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HortWeek presents The End of Peat, a new four-part podcast series that will hear from leading horticulturists and garden retailers as they navigate a transition to peat-free that is piling pressure on a sector facing stresses on all sides.
Peat is one of the most popular and reliable types of growing media for plants, but peatlands are also a valuable store for carbon and as the UK Government tries to meet net zero targets, a peat ban is on the agenda.
Over the four episodes, Christina Taylor explores the story of the UK peat ban, how the horticulture industry is facing up to the challenge, and how it might shape the future of the sector.
Christina asks:
Do we need a peat ban?Why is the transition to peat-free causing so much division and proving so difficult?And as the sector navigates the numerous challenges, she asks what is needed for the sector to survive, if and when peat ban legislation actually comes into effect.In Episode 2: From multi-purpose to pick 'n' mix, Christina explores the two particular challenges faced by garden centres.
The first is the transition from selling peat-based compost to peat-free mixes. Challenges here include the variable quality of peat-free compost mixes, fears over supply of new ingredients, the higher price of these mixes and how they can help educate amateur gardeners learn to grow their plants.
Many have found difficulties in germinating seeds prompting fears that thousands of customers, particularly those trying to Grow-Your-Own fruit and veg, may give up, costing garden centres valuable customers in the process.
We hear about the initiatives from thought leaders in the industry on how these challenges can and should be addressed.
The second challenge relates to the sourcing of plants that have been grown in peat-free compost. This is where the interests of retailers intersect with the growers as peat-free adds to cost pressures. Ways to grow so-called tricky plants continue to be elusive prompting fears that we may lose the ability to buy whole categories of plants in the UK.
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HortWeek presents The End of Peat, a new four-part podcast series that will hear from leading horticulturists and garden retailers as they navigate a transition to peat-free that is piling pressure on a sector facing stresses on all sides.
Peat is one of the most popular and reliable types of growing media for plants, but peatlands are also a valuable store for carbon and as the UK Government tries to meet net zero targets, a peat ban is on the agenda.
Over the four episodes, Christina Taylor explores the story of the UK peat ban, how the horticulture industry is facing up to the challenge, and how it might shape the future of the sector.
Christina asks:
Do we need a peat ban?Why is the transition to peat-free causing so much division and proving so difficult?And as the sector navigates the numerous challenges, she asks what is needed for the sector to survive, if and when peat ban legislation actually comes into effect.In Episode 1: Do we need a peat ban? Christina unearths why a peat ban is being proposed and outlines some of the arguments for and against.
It examines the history of peat use in the UK, the properties of peat and peat-free growing media, and begins to unearth why the topic has so bitterly divided the horticulture industry.
The End of Peat was written, produced and presented by HortWeek digital content manager Christina Taylor
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Bob Askew was Garden Media Guild award winner a year ago for his new writer work for Hortweek. He works for Kernock Park Plants as production director and was previously at Darby Nursery Stock and Brinkmans.
Here he names his top three tree genera for gardens, three underused tree genera and top five skinny trees for small gardens.
He believes the reliance of nurseries and garden centres on too few ornamental tree cultivars is a bad thing and is critical of overuse of Betula utilis var. jacquemontii and Crataegus Paul's Scarlet, and offers alternatives to them.
Askew also names three awful crab apple cultivars and five brilliant ones for gardens, as well as five brilliant but below-the-radar flowering cherries.
He delves into the pros and cons of growing trees in solid pots, versus airpots, or slotted pots.
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This week the HortWeek Podcast meets Imogen Bell, supervisor at Thomson's Garden Centre and a YPHA Southeast regional coordinator
In her article for HortWeek 'Despite CITES, not all doom and gloom for houseplant sales' Imogen reflects on how the reinterpretation of CITES "meant practically a third of my stock became unavailable overnight".
One of the "Brexit benefits" often quoted was the possibility that more friction across the borders would encourage clients to buy British and boost British-grown plants. As tightening border controls cause unprecedented chaos at BCPs Imogen might be feeling a degree of relief that she took the decision to switch to British houseplant nurseries months ago.
"Cacti, carnivorous plants, the majority of orchids... it's almost impossible to import, which is obviously quite a large part of most houseplant departments.
"Luckily, I was already having looking into UK growers after Brexit - just in case anything got super difficult to import. And at the same time a lot of UK nurseries then opened up to garden centres - Oppenman's plants, Double H, Hills Brothers all opened up to garden centres about the same time.I was already ordering from them so I just got to order in much higher volume.
The only plants she's struggled with are more unusual orchids, she says, but initiatives such as Horti House which allows nurseries to trade as one unit is helping.
"You get some great nurseries in there like Dibley's who do Streptocarpus and Begonia.. and where before you would have to order either half a trolley or a whole trolley, you can now just order by the tray which means you can get a good range of more unusual things without having to kind of put all your eggs in one basket with a specific supplier."
She talks about the challenge of competing with supermarkets with their economies of scale, "but on the other hand, I think if you look at any supermarket at their house plant department, it is all half-dead... where garden centers and other plant shops really stand out is the level of knowledge and customer service they can offer".
At Thomson's she has added labels showing the air miles for plants on sale: "I'd like to introduce UK suppliers and just extend that so you can say this orchid or Monstera or whatever has come from 40 miles away and it's come from this nursery and it's a family -run business. I think it just adds to the value of the plant to be able to give it that origin."
It surprises her that, given the huge rise in popularity of houseplants in recent years, many garden centres fail to put on a good display.
New trends she is seeing include Marimo moss balls. They grow like a couple of millimetres a year. But for some reason they were flying off the shelves." The appeal for many customers she says, are plants that "thrive off neglect".
On peat-free, Imogen says customers are asking for it and garden centres are moving in that direction, ban or no ban. "Horti House is peat-free and again out of necessity I guess the other ones will come into line" she says.
On peat-free composts, she says: "I've noticed more and more people are mixing their own soils. So instead of just getting a packet off the shelf, they're buying a base and then they're buying perlite or coir or coco husk and then blending it for the specific plant".
And will the houseplant boom continue?
"I'm not sure we'll quite get the sky high sales we had during the lockdowns...They've plateaued since, but the interest is consistent. I don't think house plants will go away."
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HortWeek is delighted to present the Cultivate Your Future podcast, in partnership with the Colegrave Seabrook Foundation and sponsor Westland Horticulture.
At a time when horticulture needs to encourage a new wave of young people to come into the industry, this podcast is designed to highlight the multiple and varied career opportunities available.
Hear from people who have found their way into their chosen career through different paths, what their job involves and what it means to them.
In this episode Neville Stein catches up with students from Sparsholt College to discuss their recent experience of exhibiting at RHS Chelsea Flower Show and how they felt about it.
As the Colegave Seabrook Foundation supports students studying horticulture, we were very proud to be sponsors of their exhibit and are thrilled at their success.
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This week's guests are James Cairncross and Angela Lewis from the Midlands Parks Forum which has its annual conference on the 17th of October at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. Highlights include keynote speaker Dr. William Bird, a GP who contributed to a select committee report on access to green space who will speak on health benefits of physical activity and green spaces.
"Other speakers include people from MHCLG, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Heritage Lottery Fund, and also some experience from out in the real world, such as Islington Borough Council" Angela explains and she outlines workshops also to be run at the event.
James addresses the "perennial problem" of parks budget cuts. "Despite there being quite a clear return on any investment in parks, local authority officers are still struggling to protect what they've got, let alone improve the funding for green spaces.
"Our chair of trustees Liz Stuffins attended the previous Government's DEFRA inquiry into urban parks, and they found that both the quality and the quantity of urban parks are in quite serious decline.
This exacerbates the skills shortages suffered by the parks sector but The Midlands Park Forum aims to help overcome this by offering learning events, the conference and webinars "focused on the skills and competencies in a framework that aligns with the Landscape Institute's framework on competencies identifying over 60 skills in six categories, which we've identified as being important for a good park manager. And it's not just about cutting grass. This is people skills, environmental stewardship, income and finance, future visioning and planning, and all the competencies that go with being a professional."
The lack and loss of expertise in the sector combined with budget cuts means some parks "are already losing their green flag awards because the authorities can just no longer attain the quality that's needed to keep those award...some councils now can't even afford the cost of the application, let alone the quality".
With a new Government installed, James acknowledges parks will have to "join the queue" when asking for more state funding but top of his list of asks is "a national urban parks strategy and it needs to be integrated into public health because the benefits of that are both obvious." Close behind is a wish that the Green Jobs Task Force be expanded to include the green spaces sector.
They discuss best practice in the sector and for Angela it means "local spaces that can become the hub of the local community and making sure that people do look at different collaborations locally, whether that's with local charities providing physical activity and exercise or local charities that provide volunteers to look after the green spaces and just making sure that all those things are considered in terms of local people having that space that they've got within 15 minutes of home".
For the future, the Forum wants to "continue to deliver quality service to members" including CPD offerings, via learning events and knowledge sharing.
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Both our guests on the HortWeek Podcast broadly agree with the reasons for a peat ban and agree there is a need to reduce carbon emissions to help fight climate change. But they are not equally convinced a peat ban is the way to do it.
In the 'for' corner is cosmos and hollyhocks national collection holder and lobbyist Jonathan Sheppard.
Sheppard says: "You only have to look at places like Hampton Court where they have the peat-free garden where the plant list was massive. I've never seen a plant list as long which showed people that you can grow without peat. So I'm just wholly not convinced that you can't be a successful grower. But then I guess it depends on what do we mean by a successful grower. I just don't want to see rewards being given when there's an RHS sustainability strategy when using peat...It must be the wrong thing to do, given the science that we know about how much CO2 digging this cheap product up emits."
And in the 'not so sure' corner we have dahlia and sweet pea grower Darren Everest.
Darren argues: "Just for example in the National Dahlia Society, you try finding me one of the top elite growersn that don't use peat and I think you'll struggle to find any...growing flowers to national level requires a lot of time and years of knowledge and experience growing and I haven't found anybody online yet, certainly in the dahlia world, that has found a suitable non-peat-based product. "
HortWeek editor Matthew Appleby hosts the discussion which focuses on efforts to end peat use by growers and RHS exhibitors.
The pair reflect on their experience of using peat free and debate how significant the carbon emissions cuts achieved by ending peat use in horticulture will be.
The RHS plans to end peat use from 2026 and they ponder how this ban will affect different growers, awards, whether shows will attract fewer exhibitors and crucially, how it can be policed.
For more information on growers and garden retailers going peat free, see https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/peat
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ICL's Sam Rivers digs down into Integrated Pest Management and speifically IPM planning.
Sam describes what the current situation in the industry is with regards to IPM planning and details the 'hierarchy of control', which includes cultural, biological, physical and chemical methods.
He gives examples of the different types of controls and talks about regulations for biological control.
Sam warns that chemical control is a last option and lists some of the many new restrictions on chemicals that are coming in.
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GroundsFest 2024 took place10 - 11 September at Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire. Initial visitor numbers from day 1 (unaudited) of 4,738 were 40% up on last year, the show’s inaugural year.
The podcast was recorded on day 2 of GroundsFest amongst the hustle and bustle of the show. HortWeek senior reporter Rachael Forsyth spoke with Chris Bassett, event director at GroundsFest, Jonathan Snowball head of professional at Husqvarna and David Fisher head of landscape and rural at LANTRA about how the show has been going so far.
Snowball explained that Husqvarna took advantage of the outdoor space making its entire stand a live demo area – one section for chainsaws and another for robotic lawn mowers and ride on machines. Bassett explained that this was a USP when setting up GroundsFest, allowing exhibitors to have that flexibility with their space and offering something different for visitors.
Fisher said conversations at the show centred around the skills shortage with LANTRA facilitating a “well attended” seminar on the challenges and opportunities in the amenity sector. Questions arose around where the next generation is coming from, keeping people in the industry, and how we can best show off what careers and pathways look like.
Bassett said the show has had really good feedback so far, and while you will never get 100% positive feedback the team is ready to make tweaks based on feedback for next year. Overall, though, Bassett said visitors are enjoying being able to get their hands on the kit and test it.
See: www.groundsfest.com
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Alan Down is a gardening broadcaster and writer and current HTA president, shortly to be replaced by Will Armitage after two eventful years.
He studied at Cannington and Pershore College of Horticulture and after a spell working Germany, he developed and managed Hillier Nurseries' container grown and seed propagation nurseries for nine years.
For the following 35 years, Alan built up Cleeve Nursery and Garden Centre, near Bristol and alongside hi wife Felicity, co-presented the long-standing ‘Garden Calendar’ TV programme.
On the podcast Alan talks about his role at the HTA including presiding over changes in structure and strategy.
He discusses his desire to shift the terminology and emphasis of production horticulture from 'ornamental' to 'environmental' horticulture which runs alongside the topics the HTA engages with, including with the Government. These topics include the issues of trade and border checks, "the extra costs [growers] incur... and we continue to apply pressure to try and resolve the issues that are there. We also have huge concern about the few inspections that there are, which means that we are a threat in terms of importing pests and diseases which could be harmful to our industry and indeed to the country as a whole".
He discusses the on-going shift away from peat. In the absence of official figures (since 2022) he estimates garden centre use of peat-based growing media is down to around 10%, but the picture with growers is more complex.
"Some have been growing peat-free for quite some time. Others are still trialling and finding out what medium works for them and how to handle growing plants in peat -free compost and others may not have even started. But we are there to support our members in this transition and we'll continue to do that."
He and HortWeek editor Matt Appleby discuss the Lords Parliamentary horticultural inquiry of 2023 and the impact, if any, it has had since on the sector, which has partly been disrupted by the arrival of a new Government, Alan points out.
But. Alan says, he believes the HTA is well-placed to influence the new administration as an institution which represents growers, landscapers and retailers. He talks about initiatives such as inviting MPs to visit growers on site and the opportunity exhibiting at Chelsea gives the HTA to meet them in a "in a more relaxed mood'.
Matt and Alan talk about the health of horticulture shows including collaborations with GIMA, Alan's enthusiasm for more regional events and the HTA's own conference taking place on September 25 at the International Conference Centre in Birmingham.
And as he celebrates his 50th wedding anniversary, he contemplates life after the HTA and what it might hold as well as his latest Desert Island plant.
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A Sussex native, Susan Raikes, the new director of Wakehurst, Kew's wild botanic garden in West Sussex (she joined in June) was familier with the garden since childhood.
"We're Kew's younger, bigger and wilder sister and very much a botanic garden with a purpose...a site of horticultural and scientific excellence and a living laboratory where groundbreaking science projects are taking place as well. So lots of beautiful gardens, beautiful spots to come and visit, but some really important science and horticultural work going on as well."
After Kew released a report detailing risks to over half of its 11,000 trees, Wakehurst will carry out a similar exercise next year: "it's a different challenge, but absolutely we're thinking about the resilience of the planting".
She talks about the effects of climate change on the garden, with respect not just to plants, but impacts for visitors and scientists working at the centre.
Related to this, Wakehurst has been "championing meadows" via it's Meadowland feature this summer (until September 10) and has a focus on threatened and rare UK habitats which have been combined with newly commissioned pieces of contemporary art to enhance the ecological and educational aspects.
Wakehurst is home to Kew's Millennium Seed Bank, which houses more than 2.4 billion seeds from around the world and which will celebrate its 25th birthday next year.
Among research programs currently live at the garden Sue highlights Nature Unlocked, "which is helping us to use Wakehurst as a living laboratory, looking at it as an ecosystem observatory. We're looking at pollinators and carbon, but also well-being and the different kinds of landscapes and environments that people get the most benefit from".
The research project will be reflected in features in visitor areas such as the children's garden which will house a bee bank, a rebuilt mud kitchen and edible meadow.
Next year will also see the 60th anniversary of Kew's presence at Wakehurst and the garden plans to bring "to life that story of being a living laboratory so that visitors really know that they are visiting somewhere that is really making a difference in terms of all of the work we need to do around climate change and habitat loss as well."
Previously Sue was director of learning at the Science Museum Group and before that you were head of learning and national partnerships at the British Museum and is familiar with "taking sometimes quite complicated and specialist content and then working with that in a variety of different ways to bring it to as many people as possible" and she plans to bring these skills to bear at Wakehurst.
Wakehurst has enlisted two champions, TV GP Dr. Amir Khan and BBC Springwatch presenter Megan McCubbin to help "amplify our message and spread the word about this incredible wild botanic garden that we have." Local resident and A-list actor Cate Blanchett has made a promotional video for the garden and it is hoped she will have more involvement in the future.
The aim is to build on the 400,000 visitors Wakehurst receives every year and hopes to "reach people who might not know about us" through access schemes and community work.
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GroundsFest 2024 takes place on the 10 and the 11 of September at Stoneleigh Park, in Warwickshire. The free annual event is a must-attend for grounds staff, greenkeepers, landscapers, designers & architects, gardeners, local authorities, estate managers and contractors.
It combines indoor business and education opportunities with outdoor demonstrations and on the evening of the 10 September there is a live music festival for visitors to network and unwind.
HortWeek senior reporter Rachael Forsyth speaks with Chris Bassett, event director at GroundsFest about what to expect from this year's show, as well as exhibitors Wayne Grills chief executive at BALI, and Ian Graham chairman of Amenity Forum about the benefits of attending and exhibiting.
2023 was the show’s inaugural year, but its success has meant additional space has been added both indoor and outdoors. Bassett explains that the success also accelerated the goal of reinvesting profits from GroundsFest back into the industry to support education through the GroundsFest Education Fund.
Grills explains that he attended as a seminal panellist and visitor last year which encouraged him to have a BALI presence at the event this year, with the association hosting its AGM at the show. Graham describes why Complete Weed Control was drawn back to the world of exhibitions through GroundsFest, as well as what visitors can expect from Amenity Forum at the event.
See: www.groundsfest.com
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HortWeek is delighted to present the Cultivate Your Future podcast, in partnership with the Colegrave Seabrook Foundation and sponsors MorePeople.
This episode was recorded on location at Ball Colegrave where the great and the good from the horticultural industry gathered to celebrate 30 years of the Colegrave Foundation. In this episode Neville Stein talks to seasoned professionals as well as recent recipients of a bursary from the foundation and discusses the sense of community that makes the industry such a great one to work in.
Make sure you never miss a Horticulture Week podcast! Subscribe to or Follow Horticulture Week podcasts via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your preferred podcast platform.
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This week's guest is Angus Soft Fruits' breeding program director, Lucy Wilkins.
Angus Soft Fruits sells to the major multiples in UK, food service and wholesale and also exports fruit around the world to Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
Angus is launching two revolutionary raspberry varieties: AVA™ Monet and AVA™ Dali - so named because they are, “works of art!” Lucy explains how they represent a "significant breakthrough in raspberry cultivation".
With UK growers squeezed between increased challenges for UK growers due to production and labour costs and ever-rising demands from supermarkets, the higher yield and high quality of the new breeds will "enable [Angus's growers] to sell the fruit at a higher price".
She discusses trends in customer tastes and their expectations and how Angus Soft Fruits breeding program is aiming to meet these for strawberries, blackberries, raspberries and blueberries.
Health, wellness and nutrition are big areas of interest as well as environmental impact of food and ethical farming practices, she says, which need to be balanced against demands for cheap, large, tasty fruits available all year round.
She discusses how the season, relative production performance for fruits has gone in 2024.
"We're also looking internationally to see how our varieties can perform in other climates. So we've got trials in Southern Europe and Morocco to sort of see how these varieties could perform in an import perspective, which would obviously allow for year-round production of our Ava berries, which is really exciting and it's a fantastic opportunity for growers around Europe as well as the UK", she says.
This year is Angus Soft Fruits 30th anniversary which will be celebrated in its annual conference held in November in Scotland which will feature talks from people from across the industry sharing their insights, updates and tech and what is driving innovation in the industry. "It's just a fantastic opportunity to get the whole team together, all of our growers and just celebrate 30 fantastic years."
Lucy discusses her route to her current role, why Tayside is so good for soft fruit growing and what Angus is doing on sustainability, coping with climate change and improving disease resistance and tolerance to help reduce pesticide use.
"Our Scottish growers have been working with AgriCalc to measure their carbon footprints on their farms since 2023 and they've already reduced their carbon emissions per kilogram of fruit by 28% which is just fantastic" she says, highlighting changes to lighting, and food waste among other measures towards net zero goals.
As the new Government continues to bed in, Lucy talks about her support for the six priority areas outlined by the British Berry Growers Association which include measures for seasonal labour, planning, exports and hopes for a 'grower charter'.
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Edwin Meijer from Green Solutions speaks about the dos and don'ts of loyalty programmes for garden retailers.
Edwin speaks about the role of smartphones in loyalty campaigns as the older generation uses social media more.
Research from KPMG showed that more than 80% of the consumers expect a mobile-based loyalty programme. If you retired aged 65 in 2020, you spent over 20 years with computers.
Edwin says there are a lot of misunderstandings. Some UK customer are mobile-only and that works really well. This is not about who your current customers are, but who your ideal future customer is. The solution is also to integrate iOS and Android wallets to make it mobile-based
He also gives tip about chasing inactive customers and how to get 40% of them back in-store in two weeks using interaction, inspiration and information.
Edwin also speaks about Green Solutions/Haymarket's acquisition of Garden Connect, what Green Solutions does and what we've seen with shofts from loyalty printed vouchers to emails/apps.
He says personalisation, weather-dependent campaigns and using AI can all help loyalty programmes.
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Matthew Bent of Bents Garden and Home and Plants for Europe's Graham Spencer speak to HortWeek about the visitor experience at Four Oaks Trade Show.
Four Oaks is the UK’s leading international exhibition for the whole of commercial horticulture. From production to point-of-sale, the breadth of exhibits on display is the show’s strength, attracting a broad visitor base. The event takes place on a 23-acre nursery site in Cheshire UK, close to the Jodrell Bank Radio Telescope, covering an area of 13,000m² under glass with additional outdoor areas. The 52nd show takes place this September 3rd & 4th and organisers urge potential exhibitors to contact them about space ASAP because they expect to sell out.
Bent and Spencer reveal they have both been attending the show for more than 20 years each and find it offers plants and products they can't find anywhere else.
They share top tips for getting the most out of visiting the show and say what makes the event so unique and important to the industry as a whole.
See https://www.fouroaks-tradeshow.com/
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Sales development executive at Collier Turf Care Sally Jarrett is not a football fan but as stories of divot-strewn pitches she has sympathy for grounds keepers under the spotlight during the Euros tournament held in Germany last June.
"When football pitches are getting ready for big tournaments, they undergo a lot of work...it could be that some of that weather has either stopped work being able to be done. Or the work that was done had to be redone because maybe it was ruined with the torrential rain that we had."
"It's really difficult because there's such a large expectation on turf managers and there's nothing they can do about the weather...as a turf manager, that's your pride and joy. That's your pitch and you've got it on the world stage...it must be devastating for some of those turf managers to be looking at some of the pitches and getting the comments that are coming back to them."
She discusses the impact of climate change and and extreme weather that is making a the tricky job of turf managers more challenging still with an increase in pest and diseases another side effect.
Time was when turf managers would cure everything with a liberal spray of chemicals but "things have changed" Sally explains and the new way is an "integrated method" to help prevent or mitigate pests and diseases including environmental measures, air regulation, cutting heights and feed programmes.
As with other sectors "the staff levels are getting worrying" as replacing those retiring can prove difficult she says. She echos calls for more discussion of horticulture in schools to help boost the sector's profile.
Sally welcomes new technology as robotic mowers and automated irrigation systems can help free staff up to carry out other tasks.
She also talks through the challenges of those notorious turf foes, chafer grubs and leatherjackets.
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This week's podcast guests are leaders in the UK fruit growing sector: Alana Deakin, the new chair of the NextGen Fruit Group and head of operations at Hall Hunter and Oli Pascall, MD of Clockhouse Farm and the NextGen past president.
They talk about their key takeaways from a recent visit to the USA including ag-tech, driven in part by scarcity and the high cost of labour, and where "they are definitely ahead of where we are in the UK" but also efficient water use, spearheaded in water-scarce California but also the use of branding and competition between large fruit brands.
Alana explains the aims of fruit farming group NextGen which despite its focus on the next generation of fruit farmers, is "not limited to that because we need the industry experts to come and teach the next generation".
The group unites people from across the various fruit-growing sectors to provide "cross-industry information that can be very, very useful" through networking events and farm visits.
"I think it's also good to solidify that with some proper scientific learning. So I'd like to introduce a few technical days" says Alana, who also has ambitions of creating the UK's first conference for fruit growers.
The group went to California to see how the US growers are coping with labour challenges.
The UK seasonal worker scheme is among the issues Oli and Alana want to see the new Labour Government address as well as industry funding and food and environmental policy.
After a particularly wet growing season in 2024, they reflect on how their crops have fared with blueberries enjoying the conditions in particular, a crop they both agree has significant potential for growth.
On strawberries, Oli says:
"I think, fair to say, prices over the past few years have been challenging, growth returns have been challenging as the industry has regularly reported. It's still challenging but it's a lot more manageable than it has been for the past couple of years. So we need to see continued increase in returns for the industry to be sustainable and get back to where it was a few years ago.
"I think we are going to see shortages of product throughout the season at certain points. And I know some of our customers are importing throughout the season as well. So that is showing a weakening of British supply throughout what has traditionally been a season fully catered for with local production."
Water supply is a major concern, says Oli who began a plan to build a reservoir a year three years ago with two more to go as part of his plan to ensure water security for his business. He is also aiming for Net Zero for 2040:
"As far as on-the-ground changes at the moment, I think we need to build growing structures that are suitable for changing climates. So we need to be ready for more variation in temperature, colder winters, hotter summers, and more set weather patterns."
As for the future, technology and innovation will play a large part, says Alana who has just installed a new grader with AI.
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The author of The Ethical Carnivore, Louise Gray takes a journalistic approach to questioning trusims about fruit and veg being better for you and the planet.
Mike Berners-Lee wrote about the carbon footprint of 100 things in 2010's How Bad Are Bananas. As many businesses attempt to go carbon neutral, ethical and environmental sourcing is more of an issue than ever.
In her book, Louise interviews banana, potato and avocado experts, adds some history and scientific references plus some personal worries related to her own baby in an attempt to bring clarity to the dilemma many consumers face when choosing what to eat.
Louise discusses the use of avocados, beloved of millenials and vegetarians, and long used by anti-vegetarian campaigners as a stick to tell them they are being bad for the planet. She talks about how much less carbon is produced importing avocados from abroad compared to producing beef in Britain. Avocados are a lot less bad than meat and airfreighted asparagus, but are worse than UK-grown potatoes, she says.
For apples, English Apples and Pears' Ali Capper is the interviewee and Louise discusses how the loss of apple biodiversity is a cause for anxiety.
She concludes that the perfect diet does not exist and that food stories (the growing and selling of plants) are 'complex'.
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Tayshan Hayden-Smith's Wikipedia entry tells you he is a professional footballer from Ladbroke Grove, London. Nicknamed the "English Neymar" Tayshan had a burgeoning international career underway until the Grenfell Fire in 2017 took 72 lives from his local community. A quest for healing led him into the world of horticulture and his non-profit organisation Grow to Know was born with the aim of addressing societal and environmental inequality. Its activities earned Tayshan a new name as the "Grenfell guerilla gardener" and he helped create a Grenfell garden from leftover nursery plants.
Fast-forward 7 years and he has partnered with The Black Gardener Danny Clarke to take the Hands Off Mangrove garden to Chelsea Flower Show, become and RHS ambassador, appeared on Your Garden Made Perfect (BBC1) and Alan Titchmarsh's Gardening Club (ITVX).
Talking to senior reporter Rachael Forsyth on the podcast, they first discuss the Peter Rabbit-inspired community garden that Grow to Know worked on in partnership with publisher Penguin Random House that typifies Tayshan's philosophy as a gardener.
"It was otherwise an unused bit of land in the school and now it's one of the most used bits of the school where the kids, at every opportunity, just try to be in that space.
"[It's] just to see how magical that is for the children ... threading in those ideas around kind of food security and growing our own food and biodiversity and the importance of wildlife in, especially in, urban space.
Though Tayshan clearly seeks and finds solace and beauty in plants, the driver behind his career is activism, but he says he's not expecting any Government to respond to lobbying to support horticulture for education, well-being or the environment:
"I'm kind of tired of asking now and I think we just got to do, so, I'd like to think that we're leading by example of what we're doing... I think it's for the people and for the local organisations and grassroots organisations to show the way rather than relying on those who clearly just can't deliver."
He queries why for more than a century RHS Chelsea Flower Show has "existed on the more affluent side of the borough, but has never had any impacts on North Kensington.
"In North Kensington, you can expect to live on average 20 years less than someone who lives in South Kensington.... that stark bit of data really inspires the need to build that bridge to a place that is filled with resource, filled with beauty, filled with magic, filled with nature, yet there are people who are suffering on the outside of those boundaries.
"It is very political and I think we have to understand that from the very get-go and through that lens...When I tell you that people are living 20 years less and a big influencing factor of that is nature access, then it should be taken seriously.
Tayshan Hayden-Smith's book, Small Space Revolution, Planting Seeds of Change in Your Community, is "an amalgamation of my experiences, my insights, my thoughts, but also the thoughts, experiences and insights of many other people around the world. And so there's case studies in the book, there's ideas and thoughts, there's interviews, there's how-tos. And so hopefully you can open a book at any page and take some inspiration...I guess it will hopefully activate the activism within [readers].
"Our intention is to bring gardening, horticulture, nature, to the fore to the people that could really do with it, the people in survival mode on the 10th floor of tower blocks... For me if we can engage those people then we can engage anyone."
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