Unearthed - The need for seeds, with Cate Blanchett
Episodes
The Future: Future-proofing seeds
05 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this final episode of Unearthed: The need for seeds, Cate Blanchett looks ahead to the next 25 years of the Millennium Seed Bank – and beyond...
The Present: Inside the world’s largest seed bank
29 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Millennium Seed Bank holds over 2.5 billion seeds – but where do they all come from, and how do they end up in those deep underground vaults...
The Past: The vision that got us here
22 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Millennium Seed Bank started life as a modest chest freezer housed in an English chapel. It’s now a multi-layered vault housing over 2.5 bil...
Special episode: With His Majesty the King
19 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The new series of Unearthed: The need for seeds from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew launches with a very special conversation. A long-time champion of...
Unearthed returns - The need for seeds, with Cate Blanchett
14 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Unearthed returns — celebrating 25 years of the Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst, the most biodiverse plac...
How does nature network?
31 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How do nature’s wonderful systems all fit together? And how can science help us understand these for better conservation and restoration of species?...
How can we regenerate nature successfully?
17 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Unearthed: Nature needs us from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew we ask what it means to regenerate and restore degraded forests and ...
How can we protect pollinators?
03 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As well as our beloved bees, pollinators include wasps, moths, hoverflies, butterflies, beetles, bats and birds. There are about 1,500 different ins...
Why do we save seeds?
19 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Seeds are the beginnings of life. From the food we can grow today, to the wondrous habitats they can create. They offer us a chance to capture, store ...
Why does soil matter?
05 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
There is still so much to learn about the mysterious realm of soil. From the microscopic organisms essential to life on Earth, to the complex and wond...
What is the biodiversity crisis?
22 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Nature needs us! In series 3 of Unearthed, Dr Mya-Rose Craig begins the journey into what biodiversity loss means and why it matters to protect what w...
Unearthed Returns: Nature needs us
21 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Wildlife is becoming extinct at an alarming rate and habitats are under strain. What can nature itself teach us about how to heal our planet and suppo...
Food, Health and Wellbeing in Daily Life
15 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
To round off this series, we’re heading into our own kitchens and examining how our food choices can make for better health and a better world. Ad...
How Should We Be Growing Food?
01 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
If you have a window box, veg patch or allotment, how does the way you are growing food change your relationship with it? In this episode of Unearth...
Foods of the Future
17 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
With so many of our favourite foods facing extinction, including bananas, chocolate and coffee, what will be on our kitchen tables in the future? In t...
Agriculture and Livelihoods
03 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This time, Poppy Okocha’s looking at our relationship with growing and producing foods around the world. She meets up with Jeremy Torz, one of the f...
“The Red List”: Biodiversity loss and food
20 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Advolly Richmond is exploring how food production methods and climate change today are exacerbating issues of biodiversity loss. As conditions change ...
Supermarkets, supply and waste
06 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
James Wong takes a look at what you can do at home, versus what big business and supermarket giants are doing to make sure our food choices are transp...
We have a problem
06 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The food we eat connects us to the wider world; to global history, cultures and traditions. But the practises we’ve ended up with today mean that ou...
Unearthed: Journeys Into The Future Of Food, From The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew: Coming on Thursday 6th October 2022
26 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The way we produce and consume food is having a devastating impact on our natural world. How can we avoid disaster, and feed the world well? Unearthed...
Dirt on our hands: Overcoming botany’s hidden legacy of inequality
10 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dirt on our hands: Overcoming botany’s hidden legacy of inequality In this special episode of Unearthed, professional plant geek, author, ...
The Disappearing Forests: Is ecocide a crime?
14 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Time is running out for the world’s forests, ecosystems and the life they support. The consequences for human life and climate could be catastro...
Harm or Harmony: How safe are we from the foods we eat?
30 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
4 years ago, 15 year-old Natasha Ednan-Laperouse lost her life to a severe sesame allergy. In this episode, James Wong speaks to Natasha’s paren...
Zombies, tripping and the everyday normality of fantastic fungi
16 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode James Wong learns how there’s nothing weirder and more wonderful than the everyday. Hear about the depression trials that have s...
Curious cures and mysterious medicines
02 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Deep in some of the world’s most hard-to-reach places lies a wealth of plant knowledge that could offer the next life-saving cure. In this episo...
The curry killer: How Kew helped bring a murderer to justice
19 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Plants have the power to cure – and also kill. In this episode we hear how a spurned woman murdered her lover with just a mysterious plant subst...
Uncovering a multi-million pound smuggling trade
05 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
One wintery morning in 2014, somebody stole a tiny and extremely rare waterlily from the collection at The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. It was never se...
Trailer
16 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
James Wong introduces "Unearthed", launching August 5th 2020.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.