Alex Mitchell in her garden

Alex is a journalist, author and gardener who has been obsessed with growing things she can eat for about 10 years. Before this, she was obsessed with television. On balance, gardening is healthier. For three years, Alex wrote a column for The Sunday Telegraph about growing fruit and vegetables, first in a polytunnel in a muddy field, which often made her cry, and then in her little south London garden, which made her happy.

She contributes to various magazines and newspapers on the subject of gardens and lifestyle, with a particular interest in how to get the most out of small, urban spaces. She has worked as an editor for The Express and The Sunday Telegraph and also written for The Independent and Metro newspapers and New Woman and House and Garden magazines among others.

Alex’s writing and broadcasting career has been varied. She has sat next to Anne Diamond on the Esther Rantzen show, taken garden designer Andy Sturgeon around her garden on TV while seven months pregnant and the size of a small gazebo, given a talk on potatoes during which only one man fell asleep, been on a naked march in a flesh-coloured body stocking complete with merkin and and flown to Italy to write an article about bicycle seats for a magazine that then folded - but not before she got a free bicycle seat.

Her first book, The Girl’s Guide to Growing Your Own – Or How to Grow Fruit and Vegetables Without Getting Your Hands Too Dirty, is being published by New Holland in October and she is currently thinking of a good idea for another one.

Contact me alex at theediblegardener.co.uk