Master My Garden Podcast
Master My Garden podcast with John Jones. The gardening podcast that helps you master your own garden. With new episodes weekly packed full of gardening tips, how to garden guides, interviews with gardening experts on many gardening topics and just about anything that will help you in your garden whether you are a new or a seasoned gardener. I hope you enjoy.John
Master My Garden Podcast
EP297- Tanya Anderson Lovely Greens, chats winter gardening tips, her book and more: From Lovely Greens to Lasting Soil Health: Organic Gardening, Windproof Growing, and Creative Uses for Plants.
A windswept island garden, a storm‑proof polycrub, and a no‑dig mindset that turns soil into a living engine—this conversation with Lovely Greens’ Tanya Anderson is a masterclass in practical, organic resilience. We head to the Isle of Man to unpack how climate shapes design, why keeping crops low beats the wind, and how a Shetland‑born polycrub unlocks peppers and aubergines where summer heat rarely arrives. Along the way, we explore wood chip paths that become compost, perennial borders that anchor slopes and shelter life, and the subtle art of knowing when to trust predators and when to step in.
Tanya’s story begins with a simple blog that grew into a thriving platform for organic gardening, DIY garden projects, and creative plant use. We talk about soil health in plain terms—compost as structure and nutrition, comfrey and nettle teas as slow power, and fungi as partners rather than mysteries. No‑dig gets an honest appraisal: fewer weeds if your margins are tight, more seedlings if you embrace wildflowers, and a real conversation about the cost and sourcing of compost. It’s not dogma; it’s a flexible system you adapt to your site, your back, and your goals.
We also dive into the hard bit: New Zealand flatworm. If you garden in wet, cool climates, this pest can erase your earthworms and tip the food web off balance. Tanya shares how she traps during breeding windows, protects undisturbed, mulched zones for worms, and keeps an eye on alternatives like biochar barriers—all while building an ecosystem that can recover. The joy returns with perennials like Taunton Deane kale, Welsh onions, artichokes, and yacón, plus the creativity of turning calendula and chamomile into gentle soap and skincare. That loop—grow, use, and give back—runs through her book A Woman’s Garden and her soap‑making courses.
If you’re curious about resilient organic gardening, storm‑smart structures, and making more from what you grow, you’ll feel right at home here. Subscribe, share this episode with a gardener who loves a challenge, and leave a review to tell us how you’re adapting your space this season.
You can visit Tanya's website Lovely Greens here:
If there is any topic you would like covered in future episodes, please let me know.
Email: info@mastermygarden.com
Check out Master My Garden on the following channels
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mastermygarden/
Instagram @Mastermygarden https://www.instagram.com/mastermygarden/
Until next week
Happy gardening
John
How's it going everybody and welcome to episode 297 of Master My Garden Podcast? Now, this week's episode, I'm going to the Isle of Man for the very first time, and I'm delighted to be joined by Tanya Anderson. And Tanya has a brilliant website which shares organic growing and DIY tips for your garden. And the website is Lovely Greens, and she's very active on social media with Lovely Greens as well. She has a brilliant book which is out A Woman's Garden Growing Beautiful Plants and Making Useful Things. So nice, nice uh heading to the book. Uh, this week she's been a cat mammy. I saw on her Instagram there's uh some new cats arrived, and a dog has arrived, so there's lots going on. Uh but Tanya, as I say, first time going to the Isle of Man, and you're very, very welcome to Master My Garden podcast.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you so much for welcoming me. I'm looking forward to it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, looking forward to it as right. There's lots to talk about, but I think we're gonna have to start with the recent arrivals to the house and garden. Um when we were trying to schedule a couple of weeks ago, you mentioned that you were in the process or there was a new puppy on the way. Uh, I presume the puppy has arrived, and I've seen just recently a couple of kittens have arrived. So tell us a little bit about that because it seems to be busy at the moment.
SPEAKER_02:We've practically doubled our pet count in a week and a half. We have uh we have, well, we started with a few cats. Maggie, who a lot of people know from social media and especially from my YouTube channel. She's got her own fans. We've got the Korats, who I adopted four years ago as adult cats. Josie, our German Shepherd, and my partner is just really into German Shepherds. So we decided to get a second one, a little puppy named Solomon. And we picked him up. And two days later, I heard a kitten crying outside. It was pouring with rain. I wandered all around our neighborhood trying to find this kitten. And uh, well, we eventually caught it two days later and thought that was that. And then uh a few days later, after that, caught another kitten in the garden. So and uh I did I did actually try to find homes for them, but uh no hits. There's there's lots of kittens here on the Isle of Man at the moment, and so we just decided that we'll keep them.
SPEAKER_00:So that means you have two dogs and three cats. Am I right? Is that it?
SPEAKER_02:Five cats. Oh wow, two dogs, busy house. I thought there are human creatures in the house, so that makes us nine in the house now, right?
SPEAKER_01:Well, we've we've just added a rabbit in recent weeks, and that's entertaining.
SPEAKER_02:Um indoor rabbits.
SPEAKER_01:Well, we're we're it's indoor, but um, it's going out every day for a stay outside. I'm not sure whether we can leave them inside long term, but we have to figure out uh it's a little bit different, right? We have chickens, we have dogs, but um rabbit is new is new territory for us, so learning, learning as we go.
SPEAKER_02:Uh always adding to the menagerie here.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, for sure. So as I say, I've never spoken to anybody who is gardening on the Isle of Man before before, so that's obviously interesting in itself. And it's it's it's an island I haven't visited before on the wish list for a long time, and it's very, very close for us, so it should be easy. It is easy to get this, so it's definitely on the on the list uh for the next couple of years. But you have you're gardening organically there, and you have a very, very good website and social channels, Lovely Greens. So just tell us a little bit about the the history of Lovely Greens, starting gardening in the Isle of Man and so on. Tell us a little bit of the backstory here first before we get into what it is you're doing day to day now.
SPEAKER_02:Well, uh, I started Lovely Greens not really as a as a business or as a content creator. The word content creator wasn't even invented when I started it. I started it as a an old-fashioned blog. So when I first moved to the Isle of Man, I got my very first allotment. So this is 2010. And I didn't know anyone who was as into gardening as I was within my friend group.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_02:And so I started my blog, Lovely Greens, to connect with other people, to share ideas. And uh it worked. And I'm still friends with some of the writers and authors and bloggers who I started off with all those years ago. And then as time went on, some of the ideas that I started sharing went viral, you know, in those days. Got got lots of internet traffic, and it opened my eyes to this idea that I could be a content creator and maybe even earn a little bit of money on the side from my garden ideas. Depends on the same. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I started making handmade soap at the same time. So there was that side of the business making products from the garden. So using some of the plants that I was growing and creating that circle, also with my bees. I keep bees, and it's just grown from year to year. And now, as it stands, 2025, so 15 years later, I still make products, although to a in a much smaller scale than I did before. And most of what I do these days is is content creation. So YouTube videos, writing on my website. Yes, I do social media as well. And uh I have written a book, I've got it here, and I've uh started thinking about book number two as well. So that's something that uh is on the horizon.
SPEAKER_01:Brilliant. Well, we might chat about that in a minute. So the garden itself, then you you started gardening just out of interest, and it has developed then into obviously, you know, a way of I suppose helping people, um, sharing tips, and has developed into a business as such from now. Um, tell us about the garden itself. Obviously, the Isle of Man, I'm guessing it's quite windy at times.
SPEAKER_02:Um, indeed.
SPEAKER_01:Uh, probably similar enough. So I'm in the Midlands in Ireland, so probably similar enough to us here in Ireland. You're I would assume not getting a huge amount of frost. Am I right in saying that?
SPEAKER_02:No, not too much. I mean, we can see Northern Ireland from the islands, and I would say we have a we've got a very mild climate here. Yes, it gets quite windy in the winter. Sometimes we get summer storms. So this year, for example, I've really focused on growing crops and plants that really don't go above waist heights because, you know, only so many times your runner beans and your French beans get knocked down, you know, you've got to make a change, honestly. And so this this year it was all dwarfed beans and keeping things much lower to the ground for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it makes sense. And there's so many good varieties of, especially French beans, dwarf ones, it's brilliant. Oh yeah, and you can be as productive down low as as you can be up tall. So it's yeah, it's makes makes sense for you guys.
SPEAKER_02:I was really surprised. As far as uh my garden, I'm a no-dig gardener. So I'm organic. I share a lot of organic gardening tips and ideas, but I'm also no-dig, no-dig-ish, I should say. And so I'm I make my own compost. I do buy some in as well, buy a lot in actually. And the the garden, I'm looking at it outside right now, and it is windy today. The garden is made up of wood chip paths. I'm on a slope here, and so my no-dig beds have wooden edges around them to help stop erosion down the slope. And I use a lot of perennials around the sides to kind of lock the soil in, also to help create a bit of a wind buffer and also reliable crops from year to year and reliable flowers as well. And I also have a polycrub. Do you know what a polycrub is?
SPEAKER_00:No, new word for me.
SPEAKER_01:Lovely.
SPEAKER_02:It's um it is a hard-shelled polytunnel developed in the Shetland Islands, right? And it can withstand winds of 125 miles an hour, and that's why I bought it.
SPEAKER_01:And and it's so hard-skinned, as in what's the material then?
SPEAKER_02:So you you know the double pane plastic that you see sometimes on conservatory roofs.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so like it's heavy polycarbonate, then I guess.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, yes. Uh it's it's it's uh cemented into the ground, it does not budge in during any recent storms. So we uh so last last winter there was there was storm after storm after storm. I piled pretty much anything that could blow away inside. It was packed to the gunnels. Also, I put my pots in there to to overwinter. So yeah, no problem. Sorry?
SPEAKER_01:And it withstood the storms.
SPEAKER_02:Oh gosh, it doesn't even budge. The rest of the garden got thrashed. Yeah, but uh it's it's really kind of upped my game with growing heat-loving plants as well. Because even though it is quite mild here, it doesn't really get hot. Yeah, I think the the hottest temperature it's ever gotten here is about 29 Celsius. So that's the record book uh high temperature. Not sure what it's like where you are. Do you get warmer?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, we're inland, so I guess um we do we we would occasionally get that a little bit higher. I presume the reason you're not getting it is because of constant wind, I assume, just taking taking away any little bit of heat that might be there. But yeah, no, yeah, but we we would be very happy with 29 if we could get it a couple a little bit more often.
SPEAKER_02:Uh 25 is is my favorite. I'm I kind of melt after that. But you know, there are so many crops that love heat, and so having a nice protected spot where they can just flourish, spread out their roots, and just soak in that heat means that I can get pretty big harvests of things like aubergines and sweet peppers, which are challenging for some people to grow, especially in smaller greenhouses.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, for sure. Sweet peppers are something I I wouldn't have great success with here. So I have a polytunnel uh with open sides, so vented all the way down. So it never really gets warm enough in there, and it's I'm tying with the idea of a glasshouse just for something like that. So tell us about the crops that you're growing then, and I suppose you're you're growing organically, and that's some obviously something you're passionate about. It's something that's you know on your website. Uh it ties into the the soap making, I guess. You're looking for a you know more holistic uh food and and uh skincare, I guess.
SPEAKER_02:You know, some people think that gardening, just any kind of gardening, is a green activity, that it's eco-friendly. But unless you are sticking with organic methods, it can get quite dodgy. There's some there's so many agrochemicals on the shelves, be they slug pellets, herbicides, fungicides, all kinds of things, synthetic fertilizers. And they are they are quick fixes and they're very tempting if you have a problem in the garden to go out and buy something. But it's a big industry and it's not really thinking about your soil and your garden long term. It's also quite expensive if you keep going back year after year and buying these same chemicals. But if you make your own compost, if you take things a little bit slower, not only are you cultivating your soil long term, so thinking about its structure and integrity and the microbes and the fungi living in it, but that also benefits the crops and the plants that you grow because that microbiome that's in the soil helps to support everything. And so that's one aspect of organic gardening that I think is incredibly important. And it also makes things a little bit more interesting, a bit more fun. You've got to be creative, you've got to think about different types of uh natural fertilizers. I mean, you could just use compost. And for me, that's that's mainly what I use is compost, but using your comfrey and your nettles, looking for solutions to slugs, aren't we all? It doesn't really matter if you go with a conventional slug pellet or not, they're always going to come back. But yeah, I it it makes me feel great about the garden, knowing that I'm nurturing it and it's giving back to me with wholesome fruit and vegetables, herbs, flowers that we put on our table, that I put on my skin, that my customers put on their skin in some cases. And yeah, that's that's why I stand behind organic.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, brilliant. And it's it's brilliant to hear you like the the podcast over the last couple of years, a huge focus has been on soil health. And even from my own point of view, I have seen over the last couple of years uh a big shift in in mindset towards nurturing the soil, feeding the soil as opposed to feeding plants, and people are seeing your ongoing or having ongoing success and seeing the results of it. But certainly when it comes to things like your pest control, it's definitely a trust. You need to have an element of trust in the process, and a good example of that is uh my Brussels sprouts are coming along probably a little bit too quickly for Christmas, they're going to be ready definitely before Christmas. But a couple of weeks ago, I went out and there was some um caterpillars on it. I don't net them, I haven't netted them for a number of years. I'll explain why in a minute, but there was quite a few caterpillars on it. The second day I went back, there was more third or fourth day. It was getting very worrying now to the point where like they were covered, and I mean covered, and I said, Right, I'm gonna give it one more day. And then the next day I didn't get out there, and it was a couple of days later before I went out, and they were completely gone. Um obviously, the I have a wildflower meadow. The intention of that was to create an ecosystem within the garden to bring in more pollinators, to bring in more birds, it's alive at the moment with with goldfinches eating the seeds, and that was the purpose of it, was to bring in all this biodiversity. But it took a few days, but when the blue tits eventually found those caterpillars, they cleared them in one day. It's now a month or probably three weeks since since that, and the plants are just growing perfectly now, and there's no there's no problems with them, except for a few lower leaves that you can still see the damage. But it really is a trust thing, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02:It's it is, and sometimes it doesn't work that well.
SPEAKER_01:No, it doesn't. You can get caught. Um but I suppose if the if the if the general ecosystem is built up enough in the garden, then the natural predators are there, I guess, ready to ready to come to your help.
SPEAKER_02:They they will, but I I will admit that I'm not averse to going out and squishing um cabbage white eggs and spraying off aphids and all of that. I mean, they are there, but but I also I take control. I mean, and and this is the thing with a garden is that we can have a landscape, we can have wildflowers and and nature all around us, but a garden is a cultivated space where there's intention, there's the gardener's hand that's involved. And every gardener is different. But uh being involved and keeping an eye out for problems like that, maybe letting it go and seeing what happens, or maybe stepping in, you were ready to step in as well. So having your having your boundary there as to what you want to do. I mean, that's that's part of the process, and learning where your place is within the garden ecosystem is really important.
SPEAKER_01:That's that's actually a really, really nice way of putting it because we do have, I'm sure it's the same everywhere, but there is now a debate starting to come up here. There's a few fairly prominent people who are talking about you know, gardening is interfering with nature and that they're separate things. You've described it really well there, where you you know, you're you're saying that they, you know, you've admitted that a garden is something that you are putting your hand to and that nature works side by side with it, but they they are they can be the same thing, but I suppose there is a debate here and and there is two opposing sides to it, but you've put it kind of nicely there where they marry together.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I think that there is a mentality that man is is the antithesis of nature, that humankind is, and there's a lot of people who believe that to an extent, that whether it's a gardener or the average person, that we are a threat to nature. Whereas I don't see that at all. I I think that people we are we are a part of the ecosystem. We have been for hundreds and thousands of years. And although in the past couple hundred, we have gotten to the point where we are overusing our technology and maybe becoming a little bit less connected with nature. When we do go out into our gardens and we start working with it, that's when we realize that we are a part of nature and we can give back to it, we can cultivate it. A garden that's filled with flowers intentionally chosen can be incredibly helpful to wildlife, much more so than say a space that is left to go feral, and say there's one or two predominant species like brambles and nettles. They will support a few different types of species, but a garden filled with much more can be a haven for everything that lives around. So I I honestly don't I don't see there being this conflict between being a human and uh being part of nature, or we are part of nature, but it's seeing that is sometimes the challenge for people.
SPEAKER_01:That's brilliant. I uh that's a really good way of putting it. It's uh as I say, it's there's there's a serious debate, particularly here in Ireland. It seems to be going on a lot here in Ireland, and as I say, we have a few pr few prominent people on both sides, and it's it it's very much they're banging heads at the moment in relation to what is right and what's you know the right way to proceed with with gardening, I guess. So it's you you've put it brilliantly there. So yeah. Um to sort of change the direction of the conversation, your book is out. You have a second one potentially on the way, we might hear a little bit about that. But tell us about the your current book first. So it's grow grow beautiful plants and make useful things. And I know a lot of people talk about you, and Stella, who's the listener of the podcast, who directed me towards you for for this interview, and she said you share brilliant tips on DIY, sort of DIY gardening projects and you know, making plant supports and so on. So tell us about the book because I know that incorporates your gardening, ethos, maybe some of your cooking, your recipes, and your DIY gardening projects.
SPEAKER_02:Well, first, thank you, Stella, for recommending me if you're listening. So, my my book, A Woman's Garden, it's not just about me. And I think that uh some people have gotten a little bit confused about that. What I wanted to do with my book was to bring to the forefront several women gardeners. Many of them I knew before I wrote the book. Some of them I met through researching and trying to find the right people, just non-professional gardeners in many cases, just women that are very passionate about organic gardening and growing plants specifically for natural dyeing, for herbal medicine, to uh for the table, so organic vegetable growing, and to feature each a different woman in each chapter, show what her garden is and to write about why growing organically and why being creative and why using plants is so important to them and how they try to communicate that to others as well, be they friends or or people from their own communities. And then I also wanted to show that no matter what we grow in our gardens, be they ornamental or food, we can use them in creative ways to create that connection back to our garden. So, for example, you can grow plants like chamomile and calendula and use them to make really lovely, beautiful skin creams and handmade soap, which is more of my specialty. Or you can grow matter root to naturally dye fibers, even fibers that are plant-based as well, like flax, for example, so linen. And so it's kind of like broadening the circle of influence from the garden. We grow a garden for many reasons, but I wanted to give some inspiration for different ways to see your garden, not only as a place to grow plants and to get so much enjoyment from it there, but to take the plants and feel excited about ways that you can use them and bring them back into the home. And so there's all different types of recipes in the book for food recipes, skincare recipes, how to naturally dye wool. So touching upon all of these kind of creative, beautiful ways to use plants.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, brilliant. Actually, when when you started doing the introduction, I'm pretty sure we do every year around November time, we do Christmas gifts for gardeners episode. And I'm pretty sure that's Stella. So Stella came on the podcast, I think it was not last year, but the year before. And I'm pretty sure. How long is your book out?
SPEAKER_02:It's been out since 21, so four years.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, she I'm pretty sure she mentioned your book on that episode. So uh we had two two brilliant gardeners on, and both of them spoke about their I I I guess their wish list for for Christmas gifts and and inspiring other people's, but I'm pretty sure your book was was mentioned in that. Yeah. So so a new book potentially on the way. What any ideas? What's or can you talk about it?
SPEAKER_02:It's it's very early days, and so I am um I'm speaking with my publisher at the moment about some ideas, but uh it's been, like I said, four years since a woman's garden came out, and I've been asked many times when's book number two coming out. It's just very difficult to write a book and to start a brand new garden at once. So we bought our house four years ago, the same time that the book came out, and it's been building the polychrup, building the beds, building, building, building, building, all sorts. But now I'm I'm kind of getting to that place where hmm, I've got a little bit more free time. Let's think about the next book.
SPEAKER_01:Brilliant. So keep an eye on keep an eye on it and see what see what topics come up. Um you mentioned no-dig gardening. It's something that again I practice here and it has become hugely popular over the last number of years. Are you practicing it 15 years? No dig?
SPEAKER_02:No, 10 years. Okay. I've been no dig for 10 years.
SPEAKER_01:And how how is that working for you? And maybe so you've mentioned you know wood chip paths, so you're sort of uh following the techniques that I suppose Charles Dowding has popularized over the last number of years. Um tell us about your successes, uh, how it works for you, and so on.
SPEAKER_02:Well, uh I spoke with Charles about No Dig at an event, gosh, 2018. And I'd already started with No Dig at that point. I I have a pest, and it's actually a really terrible invasive pest here in the Isle of Man. It's also in Northern Ireland and Scotland, other parts of England, called the New Zealand flatworm. Are you aware of it?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, aware of it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So I've got that, and I use no dig in a way it it seems to help with the flatworm. And uh I think probably because there's less soil disturbance, and so the earthworms, all of their channels are aren't as destroyed by digging. There are downsides to no dig, I would say. So the first one, if you if you don't make enough of your own compost, like bringing it in, it can be quite expensive. And I think that's one of the bigger challenges for some people. But overall, I'm extremely happy with it. It's just so much easier on my back. It's so much less work with my wood chip pads. I I use them as a way, as a secondary compost system. So I top up my wood chip paths until they get so degraded that I can see lots of weeds starting to sprout from them. And then at that point, I scrape off the top level and then I dig the wood chip compost out, and then I just toss it on my beds, and it just acts as a as another type of compost. So there's that, that the wood chip paths also help to encourage the fungal network within all the beds and the soil. You can see you can see the fungi growing and breaking down the wood chip at times during the year, the white kind of um dusting all over the wood chips. Um I like you grow a lot of wildflowers. I did a video recently on YouTube that was the the one thing that I wasn't as happy about with no-dig gardening. It's not necessarily no-dig itself, but it's that if you do have wildflower patches near your beds, it's not going to keep them weed-free because of all the seeds that drop that drift. And if you use really nice compost, it just encourages very speedy germination.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And so this is this is one challenge that I I do have, is that I do get a lot of weeds. And so a lot of a lot of people who follow and and talk about no dig, Charles included, it's you know, uh fewer weeds is often touted as a benefit of no of no dig. That's only true if you garden in a way very similar to Charles. So very immaculate. You don't let any wildflowers bloom within breeze distance of your bed and keep your grass very neat. I'm a little bit more of a wild, a wilder gardener. So I I uh I've got tons of wildflowers all around, which I grow for pollinators and to benefit the rest of the biodiversity in the area, birds, etc. And so that that is one thing that is a little bit challenging.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, for sure. You get it, you do get a good bit of seeding in on top. Now it is easy to weed that area because they're they're just yeah simpler to pull out, but yeah, uh less weeds, but not no weeds.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, easier to pull out, but oftentimes a lot higher germination.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so a lot of them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:You mentioned earlier on uh perennial veg that you're growing perennial veg. So perennial veg is something that is not as popular here, mostly because we don't have too many. We've only really one kind of nursery that grows perennial veg here. Uh there's there's very few people promoting it, so it's not as popular here. So tell us about just some of the perennial veg that you've grown.
SPEAKER_02:One one big one that I don't tend to eat very much, but I use as a sacrificial plant is Pontendine kale. Yeah it is a perennial kale, and my goodness, if you allow it to grow, it will take over. Wherever its stems bow down and touch the ground, it will form roots. And uh cabbage white butterflies will lay their eggs all over it, it will get ravaged, but it bounces right back. So oftentimes, if I've got other brassicas around, they won't get hit as hard as the Tonton Dean because that is so big and it's such a magnet. But I've got tons of other, I've got asparagus. Globe artichoke, lots of different types of berries and fruit trees. Welsh onions. I absolutely love having Welsh onions around. I do grow spring onions, but mainly I just rely on Welsh onions and chives for our greens. What other perennials do I have? New Zealand yams, which if you if you leave them in the ground, they will come back year in, year out. Yakon, I've got.
SPEAKER_01:Some I've I have ochs, asparagus. That's quite new, so it's not very productive yet. And yeah, I'm looking at a couple of others from this nursery for this autumn. But I from from speaking to people, they're just not as tasty. So, for example, the spinach, the perennial spinach, um that keeps coming back. People say that it's a little bit leathery. So I'm thinking um a little bit like yourself with the kale. Maybe I get it just as a kind of an experiment or as a sacrificial plant, but not necessarily one that I'm going to harvest off on a regular basis. That's kind of what I'm thinking. Um, so yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And it's also it's also nice as a backup. If you don't have any spinach, say it's uh the middle of summer, I mean you could go out and and pick some greens. I mean, that's that's how I see the taunt in Dean Kale is that if for whatever reason I don't have any greens to pick, I can go out there and pick the tender end leaves, and uh they're perfectly fine, they're not as leathery as the the older leaves.
SPEAKER_01:Makes sense. Um the flat worm that you mentioned, so that's a big problem you you mentioned on the Isle of Man. And there's and it's in Northern Ireland, and people have said, you know, it's kind of become a topic over the last couple of years here, and people in general say it's not in Ireland, but I know gardeners have evidence of it in particular in Donegal and somewhere down along Lake Sligo direction. So it is certainly on the island, and obviously, once it's on the island, eventually it will it will travel. What kind of damage are we seeing? Obviously, the the biggest challenge is that it it takes out the natural earthworm population. What do you guys see over there with it?
SPEAKER_02:Well, that's that's the biggest problem, is that if you let it go unchecked, it will it will basically decimate every earthworm in your garden. And I was first introduced to it when I had the allotment in Laxey, and we had someone from our local wildlife trust come out and he just looked over a kind of grassy area at the bottom of our of our allotment and said, You've got flatworm. Because what happens is that as grass and other types of uh wild plants die, they will break down and earthworms will pull them back into the soil. So it's part of that recycling process. If you have New Zealand flatworms on your land, and particularly in wild areas, that doesn't happen because the worms are absent. And so you get a thatch of grass and vegetation over the soil, and then that thatch can also harbor slugs, so you can have an overpopulation of slugs, which isn't great for the garden. And worms are just such an important bottom of the um, I guess what is the word I'm looking for?
SPEAKER_01:The the food pyramid in the side the side food web, essentially.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the food web, that's the word. So if you're if you're missing worms, then your hedgehogs are gonna be suffering, your birds are gonna be suffering, and yeah, it's just not good. So this time of the year, so they breed, New Zealand flatworms breed in spring, so March to early April, and again from late August to October. So what I do is I have certain areas in the garden where I put down uh landscaping fabric and then put wood chip on top. And that is one of the best traps for catching them. So I lift it up. And my goodness, this year, earlier this year, I probably found and destroyed a couple hundred of them.
SPEAKER_03:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:It's oh if you have one in your garden, guaranteed you probably have about 50 or more.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. Yeah, that's something that is definitely going to become more prominent here. Um, I've heard from I actually did an interview a couple of years ago with uh a listener in in the US, and she had a huge problem with it. And uh Yeah, and she said that there was some fairly strong evidence that biochar was very good. It it didn't kill them, I don't think, but it had a it was uh it had a great effect on keeping them out of of a of a bed or a space. Now I don't know if you guys have have come across any evidence of that or I've not tried that. Yeah, now I'm not exactly sure how or why or whatever, but that was what she was what she was going with. And I know she still uh makes her own biochar. She's just recently moved into a new garden and she's added a lot of biochar into that garden. So there must be something in it, but I don't exactly know the ins and outs of it. And and I use biochar, but not for that purpose. And fingers crossed, I don't have to.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I have I have noticed that where you have perennial plants, in particular, in particular alliums like chives and Welsh onions, that if I do have to dig up a clump, I do find worms in there, quite a few of them, and uh even large clumps of of grass in the past. I have found earthworms within the roots. So I I think also having perennials around so undisturbed soil, especially if you're mulching and doing a no-dig, that can really help with your earthworms finding a place to hide. So, what happens with the the flat worm is that they come out at night and they they seek and destroy, they find earthworm burrows and then they slide down them and get the worm. And so if you have any kind of obstructions, so plants, uh compost that you put on as a mulch, that that really does seem to help, but you also have to eliminate them. I could go on and on about New Zealand flatworm. Don't get me started.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. As I say, it's it's not something we've covered much on the podcast before, but it is there is evidence that they're here on the island.
SPEAKER_02:So I guess it's something that's if they're in Northern Ireland, it is a matter of time. It's a matter of time because Ireland, the Isle of Man, Wales, Scotland. These are all prime habitat for the New Zealand, the Australian flatworm, and uh the uh what is the third one? I have three in my garden. Joy.
SPEAKER_00:Oh no.
SPEAKER_02:The Australian one is the pale pink one. It's not as voracious as the New Zealand flatworm. And the the third one is a very tiny one, with it looks like it has racing stripes on its back. Is it called ventrolinia? Uh I'll have to look that up. That one is also not not as bad. The New Zealand flatworm can move quickly.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know if you've ever seen all I've seen is, as I say, uh there's a gardener in in Donegal who shared a photograph of them, and that's as much as I know about them. But it looks like we'll have to have to learn a little bit about them to understand how to keep them out, I suppose.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Um before we start to close off, a couple of tips for you know, your your website is is brilliant for sharing tips in your books and so on, you know, DIY projects and so on. But a couple of a couple of tips for the winter garden as we start to come into autumn time and into winter. Uh a couple of tips for the autumn garden. What what what would you be recommending? What are you doing in your own garden, I guess, at this stage of the year to prepare?
SPEAKER_02:I think, you know, it depends on what you want to do. So the going into winter, you could be fed up with a garden and ready for a break, and then in that case, just leave it. And, you know, everything that you leave in the garden right now, seed heads, uh flowers, you know, even veg, you know. If you don't want to do anything with it, just leave it there. You can clean it up in spring. It helps to keep wildlife alive over winter, provides hiding places, food, etc. If you do want to clean up and you're more like me, then do it lightly, do it gently. Make sure that there's plenty of hiding spots for for uh small creatures to hide in. Uh places for hedgehogs is great. And also don't forget to to sow some seeds. So broad beans, some of the broad beans you can sow this time of the year. So overwinter those. You can you can do garlic this time of the year as well. So I'm about to to plant out my garlic tomorrow. So there are there are things to do, but it really just depends on your gardening style. You can take a break or you can just keep gardening all winter long if you want.
SPEAKER_01:Brilliant. Um your new book will be coming out. I know name and topic are not decided, but yeah, it's all it's all work in progress at the moment.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Uh I I will be actually releasing a mini book on soap making. So natural soap making using plants, and that will be around Christmas time. So that's gonna be self-published, but an actual published book with my publisher that will be a little bit later on down the road.
SPEAKER_01:And I saw on your website that you you have natural soap making classes, uh, your online class and in-person classes. So tell us about some of those as well.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yes. I've I've offered in-person soap making workshops since 2014, so 11 years now. And I can take up to nine participants each time, which is wonderful. We have a great time. Everyone has such a blast. But I wanted to be able to help more people learn to make soap, so I did an online course. And so that's natural soap making for beginners. You can find that on my website, lovelygreens.com, and that takes you through making from scratch natural soap using plants, using essential oils, and it basically is it just gets you started very quickly.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, brilliant. And you'll find all tips. There's some brilliant blogs. I I know you're you're still blogging, you're still writing articles. Uh, there's some brilliant tips on the website, so lovely lovelygreens.com. I'll put the link in the show notes. Um, you can find links to the soap making classes and link to the book and so on. So there's lots there. Uh Tanya, it's been a really interesting chat. Uh lots of good tips in there. I'm sure the book is brilliant. I actually haven't physically seen a copy of it, but it's as I say, it looks like a brilliant book and uh mentioned by Stella. So thanks very much, Stella, for the for the recommendation. And Tanya, thank you very much for coming on Master My Garden.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.
SPEAKER_01:So that's been this week's episode. A huge thanks to Tanya for coming on. Really interesting chat, lots of topics, you know, jumping around between book and New Zealand flatworms, no the gardening soil health and so on. So lots of really interesting, interesting topics there. Uh, definitely we're gonna have to watch out for New Zealand flatworm, and we'll keep an eye out for Tanya's new books that'll be coming out hopefully in the next couple of years. Um that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening on. Until the next time, happy gardening.