The Cut Flower Podcast

The No-Dig Gardening Journey with Jamie Walton 🌿

• Roz Chandler / Jamie Walton • Season 1 • Episode 114

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Text Agony Aunt Roz with your Cutflower Questions.

Welcome to The Cutflower Podcast!

I'm Roz Chandler, and today, I'm delighted to welcome Jamie Walton. Jamie is an award-winning gardener known for his expertise in no-dig gardening, permaculture, and wild edibles. With over 1.5 million followers on social media, he shares practical growing tips and insights into sustainable gardening.

In this episode, Jamie shares his fascinating journey, from barbering and fine art to becoming a head grower at an estate in Sands End. He talks about the challenges of setting up an organic kitchen garden in a tough coastal environment and how a simple social media post catapulted him into the spotlight. Jamie also reveals his latest venture: launching a community food-growing project to support low-income families and food banks.

Join us as we explore his passion for sustainability, his new book Nettles and Petals, and the exciting app he's helping to develop for gardeners worldwide!

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

🌱 How Jamie transitioned from barbaring to gardening
🌊 The challenges of creating a no-dig garden on a steep coastal hill
📱 How social media transformed his career
📖 The inspiration behind his new book, Nettles and Petals
🍏 His mission to provide fresh food to low-income communities
🌼 The crossover between growing flowers and food

Resources & Links:

🔗 Follow Jamie Walton on Instagram: @nettlesandpetals
📖 Pre-order Jamie’s book Nettles and Petals: [Link coming soon]
🌿 Learn more about no-dig gardening: Charles Dowding’s website

Join the Conversation!

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with fellow gardening enthusiasts. Your support helps us bring more inspiring stories to the podcast.

📸 Tag us on Instagram: @thecutflowerpodcast

Happy growing,
Roz Chandler


Roz Chandler: [00:00:00] I'm so delighted to welcome Jamie Walton to our podcast today. Jamie was the head gardener of Wraithwaite, Sunset, near Sand's End, near Whitby. When I first met him, Jamie has an interesting background and has recently won a prestigious award at the Garden Guild Media Awards, which we both attended.

He has a huge following on Instagram and is known for all his advice and hints and tips on gardening, so do go and give him a follow. Nettles and Petals describes him as an organic no dig gardener, following permaculture principles and an advocate for foraging and working with wild edibles. Jamie, please tell our listeners a little bit about you, your journey obviously I picked you up as Nettles and Petals when you were working as head gardener in Whitby or near Whitby.

What, now? Where did you, where did that all start? What's the dream? Where, tell our listeners all about you. 

Jamie Walton: All about me. Where to start my, journey into gardening, would you like to? Yeah. Yeah. [00:01:00] Cause I, I didn't have a garden growing up or anything like that.

And I didn't study horticulture at school. It wasn't an option. So I had very limited access to, to, to a garden until I was an adult basically. So I suppose you don't really know that you like something or that you have a passion for something or, until, unless you have the opportunity to try it, so, it wasn't until kind of I was an adult when I sowed my first seed, to be honest. 

Roz Chandler: Yeah, me too, by the way. 

Jamie Walton: Yeah It wasn't the the traditional kind of route and often people I, I speak to who've had maybe grandparents who've Been avid gardeners and they've done the same and things and followed suit and that's really not been my process I left school and studied business because I had no real idea what I wanted to do And I soon found out that wasn't what I wanted to do after a few years and and just had a call to do something more creative.

[00:02:00] So that initially took the form of barbering. One of my friends had a barber shop, and and yeah, I did that for maybe, two or three years, but I used to have back problems because of that. Jokes, I'm quite tall. So I and I was also, doing a lot of art, painting and things in the background.

Cause that was something, a hobby of mine. And so I decided to do a course, it's a foundational course that could allow you to go on to do, to study at uni if you wanted to. Cause again, art wasn't something I really studied at school. So I ended up studying fine art and and whilst I was there, I collaborated with a garden designer on a garden design for an RHS Show.

yeah which was fun. And that was the kind of the first time I'd ever been to one of the shows. Cause obviously I I wasn't in this kind of. Circles, I hadn't, yeah, I'd never been to one. So yeah it was a bit of an eye opener. I saw all sorts of different plants, [00:03:00] different garden designs, and it was yeah, I suppose that's where I first caught the bug, maybe.

Do you know, I just thought, wow this is, awesome. And so I started studying, just reading books, doing a few online courses and things. And a friend of mine at the time had a small unkept garden next door. So because I was becoming interested in the subject, I thought I asked if I could.

Basically turn it into a vegetable, little vegetable plot. They were very happy for me to do so cause it was a complete mess. So over the course of a couple of seasons I started to learn how to grow my own food and I converted that space into a, essentially just an allotment and picked up books and just learn as I went.

And then that has developed over the years now to the point where. Yeah, just left my role as head grower for an estate in Sands [00:04:00] End. That was a commercial kitchen garden, all no dig and organic, and that would supply all of the produce to the hotels and surrounding businesses in the estate which was fantastic.

And that originally developed because I was doing consult, consultancy at the time. And they asked me to come up and design the space and set it up. It wasn't. Definitely not an ideal situation and an ideal location. They wanted it, they essentially wanted the garden, so you pulled up to the estate, and you would Pull up into the car park and the first thing you would see would be the garden and they wanted to be very impactful because they were on a sustainable journey as an overall business.

So I they took me to the site and it was essentially a north facing 30 degree hill next to a car park. 

Roz Chandler: In the north of England? 

Jamie Walton: In the north of England. And honestly in Sands End, I don't know If you've been to yeah, my 

Roz Chandler: husband was born in Whitby, so yeah, 

Jamie Walton: it's quite [00:05:00] wild. It's quite a wild location.

And honestly from, the garden location, you could, maybe with two throws, you could throw a tennis ball into the sea, maybe three, but It's right on the coast. So it was far from ideal, but that's where they wanted it. So they asked me to design and set up the space. So I like a challenge.

So I thought, why not let's, do it. And so I terraced the beds, but there's permanent no dig beds, but not terraced, and the poly tunnels are on big terraces too three, three large poly tunnels, and then. outdoor growing space. And actually because of the terracing and the, hill, the orientation it has quite a visual impact because as you walk up to the garden, all the beds are stacked upon, on top of each other.

So I would plant, the planting plan would arrange plants from smallest to the front. Largest at the back. So you can see everything once you, arrive. So it was a [00:06:00] hybrid between, a work function as like a workshop area for guests, things like that. Production for obviously the, restaurants and things, but then also as essentially a show garden because it was a front of house area.

So they wanted it to be pretty and and be a nice, I suppose you eat with your eyes as well, don't you? So you're looking around a garden that's really a mess. And so yeah, so I, I set that up and then I decided to run it for three years. This would have been the fourth. And that's where I decided to post a couple of videos online.

And. Which changed a lot. But because of the garden's unique location, Hugh Richards Hugh Richards. Yeah. Yeah, he, he asked me if he could come and shoot a YouTube video at the garden, and this was before I did anything on social media at all. So he asked me, and I thought, cool, yeah, why not?

So he came down and shot a video for his YouTube channel, which has done really [00:07:00] well. That was my first time in front of a camera. Which was interesting, but we made it work, and it was a good video. But I suppose that just sparked an idea, I just thought, Maybe I should post a couple of videos and just see, what happens.

So I only had a personal Instagram at the time and I just shared far too many pictures of vegetables and friends and family would see it and probably be barred by it. And that's all I did. I wasn't really in front of the camera because I'm not really a Yeah, I don't know, I'm not really one for, posting my life online and things like that.

It just wasn't something I was interested in doing. I just thought I'd post a couple of tippy kind of videos and focusing on vegetables and how to grow them really. Posted a couple and it just snowballed and honestly. Did 

Roz Chandler: it snowball? How many followers have you got today? 

Jamie Walton: On a cross platform, maybe platforms, maybe over 1.

5 million, I think 

Roz Chandler: just a few 

Jamie Walton: just on [00:08:00] Instagram is my primary platform because that's the one I used and that's the one I like really. So that I started on that. And probably just over 1. 2 million, maybe 1. 25 million or something. And you 

Roz Chandler: know what? I will say that it's not easy to do that because obviously my main platform is Instagram and across all the platforms and it's not easy.

I've got to 202, 000 or something and it's tough. It's really tough. So you to get to where you've got to is phenomenal. It has to be like, 

Jamie Walton: It's, been a, it's been a strange couple of years. It's been about 18 months or something like that. So this. Yeah, I think this will be the second full year I've been creating content online.

And I've just worked it out as I've gone really, I suppose there's no kind of rule book, I just posted videos and they seem to do well and and I've just kept doing it. And obviously when you have a bit of a following, other things start coming your way. Yes, books, [00:09:00] book deals and all those types of things, which is fantastic.

And awards. A garden media guild. Yeah that was a big surprise. 

Roz Chandler: Which one did you win? What was it titled? I know the one you won, but what was it? 

Jamie Walton: It was individual garden, social media influencer of the year. It's not a word I would use myself. No, 

Roz Chandler: I was shortlisted for.

Brand Influencer of the year. 

Jamie Walton: Yeah, 

Roz Chandler: Up against Sarah Raven. And obviously the big boys, all of them, because they're big brands, think as well. Yeah, And that was like even to be nominated against Sarah Raven and, Charles Dowding was a bit like, woo. Hold on a minute. But yeah, that's not how I would title myself either, Brand Influencer of the Year, no.

Jamie Walton: Not Influencer, Content Creator. Content Creator. Yes. But it was lovely. It was daunting. It's the first time I'd been to the event, never been before and obviously there's [00:10:00] people there you watch on TV or if you read the book. Yeah And I'm quite new to the space, so it was quite daunting thinking, I want to win this award, but equally, I really don't want to walk up there and accept it in front of everybody. I 

Roz Chandler: know you didn't want to do that. 

Jamie Walton: No I was, sat there thinking, cause I was quite far towards the back as well. I was maybe I was 

Roz Chandler: one table behind you, I was watching you and I was thinking, you don't want to do this.

I could tell you didn't want to do this and your table went wild when you won it. I thought, you've got to get up now. It was one of 

Jamie Walton: those situations where you forget how to walk. Because you, that sounds strange, but you that's the only thing you're focusing on, just getting around these tables and getting to the front while all eyes are on you.

So as I say, I'm not really one for, yeah, for those types of things. I don't know. I prefer to be in the garden. Let's just say, and when you've got your own, camera, 

Roz Chandler: you have to get used to this. I think obviously of what's coming, because obviously you're really into no dig. You're really into permaculture.

I [00:11:00] mean your hints and tips on growing veg. I, it's really interesting because obviously I'm a cut flower grower, and I don't know anything about growing vegetables. And people just naturally assume you'll know how to grow vegetables. I absolutely don't. I would like to. So you're and everybody would like, I definitely like to be more sustainable and this is madness.

So I've got the land to be sustainable. So why aren't I kind of thing? Cause I'm too busy growing flowers, but this year it was definitely going to be part of the agenda. And we're just working out where to grow, following your hints and tips and think, yeah, I can do that. Yeah, I can do that. And I can absolutely see why people follow you.

Jamie Walton: That's really nice to hear. Yeah. I try to make them as accessible and, yeah, I, it's one of those things. I really don't have a solid plan for It. I just create, I create content based on what I'm doing in the garden at the time. Do you know? So it's obviously seasonal as well.

But generally that's when people, other people are doing the same thing. So I'd be planting my tomatoes then. People are interested in knowing how I plant mine. So then they can maybe do the same and [00:12:00] so there's not really I Yeah, I've set myself a challenge to, to create a plan for this year because there's a lot going on.

Yes, because my, book's coming out this year and my first ever book, which is really cool. 

Roz Chandler: And what's it titled? The book, 

Jamie Walton: nettles and Petals is the, ah, clever. Yeah. The, publisher wanted it to be an introduction to, me, in the way work and things which was, really nice.

And so it's nettles and petals, grow food, eat weeds, save seeds. So clever into the circularity of what I, usually do, what I would do, yeah. So that was a fantastic thing to be asked to do. I didn't anticipate writing my own books and I like writing, but it wasn't something I thought, Oh, I don't know.

You assume that you have to write a book and then try and get it published. But obviously when you have a following.

So it was a, it was really nice to be asked and yeah, I've really enjoyed the process. And as of I think first week in April, it's released. 

Roz Chandler: It'll be out. [00:13:00] It's 

Jamie Walton: out. It's out in the world now to pre order, and that's been going. really and then in April, it'll actually be out in the world and people will receive it.

So I'm looking forward to that. But yes, there's all sorts of things going on. So I've tried to start creating a plan for my content because I just, I've never had one up until this point. And I'm also starting to You've done a right to 

Roz Chandler: try out one, but yeah, okay. 

Jamie Walton: But it is it might look yeah, behind the scenes, it's a bit more chaotic.

I do everything myself. I film everything and edit everything on my phone and all that kind of stuff. And it, when previously, if somebody would have said, I'm a full time content creator, then I thought, okay, but actually it's you'll know as well, like how much work it is just to, I think, yeah I, do two full time jobs, really.

One's as a professional grower and the other's as a content creator and it there's, a, maybe three or four days a week, I'd say it takes if you combine [00:14:00] everything, just because obviously people are commenting and messaging and you, they've taken the time to do that so you, you want to try and respond and I'd say that's half the time and then obviously filming and editing and I spent, Far too much time on my phone than I should, but it's just part of the job isn't it?

It is, yeah. You inevitably get pulled into Instagram, you'll check how the video's doing, and then you'll see all the comments and you'll start replying, and three hours later, you, You realize you've been on, yeah. So it's it's something I, that's something I need to work out as well. But, yeah, come from the days I left the office.

Cause I didn't want to sit in front of a screen for six days a week. And now I'm not quite there, but. Yeah. A long 

Roz Chandler: way there. So you've left the role now as head gardener. What have you done now? You've set up some sort of community farm? I'm 

Jamie Walton: in the process. I'm in the process of, yeah.

So last year I set up a smaller garden, really in line with my book so I can document the process [00:15:00] as well as for videos and content as well. And that was just produce for me and the local, my neighbors, essentially, it wasn't a huge space. It was about yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe double allotment something like that.

But this year I'm setting up a far bigger project, my biggest ever really, actually, which is it'll be between one and four acres. Yeah. The kitchen garden, the previous one I've managed was 900 square feet, something like that. And I have worked on farms. At this scale, but I've never set one up myself and it's, we're setting up ecologically as well.

All no dig and, focusing on ecology rather than anything else really. But it's the the main goal of it is for it to be a, to support local community really. I, love growing food and it's, yeah, it's really fulfilling, but equally, if you're growing it for maybe fairly [00:16:00] affluent people who visit kind of estates, it's not quite as fulfilling as it could be.

Would be. And, but growing it for low income families and food banks, those types of things is, the goal of the new project. So I've got the land, it's, I've moved house, so I'm close to the land. Where, what 

Roz Chandler: is the land roughly? 

Jamie Walton: Where is it? 

Roz Chandler: Yeah. 

Jamie Walton: And Pickering. 

Roz Chandler: Yeah, I know it, yeah. 

Jamie Walton: In North Yorkshire.

Roz Chandler: I was going to say that will have its challenges in Pickering yeah. I mean 

Jamie Walton: it's Pickering and especially Malton, floodplains of, Yorkshire really. Yeah. So there's, that to consider for sure. But it is flat, which is Yes, but it is 

Roz Chandler: fairly substantial. You'll be supplying food to a lot of people.

That's fairly big there. Yeah. 

Jamie Walton: Yeah. It's nice that it's not, there's no real pressure on profits. So because of what I'm doing online, it's enabled me to, be able to focus on things like this and get support [00:17:00] for doing it and, other things, which is lovely. So that's been really useful.

And but yeah, because there isn't a, huge, Pressure on profit from the vegetables and things will just grow our best to grow what we can and, give it away to, those in need, really. I've been working on the model and we'll see how it goes and see what the support is. And, but ideally it's.

It's with the process, the long term goal for it to become a network of similar things, working with the kind of community of people that I've met through the online stuff that I do. Yeah. It's, yeah there's a big network of people doing really cool things. You included that around the country and the idea is to set up a community.

A group of them, really that all work together and try and give something. 

Roz Chandler: Honestly, that sounds, but I've got the [00:18:00] land, 

Jamie Walton: I've 

Roz Chandler: got the land cause even in cut flower growing, I think we've got about five acres here. 

Jamie Walton: Yeah. 

Roz Chandler: And if you were I won't expand the cut flower, I've been doing it 15 years.

Really cut flower growing is really intensive 

Jamie Walton: and you 

Roz Chandler: actually don't need that much land and that's what most people are quite surprised about. So when you say I've got five acres, they think you're growing on five acres. Now, if I was going on five acres, I'd be a massive commercial grower, like massive.

Jamie Walton: Yeah, 

Roz Chandler: we grow probably on two, maybe two and a half at most. And the rest of it, there's some animals, there's some chickens and some Pigs and some goats and a dog and a cat somewhere. But apart from that, the land is there. So yeah, that's really interesting. Growing for the community. I live a mile from the, one of the, from Milton Keynes, which has obviously got a population of 250, 000 people and the amount of people going to food banks and the amount of people, children below the poverty line in what would be a fairly affluent city is frightening, absolutely frightening.

Jamie Walton: Yeah. 

Roz Chandler: And you [00:19:00] wouldn't expect it, but I can tell you it's definitely here. 

Jamie Walton: Yeah. 

Roz Chandler: So 

Jamie Walton: And I'm from Scarborough originally, which is not far down the road. 

Roz Chandler: Yeah. 

Jamie Walton: So hopefully we'll be able to supply there, some families there as well. But I think one of the main challenges we'll have is, education around food as well.

Because often Yeah. Often even now I'll grow certain things just to, to try them because they're, they look like fun, interesting varieties and I'm unsure of how to use it myself. So I work it out, but if you're not used to cooking with a kohlrabi, for example, then it's just going to be in the box, isn't it?

And we're going to think go back in the compost or something so it's education around how to utilize the food as well as. Everything else is going to be really important. The ideal scenario would be that we'd be able to find a premises to be able to cook the food as well.

So people can just turn up and have some good food. That would be an ideal situation, but for now, yeah, step by [00:20:00] step, I think. I was going to say maybe 

Roz Chandler: in the plan. Yeah, that's right. Got to get in it. Yeah. It's all about getting lots of support. So the more you get online, more content you produce, more support you're going to get.

And that's vital. 

Jamie Walton: Yeah. Yeah. So I'm in quite a lucky position for setting something like this up, so yeah we'll, see how it goes, but I'm really looking forward to it. It's just, a lot to take on, but I think the thing is as well because, it is a community project, I don't feel bad.

Asking for volunteers and help whereas I always, I get messages all the time asking from, people asking if they can come and volunteer at say the garden that I've just been managing and I could never accept that because it's a commercial space so it's profit making generation.

Yeah. Yeah. Me 

Roz Chandler: too. I've never taken a volunteer ever in my entire life. Ever. 

If, they want to volunteer, we have to do a two way exchange. So it has to be okay. You can come for the day in return. I'll give you a three days training or in [00:21:00] return. I'll allow you to join one of my courses or in return.

It's anything as small as packing up tulips. So we plant 30, 000 tulips, a hell of a lot 

Jamie Walton: of tulips. And 

Roz Chandler: it has to be done over a short period of time. So it requires armies of people to come in. Yeah. People have volunteered, which I won't accept. I will pay them to come on because it's a commercial enterprise.

And even my mates, they'll all come and they'll go no, And I still feel I have to send them presents because they give a lot more time to do it. So I think, yeah. But on a community project, I think it's very different. I think people want to volunteer and people want to give something 

Jamie Walton: back.

Roz Chandler: It's all about, you could get corporates involved and team leadership and come and learn for the day and all of that and people will want to sponsor it and you can get lots of free product and, 

Jamie Walton: Yeah. You'll know yourself that brands offer free products all the time just because they want you to feature them in videos.

So if you, particularly if it's for. a community program, I'm sure. I've already got a number of friends. [00:22:00] Yeah we're 

Roz Chandler: both on PlantGrowth. 

Jamie Walton: Yeah. Okay. Yeah they're, going to help out. They're going to help out with it as well. So that's, yeah, that's. That's gonna be super useful. The thing is that the volunteer days as well, I'm not just going to say go over there and dig holes all day.

It'll be something along the lines of learn as, learn by doing. So how to set up no dig beds and we'll set up a bed block together. So there is 

Roz Chandler: a fair exchange. Yeah. 

Jamie Walton: So there will be it. Yeah. It's not just come and dig holes. 

Roz Chandler: Here's a spade. Off you go. It's hard work. 

Jamie Walton: Yeah. 

Roz Chandler: Yeah. No, I could never do that.

Yeah, no, I think what you're doing, I thought what you're doing is amazing. I'd love, when it's all up and running, I'd love to come up. 

Jamie Walton: Yeah. Yeah. I you mentioned earlier about not knowing too much about vegetable growing in comparison to cut flower growing. It's the same either way around.

I've never grown flowers for, to it's cut flowers either. So it'd be interesting to come and have a look around. 

Roz Chandler: Definitely, because we've provided cut flowers to [00:23:00] local food bank certain times, like around Mother's Day, because those mothers wouldn't have any flowers, let's be honest, and we are more than happy to provide excess flowers to the local food bank, for instance, which seems quite weird because they're flowers and not food.

But in the same way that makes spread some happiness. Yeah. And that's, yeah. So you could grow, some cut flowers on your community. Yeah, 

Jamie Walton: we I was planning to have a, number of them. I like growing flowers for first natural dye purposes and things like that. So for workshops yeah.

But yeah, an amount of maybe or perennials or something like that, perennial flowers that we could cut for, yeah Definitely. I've got, yeah, I've got the plan together. It's just just getting going. So you're writing 

Roz Chandler: a book, you're setting up a community, got anything else on your list?

Is that enough? Producing more content? 

Jamie Walton: Yeah, the content thing. I'm, working with a, I'm a partner on an app that's coming out this year as well, which is going to be really [00:24:00] interesting. Wow. Yeah. So, that's a, gardening social media app. And it's funny how timely it is as well, because of everything that's been going on with, TikTok and Meta and everything else.

It'll yeah, a calling the home of gardening internationally, hopefully. And not just gardening either, anything wellness and wholesome content, basically. A home for that type of content. So that's, due to be launched at the end of this month. 

Roz Chandler: Wow. 

Jamie Walton: So we'll see how that goes as well.

So yeah, 

Roz Chandler: keep us posted what's the name of it and let us know. Yeah. What the app is called so people can have a look and. 

Jamie Walton: Yeah. I'll, yeah, as I say we're not, long, we haven't launched just yet. So I don't want people to go searching just yet, but 

Roz Chandler: But when you do, let me 

Jamie Walton: know.

Yeah. Yeah. But it should be, great. I'm really looking forward to it. And as I say more, it'll [00:25:00] be, it'll allow global, sharing and interaction, but also hyper local as well. That's the aim. So you're able to connect with local gardeners, local seed swaps, local, find local brands that supply.

All your kind of gardening supplies and things like that. So there'll be a focus on yeah, connecting locally as well as, as globally. That's a 

Roz Chandler: mammoth task. 

Jamie Walton: Yeah. So it's going to be an interesting one to, I'm not developing it. I'm, a partner on it, giving my, advice and helping more, quite a lot actually this last few months.

I've been a lot of input, but it's been real fun, And I think because obviously we create content and I've seen what's happened with. TikTok and things of late, you think if something like that happened to Instagram, where the majority of my following is and things, you think 

It's it could, yeah.

Roz Chandler: It could ruin a business overnight. It could absolutely, if you were a TikTok and you were doing millions and [00:26:00] you'd got all your followers and that's where people were purchasing from, your business would be dead. Yeah. I've decided to do that. 

Jamie Walton: It's, pretty small. Collect email 

Roz Chandler: addresses.

That's all I have to 

Jamie Walton: say. Yeah. As I say, I've been working out as I've been going and haven't really, it hasn't really been like necessarily a business. It's just been. 

Roz Chandler: No. Yeah. 

Jamie Walton: But it's got to the point where I suppose for it to be sustainable, for me to continue to make content all of the time, then obviously you've got to, you've got to be, yeah, a little bit more professional the setup and, yeah, just look, TikTok is not, I'm on TikTok, but I just, I don't really give it any, I post the same videos that I do.

I've not even done that. I should do that. I've got maybe a couple of hundred thousand on there, which is. Great. It's lovely. But it's not my, it's not my primary focus. So, yeah, this app hopefully will give us a, all a home somewhere that's a bit more slow paced media and not just, I was going 

Roz Chandler: to say, and not so exposed because we [00:27:00] all know that we don't own the social media.

We all know that. Yeah. Which is why I tell anyone who does any of my business courses about growing or flower farming or anything that I'm one of the most important thing they can do is I've got 30, 000 email addresses. But my background's in marketing, so I was always going to build an email list.

So if it all goes tomorrow, I've still got 30, 000, I could build from that. At least I can still sell stuff. 

Jamie Walton: No, that's it's, yeah. Something I hadn't really thought about or valued until recently and yeah. I think I should maybe start, and it's nice anyway, I've just started a newsletter literally.

Roz Chandler: I was just about to say, yeah, with a newsletter and your email address. 

Jamie Walton: Which is nice actually, because it allows me to elaborate on a few things that are maybe posted on social media, but on the short form content you've got, 10. Yeah, I've got enough. You've got like a minute avenue essentially.

Allows me to go into more depth and, so 

Roz Chandler: people, how do they sign up to your email newsletter? They do it online? [00:28:00] 

Jamie Walton: There's a link in my bio on Instagram. If you if you went into my bio, there's a little link and there's a kind of a link on there. That's probably the easiest way to get there, I think.

Yeah. Yeah. So if you've got, follow me on Instagram there's, a link in my bio to that. Bi weekly at the moment. Just. 

Roz Chandler: Yeah. 

Jamie Walton: All sorts of different tips, what seeds I'm sowing and all that type of stuff. 

Roz Chandler: Yeah. No. Wow. I'm exhausted. God, what are you? You've had, you've got ahead of you. So let's, talk personally.

So if you're on a desert island, what would you take with you?

You seem like you're the kind of person who'd be able to go in the water and fish and you'd be able to climb those trees and get what food you needed. Would you be able to grow anything? Who knows? 

Jamie Walton: Yeah. It'd be pretty sad if you couldn't. You could maybe propagate, couldn't you? You could maybe propagate from what's already there.

It's a good question. I don't know. I, you'd need a knife. You'd need a, you'd need, [00:29:00] you definitely need a knife, wouldn't you? Yeah, maybe a friend. 

Roz Chandler: Yeah, otherwise it might be quite lonely. 

Jamie Walton: Yeah, Some internet access would be quite useful. Internet access, yes, to 

make reels and videos. You have plenty of time.

Yeah, I dunno. Yeah. A knife, a friend and, a, an internet. 

Roz Chandler: So what's been your biggest challenge on your journey? What do you think is your biggest challenge even now? What's your biggest challenge? Time or Yeah. Or, 

Jamie Walton: yeah. I suppose, right now it's, time and project management and things, I I have a DHD, which is something that. A lot of people have, but it just means that I, I, can hyper focus on something if I'm really interested in it. I, but if I'm trying to juggle multiple projects all at the same time, it can become quite chaotic, which is what I tend to do all the time. Like I, I take on tons of different [00:30:00] projects, which is, they're all fun and all great, but yeah, just some time, I suppose I need to I need to strike a balance between work and life and because they're so intertwined, that's Yeah.

So I enjoy smiling. I. I don't, yeah, 10, 11 at night, I'll be still doing things that, and there's no real, but it's because I enjoy doing it. So I'll be writing something I'll be doing it's not like it's, I'm not moaning about it because I love what I do, but equally sometimes I need to, I haven't had a holiday for, I can't remember because obviously with what we do, spring, summer, Early autumn, so busy that there's no time to go away, aren't there really?

So I vowed that I was going to go away this, winter and have a good, clear kind of few weeks off, but I haven't, it just hasn't happened. So we'll, see, we'll plan 

Roz Chandler: that one in then 

Jamie Walton: book something in for the end 

Roz Chandler: of the season and then you have to go holidays 

Jamie Walton: in and things. And I actually got a message earlier [00:31:00] from a, company that.

So they, they connect content creators with holidays and hotels and things. So that you can, but I don't like doing kind of brandy things anyway, do you know, posts for. I know 

Roz Chandler: you have to lie. I always think with brandy I take on very few brands, like probably I've got a few that sponsor the podcast and one or two products.

And apart from that, nothing else. Cause I'm a bit like that too. But if it's something I love. If anybody out there wants to send me to a beautiful Caribbean island for two weeks to sit in the sun, that would be fine. 

Jamie Walton: Yeah, No, it did seem quite appealing when I read it, just, but then it's like, how would you curate content around that?

Just like it has to be an ecological resort. Yeah. Yeah. It'd have to be something kind of something like that. Yeah. I'd be up for doing, but the, brand thing is, a struggle because most of the products and brands I use are local small scale organic. So they don't necessarily [00:32:00] have. have the kind of budgets to, to really market much or don't need to which is a really nice couple of the seed companies I, use, except approached by kind of some of the larger companies asking me to work with them which is lovely, but I don't tend to use their products, so I can't authentically.

Roz Chandler: No, I won't do it. 

Jamie Walton: So then I've spoken to a couple of the suppliers I do use and they've basically said, Oh, we'd love to, but actually we don't need any more business. We're already casting. I'm like, that's that's ideal, isn't it? That's a great situation to be in. So I plug them all the time anyway.

So it's what it is. 

Roz Chandler: So who's your inspiration? Who keeps you going? You've got to get up every day, you've got to create this content, you've got to be around. What makes you do it? 

Jamie Walton: Yeah. That is a good Question. I enjoy what I do. I suppose the content side of things is a little bit different because it does, when I consider it, it does take me away from the kind of [00:33:00] the experience of being in the garden sometimes.

Because I'm constantly thinking, I need to, I should be filming this. Do you know that I'm doing something interesting? I should be filming it. There's always that in the back of my mind. So it does yeah, and then the content side of things as well cause obviously social media is largely fairly negative space, I'd say, really, or as a negative impact cause even for me personally I'm, fairly addicted to, being on it all the time whether that's, it's looking at what's going on with my own content, but when I think about how much time I spend on there, it's so it's one of those situations because I get such lovely comments and messages from people saying that they've Enjoyed it.

I found it valuable in some way that kind of justifies doing it. Yeah, So I, do but, it's an interesting one. Yeah. Cause as I said, I didn't set out to thinking, oh, I want to be a big content creator. [00:34:00] On social media. That's probably 

Roz Chandler: the best way. 

Jamie Walton: No, Yeah, I think so. I think, it would just be inauthentic if you just tried to.

You'd be trying too hard, wouldn't you, if that's what your aim was? But then you do I have recently, started to think about, Yeah, the impact you have, because you have that much of a following, things you say and do really do matter, don't they, if people are going to follow and do the same.

So there's always that kind of, yeah. So, I don't know it's, all still fairly new. And as I say, I haven't really had the chance to sit down and actually think about what it all means really, other than just saying yes. You have a massive 

Roz Chandler: impact. I started my first seed to vase course, growing, it's an eight month course.

It goes from February, really March until October. And I started the first one five years ago, this year, so we're just going to launch our fifth one. Now, I knew it had lots, I knew it had impact, and I knew it had quite a big impact, but I didn't quite realize how [00:35:00] big, until I asked people if they want to be part of a book, which was called Seed to Vials, which is on Amazon.

It was printed five years ago. And it was their stories of growing flowers, not mine. So I interviewed them and said what do you get out of it? Why do you do it? What gives you joy? And so on. And interviewed them all and turned it into a book. And there's about 22 of them in the book. So last Saturday, I decided that I would invite those people to my house.

This is madness. I don't really know them, most of them. So I invited 22 of them to come to my house. 

Jamie Walton: Wow. 

Roz Chandler: For lunch. Last Saturday, 18 of them came out of the 22, which is unbelievable. They came from as far north of Scotland. Bearing in mind, I live in Milton Keynes. They came from Devon and Cornwall 

Jamie Walton: and as 

Roz Chandler: far over to the east as the coast.

So it was a bit overwhelming and I was thinking, wow, this is overwhelming. And we're just talking to them about what impact, because they all started five years ago, really, to start to grow flowers. And some have become flower farmers and now own a [00:36:00] living, and some just do it for pure pleasure, and some are doing it as community projects, and some are doing it in schools.

And I was a bit taken back, to be completely honest, and I thought, wow, okay, maybe you have had an impact. 

Jamie Walton: And 

Roz Chandler: I think you underestimate what impact you're going to create, because you don't actually know until it all comes together. 

Jamie Walton: No, I think that's really, yeah, it's definitely the case. And I was at a garden show this year and someone came up to me and just said, I just had to stop you because I've changed my career.

I'm studying horticulture, RHS course because of, because watching your stuff and you inspired me to do and I was, so that was just an in person, obviously people message, which on Instagram and things, and that's, it's lovely to hear that. But it was like, it was really nice. Someone just in person actually came up to me and said that.

And it, yeah, so that's what keeps, it's an interesting space, it's a really 

Roz Chandler: interesting space. So what [00:37:00] was your childhood dream job when you were growing up at school? Do you remember, and whether you didn't have this, you're probably not you're not as old as me, but we used to have this careers officer called Mr.

Bundy, and you go in his little office, it was a tiny little thin office, and he'd have all the books of all the careers along the wall, and as long as you mentioned a career that was in one of his books, you were okay. If you mentioned, so you could be a doctor, lawyer, you could be a roptician all the standard ones.

There were never any careers that I wanted to, I did a degree in environmental chemistry, which was unheard of when I did it. I was one of the first people to ever do it. And when if you want to be an environmentalist, then could you imagine you probably didn't even know what it was, let alone how you spell it.

Jamie Walton: Yeah. 

Roz Chandler: So it was like, what was your childhood dream job? What did you want to be? 

Jamie Walton: Honestly, I didn't really have one. I didn't have a clue. Other than maybe a Power Ranger when I was really young, like I wanted to, but I, yeah, I really didn't have a clue. As I said, ADHD, so school was challenging.

I still did okay. [00:38:00] I still did pretty okay. It's GCSEs. It's changed now. I don't think it's GCSEs anymore, is it? But it was GCSEs at the time and I did okay. Did, fine, but just it was hard work to. To do that, and it just, there was nothing, I don't know. I just, I did like a work experience.

Where did it, I did my work experience at a Gym. and, and I did actually then go on to, to do a course, studied like a, did like a personal training course, in my teens, and was. Quite into the gym for quite a while actually, into my, early twenties and things. This was around the same time as, working in offices and things like that.

Yeah, get outside. All the kind of stuff that you do. Yeah. And, so yeah I, really didn't have a clue. If you've asked me then. Would I be doing what I'm doing now as a career? No chance. No, it wouldn't have been. 

Roz Chandler: I don't think of content creator or I [00:39:00] don't think it it didn't exist for a start.

And I think there are, that's why I try and tell children today that there'll be careers that they won't even know are invented yet. So you could never have been an AI specialist five years ago, let alone, 

Jamie Walton: Don't worry too 

Roz Chandler: much about being in a box. If that makes sense. 

Jamie Walton: No, it's funny. Actually, I get, I was I stared at a.

An Airbnb not that long ago, and the owner's little son was there and they found out what I did and and he came up to me cause he wanted to speak to me cause he wanted to be a blogger. He wanted to be a content creator. That's what he wanted to do when he grew up. And yeah, he was maybe only eight or something.

I just thought, yeah, that wasn't, it wasn't even a, and it's. And I'm not even that old and it wasn't even on the horizon. I didn't have a mobile phone until I was maybe 16, 17, something like that, really. Do you know, I didn't so it was, yeah. And even, but even, a [00:40:00] horticulturalist, I'd have never said that I'd be, I'd have been, gardening would be my career, do you know, either.

No. And and that just that just happened out of nowhere once you, yeah, just, yeah, just. I don't know, once I gave it a go, it was, yeah, I just couldn't keep away from the garden really and it just it just snowballed and, but yeah. 

Roz Chandler: But it's interesting, I did my work experience, talking about work experience, on a farm.

So there must have been something in it. But I actually then wanted to be a doctor, but I wasn't bright enough, so I was never going to do that. And no, I definitely wasn't bright enough, but I went along with it did the A levels and went along to be a doctor kind of thing, applied to medical school, and I'd have been a terrible doctor.

Became an environmentalist, or did environmental science, and then traveled the world being one of those wonderful overseas reps when you go on your holidays. Did that for years because I love being abroad and outside again. 

Jamie Walton: Yeah. 

Roz Chandler: And then only really came back. To have a career in sales and marketing, probably in my [00:41:00] mid twenties.

And I only really found, I suppose the farm's been going 15 years, has cut flowers, complete accident. Complete accident. Only because we bought somewhere with a bit of land and didn't know what to do with it. But like you, I didn't have horticultural grandparents. I came from a new town with a small garden.

My parents went into gardening, they both worked, there was no way it was ever going to be. So when people talk about their grandparents were into horticulture, and this is where they learned it all from, I think, that must be lovely, but I learned nothing. So you can start at any age doing what you want to do.

Jamie Walton: Yeah, definitely. I think we all have an innate draw to, we are, I was going to say an innate draw to the natural world, but we are part of it. We just forget that, I think, really. And I did I think we live generally in concrete. world, don't we, do you know, rubber shoes and we don't have any kind of real connection to the earth, which we are a part of so, I think even if, it's fairly well suppressed, we all, we do have, I think we all have a draw to it.

So then when, you start [00:42:00] doing something that involves nature, like growing your own food or growing even your own plants or just having a couple of plants in your house to start with that's, yeah. I don't know. There's something pretty special about it. And then the first few times I sowed seeds and watched them grow in, grow into into plants.

That's an amazing process. Isn't it? I know. 

Roz Chandler: You 

Jamie Walton: don't know you're missing until you, do it. And 

Roz Chandler: I still love it now. Yeah. 15 years later, I'm still out running out there to see whether they're germinated or not. Or where am I going to have to prick them on now and put them on or what am I going to do?

Oh my goodness, it's cold. Let's go and fleece them. It's never ending, is it? But yeah, hopefully this podcast has encouraged anybody to give it a go. Whether that's growing food, growing flowers, growing and just getting out. That would be a good start. That would be fabulous. 

Jamie Walton: Yeah. And that you don't need a lot of space or horticultural background or anything.

Nope. Yes. 

Roz Chandler: Jamie, [00:43:00] thank you for joining me today. You've got a book, you've got an app, you can follow you on social media, you can join your email list. It's amazing. We'll let you know when this airs and I'll let you know and it's, thank you very much for joining me today. 

Jamie Walton: No, no problem at all. It's been really nice to speak to you.