My gardening apprenticeship was similar to the way a chimney sweep is pushed up a chimney. It was enforced by my parents, non-negotiable - it would be weeding the strawberries, mowing the grass.
I like dogs because they are not humans.
The farm uses up a lot of my creative urges. It's a sort of rough and ready space, I don't film there.
I see myself as a writer who happens to garden.
Gardening is seen as a pastime that is almost like belonging to the Church of England - a sign of maturity and wisdom and right thinking.
We know that gardening is good for you. It is fantastic, all-round exercise. That is easy to see and evaluate. It inculcates high levels of well-being. That is undeniable and needs little measurement.
I think that most people are aware that it takes so much oil and water to produce what they're eating. But the problem is inherent within the solution, in so much as you don't want to tell people what to do.
I loathe nowheres - airports and bland hotels. I would rather be in an unpleasant, uncomfortable place rather than one just adrift, floating around.
From the ages of 18 to 50 I ran, rowed and lifted weights at my home gym.
I'm bad at sleeping. I get somewhere between three and six hours a night.
It does seem to me that the British in particular, British horticultural literature and television programmes, focus a huge amount on how we garden and hardly at all on why we garden.
I feel ashamed if my hands are too clean and untouched. It's a measure of how much time I've spent travelling and poncing around.
The biggest obstacle to good gardening is the desire to know the answers and not the questions.
You can trace the entire history of Britain by looking at gardens.
The thing I like to stress about TV is that it's a team exercise. You really can't have too much of an ego.
I often eat cakes while my fingers are caked in soil.
When our jewellery business went into receivership we avoided bankruptcy by selling our houses and possessions.
I love filming. I love the teamwork. It's a tight-knit group spending months on the road together. All the experience is shared.
Visiting gardens is bad for you. Not only does it encourage too much eating of cake but sets up all kinds of false notions that are ruinous to your garden back home.
We know that gardening is good for you. It is fantastic, all-round exercise.
