Taken from Lynne’s weekly column ‘Green Scene’ for the Western Mail
19th March 2022
Young Perennial
I first interviewed Huw Richards at Chelsea Flower Show. He endeared himself to me straight away by saying, “I’ve heard you on Radio Wales and I like your attitude to gardening. You encourage people to have a go.”
Praise indeed from the young Welsh gardener who was ‘cultivating’ a real name for himself on YouTube with his own no-nonsense approach to growing your own vegetables.
Huw Richards began growing food on his family’s smallholding in mid-west Wales at the age of three. He uploaded his first gardening video to YouTube when he was twelve, and at the still-tender age of 23 has surpassed 30 million views online
Huw now runs one of the biggest YouTube vegetable gardening channels in the world and has done a lot to prove that gardening is not just for the older generation.
Whilst still studying for his A levels, he had more than 300 videos online on topics ranging from ‘Seven cheap ways to add nutrients to your soil‘ to ‘How to prune blackcurrant bushes‘. Not only has his video library grown, but he has branched out into writing books too.
I have just read his latest – The Vegetable Grower’s Handbook – and am mightily impressed with it. It is so much more than ‘How to grow your own veggies’ – I love the nod to the psychology and motivational aspects. The chapter Skills for Efficiency includes two 5-minute fixes – strategies for dealing with overload. It’s genius. I have always said that there is a chasm between all the information about what to do and how to do it but not enough written about how actually to get started. It can be a really daunting journey for people who weren’t brought up wielding a spade or eating soil during their childhood.
I love the 5-minute challenge. Basically, go and start that task you are procrastinating about, and if after 5 minutes you haven’t got engaged with it, then go and do something else, but the chances are once you’ve made that start you’ll keep going. And if you don’t, at least you’re now 5 minutes into it. It’s a great strategy for life.
He emphasises the importance of taking time to actually look and evaluate the space you have and what you want from it. Make notes. Lots of notes.
You can learn a lot from his own experiments – like growing runner beans up the cage work of an IBC water tank, which in turn also offers them protection from strong winds. And even getting an IBC water tank in the first place. They say ‘A wise man learns from mistakes’ but I have always thought that a wise woman learns from other peoples!
There’s a great section in the book debunking the mystery of composting and even how you can get your chickens to help you make and ‘turn’ it. He has that wonderful Welsh way of ‘finding a way’ by being practical and creative.
And, very cleverly, the photos are equally as motivating, creative and inspiring. I was only about half an hour into the book before putting it down to go and ‘upcycle’ my own pallet compost heap.
Huw describes The Master Growing Chart as ‘the most valuable resource I have created for my garden’ and it’s easy to see why. You simply use his list as a template and adapt the sowing, growing and harvesting windows to suit your own conditions and preferences. Whether you are a new gardener or if you have sap running through your veins, there will be something in Huw’s book that will benefit your own plot and perspective and it will make great reading before you get sowing this season.
Birthday Presence
Thank you for all the wonderful birthday messages yesterday. I managed to put work in the ‘chuck it bucket’ (adapted for this column) for a day and enjoy a day at the beach with Yogi topping up our vitamin Sea. I love the saying that ‘Birthdays are just feathers in the broad wing of time,’ included in one card, and equally good timing was an article sent to me by a friend about women over the age of 50 now being referred to as Queen-agers, and written by the very astute Eleanor Mills. You can read it at www.noon.org.uk – a new platform for women in midlife.
Referring to ‘mid-life’ women rediscovering their strength and a renewed vigour, combined with a healthy dollop of not sweating the small stuff any longer, it explains that as they have undoubtedly got through deaths, divorce and the menopause, only a fool would ever ignore the midlife woman.
As the old saying goes, “Age and wisdom will always outsmart youth and exuberance”. And at the rather splendid age of 55, I concur.
Spring Equinox
Although meteorological spring was the 1st March, this year the March equinox happens on Sunday 20, (tomorrow) and that marks the start of the ‘proper’ spring season for us gardeners. And then the clocks go forward next weekend, (27th) giving us that much anticipated extra hour of daylight at the end of the day.
Good job too. As a friend said, “This is no longer winter, it is harassment!”
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