Gardening seems like one of those things that we all imagine will keep us from getting bored in retirement. It conjures images of Gardeners’ Question Time, ill-fitting gloves and tending to the geraniums to get out of the house. Not so for Geoff Wakeling, a buff 30-year-old son of a vicar who’s trying to get young people to find their green fingers. After escaping a boring office job for the world of TV (he was a consultant for This Morning and presents a segment for the Horticultural Channel), he now runs the website the Guide To Gay Gardening about his attempts to live as much as possible off the land. And all this living in east London, an area entirely different from the Suffolk vicarage in which he grew up. Geoff spoke to So So Gay…
SSG: When did you start gardening?
Geoff Wakeling: I was brought up in the middle of the country and my Dad was a vicar. We have a kind of old school massive vicarage. I think my Mum had about three-quarters of an acre of garden so I was gardening from a really, really early age. I didn’t necessarily want to do it but I had nothing else to do. I was more of a wildlife freak than anything; I wanted a pond and I wanted all the plants to get the bees and butterflies and things. I was the typical Gerald Durrell kid. I had jars of bugs and bees and ladybirds all my windowsill. My ideal morning would be at the pond, just mucking around; find me a rock pool and I’m happy. I landed in gardening accidentally.
I did my zoology degree, and then I couldn’t find a job. Everybody from my course went in to pharmaceuticals; you either became a lab-rat or you took a job abroad, being a diver in Fiji or something. I guess I wasn’t one of those people to pop up and leave and disappear abroad.
Were you always bringing little animals home?
All the time. My room was filled. I think I had like three fish tanks, two aviaries, my parents were very patient. I literally had everything.
So I ended up working in probation services in London. It was a horrible job. I wanted to get in to TV and they wouldn’t let me take time off. So I quit, with nothing, to follow my dream. I started gardening to make a bit of money and then that took over.
How did the TV work come about?
Because I was freelancing I could take little bits of work experience here and there. A friend got me work experience on This Morning. And then they found out I was a gardener and I kind of got pulled across into the gardening team. That was when I started doing the makeovers and being like a little consultant behind the scenes. It was great, l loved it. They didn’t even need to pay me.
I think that’s the most important thing, because you can have a garden with plants but there’s no dimension to it then. For me the whole thing about gardening is creating a living ecosystem, and if you have wildlife and plants then they are going to interact. I think personally you are going to have a better garden. Because even if you have the pests then you have the natural predators coming in to eat the pests.
That’s all filmed in your garden. Are you trying to live off your garden?
Well I have an allotment, and the aim is to live off that as much as possible. I share it with my godmother. When we started it five years ago it was more of a hobby than an economic venture, I guess. But then the recession hit. Food prices are ridiculous now, and home-grown food tastes a hell of a lot better. If you go to the supermarket and try and just buy some carrots or something it’s a staggering price. This year we’ve had much more of a focus on saying only going to grow stuff we use all the time. Because then we can cut down our weekly shopping bill completely.
But ultimately I’m more of a flower boy, so my garden at home is flowers and plants. I have a few vegetables shoved in here and there. My front garden has some strawberries and herbs and things, but my back garden is all about flowers.
Is it expensive to run your own garden?
Not really. If you’re an amateur gardener and you’re just starting out and you’ve got a little bit of back garden, you can just cut a couple of borders into the side of your lawn and you’ve instantly got a formal garden. Then you can just fill them with a few plants. And you can go down to Sainsbury’s and buy a load of packets of seeds. Maybe £10 worth of packets and just sow them in the garden. So it’s as expensive or inexpensive as you want really. Because you can always find something.
Why did you start your website, The Guide To Gay Gardening? Do you think gay people need to garden more?
I called it the Guide to Gay Gardening as an eye-catcher. To make people think: ‘Oh what’s this, maybe I’ll go and have a look.’ I don’t think it’s necessarily that gay people need to do more gardening, but I do think young people should do more gardening. Unfortunately, gardening has a very fuddy-duddy image, but I think there are more younger people starting to do it, particularly growing their own food. Actually it’s really cool.
What would you say is the easiest thing to grow? Should you grow stuff you like eating – or are there particular things that it is easy to start growing?
It depends how much space you have. You can grow veg anywhere. Even without a garden you can grow some veg in pots; tomatoes for example. And believe it or not, you can grow strawberries in hanging baskets. So you can actually grow a lot of stuff. Most things aren’t that hard to grow if you give them a bit of care and attention. Things that give a quick turnaround are good. I mean obviously you might buy a lot of potatoes, but if you’ve got a limited area you are not going to get loads. But salads, herbs you can get all the time.
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