flatman: 01:24:25

I'm not joking apart, but that's your thing about.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:24:27

Yeah. You know, if you get to see how the food waste turns into compost and compost produces more food, that's like really cool.

Although I don't know if I would have thought that was cool when I was a kid. There's a bit in the book where I'm ruminating on how like I never would have thought I'd be so excited by like huffing on soil as an adult.

Like, very uncool, but weirdly cool.

Adam Frost: 01:24:50

Apparently. I once had the sort of worst 16 kids out Manchester that I was teaching. I was going around different schools and they were brilliant once.

You gave them like weapons.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:25:00

Yeah.

Adam Frost: 01:25:00

Well, so if you gave them anything. Yeah, you gave them anything and machetes and we were clear pieces. They were like little sort of whirling dervishes.

They were absolutely amazing, you know, so, yeah, I mean, weapons we saw. Great lesson. Yeah. Obviously controlled, but yeah, engaging them really get them stuck in.

Sally Flatman: 01:25:20

There's another question at the back, I think.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:25:26

Thank you very much. It's been so comforting hearing you talk. I'm actually joined by one of my coursemates. We are studying garden design.

So we're kind of maybe career changers.

I think this has a sense of anxiety about having maybe burnout, as I know, Adam, you mentioned when your passion becomes your career, it becomes something you're doing on social media. Because I've run social media accounts before and that can be real burnout territory.

How do you maintain that love, that passion without hitting career? It's all I do. Burnout. Any tips on this career change?

Adam Frost: 01:26:00

I don't think there's many people as stupid as me, really. My burnout came from, from being the 16 year.

I mean, if put it in context, it came from being the 16 year old that, you know, the abused 16 year old that left home, that worked and worked and worked and worked and worked and you know, chased, chased the dream and then had four kids and you know, I knew that. So it wasn't just, just my, my job. I think in a way, weirdly, it's, it's been the re.

Engagement of my, of my connection with this garden that has sort of changed my life again. Do you know what I mean?

So I wouldn't necessarily say that it is going to take you in that direction as long as you just don't let it, you know, I think that's. Do you see what I mean? I think it is a. I look back now and the conversations I've had with, you know, a man that knows more about my head than.

And I had plenty of warnings that it was gonna happen and I just didn't take any notice, you know. And I think it's. I would say the one thing I would say if you're gonna go and be a professional designer is don't ever stop gardening.

And that's what I would say.

You know, I would say that's the most important thing because whatever's going on in your life, if you, you don't stop gardening, you're still going to have the garden to go to. Yeah, yeah. What would you.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:27:32

I think that was really interesting what you said that it's not the, wasn't the combination of passion and work, it was like your personal history. I think. Yeah, I think that that's probably. Yeah, that was a bit of a light bulb moment for me I think.

Yeah, we bring with us our own stuff but yeah, I think that I have learnt to create quite strong boundaries. So because I share a lot of my gardening stuff on social media.

Yeah, that's basically boundaries which as a self employed person can be really hard to. You know, you've not got a boss saying do this, do that. So yeah, finding out where those edges are so that you can still have that feeling of like.

Yeah. Gardening for the pleasure of it rather than just because you have to.

Adam Frost: 01:28:23

Learning to say no early on or put someone in front of you. I. E. I've got a 20 year old, 28 year old daughter that half the time I get somewhere and oh, apparently you, you couldn't make this date.

I didn't even know I was meant to be doing. So. Yeah, I've got somebody that does that stuff now as well.

Sally Flatman: 01:28:43

Well yeah, I think that's a real about. Keep the, keep the passion for the gardening and keep gardening basically keep gardening.

Adam Frost: 01:28:50

Don't stop. You know, if you get to the point where you go, I haven't got time at garden then. Then you're going in the wrong direction.

Sally Flatman: 01:28:55

Yeah, yeah, sure. Warning sign.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:28:57

Yeah, yeah. And holding on to the beauty.

Adam Frost: 01:28:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sally Flatman: 01:29:00

Thank you both. It's been. It's been a real joy to read your books. It really has been a joy to read your books. It's been a real pleasure to talk to you both as well.

And thank you for sharing so much of. I think I find gardeners to be incredibly generous, actually, with what they share.

Adam Frost: 01:29:13

Can I ask you a question? Is your book an audiobook?

Poppy Okotcha: 01:29:16

Yes.

Adam Frost: 01:29:16

Brilliant.

Sally Flatman: 01:29:19

That's good, I think.

Adam Frost: 01:29:20

Two thoughts to leave us and you've read it.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:29:22

I've read it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Adam Frost: 01:29:23

That's brilliant.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:29:25

Yeah. And I read the audiobook. Yes.

Adam Frost: 01:29:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's brilliant. That's how I'm going to enjoy the book.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:29:29

Yeah, nice.

Adam Frost: 01:29:30

Download it. I'm gonna listen to it on my little car journeys.

Sally Flatman: 01:29:33

Love that.

Adam Frost: 01:29:33

Because actually, to be fair, I really love to sitting and listening to you.

Poppy Okotcha: 01:29:36

Yeah, likewise. It's funny because I've seen you on telly, obviously on garden as well, but it's just been such a pleasure to.

You've shared really, in such generous ways.

Adam Frost: 01:29:44

So it's been brilliant. So you will be my company for the next few weeks.

Sally Flatman: 01:29:49

Thank you. Poppy and Adam are going to be signing their books. The two things I take away are be curious and be part of the tapestry.

I think those are really beautiful things to kind of hold to us all. So thank you very much for sharing.

Adam Frost: 01:30:02

Thank you.

Sally Flatman: 01:30:06

I love Adam's advice. Be curious, be curious. Treat gardening as one big experiment and give yourself the freedom to experiment.

And Poppy's advice to find your hook, the thing that makes you excited. It could be tomatoes, it could be compost. And think of plants as friends. Some are old ones and some are new ones for you to get to know.

And if you want to meet some new friends, then There are about 50 episodes of the Our Plant Stories podcast and you can meet dahlias, yuccas, fig trees. There's a long list. And the man in Norfolk, it's Matt Willer.

And the charity is called the Papillon Project, and they create and develop high school allotments. I'll put a link to the charity on my website along with a link to the conversation between Adam and Matt.

Our Plant Stories is an independent podcast presented and produced by me, Sally Flatman.

The website is ourplantstories.com where you can also subscribe to a weekly blog about finding Plant Stories, with special thanks again to the British Library, and specifically to John Fawcett for inviting me to be a part of this conversation.

Adam Frost: 01:31:18

SA.

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