The FarmED Podcast: Rough Patches and Veg Growing

Sep 30, 2025

Alex talks to cook, writer and veg grower, Kathy Slack about her book, Rough Patch, and how growing vegetables helped her recover from burnout. 

Kathy had a high flying career in advertising before she suffered a physical and mental collapse that left her ‘distraught, crippled by depression and grief and panic’. 

She explains how her mother coaxed her out of the house into the garden and she ‘would sit on the raised beds with my cup of tea and just watch the soil and the weeds and the bugs and the life there…and something about being close to the soil started to heal me.’ 

Then she just sowed a couple of seeds and watched them grow. She  describes to Alex the ‘sense of awe and promise and wonder’ of seeing ‘a tiny little seed turn into a radish in like three weeks’ and talks about how growing veg can be more empowering than growing flowers, giving a sense of the agency, of actually growing food to feed yourself. 

Her book includes recipes and Kathy also runs cookery classes, so she talks to Alex about how she plans her growing! Kathy describes working in the kitchen garden at Daylesford and writing food columns for lifestyle magazines and she offers advice for anyone who knows nothing about horticulture but wants to get going with growing some veg. 

‘I realised that I could mostly ignore the manuals and just experiment and now I'm a very messy gardener, not particularly proficient but I really embrace that messy ramshackle way of growing. There are so few places in life where it's okay to be a complete failure at something and you go well that's okay I'll just it again,’ Kathy says. She advises against jumping straight onto an allotment. ‘Start with radishes or lettuces or something that if it goes wrong, you can just sow it again. Then maybe if you've got pots and a warm balcony, maybe progress to tomatoes the next year.

‘So start small and get hooked on that joy of going, here I am picking a tomato that I've grown myself.’

Find out more from Kathy Slack by visiting her website.

Full Transcript 

Alex: They say life begins when you start a garden. Welcome to The FarmED Podcast. I'm your host, Alex Dye. It's a lovely hot day today. We're not in our usual recording studio because it was absolutely sweltering. So you join us in a very authentic barn here with the combine just behind us. And my guest today is an author, a veg grower, a podcaster, a cook. It's, it's Kathy Slack. How are you today? 

Kathy: Hello. Well, I'm delighted to be in a nice cool barn with possibly the best backdrop to any podcast interview I've ever done. A combine harvester. 

Alex: This is wonderful. 

Kathy: Thank you for having me. 

Alex: No worries. No green screen involved. This is all legit. I want to know a little bit about your story. How did you get to be where you are now? How did you start with this growing? Where did you come from? 

Kathy: Yeah, it's a long winding and slightly grizzly tale. I'll be honest. I grew up in the suburbs. I was the least outdoorsy person you could imagine. I mean, we had a garden, but I wasn't out camping or hiking in the hills or anything. And I went to university, like a good daughter, only child that I am. And then I got a job in advertising because that's what you did, graduate recruitment scheme, off I went. And I worked in advertising in London for over a decade, maybe about 13 years all in, and all my clients were, well mostly, were food clients because I've always been really interested in food. 

Kathy: My dad's an amazing cook, my mum's a great cook, I've always eaten everything that was put in front of me, I've always been really interested in cooking and where my food comes from. Not completely sure why but anyway, so all my clients were food clients because in these big agencies they try and pair you with brands that you can show some interest in but they were big FMCG clients, you know, fast moving consumer goods, stuff you buy in supermarkets, so it wasn't particularly glamorous. There was a lot of margarine and a lot of ice cream and things that in hindsight probably weren't very good for people. And I was I thought I was winning. I had the corner office.  I had the Jimmy Choos. I had the BlackBerry. That's how long ago it was. I had the BlackBerry. I had the British Airways gold card. I was traveling internationally. 

Kathy: I was just about to make the board of the agency that I was at. I had this big title like global strategy director. I thought I was really making a difference in the world. 

Alex: All the buzzwords. 

Kathy: All the buzzwords. I thought I was ticking all the boxes because I'd completely drunk the Kool-Aid. And unsurprisingly, my body eventually and my brain went, no, we're not doing this anymore. And over the period of about, well, in hindsight, it was probably several years, but the acute phase was a few months. My body and my brain just shut down and at first I thought I'd had a stroke because I couldn't remember things like how to turn the shower on or how to start the car, that was a problem, or I couldn't remember what day it was or I'd get places and I couldn't remember how I'd got there. And then at first I thought it's just jet lag. I'm overstressed and I'm traveling all the time and it's just jet lag. 

Kathy: But then it became emotional as well. And for no reason, because on paper I had this perfect life, a beautiful house in the Cotswolds. I was commuting to London by that point. A husband who loved me, a family who loved me, money enough to not worry about money. Health, a garden, very unkempt and ramshackle, and I was distraught, crippled by depression and grief for no reason, and panic for no reason. 

Kathy: And eventually, against my will, I was signed off work by an enlightened doctor. And things were quite dark for a while after that. My mum would come every day when my husband left for work. There was this kind of tag team and a sort of tacit agreement that I wouldn't be left on my own. And it was pretty tough for a while. And then I’d been growing vegetables a little bit when we moved to the Cotswolds because, you know, I'd got this vision that it was going to be like The Good Life and I was going to be like Felicity Kendall and wear dungarees and grow my own vegetables and of course it didn't happen. 

Kathy: The veg beds in the back garden were very unused and eventually once my poor mum had after several weeks, months coaxed me out of the house into the garden, I would sit on the raised beds with my cup of tea and just watch the soil and the weeds and the bugs and the life there and and it wasn't, I don't want to sound like I went in the garden and everything was cured, nature cured me just like that, but somehow the chatter in my brain just turned down a bit and that sense of a lead weight on my chest just lifted a little bit and something about being close to the soil started to heal me and then I was hooked by that point and I sowed a couple of seeds and they grew and it was just like a radish, or something. But, you know, when you feel like the world is falling down around your ears and you're not sure it's worth bothering with waiting for the next sunrise, like, seeing a radish, like, this tiny little seed turn into a radish in like three weeks, particularly in this weather, is gobsmacking. And that sense of awe and promise and wonder, it was really restorative and, you know, from then I went, okay, this is what I have to do forever now. This is my medicine. And it turned into a career as well. 

Alex: So did you have a plan of what you were going to grow? Did you think, I'm going to start growing this and this, and I'm going to go from here? 

Kathy: Absolutely not. No, I wasn't planning anything by that point, which is unusual for me because I'm quite a planner. At first, it was very haphazard. And I went through a phase when I got more into growing of being, hyper organised about it and I would I think that's quite typical for a novice, you sort of pour over these RHS manuals, menaces that they are, going right okay so it says two centimetres between each seed and I'd be there with a ruler like measuring my two centimetres putting another seed in with with like a pair of tweezers and stuff and eventually I realised that it was you know worrying about pH balances and stuff which when you're dealing with I mean barely like 30 square meters of growing so it just doesn't really matter it's fine and eventually once I got a bit more confident I realised that I could mostly ignore the manuals and just experiment and now I'm a very messy gardener, not particularly proficient but I really embrace that messy ramshackle way of growing because I can, which is a luxury, but also there are so few places in life where it's okay to be a complete failure at something and for it to go wrong and you go well that's okay I'll just it again because for me I'm just going for myself and the pleasure of it so I kind of embrace that.

Alex: Yeah, the messier side of it yeah that's that's good. And shortly after all of this happened you moved on to or ended up at Daylesford. 

Kathy: Yeah, I did.

Alex: How did that maybe I should say how did that come about but also? For people who aren't aware of what Daylesford are would you be able to be really quickly? 

Kathy: Yeah Well, I've been off work for almost a year I tried I write about it in my book, Rough Patch, which is all about this grizzly tale and the joy of finding vegetables from it. And I tried to go back to work and that was a complete disaster. So eventually I quit advertising completely and was sort of casting around for what I was going to do next, which is an incredible luxury to not just have to take the first thing that I could find. And I sent a load of emails off to people with kitchen gardens, professional kitchen gardens of some sort, in the Cotswolds, basically saying, you don't know me, I've got no qualifications, but I think I've just quit my job to grow vegetables for a living, possibly, or possibly cook them, or possibly write about them. I don't really know, and I'm not sure what I'm doing, but could I have a job, please? 

Alex: It’s quite a CV. 

Kathy: It’s quite a CV, I know. And amazingly, The guy who runs the kitchen garden at Daylesford, which is about 20 minutes from me, not far from here either, about five minutes from here, said, yeah, all right, it's the summer, I need some strawberry picking done, and there's a bit of extra labour, so yeah, OK, you should probably come for a couple of days a week or something, shouldn't you? And so Daylesford is this kind of mother of organic growing, and as well as the market garden, which back then was about 10 acres, it's a bit bigger now, quite a lot bigger now, there is also a really comprehensive organic mixed farm with dairy, cattle, and beef, and lamb, and sheep, and pigs, and chickens, and a food production warehouse and a deli and a bakery and I mean it's got everything. So it was an amazing place to learn. For a start the garden is, the market garden is incredibly beautiful and they specialise in strawberries and salads and things like that which are high yield and obviously can't travel very far because the farm shop's just on the doorstep. But then as well as that, you also just by osmosis, you end up learning about the dairy and the bread making and the meat production and the cheese making and all of these kinds of things as well. So I was working there for a bit and then there was a job came up in the cookery school and I got that so I ended up staying around for a couple of years which was just the most amazing experience and previously I'd been growing at home organically just for practical reasons rather than anything hugely moral or ethical, because it seemed bonkers to me that I was going to spray my food that I was about to eat with something that had a big warning sign on the back of it. It just seemed bonkers. But by the time I was at Daylesford and I'd learned more about organic growing, because it is the most well-funded organic growing facility you will find.  And I started to understand the environmental implications of it and the politics of it and that was a real learning curve. 

Alex: So you mentioned a bit about the cookery school as well, and your book has recipes in it as well. When it comes to your recipes, do you plan things far in advance? Do you think, right, I want to grow this because I want to make this, so I'm going to grow this, this and this because this is the recipe I'm aiming for, or do you just grow whatever you fancy and then think I'm going to work with what comes out at the right times and see what I can do. 

Kathy: Yeah oh that's an interesting question it's a bit of both. I definitely um I mean I've had so many failures that I know that for example as much as I may want to cook with cauliflowers there's absolutely no point in me trying to grow one because I am just incapable of growing a cauliflower. And I think they're quite hard to grow anyway. So I partly work with what I know I can grow. But also I find that the growing process itself is really inspiring. You know, like I said, I'm sowing my seeds for my leeks, say. I'm already thinking about cheesy leek gratin, or whether they might work in a pasta sauce, or how I can, what I can do with them in January to make a soup or something like that about it's like an act of hope, sowing a seed for the next meal, I think. 

Alex:  It's a shame we don't have this sort of smell -o -vision or taste stuff set up for this podcast, just your 4D element, but we'll work on it, we'll work on it, sorry, carry on. 

Kathy: Yeah, and next time I'll bring you something to eat as well, so then we'll definitely need it. 

Kathy: So, so it's mostly, I find that it's what I've got out of the ground that inspires what I cook, mostly because I'm really bad at succession sowing so I end up with great like I've got a massive beetroot glut at the moment, because when all the beetroot that I sowed germinated, I couldn't bring myself to thin them out or only plant half of them, so now I've got rows and rows of the bloody things that i find quite inspiring because it makes me go okay so now I’ve made the beetroot soup what else am I going to make and and I sort of I find that quite creative process and do you look at recipes and things or do you just tend to go I’ll just try this and put that in there and see what happens no I do get inspiration from from reading lots of recipes and but then you just see things around and about. I'm busy on Substack which is a lovely newsletter platform that I write on and it's full of really interesting writers, people doing lots of recipes and stuff. And some guy put something up about green figs and how to cook with green figs the other day. I was like, oh, I've got quite fig trees laden with figs, but I'm impatient and I want to use them now.  So, oh, maybe I'll have a crack at doing something with that. So you always get little bits of inspiration from somewhere, but mostly it's the ground and what's coming out of it. 

Alex: Yeah, absolutely. 

Kathy : I think returning to that more seasonal produce, seasonal growing is quite an important part of certainly what we think about quite a lot. And it's funny how it comes together. So with the green figs thing, I was pondering my green figs as I was walking the dog and then you see the cob nuts and you go, oh, interesting. The hazelnuts, maybe I should think about hazelnuts and green figs. And off you go from there and it turns into something. 

Alex: So if, um, Because we had Merlin Hanbury Tennyson on the podcast not too long ago, and his story was not a million miles off of yours in terms of the corporate burnout and the stresses of the rat race, if you want, and moving to the country and embracing nature, embracing the environment, embracing the soil. So if someone out there is listening and is thinking, I'm about that point, I'm struggling, where do you recommend they get started? If they're thinking of something similar, things like allotments or gardening or? 

Kathy: I really enjoyed listening to that episode as well, because it felt very relatable and similar. And I loved about how you were saying about how we all know that, you know, it's instinct that nature is curative in some way. I would argue that growing vegetables is specific and different and, of course, because I'm biased, even better than just going out for a walk or engaging with a, like, wandering through a forest. Though those things are good as well, because I feel like growing food is something different. It kind of gives you agency.  And when you were in the state I was, when I left my job, I could barely make tea. I couldn't drive. I had to be taken to doctor's appointments. I didn't really know what day it was. But I could grow a radish. I could grow food for myself. 

Kathy: And I don't think at the time I would see it as a political act, but it is a way of taking back a bit of control and to what extent you involve yourself in that is up to you, but for me it was a powerful personal thing. But also the sense of wonder you get from, like we were saying before, seeing a seed germinate and turn into something that you can eat. And you sit there six weeks later eating something going, this didn't exist two months ago. That blows my mind. And that sense of awe and wonder I find very calming and puts things in perspective. So growing would be the first place I would say to go. 

I wouldn't advocate going straight for an allotment because depending on where you are in the country they can be quite hard to get for a start but also I saw so many people do this in lockdown they went we've nothing else to do so let's start growing our own food and they'd get this massive allotment it'd take loads of effort and it's just overwhelming and you can end up in the same position you were in before, just being very stressed and very overwhelmed about the vegetables, which is not what should be happening with vegetables. It should be a joy. 

Alex: Quite a bit of spoiling of yourself. 

Kathy: Yeah, exactly. So I say, start small, Go for some easy wins. Don't start with cauliflowers. Start with radishes or lettuces or something that if it goes wrong, you can just sow it again and it's got a nice long growing season. Then maybe if you've got pots and a warm balcony, maybe progress to tomatoes the next year, but buy it as a plug. Don't try it from seed. 

Kathy: You know, just gradually. Don't start with a cauliflower and then try and collect the seeds from it, for example, because only despair will come of that. So start small and get hooked on that joy of going, here I am picking a tomato that I've grown myself. 

Kathy: I suppose it does make sense, really, doesn't it? Because human beings, you know, it's not about how many letters, how many words per minute you can type or sending emails or who you know who's high up in the networking world. But going back to our roots, we would have been hunter -gatherers and growing and being involved with the soil and producing and finding our own food. So I suppose at the point where the brain is overloaded with all of this sort of nonsense that we've created for ourselves, it makes sense to cut all that out and go back to biologically what makes sense for us. 

We need to have food, we need to make food, we need to find food. 

Kathy: It’s like the most fundamental relationship a human being can have with the earth and I found that really reconnecting and at first when I started growing food as a sort of therapy, I thought I was escaping from the world. And it took me a while to realise that no, actually, this was reality everything else all that construct and concrete in London and advertising and selling cheap chocolate to people who don't need it and probably can't afford it was that's all a fiction that's all made up um by our crazy human brains and  society and that really direct relationship with the earth again for me reminded me what I was and what really mattered and I don't for a minute take for granted how lucky I was to be able to find that to have the space and the infrastructure to be able to discover that and lord alone knows what people do who don't have that space to do it. 

Alex: We had a group who came by a few weeks ago who were from a group called Safe Soil, a charity. And some of their research was looking into the effects that being in contact with the soil has on the body. And I think their research said, and I'm going to get the name, I'm going to get the scientific name wrong. Bear in mind, I am a scientist. I'm sure it was Mycobaccum Vassi, I think is the name. If you search that, I'm sure you'll find it. But the research suggests that by being in physical contact with the soil, by touching the soil, by having it on your feet and in your hands, these beneficial bacteria can get into your body and then can interact with your gut and this can allow your brain to produce more positive chemicals more serotonin more dopamine to make you feel good and I guess again it goes back to we would have been more in touch with these things. We'd have been part of this ecosystem. Yeah, and by removing ourselves from it we have denied ourselves access to these things that would otherwise be very beneficial to our body health, ultimately. 

Kathy: Absolutely, our mental health and our gut health, and therefore our mental health, because the two are the same. I found this when I was doing the garden tours at Daylesford, and when I take, if people come to my little veg patch, and you take them around and you pluck a, I don't know why I'm always obsessed with radishes, but you pluck a radish out of the ground, dust it down and give it to them. And so often people go, what just happened? You want me to just eat this?" I'm like, yeah, where do you think it comes from? But we've become so removed from the origins of our food and the fact that they might have a little bit of mud on them and that's fine within, you know, limits, but I certainly try and garden without gloves and eat without washing too much of it where I can and for me that makes a really big difference. 

Alex: I can't remember if I've mentioned this on the podcast before, and I apologise if I have, but we've had school groups who've come round to look around the farm to learn a bit about what we do, regenerative farming, and also just how food is grown, because I think especially if kids are living in cities or just further away from the countryside and the farms, They sort of have lost a little bit about where all these foods come from. They're not just, they don't just appear in a plastic wrap on a shelf in a supermarket. And we did have some kids who came by the kitchen garden where the vegetables are grown, by the Kitchen Garden People, look them up. And they had just harvested some carrots and they were in a big box at the back, covered in soil, like you said. And Emma, who's in charge, said, did you want to come and have a smell of some of these carrots? And all the kids thought, you could see them talking. Why would I want to do that? And then of course, she then handed around some carrots and you could see their faces light up as they went, oh that's really good that smells really nice and I guess it's because they are interacting with something in a more I don't want to say a more pure form but essentially yes, there's no chemicals involved. It's fresh out of the ground. It's the reality of where it comes from. And it was quite magical to see these kids, really see where this is coming from what's happening yeah.

Kathy:  I hink it's the same with adults as well there's a episode in Rough Patch that I write about when I was giving a tour whilst I was at the cookery school at Daylesford and we had lots of private groups would come it's a classic away day isn't it corporate away day come to a cookery school and we had these guys and it was like my old life had come to meet my new life and there were these guys and they were sort of sort of you know media executives and they were drinking the rose from 10 o 'clock and they're like my god what why is there no bloody Wi -Fi here and all this sort of stuff. And when we took them to the garden, and I was showing them around, that just that moment where someone goes, oh, I have just... just picked a lettuce and eaten it, like straight from the soil. And even those like hardened media types, of which I had been one, you can just see them soften and that sense of amazement and that reconnection. And, and so I, and I feel like that's, that for me is where the juice is. Like if you can get people to understand where the food comes from, then you can get them to care about its production. 

Alex: And I guess it's putting, like we've already touched upon like three or four times now, getting them back in touch with the human experience of producing that food. Yeah. So if I were to go really big picture now, because we're all about food and farming and the future of food and farming here in the UK, I was wondering if from your perspective, what do you think the future of food and farming looks like and what do you think it should look like?  In an ideal world, what do you think we need to do? 

Kathy: Blimey. I've thrown you a curveball here. A very big curveball. You really have, haven't you? OK, well, I'm going to say I'm pretty optimistic, and that might be naivety speaking, being neither a scientist nor a farmer, but definitely an eater. But I feel like there's so much brilliant innovation going on amongst people. I know you had Abbey Allen from Piper's Farm on a while ago, and people like that, but also everyone that you see at Groundswell, which was a couple of weeks ago now, making real strides and trying to make a difference in things being sustainable without, and for me this is crucial, without being overly political about it. Like what you put on your plate should not be a statement about who you are, like your moral values as a person. 

Kathy: And this is why I find lots of debates about veganism and things quite complicated, because I am all for the vegetables, but also I live in a landscape that is the way it is because of mixed farming and I feel like we need that sort of balance. So the innovation that I see, this is a long -winded way of trying to say that I feel like there's a lot of innovation and I feel like it's going in the right direction because it's people who understand that it's a bit of everything and we have to have a bit of everything in our food system and I really hope that that despite some of the policies making life difficult for that, I really hope that those voices continue to be backed and I do my best in my shopping because I'm very much not self -sufficient, do my best in my shopping to encourage those growers. But I know that I'm lucky to be able to do that, because it's just more expensive. And if I could change one thing, in an attempt to answer your question, though it does sound a little bit Miss World, if I could change, I would like everyone to have the best food they could for no money. 

But I would love it if we could make make life so that bad food is more expensive than good food that's because I suppose the reality is that the majority of people who could really, really benefit from this, these really high quality, high nutrient products are the ones who most likely are unable to get them. Yeah, can't access them or can't afford them. And you see it when I'm one of many volunteers at our local food bank. And it would be lovely to be able to make that a more sustainable, nutritious, cheaper package of food than it than it currently is. 

I think that was very eloquently answered. 

Alex: Very much above my pay grade. So do you mind if I ask you what have you got coming up? What projects can we look forward to seeing you take part in in the future?

Kathy:  Well I'm coming to the end of quite a big sort of book tour, I suppose, as big as in it's been long rather than it's been particularly starry. But it's been really good fun because Rough Patch came out in hardback in February. 

Kathy: It comes out in paperback in February, so I'll be back again with more events for that. But then in the meantime, I write a monthly column for Delicious magazine which is about what I'm growing in the veg patch and what I'm cooking with my harvests and I love doing that because that's my way of getting people back in touch with the land and the seasons. And the same for Fortnum and Mason's. I do a regular Sunday class where we get all the best of the season and cook with it, which is never a chore, I have to say. 

Alex: Wonderful.  Well, thank you. Thank you very much for taking the time to come out and speak to us today in this most interesting of locations. 

Kathy: It is the best location. Thank you very much for having me. It's always a pleasure to be here at FarmED. Thank you so much. 

Alex: And thank you so much for tuning in. If you've enjoyed the podcast, give us a rating, give us a review, let us know how we're getting on. Check us out on social media and hopefully we'll see you again in the future. Thank you so much. 

Kathy: And thank you so much.