Miracle Grow

Plant a seed and watch it grow

Ah, book signings – what a rush! Looking out at a queue of lovely, smiling folks who’ve come to meet little old me. Shucks. And what’s been especially interesting is discovering how many virgins there are out there! Of the ‘grow your own’ kind, you naughty thing. Novice food gardeners of all ages who have wanted to have a go at food gardening for years, but just couldn’t quite get past that image of the cloth-capped allotment Grandads of the 70s.

And, if there’s one thing Lady Muck likes to do, it’s shattering stereotypes. After all, there’s a reason my book cover has Lady Muck dancing in a cocktail glass rather than digging in dungarees. I wanted it to scream, “Gardening can be fabulously fun, guys - honest” And the best part? It seems to be working. Newbies are catching the Lady Muck Style bug - inspired by her slightly bonkers adventures about gin gardens, cocktail herb bars and slug wars. Suddenly, they’re excited at the thought of growing a lovely lettuce with their own fair hands and ditching the tasteless, expensive bags of shop salads!

And correcting the glorious myth that any food grower has to be born with a spade in one hand and a perfect tomato plant in the other seems to also be helping. I mean, I didn’t even start growing until my late 30s (read why here). And whilst I was convinced my parents’ green-thumbed brilliance would magically flow into me - spoiler alert - it didn’t - my early forays into food gardening were less “farm-to-table” and more “farm-to-compost-bin.” My first veggie patch looked like a plant massacre. Wilting carrots, beans that looked one withered breeze away from a fainting spell, and a radish so pathetic it practically begged to be put out of its misery.

But here’s the thing guys – it’s ok to make a right mess of things in the beginning. Embrace your inner Lady Muck, grab a large glass of wine, and laugh at the chaos that unfolds. Gardening is not a science; it’s an adventure. Mistakes are just part of the fun. And when you dig up your very first lettuce, please, please, please, savour the moment and give yourself a pat on the back. Lady Muck Style.