The key to successful gardening is, to a large extent, timing. Knowing when to plant, when to water, when to cover up your seedings to protect them from frost.
And, it turns out, knowing when you’re due to be interviewed by Gardener’s World expert Adam Frost.
TV chef James Martin was lined up for a chat with Adam on the Gardeners’ World Live stage, but things didn’t quite go to plan. As Adam explained in perhaps a little too much detail: “I sort of finished the garden on Tuesday night.
“Then Wednesday morning we came in and did all the polishing bits and pieces and started talking to people. And then, then I was doing filming all afternoon and then I hosted something for them last night about six or whatever. After giving out a load of awards. And then I went to bed and I woke up at 3:00 in the morning with cramp.”
Adam explained that the cramp was the result of spending days on end down on his hands and knees, “trying to plant things in in the most bizarre positions.”
But there’s no rest for the wicked, or for gardeners it seems. Adam was up bright and early the next morning: “I was back on camera at half past seven, and then I had a fish cake,” he recalled, happily.
But it was then that the scheduling really went awry: “I went back in the garden to interview James Martin, but he didn’t turn up. That was a bit upsetting, I’ll be honest with you.”
The Yorkshire-born chef had been double-booked, and a replacement was hastily arranged: “Instead of getting James Martin, they sent over Matt Tebbutt, which is quite funny, really, because he replaced him on BBC didn’t he? So that was quite interesting!”
The award -winning gardener’s chat with Matt went well enough, but Adam’s packed week was by no means over after it came to an end.
“We’ve had a great conversation,” Adam recalled, “but then James just decides to turn up just as off finish the conversation with Tebbutt, so I had to do the whole thing again with James.”
