(upbeat music) - Welcome to Avant Gardeners, where we dig deep into the minds of people who inspire us in the garden. - We're Emily and Maddie, two friends with a lot of gardening enthusiasm and very little no-help. - We live on the lands of the M'lucky people in Tasmania's Human Valley, and talk about gardening a lot more than we do. - To perpetuate this issue, we've started a podcast. (upbeat music) - Hello, hey Madeleine, we are at your place. You have whipped out a little, we've gone top shelf, top shelf, so this episode, (laughs) we are drinking a beautiful single malt whiskey by Wab's Harbour. And these guys are on this very amazingly beautiful part of Tasmania and the East Coast, by the water in a place called Bichino. And these guys have just gotten such a great story. So the building that this distillery is in is an old oyster hatchery, which is really cool. I mean, not only is it delicious, but also what I found fascinating about these guys is instead of using power to cool all the distillation equipment, they actually pump water directly from the ocean. Like, this spot is right next to the ocean. You can just like touch the water. - And yeah, so they use the ocean water to cool all of the distillation equipment, which is really amazing. And the other thing that they're famous for is being next to the lobster shack. - And anyone who has been to the East Coast of Tasmania has been to the lobster shack to eat. - In the landmark. - Because it's a perfect word for it. (laughs) I feel like we need a giant lobster or something there. Australia is very famous for its giant. - Is there a giant lobster somewhere? - Ah. - Surely. - There's a lot of giant things. We've got a giant penguin, don't we, and Tazzy? - Giant penguin up north. - No. - There's a giant spud somewhere. - There is. - The giant potato. - Oh, is that the one that got stolen? - Oh. - There was this amazing story about the-- - Oh, no, that's a giant sausage. And it got stolen. Did you ever hear this story again? - What we're talking about is like giant structures. - Huge, huge, huge. - Like Carba has the giant banana. They have it yet, and then Goulburn has the giant ram. - Yes. - Oh, that's probably six stories high or something. Like, it's six or seven stories high. These things are huge, but yeah, there was a giant sausage. I'm pretty sure on the top of some butcher. - G'day, Australia. (laughs) - Somewhere in the country. And it got stolen one night. And then there was this whole big, all the-- - Who hit the sausage. - Who took the sausage. (laughs) - And eventually someone got the guilt and rang in to a radio station, 'cause all the radio stations are talking about it. They rang in, someone anonymously rang in and said where it was, and they'd have banned it somewhere. - You need a trailer or flatbed to-- - This is-- - That a logistic required to get that down. Flutters, two mates. - Crazy. - I know. It was a great story. - So, it's a great sausage log. (laughs) Anyway. - The whiskey is great, though. - The whiskey is delicious. - And I look forward to the future giant lobster. - Mm-hmm. - In the east coast of Tazoo. - My whiskey and lobster. Do they go hand in hand? I don't know. - I don't like the lobster. - I don't think so. - Oh, but I do like whiskey. (laughs) - I love both. (laughs) What have you been up to? - I started a new job earlier in the year, and it was my birthday one month later, and they sort of do a pass the hat round. Everyone puts in a bit of money, and then they'll buy a gift, and they didn't know me very well, but they nailed my birthday present. They got me a voucher to Green Hills Nursery, which I love. It's just, it's under the mountain, under Gunani in Mount Wellington. It's always a storm there. It's like a hailing, or the people who work there just must have the most incredible outdoor gear. The weather is always wild, but the nursery is great. It's where I got all my olive trees, and they have a lot of mature trees, like a lot of big, beautiful ornamentals, lots of, not a eucalyptus and big cherries and everything, but then they also do heaps of fruit trees, but then they'll have natives. And it just really depends on the season. It's just like, now we've got this. They sort of cover all bases. And so I got this voucher. This nursery also does a lot of 20% off weekends. So I waited for a 20% off weekend, and I went recently, and I got two big citrus trees. These are both a bit random, actually. But one is an orange. It's a grafted orange. There's two varieties. Orange is in Tazzy, a very, I'd say, more miss than a hit. And they said previously that if you do get fruit on a tree in Tazzy, it needs to sit there for about 10 months to get your oranges ripe. So you don't want possums to get them in the interim or whatever. - Golly. - But I just love citrus trees. Like, I think they're beautiful. I have, I envisaged these just, you know, in 40 years time, these giant trees, just evergreen. - Yeah. - I just think they're so beautiful and friends of ours. They moved on to a property, and they have huge citrus trees. And they're just spectacular. So even if I never got an orange, that's fine. So I got one orange tree, and I got a grapefruit. Actually, my neighbor. - Oh, right. - Oh, Bill and Kathy who have spoken about for a gin villa. They have a grapefruit on their eastern side. So it's not, it's really protected from the wind, and they get so many grapefruits. They sell them to our local plata. She also is really good with limes. I think this buying these two citrus trees, I'm kind of like trying to get a bit of an insurance policy for my citrus. I'm just planting a bunch all over the place, just to see what works. And I've probably got six citrus now. I just, I love the smell of the blossoms. Apparently, actually, that was something that someone told me recently. You can use the orange blossoms. So even if you don't get the fruit, it's almost just, particularly in the early days, get the blossoms. You can make a syrup out of them. They're so fragrant. - Oh, it smells amazing. - So I've got them in, still in the plots at the moment though. And we've had so much wind, actually. - It has been so many, and citrus hate wind, but they keep blowing over, and then half the soil will tip out. And then, anyway, so I need to give them a bit of love, but I've got these two citrus trees ready to put in the ground. - And you know where you're gonna plant them? - I know where I'm gonna plant one. - Okay. - Actually, I forget how big they grow. I think 'cause I've never had a huge mature citrus tree, but so I have to be very mindful about where I put them in space. I did a big order of seeds recently, and you do a massive order, and then you get them, you're like, "This had it, you know, the tuck is so little." You're like, "Okay, there's a lot of potential here." And I've planted a bunch out. I've got them in sort of trays in the hoop house, so they're staying nice and warm, and they're, oh, I love going out there every day, and you can see, you just notice every day, every single little bit of difference. So, my zucchini seedlings are looking amazing. Coriander's doing really well. My billy buttons are doing really, really well. If they go, they all come to fruition. I'm gonna have so many to give away. If you want some billy buttons in your wings. - Yes, please. - They're so fabulous. Yeah, so just a lot of the seedling love, some tomatoes and chilies are popping up, some capsicum. - Oh, that's exciting. - But then, I feel like I'm actually quite good at this stage, and then I'm very bad at transplanting them, and protecting them from pests, or I'll transplant them too early, 'cause I get too excited, and then they're just not ready to be in the ground, and all my watering system is just not, like, you have to really love them. Like newborns. Yeah, I'm gonna try really, really hard to make these unsweeted. (laughs) The other thing I've been doing, we've got two structures at our place. They were both originally polytunnels. One had plastic around it, and the other one, before we moved in, it got damaged in a storm, so it was just kind of the structure it had, had no plastic. We put netting over it to utilize what was there, utilize the materials. But it's never really worked for me that one, because there's two giant beds in the path in the middle, and it's the exact same dimensions as the polytunnel with the plastic on it, but that one is three beds, with two paths down the middle, and they're much better sizing these. These other ones, the beds are too sort of deep to plant things, to weed, and it's been really doing my head in, and so I've just bitten the bullet, and I've pretty much ripped up everything. I've taken all we had, bricks as the bedboarder, I've taken them away, 'cause they were just like a haven for slugs, and I've put a bed down the middle, and I've transplanted my blueberries there, and then I'm slowly just creating the beds on the outside, putting down heaps of newspaper, putting down mulch, and hopefully they'll have it ready to start planting out soon, but it just feels much more achievable, I think, to manage this space. It's one of those spaces that's just, it's never really worked, and every year I feel like I'd sort of redo it. Hopefully this will be like its permanent setup. - Yeah, I don't know about you, but I find with, when you've got structures like this, and they butt up against grass, it's so hard to manage, it's got planks of wood, kind of as the base of the structure, and I just find a way. - Yeah, I hate the look of it when the grass is just growing up, and it's also bad for slugs, and then also goes to seed, and then that seed turns into, you know, grass in the garden bed, so I don't know whether to just mulch everything. (laughs) - Externally, like do a whole do. - Yes, I'm not sure. Like, what are you gonna do around your new area, the knitted area? - Have you got a grass management system, or it's fine because it's the corrugated laser light stuff? - We'll be able to brush cut right up to the edge on the outside, and then where the raised veggie beds is, there's gravel all inside that, and then where we've got all of our, the rows and rows of fruit trees, that's all grass in between. And I think long-term, perhaps we would make that bark chip parts, but it feels like a massive job at the moment, so we're just leaving it as grass for now, but we haven't had a full summer in there yet with all those beds all made, so, I don't know, it can look quite neat and tidy at certain times of the year, and then other times of the year just looks, you know. I mean, try to embrace the wild a little bit, but also, if my eye much prefers neat and tidy and organized, and I mean, four kids has kind of taught me that I need to let go of that anyway, so I feel like it's been a gradual, letting go of that over 12 years, but my preference would be to have it all neat and tidy, and no longer us. - The other thing I'm prepping for tomato season, and this is something, okay, last year I said I'm gonna trellis my tomatoes, and I didn't, but this year I'm really going to trellis my tomatoes, and you have to keep me accountable then, and I saw Phil Dudman, 'cause there's so many different ways you can make this happen, and Phil Dudman did a great post recently, and what he has done is he's put star pickets in the ground, and then he's put Rio mesh butt high, and then he'll train with a little piece of twine, which he sort of embeds down where the root system of the tomatoes are, and he'll train the tomatoes up, maybe, I don't know, a meter, and then they'll hit that Rio, and it's just like a permanent structure, so I'm gonna try that. I'll share his, the reel on it, 'cause it's really, really useful, and he's actually also done piping, so just plumbing pipe embedded into the ground, it's quite deep, so that's how he waters his tomatoes, so the water gets really, really deep down to the roots. The other thing I'm gonna do this year is, I plant my tomatoes, hegledy, piggledy, like all over the shop, which, I mean, I'm sure there's arguments for and against, but apparently with tomatoes, you'll make just reduce the watering a couple of weeks before they're about to ripen. Tomato's quite like stress. You sort of stress them about out a bit when you plant the seedlings, and they quite like stress when they're about to get their fruit ripe. So, you reduce the watering, it stresses them out, and it puts all the energy into actually ripening the fruit, as opposed to maybe growing more foliage. So, I wonder if reducing that watering, that would be easier if they're all in one spot, then, wouldn't it? - Yeah, and if, otherwise it might impact the other plants you've got around, not sure. Anyway, I'm gonna try that. - My thought this year is that we will do one long garden bed with all the different types of tomatoes. - Right. - We've put in our two passion fruit in the ground, and until they're established, there's a big gap. There's like a two meter gap between those two, and Rio is already there next to it for the passion fruit. So, I was thinking you might put cherry tomatoes in that section so that the kids can just come down and pick them nice, but I haven't sorted out the watering for that, so that's really interesting. Okay, I'll keep that in mind. - I've got a book that I'm gonna recommend. Have you seen this one? - It's called, "No, Growing Vegetables." - It looks great. - It's called "Growing Vegetables South of Australia," which I think this means growing vegetables in Tasmania. And, guys, it's written my main lander. In my mind's eye, I feel like this book was from the '70s, and my mum has had it since then. It's actually not, it was published in 2002. Looks very '70s. - It does. - He looks very '70s. But it's kind of a bit of a bible for Tasmanian growers, because his-- - Tasmania is part of Australia, which can replace his highlight. - It is. Even though we're left off maps, quite a bit. But he has had a lot of experience growing stuff overseas that he moves down to Tasmania. He lives up in Launceston. His neighbour used to be Peter Kundell, who was like-- - Oh, stop it. - The God of Gardening. And, anyway, he goes through the A to Z of Vegetables, how to grow them, but it's textbook-like, and he's very, very much my way of the highway. Okay, he's like, he's so funny. He's like, "I tried mulching once, I'll never do it again." Okay, I advise you not to. It's, he's got this thing called complete organic fertilizer, and he provides a recipe to make this COF, and how much he should spread on per square metre, and his very detailed. - Okay. - I have never gotten following his stuff exactly, but I think it would be a really good guide. Actually, he grows most things directly. - Yeah, right. - Almost everything directly. Tomatoes, he doesn't, and maybe eggplants, he doesn't, but it's just so many different-- - I feel like that's my way of doing things. - Yeah. So-- - I wonder if it's almost like cooking. So when you're learning, you should really follow the recipe, just so that you, I don't know, get it like a deep understanding of one way of doing it, and then you branch out. I don't know, that's never been my style. (laughing) - Bit more ad hoc. But I imagine for some people, it'd be a really great way to learn to be very specific about a particular way of doing it, until you learn enough to be able to kind of branch out. - So, look, if you're in Tazzy, this is a great book. If you're not in Tazzy, also an excellent book, but he's very, just his planting guide is very south of Australia specific. But he goes into things like what types of hose you should use, and what types of tools, and it's really amazing. You should borrow it, if you like. I might leave it with you. - I had a bit of a tragic discovery this week. We are getting to this point in the season where the cows are particularly hungry, and the grass is starting to grow again. We're back on the mower. But there's parts of our property that aren't well-be-proofed, and so it takes ages for that grass to start re-growing because the well-beys usually get to it first. Anyway, so the cows are getting pretty desperate for, you know, I know, slim pickings. - They moved at me the second I got out of my car, which is usually a, "Give me a haze." (laughing) "This is the star we cut you to." So we're hand-feeding them hay at the moment, but we had them in our front paddock, and we had set up a whole electric fence around my beautiful blue gums and blackwoods that I have up the top of the property. And the reason we planted them up there is there's a particularly beautiful spot at the top of the hill that we love to go up of an afternoon and I'd have a little bonfire or have a take a drink up. I want us to take the boogie boards and slide down the hill, you know, all sorts of stuff up there. And it's a really beautiful view, but behind us is the road. And we thought, "Look, why don't we plant out "this bit of a section there "so that it makes it far more private up there?" So we'd put on these beautiful blue gums and blackwoods and they were absolutely thriving, loving life up there. And I'd been tending to them slowly. Anyway, the battery must have gone flat on the electric fence that we'd set up, the temporary electric fence up there. And they had obviously just been testing it over and over and over again. And as soon as it wasn't on, they just pushed straight through and all that growth, like just stripped. And I don't know if David, I think they trampled them. And then the wallabies have just come in and eaten 'cause they've just destroyed the guards that we had around them. And they're just like these little sticks in the ground now. And it was just so devastating to find them. And I think what I'm gonna have to do is just wait and we're just about to hit that really warm part of the year. So it just seems silly to plant stuff now that I'm not gonna be able to get water to. So I think I'm gonna have to wait until next winter and then plant that. And so that's put me back about two years ago. - How many trees got ruined? - About eight. It's been more fun news. My climatist, climatist, climatist. We can never decide how to pronounce that. Normally I keep all the tags for all of my flowers and plants and I've gone through and gone through. I cannot find it. So I'm not sure what I did with it. So I can't even work out which one I think it's the climatist, it's called freckles or something. And floured really beautifully. I thought it was a bit of a goner. Turned out it was thriving, doing beautifully. And then it's now dropped all the petals and all the stamen and like the seed heads have fluffed up in this beautiful, it looks like a little fairy dress. It's amazing. And so it's like, it's got this second new life. And they just look like little fairy dresses, just all hanging upside down. It's just the most, you've just seen all of this thing. And it's right next to my cupboard. So I see it all the time. Just so beautiful. So I'm definitely on board with the climatist vine. So I'm gonna try and get some more in and somehow I feel like I'm tempting fate. But the possums have not absolutely stripped that thing right back to their bones yet. 'Cause my hardenberg, yeah, they just keep absolutely stripping back, which is very frustrating. 'Cause it's such a pretty and hardy plant if it can establish. I just, every time I feel a bit sad about my blue gums, I go and look at my nature. We're in school holidays at the moment. And I did the same. I ordered some beautiful seeds from Veggie and Flour Seed. And again, you're right. You put this massive order in and this tiny little packet arrives. But we bought, one of the things we bought in there was a Chrysanthemum Alaska daisy. And I really want some daisies in the garden. I just want those hardy kind of perennial plants that will just feel some gaps look pretty and not required too much to help. Anyway, I opened up two of the packets divided them up between my two youngest girls. And we did a lot of inverted brackets planting of those seeds. And I think we planted 200 seeds directly into the ground, which is what it said. One millimeter down and just kind of lightly cover it with a bit of soil and we watered. I'm not sure what our germination rate will be, but I feel like out of those 200, if I get 10 little plants from the girls, I'll be pretty happy. But meanwhile, it was just a delightful day yesterday. It was one of the first days it hasn't been hecticly windy. So we just potted around yesterday. It was such a lovely thing to do. The only other thing I've had written on my list on my fridge for so long was indoor plant love. And I finally, yesterday, got around to giving them some fertilizer, some liquid fertilizer. So I'm feeling really good about that. And hopefully, hopefully, hey oldest, will wake up a little bit and feel a bit more loved. When I rocked up to your place tonight, you have the most beautiful bunch of flowers. And in there, there's a white orator. Yes. So gorgeous. That was just from a roadside store. Amazing. $10, beautiful bunch of flowers. It's really gorgeous. This year is the first year I've picked my orator. So I probably got my first one maybe four years ago. And one got completely devastated by, I think it snapped actually. And I've moved them. And anyway, they're in there forever home now. And they are in a spot which gets a lot of shade in winter. One of them in particular is called a shady lady. So loves the shade, but it gets hammered in summer. But it's actually, okay, I don't know, touch wood, it's been fine. But this year, it's just, they're covered in flowers. And because I've got a few different ones, I've got like the local one, like the tilopia, the shady lady, a couple of other ones. They flower at different times. So one has been in bloom for maybe three weeks. Others, I can just see her coming. My white one is probably the last two flower. - Oh, wow. - And I've been picking them and giving them to friends. And they, the redness of them, the white ones are beautiful, but the redness of them, it's like this color that's-- - And this tiny bit of pink in it that makes it. - Yeah, particularly beautiful. 'Cause you were saying you planted some, but-- - I've put three in and none of them took. But I do wonder if maybe they had too much sun. I might have to rethink where I plant some in the future. But I would so love to have some. They're so amazing. But when they, so they flower, and then you get this quick shoot of growth. And I reckon it shoots up 12, 15 centimetres in about a week or two. So it's a really vigorous plant. I need to see if I can like harness these seeds though, and actually plant them out. 'Cause that would be incredible. Really would. So yeah, I'm having a very big war at our moment right now. (laughs) - It's just an incredible structural beauty. (whistling) - Hugh Richards is a permaculturalist, YouTuber and author who has been honing his skills under the watchful eyes of millions of people via his YouTube channel, which he launched when he was just 12 years old. - His first book, "Vege in One Bed", was published in 2019, and he's just released his fourth book, "The Self-Sufficiency Garden" with co-author and chef Sam Cooper. It rocketed to number one on the Sunday Times book list, and details are tried and tested formula to grow six portions of veg each day for four people for the entire year, as well as tips on storage preserving and base recipes. - Hugh lives and gardens in West Wales in the United Kingdom. - Hugh, welcome to Avant Gardeners. - Hello, thank you, I'm excited to chat. - We start our podcast off every time, asking what is your first memory of being in the garden? - It's hard because I grew up in the garden, and it's always been my life. I really can't remember much before the age of 10, but there's like photos of me at the age of three in like this outdoor onesie, just staring at a raised bed. And so, I don't think I have like that first memory because it's literally been a huge part of my whole upbringing. - This sounds like it was very much just your entire childhood. - Yeah, well, I thought, you know, I grew up thinking everyone had a garden and everyone garden. And then I quickly realized in school that I was like the only one that would grow carrots and stuff at home. So it was, yeah, it's quite interesting. - When you're quite young, you're sort of in more like high school. - I think I was just like in denial when I was younger, and then it was kind of when I got to maybe about 11 or 12, I realized just how different gardening is. - And now it's cool again. - Yes. - Exactly, yeah. - Are your parents moved to a property with the aim to become self-sufficient? You're in Wales now, were you born in Wales? - No, I was meant to be born in Wales. My grandfather is Welsh, but my parents had bought this run down farm and it was uninhabitable, which is why I wasn't born because they were doing it up. However, basically there were sheep downstairs, owls upstairs and a tree growing out of the roof. - Wow, that sounds magical. - Oh, it was, you know, all they did, you know, it's no change, it's still the same to this day. - I'd love to get a picture of kind of where you're gardening now 'cause you were gardening on that same site that your parents have developed for the last 12, 13 years. But more recently you moved onto a spot to really hone that sort of self-sufficiency garden skills for the book that you've recently released. Is it an allotment or you've bought this, like where are you gardening? - Yeah, so the self-sufficiency garden only really came about because I had access to this new patch of land. It's seven acres and essentially my colleague and good friend, Sam Cooper, also known as Chef Sam Black, he used to work at this organic whole food shop and cafe and one of his ex colleagues bought this small holding and basically said, we've got a couple of fields too many and we're looking for someone to like start something. So in January, 2022, we had a walk around and they basically said, which field do you want? And I was like, I want that big one with a lovely self-facing aspect. And they're like, okay, and that's kind of, it's a mile inland from the sea. So at the top, it's quite a slope going all the way down but from the top, I can see the sea on one side and then the other side, I can see kind of like the biggest mountain in the area called Pimlimon, which is the source of two rivers, the river seven and the river way. So it's like, I can see from like river to sea, you know? - Amazing. - Incredible. And so this is your first time sort of starting a garden or a property kind of from scratch, right? And the whole name, the whole name with the self-sufficiency garden was to see how much you could get from that garden. And in the first nine months, you got this insane amount, like eight kilos per square meter of growing space and it's like the size of a half tennis court. Where did you start? You had this block of land that you'd picked out what happens next? Like how did you figure out where to begin? - Well, I actually built another garden at my parents house a few years before on this. It was just this blank piece and just created an extra garden and that's where we have a polycrub. And so when I left my parents' place, basically they now have two vegetable gardens from one, it was quite funny. A good thing my dad has now taken partial retirement to the other bit more time. But the land for the first year, it was just a case of having a bit of fun. It was the freedom to just do whatever. And obviously like in permaculture, there's the whole I observed then interact probably the most well-known principle. But for me, I was just like, you know what? 'Cause this is essentially funded through YouTube and through books. I'm not actually, I haven't initially set out the site to be its own viable commercial enterprise. So I was like, you know what? I can kind of skip the observed side, interact and then I can adapt over time and make changes as and where necessary. And I do think that sometimes people spend too much time thinking and trying to find the perfect outcome. And then they enter a stage like paralysis and then they worry too much. This is the right decision. And for me, it's like make quick decisions and be willing to adapt even quicker and respond to change. So yeah, the first year was just trying to go for it, have some fun, which we had lots of fun. And then in 2023, at the end of winter, we then we built the self-sufficiency garden, which is modeled off a half-size allotment plot here in the UK. And that is, so an allotment plot is 250 square meters, which is exactly the size of a doubles tennis court and allotment sizes in the UK are getting smaller. I want it to be relatable. So let's pick a half-size or like half a tennis court. And we built it and it was just a case of thinking, how much food can you actually produce in this kind of scale? That was the main one. And I set this target of 365 kilos, the idea of like a kilo a day 'cause I'd never done a project like this measuring these specific yields in terms of weight, especially in relation to area. I wasn't sure I was gonna hit 365 kilos, but Sam had confidence in me. Fortunately, our publishers, I've managed to make them believe I was capable of doing it. And then we ended up getting just under 600 kilos. So I was pretty happy with that. Wow, that is incredible. That's such a great outcome. How fun as well. It was really fun. I think the hardest part was like weighing everything. And 'cause, you know, like when you have ripe strawberries, they're like speaking to you, they're like, "Eat me, eat me." I'm like, "No, I just need to get my weighing scales first." I did produce more. And I also didn't count the marrows, which I think would have been cheating. Yeah. So, you know, I kept it really fair. In terms of someone who is looking to become self-sufficient in the garden, what are some of the key skills you feel are good to develop right from the beginning? Yeah, I love that question. So for everything, it always comes, like the core to anything in our existence is the soil. So learning how to be like a shepherd of the soil is like the key skill. Like other kind of skills that really jump out to me. One is succession planting. I think that is so, so important. So essentially, as soon as you harvest a crop, you immediately either sow or transplant something else in that space. So especially if you have like a shorter growing season, like my more or less guaranteed frost-free growing window is five months. And so I wanna make sure that I'm maximizing as much as possible and that I know what plants or crops are more hardy. And also, I'm always thinking ahead. So I'm thinking what's going on in four weeks that I can sow now. So they're kind of like semi-mature seedlings to then put out. And so yeah, succession planting is another core skill. The other one is to, it's the idea of like stacking functions. So to actually understand that everything has more than one utility or more than one purpose or benefit. So something like a father bean or a field bean or a broad bean that there's like 10 different functions or benefits that that can offer, including multiple different edible yields. You can have the baby pods, you have the beans, you have the shoots, you have the flowers that are also edible, but then it offers other things such as benefit of pollination, benefit of shade earlier in the season, cover crop, nitrogen fixing. All of these various different things. And so understanding how everything has more than one benefit that you can use is another lovely thing. And then I'd say the final thing actually looks back to the kitchen and it's learning how to cook without following recipes. - Just going with the flavour and what you have, is that what you mean? - I mean like throw away the recipe books because recipe books like you need 500 grams of carrots and this and that. And I'd say 95% of my cooking, there's no recipe book whatsoever. The way that I approach cooking or eating with homegrown foods is like firstly, you've got access to the most tasty produce available because you're picking it at peak rightness or freshness. And one of the things that I love, there's an author and a chef called Dan Barber who wrote a brilliant book called Third Plate. - Amazing book. - And didn't it? This was put forth the idea of a forage first create later. And that's exactly how I approach my garden is. I will go and I'll see what's available, bring it back into the kitchen or usually I love to just cook on the fire. Like that is a life hack, just cooking food on a fire just tastes amazing. But I'll then think, how could I combine these particular things? And I avoid boiling my vegetables to death. I think that's one thing that too many people do, boil, boil, boil, boil. I'm like, no, or even like don't boil but steam or like grill or roast, you know, there's all stir fryers, like favorite things. So I think letting the ingredients speak for themselves works well. And it also means that every single meal that I have, there's something slightly different to it. Not to mention that I'm growing multiple different varieties of the same crops and each variety has their own flavor. And so I could make two of the same things, but it'll taste different just 'cause it's a different variety. - Not to mention how much the food is just better when it's fresh. And I know you're a fan of eating raw corn, which Maddie, Maddie, the best. Yeah, I had never heard about this. - I had one yesterday in fact. That was my, that was part of my lunch yesterday. It tastes like, like childhood. I don't know, there's something just amazing about fresh corn straight off the plant. - I'm determined to grow some just so that I can do this. - I'm looking at some corn now. - Feeling a bit peckish. - It's so good to me. (laughing) - Back to the site you're on. So that's a permaculture site. You've got seven acres, you said that the kitchen garden's taking up 125 square meters. What's the plan for the rest? It's a vineyard, it's being spoken about. - Yes, it's an interesting one because I know that I'm not going to be living there as in my home. - Yeah. - One of the things that I've realized in terms of the maintenance side is that I want it to very much be a perennially dominated site. And I do actually want to utilize a space to have some sort of working micro commercial setup. And one of the things that I've been doing actually this last week is marking out, and I'm doing planting on contour rather than key line just because of the like micro scale of it. I'm not trying to make it work for like tractors and machineries and each row is exactly 20 meters wide or something. But I'm marking out where I'm going to be planting, moving uphill, essentially a cider orchard with under plantings of like soft fruits and perennial vegetables, which will be quite fun. But it'll be linear based. So it's like linear orchard. Similar slightly to the permaculture orchard in Quebec. But I'm not going, I'm a little bit dubious about the whole like nitrogen fixing trees and stuff. I don't, I think that it's quite a bit of a gray area in terms of the actual benefits and the science behind that. I'd rather just focus more on chop and drop and building fertility that way and cover crops instead. Because yeah, that just makes more sense. But I'm playing around with it being very experimental because that's really important to me. I'm very curious. Like all of my gardening is driven by curiosity. I love the saying curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back. And so one of the systems that I'm toying with the idea of doing is trying to integrate some kind of hybrid model between the orchard and vineyards and how that might look with growing apples and grapes within the same system. And then also integrating poultry with that as well. So yeah, I think that's going to be, that's going to be fun. - Is most of it function or is the aesthetics of that also important for you? - Oh, aesthetics is so important. I've been growing lots of flowers this year. I've been having great fun. I've got into, got into dahlias mainly because I heard like, oh, you can actually daily a tubers. And they're some like, some actually taste pretty cool. Like like a spice carrot. But the flowers are stunning. And I think it's so, I think some people, and this was me back in the day. I was like, why would you grow flowers? Like a kitchen garden is beautiful in itself. Something like a runner bean here in the UK is brought over as an ornamental plant. And it was only quite a few years later that they realized you could eat the beans. By the way, if you grow runner beans, eat the flowers. They taste amazing. The flowers like this really lovely, refreshing bean taste to them. So, so that's quite funny. - Do you put it through a salad or something? - Yeah, you can. Well, I just pick and eat, you know. For me, aesthetic is really important. And I do like that naturalistic design in it. Part of the reason why I've chosen to plant on contour is because it's actually capturing all those undulations of the land. And it all overhead, it will look like, like the fingerprint of the land. And I feel it'll, it'll be quite a nice feel to it. - You are a visual gardener and it sounds like you've become more so over the years. What are some of your favorite impact plants? - Oh, yes. So, amaranth, absolutely. Amaranth is just like, there's some fantastic varieties out there. One of the most popular one is called Love Lies Bleeding, where it has like these big essentially cascading flowers. You can eat the, the young leaves of amaranth, another impact plant that I love. It's actually quite funny because some of these plants I mentioned, like tree spinach, I can't, it's something Gigantam is the Latin name, but it's related to goose foot. It's very, very closely related to goose foot. And that grows to two meters high and the leaves are so tasty, but each tip has a stunning like magenta color and it sparkles as well. There's this iridescent dust on it and it cell seeds everywhere, which for me is great. I don't mind. Now, the funny thing that I've noticed because I have a global audience is that apparently all of the things that I like to grow that like impact plants are invasive species in America. But to be honest, I grew this tree spinach a couple of years ago in a polytunnel and it went everywhere. I just used a hoe and it basically got rid of it all this. In terms of impact plants, you also want to think about height or, and that's a big one, not just color. And one of the things that I'm growing this year, it's known as a perennial nasturtium, or mashua, which is a tuber. And that, I've had a lot of fun with that, planting it in different ways because it both cascades and climbs and it climbs really high. And then in autumn, it provides these beautiful little orange flowers and you can eat the leaves, you can eat the flowers, I believe you can eat the flowers, but you can also eat the tuber. And so I think that's going to be quite fun. - You were just talking about invasive species and how things somewhere are really enjoyed and other places are considered weeds. How do you deal with weeds where you are? Are you pretty on top of those? - Every plant is useful. I understand it, but if you're trying to grow something and you've got dandelions and thistles growing, if you want to eat a thistle leaf, that's fine. You might as well just be eating bolted lettuce 'cause it just tastes the exact same. I don't weed my garden. I see it as harvesting nutrients when I'm pulling out the weeds 'cause they're just nutrients at the end of the day. And I stick them on the compost or if they've gone to seed, I will make like a liquid feed out of those and then I'll strain it. Sometimes I'll go into my worm compost. Sometimes I'll do a hot compost as well. But this is actually an important note. I don't mind 'cause sometimes I might pick something that's quite perishable and it's edible foods, but I actually have no means of giving it away to someone or something. I actually just don't blink when I put edible food on the compost bin. And I know a lot of people are like, "Oh, you're kind of eaten that." I'm like, "Well, okay, you eat five kilos of lettuce then." To me, all it is is it's just an expression of nutrients and there is no waste in nature. A waste is a human construct. For me, putting it in the compost bin, I'm recycling it and it's probably gonna be next year's tomatoes anyway. Yeah, I'm really fascinated about being self-sufficient with compost and I've been so stingy. I think I've never actually bought compost onto this property and that's probably why my soil's not very good. But I just want to have an abundance of compost and you've gotten with this new property about 90% self-sufficient with compost, which is pretty amazing. Yeah, basically all of the beds in the kitchen garden were much this year from the compost made last year. So. But how are you getting those sort of volumes? So what are your tips? You've got to look at what's local to you. So like for me, I have beaches and that means seaweed. So that's one thing. There's also lots of horsey people about and horses. It's just about like with horse manure, you do have to be a little bit careful about sourcing, but there's there's some great source that I can just go and collect bags and vegetable scraps. What is it that you're worried about with the sourcing? Is it what's in the manure, the seeds? No, it's a broadly fungicide. I mean, a purolids, which then if that gets in, it will affect your crops for a good couple of years. You can mitigate it through like improving the biology and stuff, but essentially like all of your broadleaf crops just end up like all the leaves curl up. Is there a way of knowing how to source good manure? Yes, if you don't know what you then end up doing is you'll take some of that and you might mix it with soil or something in a pot and you'll just plant some fava beans in it and you just observe how they grow over a few months and then that'll tell you if it has or not. I'm just always nervous buying stuff on the side of the road, but it's always good to be cautious. Sometimes it's just worth a conversation. And I think there's a lot of people that do actually know or they can at least say where they source things from and you can always follow things back. But for me, there were two things that grow really well in whales and that is grass and trees. And so for me, like composting grass and composting wood chip, that's what I'm really building up production on site for that compost cell sufficiency and then running everything through a chicken composting setup as well. That's just brilliant. - You'd feel like we can fairly say, deeply obsessed with veggies and the flavour. - Yes. - From your veggies. You started pretty young with all this. Did you, even though you were spending all that time in the garden, did you go through a bit of a picky stage with your vegetables as a young kid? - No, never. - Because we both have this theory about that. If you're in amongst the food that you're just going to, if you're seeing it grow as a child, of course you're going to eat it. - Yeah, I agree. I'm actually fussy now. I don't like vegetables. I just pretend that I'm kidding, I'm kidding. - You're just a carnivore. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I just think that the way that I grew up, I just tried those different things and there was one point where I just hated raw courgettes or raw zucchini and I'm like, you know, that's understandable. It's not like the best thing in the world and you can always cook it and then it's nice. So I'm so, look, I have no dietary requirements. I have no allergies. I'm like, so easy to look after. - Good food. Just lots of flavour, please. But do you eat meat as well? - Yeah, absolutely, yeah. - I didn't know if you were a bedroom or not, that's all. - Huh, basically it's an interesting topic. I've posted a couple of like little things on Instagram stories just like I'm making a barbecue and there's obviously a tomahawk steak in the background here in Wales. The most sustainable thing that grows is grass and trees and what is the best way to turn that into bioavailable nutrients. It's actually through the process of rumin and tanimals. And so like for me, I think, and I do think it's context based on geographical reasons, but to me, a food system where I am is actually based off grass and trees first, how the animals link in and then using things like the animal manure to then grow the vegetables. - Yeah, completely agree. 'Cause we both have cows at our place and we process them and process them. - Yeah. - Yeah, my parents used to have decksters, which like, they're gorgeous. - Yeah, they're really cute. But sadly, because of this is like back in the day and then like different TV issues, like we didn't get any issues, but essentially meant we had to like invest in all this equipment and like a cattle crush and stuff and for like testing and veterinary stuff. It just wasn't suitable for the small scale that we were at. But it's something I want to do in the future. Like my dream is kind of edible landscape design and my dream would be to one day get a farm or be able to manage a farm and it's essentially a blank canvas and to build such a lovely like patchwork quilt design into it. That's what I'm, that's all I think about really. - Oh, sweetie headed, that's a beautiful dream. Now, hot beds, I know nothing about them until I saw them on your Instagram. Can you tell me what they are and how I can use them? - Yeah, I came across hot beds, firstly visiting a hotel called Ascom Hall in the Lake District in England. And that's how they were getting their like early crops. And I was just like, this is really cool. They then mentioned about this guy that they had learned from a guy called Jack first. And turns out he's actually in North Wales. So I got in touch with him and went and visited and learned from him and he has a hot bed book. And essentially it's an ancient technique of growing out of season crops by utilizing the heat of decomposition. There was no artificial light needed. It's amazing like in winter solstice, Jack had like sewn, he created a new hot bed and he had sewn various different things like lettuce and radish and stuff. And he was harvesting these in late January and February timers in like late winter, early spring when when people like things don't grow over winter, but they were growing and I've tested out myself and it's blown me away quite a bit with that. But yeah, all you do is you create essentially a bit like a hot compost bin, but you press down the layers a little bit more. So, and it's like roughly 50, 50 greens and browns. And around a meter tall will probably give you consistent ambient heat for around three months. And then you just put like a layer of compost or top soil compost mix on top and a cold frame on top of that. And then you sew inside it and you've got a completely frost free growing environment. I had it was something ridiculous where I had sewn some turnips and by the next day, the seedlings had already emerged. - Wow. - And I don't even get that kind of results with heated propagators. I don't know what it is about hotbeds, but they are incredible. - That's amazing. - Are yours in brick beds, is that right? - No, I use, you can use like, you can like string together some pallets. I use fencing panels and it's important to breathe for the material to actually breathe. If you're in a very cold climate, then what you do is you put straw bales as your walls essentially and then build the hotbed inside. And also you can build it in a dip as well with straw bales around. But yeah, it's an ancient technique that is quite revolutionary. - Wow. You don't want to try that. - Like so many of them are there, right? All the good things come from way back. The ancient Greeks or whatever. - Exactly. - We think we're clever. We're really not. You want some of your best tips for getting through the hungry gap or hungry patch. What do you grow for that? - Get a hotbed, I think. - Yeah, I feel like we might've answered that question. - Well, that is one thing. The other thing that's important to me is growing as much winter squash as possible and the type of squash like the hubbards and the jumbo pink banana squash and these certain varieties that last six months up to 12 months in storage. So squash is quite a staple. Another one for me is choosing specific varieties that come into their own or can like lengthen. So one thing that I really like is I love leeks and there's a certain variety of leek called bandit which bolts much later than the other ones. So it runs to seed much later. And so I can actually be enjoying leeks throughout the hungry gap up until like the last month or so. And then I can just quickly process them but a leek stays in the fridge for at least six weeks, very happily. And so it's looking at that and particular tubers and onions. I just store my onions strong up in a polytunnel a lot of the time and yeah, help myself to that. Like the easiest thing is leafy greens and it's almost like too many leafy greens but another staple for me is purple sprouting broccoli. That's really, no, that's a nice one to have. - I feel like squash got a really bad wrap when I was a kid. Everyone just boiled it or whatever. And I don't-- - It's couldn't have boiled it. - I've never, I've never. - Yeah, but I think you never really see it in the shops and I don't know that many people who grow it. - What's, if I was to go and plant some squash tomorrow, what's your favourite way to cook it? Like how do you cook squash to make it yum? - So the most like caveman style, which is my style, is you light a fire and you wait until there's some embers and you place the squash on the embers and you turn it around and cook it for like 40 minutes up to an hour where the hole outside is black. You then cut it in half, scoop out the seeds, scoop out the perfectly cooked flesh and yeah, that's very easy. I'm delicious. - Yeah. - Like squash mash. - With a bit of butter. - Always. - By the fire. - That can be your next book, A Bit of Butter. - Yes. Just a bit. - As we've covered, you're super focused on like self-sufficiency and getting the most production out of all your garden beds. Yet it doesn't come at a cost of the visual impact of what you do. So I'm wondering if one of the few things that you would do and you wouldn't do in a garden for beauty's sake. Like is there a something that, yeah, is that question makes sense? - Yeah, well, I'm going to try and answer it in the way that I've interpreted it. I like letting parsnip. I'll leave a couple of parsnips back. I'll leave a couple of leeks back and stuff to flower because their flowers are stunning but they're also fantastic for beneficial insects. So a parsnip flower, you have that like unbellifous flower which we all know is amazing for beneficial insects. Something like a leek flower, it's an allium flower, it's big, bold, it is purple. There are many edible ways of using it as well. I remember once though I counted something like 10 bumblebees on a single leek flower and a couple of butterflies as well. Like they are adored at the moment I've actually left some carrots back and they've gone to flower as well. So I'm actually letting some of my crops leaving them in and letting them go through their cycle because it adds, again, more structure. Leek flowers are really tall, sometimes they're taller than me or the stalks are and the parsnip's big. And then with the parsnip, after it had finished flowering, I let it set seed because it looked quite a nice structure even though it is brown that worked quite well in the garden. And the thing that I would say is, don't fall garden to look aesthetic. It depends what kind of like aesthetic you like. It might be like really neat straight rows and stuff but for me, I want color and I want diversity. And so what I would say is don't do things like crop rotation where you're just putting everything into blocks. Like crop rotation is just dynamic monoculture. You're just growing the same thing altogether but just changing its location each year. To me, it's still a bit of an invitation for all of the pests to go, ah, here are all the legumes or the diseases to go, great, I'm powdery mildew and all of the squash is concentrated in this one space. You want to like spread it out. And what I do is whenever I get gaps appear during the growing season, I'll just plant something else in. There's not just polyculture in terms of growing different things together. There's also like visual polyculture. So I'm thinking about textures. So I might have like a really like lovely kind of feathery fennel flower and then think what is like a good contrast to that? So like a cavaliero kale. So like thinking about the textural contrast, not just color as well. Realizing that when it comes to it and planting in a polyculture, there's only really two main considerations you need to make. How big is that plant going to get that I'm putting in that space? And what's its life cycle? When is it going to be ready? And how does that work in relation to what's already in the ground? And that's all you really need to think about. As soon as you realize that, you realize how freeing it is. And as well, if you don't like something, you can just pull it out and put something else in it. There's just a carrot. - Put it in the compost. - Yeah. - Move those nutrients on. - Just a carrot. - You obviously enjoy spending time outside, but you take note and you notice things that are outside. And one of the things that I've heard you talk about before is trying to bring parts of your day, parts of your life outside. Can you talk to us a bit more about that? - Yeah, but I probably, probably what you're trying to say is when I mean about almost stacking the functions of a garden more than just growing foods, because there's that like ancient proverb of the best fertilizer as a garden or shadow. So it's like the more time that you can spend out in the garden, the better it's kind of going to be. And I think it's so important, like if you want to create a little, if you love reading books, then you create like a little spot for reading under like a rose arch way or something. Or for me, having a barbecue in the garden is just fantastic. So creating some kind of like outdoor kitchen area or you might want a pizza oven or something. Or like for me as well with a polytunnel is like, okay, yes, it's a little bit cool in winter, but at least it's out of the wind and it's sheltered. And I can just wrap it warm, take some hot chocolate and you know, I can sort out all my seeds and stuff. And it could also like, the other thing is, I've got nothing again, if people want a bit of lawn space, I've got nothing against that because I think it's important to remember like recreation and stuff and just to have a space like sit down and have a picnic if we want to. Also lawn clippings are actually a really useful mulch. And the other thing is, if you want to play some badminton or something, then you know, you can set up, that's what I love doing with my dads. There's a bit of lawn and there's always a badminton net up. So whenever I visit, we have a little game. Even when it's windy, which I think is actually even more fun. (laughing) - That is so charming and so UK, very UK, but I just like the idea of just spending time outside and not having to be functional time that is designated as I'm going to do some gardening, but, and you often end up gardening when you're out there anyway. - Yeah, you see, oh, what's that? What's that weed doing there? (laughing) But again, it's like, I think people are very like quick to see something and jump to conclusions. And it's like life is in the gray, not in the black and the white. And, and I think that the most important thing to realize is actually, what do you want to get out from the garden? Regardless what you see on like gardenist world or YouTube or something. It's like, what do you want? It's your garden, you make the decision. And I think people feel pressure to do particular things, or like particular growing styles. And I'm just like, for me, the most important thing is if you can go out and enjoy yourself in the garden, then that's it really. - I have a following question from the grass clippings too. How do you use it as mulch? Do you just pop it directly on as mulch or do you mix it in with something? - No, I'll pop it directly as mulch, but I'll keep it quite thin, an inch or two to three centimeters. I've mulched almost, I think almost everything I've grown at some point over the years, I've mulched with grass clippings and I've never gone. Oops, shouldn't have done that. Even with slugs, but usually I will mulch with grass clippings during the summer months when there's less rainfall and there's also less slug activity. - It's a much longer walk to my compost. So if I can get rid of the grass clippings on the way in the garden. - Oh yeah, totally, yeah, yeah. The site being a field as it started out and there's like big patches of grass. One of the things that I did at the start of this year at the end of winter was I planted loads of like soft boundaries. So like loads of rows of autumn raspberries, rows of agrassa, because I realized that I'm going to be cutting this grass anyway. So all of the grass clippings, instead of like taking them off to the compost, I can just rake them into the rows of plants and soft fruit that are growing just to like, you know, make the most of the fertility being there in place. - We finished off with some fast five, for the fast five questions. So Hugh, I wanted to know if you were a plant, what would you be and why? - A thistle. - And why? - I mean, because it's spiky and it's like, you know, it comes off. This is my patch of ground. (laughs) - And I will improve the soil here for you. - Yes. And I will produce beautiful flowers. - Is there a part of your property that you most enjoy spending time on? - Definitely by the campfire. It's in the middle of the site. And so I've got herbs and fruits and everything all around. And I just, I could sit by a fire and just watch it for hours and hours and hours. - Magical. Your dad is one of your biggest inspirations. What's one of the best tips that he's ever given you? - For me, one of the things that I still do it to this day is, and I don't really see this often, but it's the idea of like raising seedlings, but like brassica seedlings and leek seedlings, almost as like bare roots. So you can, you sow them in rows, and then you lift them, and then you separate the roots in water, and then you create the transport holes, and then you plant them in. And okay, for the first couple of days, the plant's like, "Oh, what's just happening to me?" But in terms of minimizing propagation space, I can do it outside. I don't need to bring in compost for it. Yeah, it's a really simple, effective way of producing a lot of healthy seedlings for very, very little effort, and I love that. So you direct sow it in the garden bed, and then pull them out and replant. - Direct sow it in rows, and then move out to the final planting position. It's like a nursery bed. - What proportion of your time in the garden is doing photography and videoing? And do you think this adds or detracts from your enjoyment of the garden? - Well, firstly, I'll answer it backwards. It definitely adds to the enjoyment of my garden, because I love photography and videos. I just love being able to take photos, and I feel like because of that, it makes me spend more time in the garden. But I would also say that it very much differs. Sometimes I go to the garden and then I might only take two or three photos over a day. Other times I might go and I might just be taking videos. No day is the same. And so it really depends about what projects I'm working on and the week and the weather. I just love cameras. - So amazing to have it all documented as well, that must be so special. Even the things like recently you did a, must have been a drone footage of four weeks between in the gardens, and that was crazy. It was a bird's eye footage of your garden in maybe July, and then one four weeks later, and it was almost unrecognizable, just the growth. And it must just feel so validating. - Yeah, and show how powerful nature is. And I did have, I tripled checked it, and even looked at the original file metadata, just to make sure it was. Because I was like-- - And hacked yourselves. - Because when you go to the garden each day, it's amazing this year. I do feel like I can see the growth almost daily. But when you see it over like four weeks, the compounding of that is mind-blowing. - Yes, so cool, yeah. All right, final question for us here. Can you finish this sentence? For me, gardening is. - An escape from the busy world. - Mm. - I'll tell you one thing that's lovely, right? I drive some people nuts, like my colleagues, but the garden has no phone signal. - Ah, that's magic. - Oh, I know, so I, it is. I'm just like completely cut off. - That's the dream. - Like of course, I could also like an alternative to be leaving my phone at home. But I'm just saying like the fact that it's just so easy. And there's no like, oh, you know, that's good. - What a great little spot. How long do you think you'll be like gardening on that property? - I think I'll always be connected there. I think essentially it'll turn into a side of vineyards kind of like set up small farm that runs by itself. - To plant an apple tree means that you're gonna be invested for more than a couple of years. - Yeah, like with, isn't it pears? Is it a plant pears for your ears? - Oh, that's funny. Yeah, yeah. I like that. - Thank you so much, you. I love this cut chat. Yeah, we really appreciate your time. - Thank you. Yeah, it was, it was a lot of fun. (upbeat music) - Thank you for listening to Avant Gardeners. We would absolutely love it if you could rate, review and subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening. You can also find us on Instagram at avantgardeners.podcast. And if you have any questions or suggestions, just send us a DM. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]
