EP308 - Gardening Year Review & Podcast Review 2025. Storms, Soil, And A Stellar Year

Weather wrote a dramatic script this year: a stormy opening, a dreamlike spring, a steady but clouded summer, and a rain-soaked autumn that tested paths, beds, and patience. We trace how those swings shaped real decisions in the garden, from staking and sowing to what to protect, what to lift, and when to wait. You’ll hear why an almost flawless spring can carry a season, how to plan for dry spells without overwatering, and why soil structure—not just plant lists—decided who finished strong when the rain would not quit.

We also open the door on our growing community. Two-thirds of listeners tune in from Ireland, with big pockets in the United States and the United Kingdom and a surprising spread across Canada, Australia, Europe, and Asia. That global map fuels new ideas: keeping monthly sowing guides tied to live weather, answering listener questions that help many growers at once, and bringing back hands-on workshops to sharpen practical skills. Along the way, we share how most of you listen—on mobile, often in the car or out among beds—and what that means for pacing, formats, and planning ahead.

Looking to next year, we’re doubling down on what works: clear, timely guidance, honest talk about trade-offs, and a focus on steady supply to the kitchen while restoring parts of the garden that need care. Expect more listener-led episodes, pragmatic tips for wet and warm winters, and tools for protecting soil in heavy rain. If you’ve been navigating storms, celebrating a perfect spring, or wondering how others handled the wettest weeks on record, you’ll find both perspective and practical steps here.

If you enjoyed this, follow the show, share it with a gardener who needs a lift, and leave a short review—it helps new growers find us. Tell us where you’re listening from and what you want us to tackle next.

Chapters

• 0:12 Year-In-Review And Break Notice
• 2:15 Storm Owen And Nationwide Tree Cutting
• 5:36 Perfect Spring And Dry Spell
• 9:42 A Mixed Summer That Still Grew Well
• 13:48 A Soaked Autumn And Mild Temperatures
• 16:01 Who Listens And Where They Listen
• 19:20 Format Plans And Listener Questions
• 21:02 Garden Priorities, Workshops, And Balance
• 22:58 Lessons Learned And Next Year Outlook

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:12

How's it going everybody and welcome to episode 308 of Master My Garden Podcast? Now, this is the last episode of 2025, or the last sort of regular episode of 2025. And yeah, it's it's one you know where I look back on the year, both the growing year, the gardening year, and I suppose the podcast itself. So that's that's what the theme is going to be for this week. The podcast then will take a little break, as I always do, and regular episodes back on Friday, the 9th of January. So yeah, a week or two there with with no actual gardening episodes per se. But nonetheless, it's been you know it's been uh a great year, gardening year, I guess. Um but like every gardening year, it has come with challenges, and every year is different to the other. And the biggest factor affecting any of us wherever we're listening to the podcast is is weather. And yeah, I know we kind of are a little bit obsessed about talking about the weather here in Ireland, but that's because our weather is just so changeable here, and you know, it varies and month to month, year to year, quarter to quarter, it's it varies, even day to day here. At times it can be it can be so so different. And yeah, to sort of look back on this year, well, it has been a year that'll be remembered for storms overall, and you know, whenever they do the recap of the year, storms will feature in you know the bit the main stories of the year. We started off the year with Storm Owen back in January, and that was, I believe, one of the strongest storms that have been recorded recorded in Ireland, and certain parts of the country got devastated with it in terms of trees falling, trees getting knocked down, uh, power outages and damage, and especially then on top of that, damage in gardens, polytunnels, greenhouses, you know, all of that. So that was kind of the that set the tone for the start of the year. And here where I am, luckily enough, we did have some sort of damage, and it was you know bad enough, but not the worst I've ever seen. And then I remember a couple of weeks later I had to travel west for some work, and at that point it became very, very evident how bad it was in certain parts of the country, and that sparked, you know, among uh as I say, power outages over a long period of time, and that sparked, I guess, uh a campaign by the the likes of the people who look after the electrical supply to go across the country and how would we put this um remove trees that they felt were you know potentially going to cause issues down the line. They definitely, definitely went over the top with that as as time went on. That storm seemed to give them all a fright, and trees across the country got hacked off the back of that, you know, stating that they were potentially dangerous or going to cause an issue, you know, to power lines. And I can understand it, but it was definitely, in my opinion, across the country, somewhat knee-jerk, somewhat over the top. And you know, they I at one stage a crew came to my garden to because there's a a transformer which was actually is actually in the garden, it's supposed to be out, it was supposed to be outside and it ended up being inside. There's betchelet Jack Lamontai uh planted very close to it. They're at full size and are still within several meters of even touching the you know the transformer. They're not a heavy tree, they're not a bulky tree, and they will never, if they were let to grow for eternity, they would never cause damage to that transformer. And uh a crew arrived in one day and insisted on cutting down one of them. Obviously, I didn't allow that to happen. The guy told me he was a trained, you know, trained arborist, knew everything about trees. He said that the trees were going to grow way bigger and knock over the and in time could knock over the transformer. Never gonna happen. The tree was full is full size. So anyway, we compromised or he compromised and there was a little bit taken off with a little bit of a trim. Um, but that same thing happened across the country where trees were just hacked left, right, and centre in the name of protecting the you know the electrical supply across the country. That was the that was the start of the year. Sorry, rabbiting on there a little bit. But that was the start of the year, and I thought it was a little bit sad afterwards that you know so many trees got, as I say, hacked down in the name of protecting the power lines and and so on. And I do understand that's you know, if you're out of power for any period of time, how especially in modern day life, how you I suppose dehabilitating that can be for families, you know, especially especially anyone that's you know, children, older people, all of those things, and and a lot of heating supplies now. So I understand the inconvenience now in the modern world of not having having power, uh, but I do think that that response afterwards to that storm was a little bit a little bit rash. Uh yeah, Storm Own, then, as I say, set the tone for the start of the year with doing really bad damage in certain parts of the country. Uh, and storms over the whole year um have been quite prevalent. You know, we we moved Storm Own, Storm Dara, there was other names in between, and I think we finished recently with Storm Bram, I believe was the name of it, and they hit different areas in different ways with varying degrees of damage and so on. And that was off the back of um coming into this year, you know, the the back end of 2024 was there was storms you know sort of featuring. And I guess what is of obvious is that you know they name all the storms now, and there seems to be storms way more often. Um some of them are what we would know as a blow or a little bit of a wind from years ago, but then there is you know, there's no doubt that there is some damage in actual storms, and probably more and more often than than there previously was. So that that that was the feature of the year, storms, but then that that was storm on kicked off the year in January, but then after that we had what you could only describe as an almost perfect spring growing season. Uh so everything everything happened as you would like it to happen. There was very, very little by way of late frosts, and there was you know little bits, but very little by way of late frosts. We got warm weather and dry weather in the springtime, so crops could get into the ground, we could all get out and do our gardening, and everything grew really well. We did, of course, have that dry period where you know we we get the the perfect spring and then it extends on a little bit and things get dry quite quickly, and that again is is a feature of the last number of years where we're getting this period of of dry. And yeah, our summer then our spring was fantastic weather-wise. Um, and I'm conscious for anyone listening outside of Ireland that it may not have been like this for you, but just as as you'll see in a minute, um, because we're based in Ireland here, the majority of the listeners are still in Ireland. I I'm kind of focusing on that a little bit. Um but be sure to let me know how how your gardening year was. Uh so anyway, we moved from a near-perfect sping with lovely sunshine into our summer months, and they were reasonable in terms of you know growing. It was a s as I say, a great year for growing. But it the summer wasn't, you know, as perfect as you would like. You know, there was reasonable levels of sunlight, but not a huge amount of not a huge amount of sunny days. We did have some and periods of it, but we also did get, you know, kind of wet days, overcast days, and so on through the summer months. Um but they were still okay, and as I say, still it was a very good growing year. All those months were still quite good from a growing perspective. We got adequate rainfall, reasonable days, and so on. So we entered into September then and the autumn of the year, and it's a kind of an exciting time in terms of bulbs and all that, and we got off to a great start in September with a couple of good weeks. And being honest, since then it has been extremely wet. As I'm recording here now, it's absolutely lashing rain. Where probably I I I think they said I must confirm that, but as far as I remember hearing something about it being the wettest November on record here. Uh, and it certainly feels like that. It has been there have been so many days of kind of torrential rain where it's you know really, really heavy over a long period of time, and then you know, which you can get at any stage here in Ireland, we're we're not immune to it, we're not uh we're we're well used to it, and it doesn't it doesn't sort of bother us too much. But when you get these really heavy deluges of rain, we like to get a few days of you know, bit of a break from it, but there seems to have been more really wet days on top of really wet days over a sustained period, right from sort of sometime in in late September into October. Uh, and as I say, certainly November has been has been you know really poor and the wettest on on on record. Temperatures are still extremely mild, like we've had we're we're almost up to Christmas here, and we've had maybe one or two frosts, but not not uh you know, sustained period of cold. Um so temperatures have remained unseasonably warm here. Um and that definitely is a feature of the last few years, less kind of cold snaps and more warm or wetter weather. Um but all in all, looking back on it from a growing perspective, it was a it was a fabulously good year for growing. Um generally everything everything went well uh and from a growing perspective it was really good. From the podcast perspective, then just the kind of I like to, as I say, look at some of these um stats and pieces of information that around it around the podcast and so on. And yeah, it's in it's interesting uh glasses on for this because I have to do a little bit of reading, but at the moment um sixty-eight percent of the listeners are in Ireland, so it is predominantly an Irish show. But we have a huge amount of listeners in the US and in the UK, and they kind of switch from second place to third place quite regularly, but for the last good while the the US, the United States have been running quite a bit ahead of the UK. So I have a lot of listeners in the US um and quite a few in the UK, but some other countries and places to mention Canada this year, a lot of listeners in Canada, uh Australia has grown quite a lot, Germany, France, Spain, Norway. I wonder at times like some of the stuff I'm talking about is you know universal, but a lot of it is related to you know Ireland and you know equivalent growing zones as a lot of you guys would know it. Um but it is amazing to see listeners from Slovenia, Holland, Italy, Thailand, Croatia, United Arab Emirates, wow, um Philippines, Austria, Taiwan, Ukraine, Bulgaria, China, Russia. Uh if you're listening for any of these places, please do, please do send me a message and tell me uh Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Latvia, Andorra, Vietnam, Bangladesh, so yeah, places all over the world, and I find I find that really, really intriguing to know um who's listening from these places and what it is they like or or take from the podcast, I guess, because yeah, I'm living in the Midlands here, flat Irish accents. Some people I think would find it hard to understand me, but yet still there's people are listening all over the world. And just to give you an idea or a flavour of these places, you know, more down to the regions, so Leinster is a is still you know big percentage of the listeners, Cork, uh Limerick, Galway, Clarney, Kilkenny, Carlow, local areas to me. Uh London, a lot of listeners around London, Gory, Portleash, uh skip down through some of them, Longford, Sligo, Singapore, uh Castle Barn, New York, Los Angeles, Letter Kenny and Donegal, Waterford, Carricon Shannon, Melbourne, Drahida, Garvan, Columbus, Ohio, Dallas, Texas, um Johnson City in Tennessee, uh Duncan in British Columbia, uh Hertfordshire, Mullingar, Austin, Texas, San Antonio, Texas. If you're listening in Texas, because there's often been a few Texas addresses there, please just give me a shout, let me know where you're listening. Um amazing to hit to see people from from all these places listening in. Uh Denver, Colorado. I won't go down through them all, like there's hundreds hundreds here. Um Ohio, Utah, uh Gray and Galway, Perth, Western Australia, Brisbane, Queensland, Chicago, Auckland, Cardiff, Ljubljana. Ljubljana. That's in Slovenia, I think. Um is it Croatia? One of those places, anyway. Umide, Gort, Pittsburgh, Reading, Salbridge, Minute, Munich. Uh yeah, amazing, amazing to see all these different places. Some interesting stats on you know how people listen. So this switches all the time as well when you when you're kind of keeping an eye on it. Uh 36% of people are listen listening on Apple, so Apple Podcasts, uh, 32% on Spotify, and that switches. So occasionally you'll see Spotify ahead of Apple, and they switch from one to two. But that's uh 68% of the listenership is either on Apple and Spotify, and then the rest are on other podcast apps, you know, that people would have. And then there's a percentage of people that are listening on you know smart TVs, which again I find unusual, but people are listening on smart TVs, their desktops, and so on. So, yeah, it's it's it's interesting to see you know where and and how people are listening. Mobile is still by far the biggest percentage, so people are either listening while driving to work. Uh, you know, listeners have commented that they listen when when they're driving to work. So driving to work or out in the garden, that seems to be a common theme. Uh, so 91% of people are listening in in a mobile format, so we're out and about their mobile and so on. So, yeah, it's it's been from that point of view. We covered the top 10 episodes last week. Uh, the podcast continues to grow, continues to reach new people in new places, as yes, as you can see from that list. Um yeah, fascinates me that people are listening from all these places. Wherever you're listening from, if you if if you would please just send me a message somewhere that you know, tell me what it is you're getting from the podcast. Um as I say, some of these places fascinate me that you know somebody is listening from wherever wherever they are and getting something of benefit from the podcast. So yeah, so that's that's been really brilliant. Um yeah, top episodes, as I say, I covered last week. Next year, next year I don't have any specific plans um yet for the podcast in terms of if there's going to be any changes or if anything is going to be different or new. I do think that I need to kind of or that I want to kind of create maybe a different type of an episode as well, so a new angle on an episode. So if you've anything there, like covering the listeners' questions, uh that's that's quite a good one. And it I always feel that when when I answer those questions, that it's helping not just the person that asked the question but others as well. And so, yeah, I'll I'll continue to do that. The monthly sewing guides are massively popular, they're kind of a repeat of the previous year, but they do keep people, you know, if you're listening, they kind of get you to focus in on that month and really yeah, get you to hone in on what what you can sow in the in the month ahead. Um and they're also they also tend to be, you know, from an Irish perspective, they tend to relate quite closely to what's happening here at the time, weather wise, and think people like that as well. They like the the the fact that it's kind of up to date with what's happening weatherwise. I do, from my own perspective, need to plan out episodes further in advance to ensure that I'm not uh putting myself under pressure, get Near to sort of release dates and so on, need to plan out and schedule stuff a little bit, a little bit earlier. That's hard to do with the you know, with the ones that need to be more up to date in terms of sewing guides and so on. Um but yeah, from my own perspective, that's something I need to do, and possibly looking at you know some different types of episodes, whatever that may be. So if you have any ideas on that, then again shoot them across to me. Um yeah, so that's that's kind of the year in review. Brilliant, brilliant year in terms of growing, as I said. Uh, from my own perspective, probably over the last couple of years, for various reasons, family, busy family life going on. Um, football, as I've mentioned before, takes up, you know, Gaelic football takes up a lot of time here. And there's probably parts of the garden that have been neglected. Not probably, there is parts of the garden that have been neglected. Um next year, as I say, plan to do workshops, they're gonna hone me or sort of focus me in on getting back in and and getting the garden back into shape. Um because it needs to, I suppose, you know, um but also because you know when you're bringing people to to look at you know certain things, the then it's good that they have gardens that are I suppose being looked after the way that they should. Um it's not something that bothers me overly, but there has been you know because I haven't had enough time, I I'm really honing in on what's important, which is for me the m the most important part is having regular supply of our own food to the kitchen. And that's as I say the most important thing and has been the biggest focus over the last few years. But I want to kind of expand out that a little bit and you know spend a little bit more time in other areas of the garden as well. I'm saying that, but all the other commitments are still there, so I just have to be careful not to overstretch myself. Uh delighted then the workshops, as you know, mentioned that in the last episode, they're back, and I really, really like getting back to those in person that teaching, showing, demonstrating, I love that part of it. So yeah, that's going to become more of a feature, as I said in the last episode, over 2026. Uh, and other than that, yeah, let's see what comes. It's been a fantastic year. Um really, really enjoyable year in terms of growing, lots of you know, lots of really good crops, lots of really good flowers. Everything grew perfectly. It was a perfect growing season right up until you know the last quarter, which has been horrendously wet. But it's always the case. You you'll never see a year where everything just kind of is perfect for every month. That's just the nature of of growing, that's just the nature of weather, and you know, every year there's something to learn, something to take from it. So, but yeah, overall for the podcast and for the garden and for growing and for you guys, I know a lot of you had huge success in your garden this year. Um, and yeah, here's to next year being the same. Uh, we'll have just a happy Christmas episode in the coming days, but until this is the kind of the last, as I say, proper episode of 2025. The podcast will take a break then and be back with full episodes on the 9th of January. So that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening, and until the next time, happy gap.