It was so bright that I thought I’d mistaken it for the sun. Only, the sun was trying to rise in the other direction, forcing a meek glow behind the trees. The Snow Moon, pushing above the curves of the valley we overlooked, behind a lumpen cloud. The colour of undiluted orange squash and summer holidays, against a cornflower sky.

It was early and it was cold and I’d woken up in a room that hid its wardrobe behind the wallpaper, like a secret. The last of three long journeys we had made over the past month - to peatlands in Wales, botanic gardens in Scotland and, here, snowdrop-covered land in Cornwall. Hours on trains, metered out in M&S egg sandwiches. Logistics and juggling and childcare guilt in the pursuit of something that should be simple, really: a conversation, or three.

Earthly Matters: new season trailer Why Women Grow 1:11

This year, we will be releasing more episodes of the Why Women Grow podcast than we have since launching it two years ago. Three each season, and each tethered to a theme. When we started, we ruled out recording beyond the summer - we couldn’t risk the weather. But then we found ourselves on trains to Norfolk in November and staring at thunderclouds in Provence in September, and realised that it was probably worth a shot.

And that is how we found ourselves starting the year with these adventures. On the side of peat bogs and standing overlooking the spires of Edinburgh in the fading afternoon light, listening to a woman play her fiddle for us, watching a crowd gather around. These days - these long, glowing, bone-chilling, make-the-most-of-the-light, delay repay days - are the ones when things make sense. It makes sense that I packed in the family-flexible 9-5, it makes sense that I put curiosity over guaranteed income, it makes sense that I’m still asking the question that came to me four years ago: Why do you grow?

We get back on the train pink-nosed and giddy, like kids on a school trip. We embark upon our second, or maybe third, station-bought sandwich of the day. We are filled up with the things we have seen and heard: the cracking of ice, the stories of small girls, playing a violin in a caravan against the raw weather on the Isle of Eigg, of the warmth of a fire in a blue-striped room and the company of two dogs, both named Frank. The conversations we have had linger longer. We think about whether we are peat-compatible. We think about the obsession that research or music-making can inspire. We think about what it is to believe in something as everybody else calls you a fool, while graciously waiting for them to catch up.

And now you can hear and see what we made. The new season of the Why Women Grow podcast, Earthly Matters, launched this week. Our guests include The Land Gardeners, who have dedicated their business to saving our soil; Manon Awst, an interdisciplinary Welsh artist who has found new ways to live since working with peatlands, and Hannah Read, a California-based, Scottish folk musician whose album inspired by fungi has been on my speakers near-constantly this year.

We’re grateful to our friends at Crocus for supporting the podcast this year. If you’d like to enjoy 20% off all full-priced plants until May 30th, 2025, use the code WWGSPRING.

tasty morsel of the week: hitting repeat...