EP310 The First Episode Of 2026, Lets Ease Into The Gardening year

Gardeners feel the pull to sprint in January, but nature is whispering a different message: slow down. We’re starting the year with a calm, practical roadmap that swaps panic for preparation and sets you up for a stronger spring. From frost-dried soil to incoming rain and storms, we read the season as it is and show why most sowing can wait until February—especially if you don’t have grow lights or steady heat for long-season favourites like chillies and aubergines.

We share the simple jobs that pay off now: build or refresh no-dig beds, plan rotations and varieties, set up rainwater harvesting and basic irrigation, and check your kit so you’re not scrambling when the light returns. You’ll hear what’s coming next: a hands-on seed-sowing setup guide and a rich conversation on permaculture design with Pippa Chapman, focused on adapting resilient systems to small gardens and creating plant combinations that work in real life. Along the way, we celebrate messages from listeners across the world—a reminder that practical, step-by-step gardening advice travels—and we pause to honour the legacy of Seamus O’Brien of Kilmacurragh, whose deep horticultural knowledge shaped gardens and gardeners alike.

If last year’s most-played episodes taught us anything, it’s that you value clear, tangible guidance you can take into the garden the same day. So that’s our promise: simple timing, smarter prep, and fewer stretched seedlings. Subscribe, share this with a gardener who needs a calmer January, and leave a quick review to help others find the show. What will you prepare this week so February sowing feels easy?

Grow your own food workshop link here look forward to seeing you here: 

https://subscribepage.io/growyourownfoodworkshop

Chapters

• 0:11 New Year Return And Weather
• 2:10 Global Listeners And Encouragement
• 3:22 Plans For Formats And Aims
• 5:00 Slow Down The January Seed Rush
• 7:27 What To Do Now Instead
• 8:43 Upcoming Episodes And Workshops
• 12:23 Remembering Seamus O’Brien
• 14:12 Yearly Stats And Hands‑On Focus
• 15:49 Final Reminder: Wait For February

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:11

How's it going everybody and welcome to episode 310 of Master My Garden Podcast? Now this week's episode is the first episode of 2026 and delighted to be back getting going again with weekly episodes for for the year ahead. And yeah, it's been it's been a lovely, lovely break. Yeah, nice couple of weeks off in general. Lots of relaxing. And yeah, I think like everybody there was a touch of flu and sickness around our house, fingers crossed, and touch wood. I didn't I didn't get anything, but within the house we did have uh a few people who weren't weren't the best over Christmas. Um but it's after being a lovely couple of weeks of really cold and frosty weather, and yeah, that was lovely to get out and about. Nice, bright, sunny days, which is lovely to get at this time of the year as well. And definitely cold at this time of the year, and frost at this time of the year is always it's always very welcome. And it did serve a good purpose of starting to dry everywhere up because you know the you know, we spoke about it a bit. All the back end of last year was really, really wet, and and that that frost has served to dry things up a little bit. Um so that that that's nice, although we are expecting quite a lot of rain over the next few days and a hint of storms and sort of the tail end of storms as well. So it's uh it's an interesting, an interesting start to the year. It's um a few things are kind of there's no specific topic on this week's episode. We're easing into the year, and we're going to I suppose take a nice and steady with some great episodes coming up over the next couple of weeks. But for this week, it was just to get back at it and a few important things to to chat about, but no specific topic as such. Um, firstly, loads of people messaged over the Christmas break, people from all over the world having, you know, when I mentioned all the different countries where people are listening, a lot of people messaged saying that they were delighted to hear the country mentioned, and hello from the USA, hello from France, hello from Australia, hello from Slovenia, um uh UK, and all those places. So, yeah, lovely. I I I know I said it a lot last year, but it is lovely to get to start to build up uh connections and discussions and just even to know who's listening, where they're listening, and so on. Uh so yeah, love lovely, lovely messages over Christmas um from people all over the world who listen to the podcast and some great stories around what they're getting from the podcast. So that that's really good. Uh plans for the year ahead. Uh a lot of the same. Probably want to bring start to bring some kind of different episodes to the table as well. Um, but a lot of a lot of the really popular ones will still remain. And you know, the monthly sewing guides, the open garden features, the good interviews with various people talking about various topics, uh that that'll always be good because you know you bring different voices, different angles, different expertise to the table, and and hopefully that can help everybody. The aim will always be that every episode You know has something that will help people, inspire people, um, teach people, I guess, to master their own gardens and to you know to be able to garden successfully and in a way that you know makes them proud and happy of their of their own gardens. So yeah, and definitely a lot of the messages over Christmas reinforced reinforced that with me. And it's funny because you know I'm here in County Leash, have a a thick, flat leash accent, uh, as people in Ireland will know. Um but and and you wonder sometimes is your message helping people, and then to see these messages over Christmas of how it's helping people in their gardens, that has been really heartening, and definitely that that um you know encourages me to continue to do this um type of content on on a weekly basis. So yeah, looking forward to the year ahead and you know, looking forward to you know bringing bringing different different topics every week. Um the first kind of thing I want to talk about is slightly along the same lines, and I talk about it every year. And I suppose you know, once you turn into the new year, from the very next day it's all life. Um everybody sort of sets their new year's resolutions and they get all these ideas about what they want to achieve over the next year, what they want to do over the next year, and that can be you know from everything across fitness to you know every other aspect of their lives and including gardening. And uh I always feel that, you know, especially just after after Christmas, after that break, we're in the winter time. Um, if you look in the garden, nature is quiet, everything is in slow mode because it is deep winter time, days are short, nights are long, and the turn of the year sort of sparks people into thinking we have to get out and we have to do this and we have to do that. And I always think ease into this year go really, really slow. I've already seen and I've said it every year since I started the podcast, the the rush and the clatter around sowing seeds starts the minute the first of January comes, and it has already started. I'm seeing it online already. Here's the ten seeds to sow in January, and here's the the you know the five top seeds to sow in January, and and so on and so on and so on. And I really think that well, some people, as I say all the time, some people can be in a very, very privileged position of where they live that they can get going a lot earlier. But for us here in Ireland, from most parts of the country here, for certain, take your time. There is absolutely no panic. Just because we're into the first week or so of January doesn't mean we need to be getting seeds sowed yet. Uh now what we do need to do, and I'm going to cover a full episode on it next week. Um there'll probably actually be two episodes out next week. Uh I'll tell you about those in a moment, but one will be on what we need to do to get sowing seeds. But we'll take stock of everything that we need, and we'll go through that in a in a proper episode. But for now, the message is just slow down. Um now there is loads of work we can do in the gardens should we choose to. You know, bed preparation, a little bit of planning, um setting up things like water harvester, rain ro rainwater harvesting, um even irrigation systems, set up that, plan all that, but don't get panicked yet around sowing seeds. We're still, as I said, we're still in winter officially, and we'll continue to be in winter for a while, and it's not really until we get into February, as you know from the sowing guides, it's not until we get into to February that we kick off sowing. And don't be fooled by you know the five seeds we should sow in January and uh so on and so on and so on, because you will just you will spend the next three or four months nursing nursing little seedlings when there's no need for it. Now, I do understand certain things need you know sort of long growing seasons, and the longer growing seasons they have the better. These are things like you know, chili peppers, the the chili peppers, aubergines, these are the ones that I see people already sowing, and I understand that the long period of time. But I can assure you, unless you have grow lights, unless you have heating and continually keep that on those seedlings from now till the end of February, you're you've absolutely no, you know, you have no benefit by sowing at this stage of the year. If you get them sown early February and you apply a little bit of heat, the daylight will be expanding, the the days will be getting longer, and from the start of February till the end of February, there'll be a huge difference in the light levels, and then the season, nature will start to wake up, and from there we can we can start turning our own wheels a little bit faster. Same goes for fitness and all those things. There's a big push after Christmas to go jump off the couch after being lying on it for two weeks. Uh now I'd like to get out and about during Christmas anyway, you know, walking and out in nature and whatnot. But a lot of people they completely pan out for a couple of weeks, which is no harm because sometimes you do need to charge up the batteries, but then they get into January and they go 200 miles an hour onto a new fitness regime, and then by the middle of the month it's you know they've burnt themselves out, and and uh it's not sustainable. So, same goes for sown seeds, ease into the year, certainly be preparing, certainly be planning, but don't start panicking yet around sowing seeds. That's you know definitely the the big message from from this shorter episode this week. As I said to you, next week we will be covering the so there's two two episodes will go out next week. One is a brilliant episode on permaculture design. Uh so we've covered permaculture a little bit recently, and this is permaculture design with Pippa Chapman. And Pippa has a new book out all around uh designing a garden uh with the sort of permaculture principles, and that's a brilliant chat, some brilliant plant combinations. Um, and I suppose taking permaculture designs and scaling it back down to suit the average garden or the normal size garden. So a little bit of chat on food forests and and uh and so on, but that's a really good episode. But we'll also put out an episode around seed sowing and how we can get everything set up, what we're gonna need, what we need to plan for um to get sowing in a couple of weeks' time. So that's kind of the the the what's coming up over the next few weeks. Um other things, I guess. The uh great lot of people signed up already, particularly to the Grow Your Own food course in February. That's about two-thirds sold at this stage. So there's still places on the 21st of February, uh, but not too many. So if you're interested in that, uh yeah, get on that straight away. I'll put the link in the show notes here anyway. Uh the 21st of March, there's a couple of people on that, but there's still a good few spaces there. But yeah, good good interest, and a lot of people seem to be buying them in twos, which you know, as I said, that's um, you know, people are gonna come in in in couples or in pairs, and uh yeah, a good a good day out. Um hopefully weather-wise, everything everything plays ball. But yeah, at that stage, you know, especially 21st of February, like we'll create a no-dig bed. We'll you know, maybe plant some some onions, maybe plant uh an apple tree, a fruit tree, you know, things like that. We'll do all of that sort of thing hands-on, sowing seed. We'll be right in the middle of seed sowing at that stage, so we'll be sowing seed and all of that, and we'll get you up and running for the year ahead. Um so yeah, all of that in in February and March, two you know, two two great great workshops and more to be announced soon. Uh, other things over the Christmas, there was uh, of course, uh the really sad news just before Christmas of the passing of Seamus O'Brien. Seamus O'Brien was head gardener of Kilmacora, so it's the OPW gardens up in Kilmachura. Fantastic gardens. Um Seamus has been in uh was instrumental in improving them over the last number of years. Um I I didn't personally know Seamus, but just I know that the you know the legacy of his work here, and you know, from talking to head gardeners across Ireland and the UK over the last number of years with the podcast, the regards that Seamus was held in in terms of his plant knowledge and his knowledge of horticulture in general was was huge, and he's you know a huge loss to to Irish horticulture. Without a doubt, I would say one of the most knowledgeable people in in Irish horticulture, and he was due to speak at the the GLDA conference in February, um, which we will be talking about on the podcast in a couple of weeks' time as well. But yeah, that that was that was really sad news, and as I say, I didn't personally know Seamus, but I think it's important to to mark it uh and to to highlight it because the mark that he has left on on Irish horticulture is without a doubt, you know, second to none. Um yeah, and just just sad news, news before Christmas. Um then, you know, in terms of in terms of the the the podcast for the year um yeah, I I mentioned already all the usual all the usual popular episodes are coming up. Um I just actually got the what you get at the end of the year is you get an email from your your podcast host and it gives you a sort of a recap of your year. Um just some interesting when you read over it some interesting things in it. So 52 episodes across the year 2025, uh so one a week that'll continue this year. Most popular episode of 2025 was uh how to harden off seedlings in the springtime. Surprisingly enough, like that's um it's bizarre. I can understand it to a certain extent, but um for that to be the most popular is is interesting, and it just goes to show that you guys are really interested in um you know the hands-on type episodes, the ones that are tangible, the ones that can be translated back to your own gardens. Um the one of the the that was the most popular, the second most popular was one of the month's sewing guides, I forget which one it was, but again, a tangible something that you can write your notes, go way after the episode and implement within your own garden. And yeah, interesting to see those ones. Um the podcast was listened to in I think 60 odd countries. I mentioned some of those beforehand, but I only got the email yesterday about it, so it's interesting to see that. Um new destinations for the year and and all those things, and there was loads of other stats and things, but yeah, some of them are interesting, not overly relevant, I guess, but hugely interesting at the same time for me to have a look at them. Um, so yeah, that's as I say, this week's episode is more of a ease back in the way we all should be doing with our seeds and with our gardening. There's still things we can be doing, but we don't need to be panicking. We definitely don't need to be rushing out and sowing seeds. Don't mind the here's five seeds you can sow in in January videos that are going around online, just completely ignore them, and that'll pick up next month. You can you can definitely go go and go do lots of sewing next month. But there's no need to panic on anything yet, no need to sew anything yet. In my opinion, if you are somewhere where, as I say, you're lucky enough that you can get going earlier, then work away. But just for the majority of us, February is time enough. Uh, and that's been this week's very short episode. Looking forward to next week's kind of double episode on permaculture design and on getting set up for the seed sowing season. So that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening, and I'll tell you next time. Happy Garde!