Master My Garden Podcast

Hand watering a greenhouse during a heatwave can turn into a daily scramble: alarms set for dawn, hoses dragged in unbearable temperatures, and still you watch water vanish into thin air through evaporation. We’ve both seen how quickly a polytunnel can dry out, how fast IBCs and water butts can empty, and how risky it feels to leave watering to someone who isn’t a gardener. So we get practical about greenhouse irrigatio...

The quickest way to waste money on a hedge is to choose with your eyes first and your site second. With bare-root season around the corner, we walk you through a simple decision process that stops costly mistakes and helps you pick hedge plants that actually suit your garden, your soil and the amount of maintenance you can commit to over the years. 

We start with the big questions: what do you need the hedge to do, do y...

Timber raised beds rot. Cheap metal ones can rust, bow, and end up in the skip just as you’re getting the hang of growing. So what does a raised bed look like when it’s designed as a product for life? I’m joined by Brian O’Hara from East Cork, who built the Mia Grow Bed, an Irish-made aluminium raised garden bed with a 30-year warranty and a design that goes together in minutes. 

We talk about th...

This weeks sponsors: 

Seeds Ireland High Quality Seeds: See link below for listener offer. 

https://seedsireland.ie/master

October gardening is a strange mix of momentum and endings: the weather can still feel warm, growth can still be strong, yet the shortening days quietly shut the door on many sowings. We talk through a clear, realistic October seed sowing guide that focuses on what still delivers value, especially if you...

This weeks sponsors: Better Plants 

See special offer here 

https://betterplants.ie/product/seaweed-soil-conditioner-2-x-10kg-buckets-special-offer/

Bats are flying over our gardens every night, doing a job most of us never see, and too many people still think they are blind, dangerous, or somehow “out to get you”. We sit down with Dr Niamh Roche, Senior Project Manager at Bat Conservation Ireland, to clear up th...

This weeks sponsors: Better Plants 

See special offer here 

https://betterplants.ie/product/seaweed-soil-conditioner-2-x-10kg-buckets-special-offer/

Autumn colour can be breathtaking, but it can also disappear in a flash. One week your garden is glowing red and gold, the next it feels flat and bare because the weather shifts and the best leaf colour drops fast. We want a better plan than hoping a single tree carries the whol...

Join The Perennial Grow Along here 

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A full perennial border can look like something only open gardens and big budgets can pull off, until you do the maths and realise you can grow the bulk of it yourself. We’re outlining the 2026 perennial grow along plan and showing how a few packets of seed, a handful of trays, and a bit of organisation can turn into a serio...

The fastest way to make next spring feel brighter starts right now with a bag of bulbs and a spade. We walk through spring flowering bulbs from the ground up: what to buy in September, where they shine in borders, pots, lawns and under trees, and how to get a display that comes back year after year with almost no fuss. 

We cover the classics and the standouts: tulips for bold April colour themes (plus the types that act...

This weeks sponsors: 

Seeds Ireland High Quality Seeds: See link below for listener offer. 

https://seedsireland.ie/master

September is the month where a small, well-timed sowing list can make your whole winter feel easier. We’re looking at what to sow right now for steady, dependable harvests, especially if summer heat, holidays, or a brief pause in sowing has left gaps in your beds or polytunnel. If you want salad le...

Grow Your Own Herb Workshop Looking Forward To Seeing You here: 

https://subscribepage.io/growyourownherbalgarden

The weather doesn’t just “turn” anymore, it swings. One season can feel like weeks of soaked ground and flooding risk, followed by a fast flip into heat, drought and stressed plants. We’ve felt it in everything from delayed sowing to polytunnels that need watering at dawn, and crops that simpl...

Grow Your Own Herb Workshop Looking Forward To Seeing You here: 

https://subscribepage.io/growyourownherbalgarden

Hosepipe bans, cracked soil, and then a day of rain so heavy it vanishes into runoff: if your garden has felt like it’s lurching between extremes, you’re not imagining it. We step back from the week-to-week frustration and look at what the data actually says about Irish weather, using Met Éireann observat...

Grow Your Own Herb Workshop Looking For To Seeing You here: 

https://subscribepage.io/growyourownherbalgarden

Your garden can look “fine” in August while quietly running on empty. With weeks of heat and very little rain, plants lose that fresh, lush look, new plantings stall, and even reliable beds start to struggle. We talk honestly about what prolonged drought looks like on the ground, from yellowed lawns and thirs...

You can grow a lot of things in a kitchen garden, but fruit is where the difference hits hardest. A homegrown apple or strawberry can make supermarket fruit taste flat, and that’s why we pull together our 10 essential fruits for a kitchen garden, with a focus on what actually works in Ireland and what still works when space is tight.

We start with the reality of gardening life: coming back from holidays, dealing with d...

This weeks sponsors: 

Seeds Ireland High Quality Seeds: See link below for listener offer. 

https://seedsireland.ie/master

August arrives and the seed sowing list shrinks, but that does not mean the growing season is over. We talk through a practical August sowing guide that keeps your veg patch productive, especially if you garden in a UK or Ireland climate where late summer can still deliver plenty of growth when you pick ...

If you had to cut your kitchen garden down to just ten vegetables, what would you keep and why? We take on that exact challenge and build a list that is practical, flavour-led, and realistic for busy gardeners who want maximum results for the least fuss.

We start with the five filters we use when deciding what deserves space in a bed: taste (does it beat the supermarket?), effort versus reward, ease of growing, cost to buy, ...

If your herb bed could only earn space for ten plants, which ones would actually make your dinners better week after week? We take a listener request from Ivy in Connemara and build a clear, usable shortlist of essential herbs for an Irish garden, balancing everyday cooking with what genuinely grows well in our climate.

We start with the hardy, low-effort staples that keep giving: rosemary, sage and thyme. We talk about why ...

A big garden can be a gift, right up to the day it starts to feel like a second job. We’re joined by American garden writer Rhonda Fleming Hayes to talk about her book *Gardening for Life* and the practical reality behind a question many of us avoid: how do you keep gardening as you age without letting the work take over the joy?

We dig into strategies that make a garden more manageable without stripping away what you ...

This weeks sponsors: 

Seeds Ireland High Quality Seeds: See link below for listener offer. 

https://seedsireland.ie/master

July is where a lot of edible gardens quietly lose momentum and it’s exactly why so many plots run out of steam in autumn. We’re keeping it simple and practical with a July seed sowing guide that helps you stay productive well beyond summer, even if your beds look full and you’re half i...

Carlow Garden Festival is back better than ever in 2026 with an amazing line up of speakers: a pick-and-mix week where you can build your own perfect gardening break. We’re joined by Eileen O’Rourke, CEO of Carlow Tourism, to walk through the programme day by day so you know exactly what’s on, where it’s happening, and how to choose the events that match your garden and your curiosity. 

We talk b...