I'm here with the fabulous and flamboyant Phil Dudman,
welcome to the nursery Phil. Thanks so much Kath. You're the horticultural editor for
Gardening Australia Magazine, you're the host and presenter of the ABC Good Gardening on our local
radio, you do all the talk shows you really are the go to man for gardening questions know, and chief cook at home. But most of all you are a gardener. How did you get into it? Looking back, right back to my childhood
I did have connections with plants and you know things like hibiscus and it was
honeysuckle, there were mangoes in the garden. The neighbors were growing dahlias and all these sorts of things and you know I just thought that was a
normal thing but it was until I was much older that I realized I kids weren't
really into plants but I was following them and I think once I hit my teenage
years I took an interest in native plants particularly things that were bird
attracting and wildlife attracting and I remember doing a little makeover or the
family garden using these plants but that was just something to do.
So you started with the own little garden bed? Well no I just sort of took over. This is my garden now.
Yeah, yeah, look I was a cricketer and I used to mow the cricket
pitch yeah okay so I took an interest in mowing and I took an interest in putting
in you know native plants in the garden and this was the late seventies, early
eighties so that was a big deal and I never ever thought a minute thought of
horticulture as a career or even following gardening in any way but I
studied architecture, I worked for an insurance company, I joined a band and
it was while I was in this band in the in the 80s and hanging out with these
guys the drummer of our band was a horticulturist so we moved to Sydney from
Brisbane and he was always taking us out to the bush to look at plants and you
know I just be following on him a while and just quizzing him constantly. It was amazing. What a wonderful thing to know about the plant world.
It just felt so right. Traveled overseas, came back,
I got back to Australia I was about 26 years old
I thought what the bloomin heck am I gonna do now and landed in Brisbane study horticulture
picked up job everything just came together and like I just ate it up so
well it felt so good to finally find your thing try to move away from it in
the 30s that was my first midlife crisis and everything I try to think of just came back to plants, so here I am.
Tell me Phil you started with native plants being your passion, are they still? Or would you say you go towards more the edible garden?
Yeah look I'm always interested in grevilleas, banksias all these things that bring the bird life. I just love that you can have a garden have so much
bird life company they fly and they fly out and I've just come a bit of a bird
watcher and I just love it. But you know I'm totally passionate about growing
food and that is my dedication. Yes. You've got to have a dedication and for
me it's a big one you know I never get tired of it. I'm still making loads of
mistakes things go wrong and you know I'm trying to figure out how to do it
better but it's my thing and I spend a lot of time these days teaching other
people, in my own garden through workshops and through the stuff I do
online how to be great gardeners and how to grow lots of food because wow it's
such a dream to be able to step into your backyard and to harvest beautiful fresh
vegetables as you know with fruits and to be able to bring that into the house
and to prepare a meal that's predominantly from your garden or even
just you know it's just the lettuce is from your garden. It tastes
so good, it feels so good, it's nice that it's free of chemicals and all the rest.
I never get tired of being out there with the veggie patch and
sowing the seed and watching it right through to harvest and nurturing the
plants it feels right it feels it's like the place to be. Yeah yeah yeah. I think
like we've all come from the plant world you know and being amongst plants
particularly stuff you can eat is the right place to be, so I try to
encourage everyone to give it a try and start with food because there are plenty
of benefits. Start with food like Phil says but also remember that planting flowering crops and food for animals is
also food so it's that balance of the garden. We have to look after our friends, cause we are all in this together.
Do you have a favourite fruit? Well you know I've got a say mango is right up there but can I
say lychee. yeah look you know if you've had a lychee
from a tin you want to erase that out of your mind.
Forget about that.
Erase that one, if you've had one from the store, it's not bad if you picked one
from the tree and cracked it open and eaten it fresh
whoo, it'll just blow your mind so beautiful that's an experience that is just so
special, I have great memories Brisbane every Christmas into January
finding a lychee on the side and filling up on these things just standing there like this.
Well I'm gonna have a challenge today because our lychees have finished
but we still have some Longan's on our tree I'm gonna see if I can get
either fall in love with the longan. I reckon you might be able to twist my arm.
To see if you thinks its as great as a lychee. We'll give it a try. What would be the one big tip that you would say to
people out there who are sitting on their computer thinking, I would love to grow a garden. What's Phil's number 1 tip for growing your own food?
Start small, what puts people off growing food or gardening at all is when things go wrong, you know
yeah we could tell you like you know that's a whole series on things that
have gone wrong that's how you learn but you don't want too many things to go
so start with something small if you just want to grow some ornamentals or a
fruit tree or whatever and you've got a balcony get a pot it's an easy way to
start your don't have to dig the ground, you don;t have to prepare the soil, you don't have to buy much.
Just some potting mix, grow some herbs in it, grow some lettuces in it whatever, but look
after that thing like it's your little brother or sister and know that if
you look after it's going to reward you and learn what's going on okay it's wilting or it's not performing and living things need I'll give it some fertilizer
so you're gonna feed all those things you can learn and once you learn a
little bit and become successful and experience that joy of harvesting or
just watching that flower or you know having something green in your space
build gradually and eventually you know you'll have 12 garden beds full
and you'll be growing all your own food and you'll be a master. Thank you so much, the fantastic, fabulous Phil Dudman. Thanks Kath, lovely to see you.
My name is Kath Kermode. Thank you for
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