The Sentimental Gardener

What makes a cookbook so irresistible that a gardening guru finds himself buzzing towards it like a bee to a flower?
When Costa Georgiadis (ABC TV Gardening Australia) rang Alice Zaslavsky to tell her he'd spotted her book in a bookshop, his description was hard to beat. But the story behind Alice's love of food goes much further back, to her childhood in Tbilisi, Georgia, where the garden and kitchen were part of the same story.
Alice joins Cass to talk about the plants that carry memories of home, the Georgian tradition of using marigolds in food, and why we should look again at what's growing in our gardens — including the parts we might usually throw away.
An award-winning cookbook author, food educator and television host, Alice is passionate about helping people discover the joy of food, from teaching children about seasonal eating to making everyday cooking more creative. We talk about her work creating Phenomenom, her book In Praise of Veg, and her latest cookbook, Weeknights with Alice.
It's a conversation about culture, food, family and the unexpected stories held in the plants we grow, and how a little curiosity can change the way we see both our gardens and our dinner plates.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction to The Sentimental Gardener
02:56 Alice Zaslavsky: Food and culture
06:00 Childhood memories of the garden
08:59 Food growing traditions in Georgia
12:04 Migration and food culture
14:56 Eating more of our plants
18:00 Food literacy in schools
20:58 Creating Phenomenom
23:51 Changing children's food choices
27:00 Writing about vegetables
27:30 From children's books to cookbooks
28:54 Designing a better cookbook
30:36 The global reach of In Praise of Veg
31:34 Teaching seasonal eating
33:50 Flavour and seasonality
35:00 Introducing Weeknights with Alice
39:16 Cooking by mood
42:46 Sentimental plants and their stories
45:36 Quick-fire questions
Want to hear more?
Find the bonus episodes and subscribe via The Sentimental Gardener on Substack or Apple Podcasts
Follow Alice Zaslavsky at her website, Instagram , Facebook
Follow Cass at The Sentimental Gardener Instagram or add your name to the list at Substack to get my emails in your inbox. 
CREDITS:
Music written and played by Hayden Schuler of Vereya Gardening
Produced, edited and mixed by Cass Dowding

In this episode of The Sentimental Gardener, Cass chats with Jay Young, co-founder of Flinders Farmgate, a small-scale regenerative farm on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula. Alongside her husband Nick, Jay grows garlic, sunflowers, dahlias and seasonal flowers, while finding ways to share their special patch of land with the local community.
We talk about how a friend's suggestion to grow garlic set their farming journey in motion, how losing an entire garlic crop led them to diversify into flowers, and how a sunflower picking event grew into something much bigger than they expected.
Jay also shares what she's learnt about regenerative farming, building healthy soil, working with nature rather than constantly intervening, and the realities of balancing a growing farm business with family life.
And, of course, we talk about her sentimental plants: the climbing beans that take Jay back to her grandparent's garden, the winter-scented flowers that remind her of an early job at a flower shop, and the sunflowers that continue to bring her joy.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction: Meet Jay Young of Flinders Farmgate
01:56 Childhood memories of a farm in South Africa
07:25 From city life to a life in Flinders
15:51 How growing garlic started it all
19:03 Losing a crop and finding a new direction
21:16 Sunflowers, dahlias and the farm shop
28:43 Farming, family and finding balance
33:03 What regenerative farming looks like in practice
42:08 Three sentimental plants: beans, winter flowers and sunflowers
51:06 Quick-fire questions from the farm
58:11 Cass's reflection: Listening to what draws us in
Want to hear more?
Jay and I also recorded a bonus conversation for The Sentimental Gardener Substack paid subscribers, where we spend another 20 minutes talking about the business side of running a flower and garlic farm.
Find the bonus episode and subscribe via The Sentimental Gardener on Substack or Apple Podcasts
Follow Flinders Farmgate at their website, Instagram or Facebook
Follow Cass at The Sentimental Gardener Instagram or add your name to the list at Substack to get my emails in your inbox. 
CREDITS:
Music written and played by Hayden Schuler of Vereya Gardening
Produced, edited and mixed by Cass Dowding

Deb Collett was a previous guest way back in Season One, and since then we've become great friends. So it was particularly lovely to sit down and catch up with her on this episode of Sentimental Friends - the subscriber only series where we cover news, updates and more from people in gardening world. 

This episode is available for FREE FOR EVERYONE as a thank you for your patience while I paused releasing episodes for a few months!
Earlier this year, Deb was involved in Australia Post's dahlia cultivar collection, released back in May 2026 — a particularly perfect partnership given that, alongside collecting dahlias, Deb is also a passionate philatelist (stamp collector).
We chat about:
🌸 Which dahlias made their stamp debut
🌸 The story behind the breeders of the three different varieties
🌸 The dahlia trails at Cruden Farm
🌸 The National Dahlia Conference
🌸 What's been happening in Deb's own garden
🌸 And, importantly, I ask Deb how on earth I'm supposed to manage the old and new growth on my tree dahlia!
You can also catch Deb's original Sentimental Gardener episode here.

Follow Deb on Instagram @debsdahlias
Follow The Sentimental Gardener on Instagram @the_sentimental_gardener
Subscribe to the mailing list here: https://thesentimentalgardener.substack.com/subscribe

Australian landscape architect and garden designer Timothy Mitchell joins Cass Dowding on The Sentimental Gardener podcast to talk about his early memories of plants, transforming tennis courts into a meadow of flowers and designing gardens en plein air. 
They also dive into finding beauty in Australian native plants, building a dry climate garden that actually works, letting a garden evolve naturally over seasons, and why the most alive gardens are always being edited, observed and mulled over.

They recorded this episode in Tim and his partner Lucy's backyard, surrounded by the antiquing of plants moving from summer to autumn and a view of Mt. William/ Wil-im-ee Moor-ring as the backdrop. 


Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
01:35 Early memories of gardens and plants
05:00 Choosing a life in landscape design
09:00 Gardeners and landscape architects
13:45 Designing public places
16:00 Transforming a tennis court into a garden
18:30 Starting a garden from scratch
19:00 Finding beauty in Australian plants
22:40 Building a dry climate garden
27:45 Letting a garden grow naturally
32:00 Trees, time and looking after nature
38:30 What makes a garden feel alive
45:30 Learning by watching plants
49:45 Quick-fire garden questions
56:45 The gardens that stay with us
59:35 Final thoughts and outro
Show notes: Follow Timothy Mitchell on Instagram or visit website
Follow The Sentimental Gardener on Instagram and Facebook
Visit The Sentimental Gardener website
Get Sentimental Gardener emails in your inbox
Get bonus content + episodes on Sentimental Friends

Original music: Hayden Schueler of Vereya Gardening
Audio mix: Tom Dowding
Producer and editor: Cass Dowding

Are you an Australian native plant fanatic? Well you're going to love this episode!
Cass Dowding chats with Ben Clark, co-owner of Kuranga Native Nursery, about growing up surrounded by the bush in Warrandyte, followed by an early obsession with plants, to building a family business around Australian native plants.
Ben shares how he first came to Kuranga as an apprentice, what happens behind the scenes in the nursery he now owns, and why the nursery has become such a loved destination for native plant buffs.
They also talk about Kuranga's expansion to a second site at Warrandyte, running the business with his wife Alexa, raising kids around the nursery, and the joy of dispersing native plants into gardens across the state, and maybe Australia!
Show notes: Follow Kuranga Native Nursery on Instagram and Facebook Follow The Sentimental Gardener on Instagram and Facebook Get Sentimental Gardener emails Get bonus episodes on Sentimental Friends
 
Theme music: Hayden Schueler of Vereya Gardening Audio mix: Tom Dowding Producer and editor: Cass Dowding