The Beechgrove Garden 2024 episode 13
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hello and welcome to Beechgrove Garden.
00:17This week is a burst of berries and at last, time to harvest.
00:24So I'm in the fruit cage, planting new cultivars of soft fruit.
00:30Our successional veg planting starts to deliver.
00:35And now is the time to lift and split the pulmonary.
00:40George, it's been a few weeks since we've been in the main veg plot, but I tell you,
00:46the weather's been terrible and there's been a lot of hard work, but we're finally going
00:49to get to enjoy some of the crops.
00:50This is the time that it's really good.
00:52I mean, what you've done up until now is enjoyed growing it and, you know, the enjoyment
00:56of seeing things germinate and so forth.
00:58Now is the time when you can eat it.
01:00On the table, this is when you want to fill your basket for the salads.
01:03So what have we got to harvest?
01:05Well, there's a whole lot coming.
01:06There's pak choy, there's spinach, there's this one here, which is some of the Swiss
01:12chard.
01:13Yes.
01:14And with the likes of the Swiss chard, a lot of that is, you know, it's a lot of seedlings
01:19and all I'm going to do is just to take the knife and cut out one or two of these.
01:23Yes.
01:24So at the same time I'm thinning them out and that just needs a wash and it's into the
01:29basket for the salad.
01:30Well, I've got this lettuce here and the variety is Little Leprechaun and just, I mean, just
01:34look at the size of it, George, that one's going to do us for ages, but we'll just go
01:38in there and I'm just going to pull it out, shake off some of the earth and then we'll
01:43just cut off the root system and then there's that, ready to go.
01:48I'd be eating lettuce for a fortnight, but then something green, because that's a purple
01:52one, so all I need to do here is just to harvest one or two of the leaves of the spinach.
01:56And again, you know, there's a tendency for people to leave things until they become fully
02:01mature and then there's far too many and they can't eat them quickly enough.
02:05As long as there's something where you can get a portion out of it, then it's ready to
02:09harvest.
02:10I mean, that's a good portion for an individual, that's all right, and twice that for wilting
02:13down, that is.
02:14So that's in the basket.
02:15George, we've got the radish here now.
02:16Those are maybe slightly on the bigger side.
02:18Well, I'll just get in there, aye.
02:19But what I would do is, you know, we'd wash them and then just grate them and add that
02:22to the salad.
02:23But what I think we should do is, is if we harvest both rows here, we've got Patricia
02:27and Rudolph, but if we harvest both of them up, one we're going to be able to enjoy our
02:32harvest, but then just look at the space we'll have to sow something else.
02:35Now, what would you sow in there?
02:37Well, we didn't sow all the spinach, so maybe we could get another row of spinach in, maybe
02:42another row of lettuce.
02:43Right, because it's quite important to pick crops that are different from the radish.
02:47So, lettuce and the spinach are not in the same family.
02:52So what happens is that if you put the same family back in here, the other cabbagey things
02:57in here, they would take up the same nutrients and they would start to look a wee bit starved.
03:02So the idea is, sow a different crop, a different family into the same space and they use different
03:07nutrients.
03:08But the lettuce we've got over here, I mean, we've got this Arctic Kings of variety, so
03:13I'll just take this out.
03:14But I mean, what I'd do is, you can see the centre's starting to bolt a wee bit, we can
03:18maybe just cut the middle bit out.
03:21Yeah.
03:22And look at that.
03:23Look at the good leaves in that, that's no bother at all.
03:25And then with the salad bowl lettuce, I mean, it's cut and come again, so I think if we
03:29just take a few leaves off each plant, that'll be fine.
03:33That'll keep us going right through until the end.
03:34Because it'll just start growing up.
03:36That's right.
03:37Now, we need something, you go and do that and I'll get something to brighten the salad.
03:40Because one of the things which we can do is we can start to eat the petals of the pop
03:47marigold.
03:48Oh yes.
03:49And that's, these are nice and peppery, but that brightens up the salad.
03:53Yes.
03:54Just gives it a bit of interest, doesn't it?
03:56It does.
03:57It's what you want.
03:58You can eat with your eyes as well as with your mouth, as it were.
04:01So there you are.
04:02And now, this is red frills, this is a mustard.
04:07And it's interesting that the pigeons never noticed this, but they noticed the rocket.
04:10I know.
04:11Maybe a bit colour blind for that one.
04:13Well, I think it might be, but that's the same family, but they didn't like that.
04:17But this one, I think what we'll do with the rocket is we'll just let it grow, but maybe
04:20put a wee bit of protection over it, just to be safe.
04:23Just to be on the safe side.
04:24So there we are.
04:25I think we've got enough.
04:27I think so.
04:28Mind you, you've got a fair bit to do there, so believe it or not, I'm going off to do
04:31some pruning.
04:32Well, don't work too hard, Josh.
04:38I've come into the fruit house because I think there's a little bit of work that needs to
04:49be done in here.
04:50A wee bit of pruning.
04:51So some work for the secretaries.
04:52But before I do that, have a look at this.
04:54Look at that.
04:55Look at these cherries.
04:57This is the variety Sweetheart.
04:59And when they're really fully ripe, they go a right dark red.
05:03These maybe have another week, but we'll need to keep it protected from cameramen and
05:08sound recordists, birds and everything else.
05:11So I hope these will last for another week or so.
05:13There we go.
05:14But a superb cherry.
05:15Now, the reason I'm in here is to have a look at the vine.
05:19This is a white grape, which we've got here, and that is one year's growth, right?
05:25It's never been pruned because we've been doing something else.
05:28Now, two bunches on this one.
05:30See?
05:32And there's a bunch there.
05:33This one isn't really much good.
05:35That is just a bit rubbishy.
05:37There's not very many fruit on that.
05:38So what I'm going to do with this is I'm going to nick that off there, right?
05:42Just like that.
05:43And then I'm going to cut it just at that point there, because that is one, two leaves
05:49beyond the fruit truss.
05:51So that's it.
05:52So I cut that off there like that.
05:54Now, what will happen then is we'll get lots of side shoots growing out of these leaf axils,
05:59and each one of those will be reduced to one leaf.
06:02So that's what we do there.
06:04And there's a lot to be done on this.
06:05If you look at the amount of growth which we've got here, there's a huge amount that
06:09has to be done.
06:10Cutting them back like that puts the energy into the fruit, and these fruit will swell,
06:15be bigger grapes, and that means we'll get a better crop.
06:19Now, talking about a crop, look at this.
06:22Look at the figs that are on here.
06:23Look at that.
06:24Now, these figs which are here, last year, going into the winter, they were about the
06:31size of a pinky nail, sometimes about the size of a pea.
06:34And you think, oh, they're not going to do anything.
06:36These are the ones that you want to keep.
06:38So each one of those was the size of a pea in the spring, and look how they've developed.
06:43Absolutely brilliant.
06:44But look where they're produced.
06:46They're produced towards the base of a shoot.
06:48So what I've got to do to make this shoot, for example, produce the figs at the bottom,
06:54is I've just got to take my finger and thumb and just nip out the end of the shoot there.
07:00Okay, just like that.
07:01And that will concentrate the growth on each of these leaf axles, and that will mean that
07:06we'll get a good crop of figs on that next year.
07:10Now, while I am carrying on with the pruning here in the fruit house, you're off to the
07:15southwest of Scotland to have a look at a classic garden.
07:21Home to Tess Knott-Sinclair and her husband Ian, Glen Juan was bought in the early seventies
07:27when it was no more than moorland.
07:30Since then, it's been landscaped and planted with specimens from all around the world,
07:36and the results are just spectacular.
07:39Well, we bought Glen Juan without ever having seen it over the telephone, really.
07:50When we first set eyes on it, it was a lovely, glorious, sunny February day, and we were
07:55quite thrilled.
07:56It was all bracken and gorse and wild, really, and there were lots of pheasants hopping around.
08:10We're at the highest point of the garden, which is about 300 feet above sea level, and
08:17it has absolutely splendid views over Loose Bay and the Mull of Galloway, and the Isle
08:23of Man when you can see it, which actually means it's probably going to rain.
08:31One of the most important things that Tess has done is so that nothing interrupts with
08:37the view from the top of the garden.
08:39So we can look down and see the two lochs that she made, plus the view out to the sea.
08:45So anything that sticks its head up is going to interfere with the view she executes, gets
08:51the chop.
08:52We're in the water garden, and actually this area, we call it Choice Valley.
09:11It has quite a lot of very nice plants in it, particularly water plants such as the
09:18iris.
09:19Iris, candelabra, primulas, and there's a good mixture of irises, and they form very
09:25good clumps after about, you said, ten years?
09:29Yes, probably about ten years.
09:31Yeah.
09:32So this was always a damp area, and the water was coming down, and so I decided to make
09:42little ponds.
09:43So that was great fun, and I built, I hucked them all out myself, a bit younger then, and
09:51made dams all the way down.
09:54And in the winter, of course, when the water is pouring down it, it's quite spectacular.
09:59Well, we've just left the water garden, but I thought it was worth stopping momentarily
10:06to admire this plant from Tasmania in Australia.
10:11It's called tilopia truncata, and it's a member of the proteaceae.
10:18It's quite a tender plant, and there we see the flower, and then there's seed from last
10:23year's just behind it.
10:37Going through the woodland area, we come to the Himalayan lily, Cardiocrinum giganteum,
10:44and normally they are even higher than this.
10:48And I first saw them growing in Bhutan, and so I tried to emulate the growing conditions
10:55for them.
10:56They will die, but they leave little bulblets behind.
11:01Gradually, as I was making the garden out, it was kind of a dream to open the garden
11:12to the public, and eventually we did.
11:16And Historic Environment Scotland decided that we were going to be part of their inventory.
11:25But anyway, I'm very proud that we're now part of that, so we've got to keep the garden
11:31up accordingly, so we're part of history now.
11:48I've been up in the secret garden lifting some pulmonaria.
11:52This is pulmonaria munstead blue, early spring flowering, a brilliant plant, a perennial
11:58woodland edge plant, grows in the shade.
12:01So it's ideal for filling these slightly shady spots below trees, and that's what we've
12:06got here.
12:07It was looking kind of insipid up there, mainly because it had run out of energy, there wasn't
12:12enough fertility in the soil.
12:14So I've brought some down, I'm going to replant it, and I'm replanting it in an area here
12:20that I've added compost to, so this will have a little bit more energy, it'll have a wee
12:24bit more oomph in it, and we'll get some really good foliage onto these plants and brilliant
12:28flowers come the spring.
12:31So what you do, lift the plant from wherever you want, pick the site that you want it in,
12:35and then pick over the plants that you've lifted, so that you end up with little plants
12:41like that.
12:42Now if you look at that, this is a piece that has come off the lifted plant, there's one
12:48or two little roots there on that one, so that's ideal, it's got foliage and it's got
12:53roots.
12:54Here is one again, there is the little piece of root, you can see that there, and that
12:59is going to take.
13:01Plants can't do two things at once, they either flower, or they produce foliage, or they grow
13:07roots.
13:08So they take turns at doing it, they flower, they then produce more foliage and roots,
13:12and that's when you lift them and split them.
13:14So just after flowering really is the best time, and that's when this is.
13:19So just going through, picking out the plants that you want, things which have got good
13:24roots on them, lots of fresh root, like that one there, I mean look at that, that's got
13:30lovely fresh roots on it, and that will do just going in there.
13:34So we carry on until we've filled this particular space, this spot, and okay you might be sitting
13:41at home and thinking, oh they're awfully scruffy plants, but just you wait, these will all
13:45grow away, and come the spring this will be a solid mass of green with these brilliant
13:51blue flowers, and you'll be quite happy.
13:54And the blue flowers will go well with this blue cedar, there you are, you'd almost think
13:59it was planned, wouldn't you?
14:01There we are, right, I'll plant some of these, and if I've got any space I'll come back and
14:07put some more in the spaces.
14:09All you need to do in this situation is, there you are, I mean you've got this rhizome running
14:14along the top like that, there's the rhizome, and you've got the roots coming down, so just
14:18make sure you gather the roots together like that, making sure that they're all dangling
14:23down, take your towel, and then space like that, make sure the roots are settled well
14:29in, and then just press it in like that, okay?
14:36Same with this one, there you are, roots hanging down like that, there you go, they're lovely
14:41wee plants, you see, and these are plants for nothing, they didn't cost us anything.
14:47There you are, going over like that, and these are being planted out at what, 150 millimetres,
14:54six inches in old money, that's the sort of distance apart that you put them in at.
15:02So there we go.
15:03Now I'll carry on and plant all of those, and once I've finished planting, well, I'll
15:08give it a jolly good water.
15:12Time now to visit a garden that celebrates the many parts of the world explored by generations
15:18of Scottish plant collectors.
15:21In the grounds of the Pitlockray Festival Theatre, the Explorers' Garden celebrates
15:25the Scottish botanists who return from the far-flung corners of the world, with plants
15:30that are now common in our own gardens.
15:34Head gardener Caroline Bavey and her team have been cataloguing the thousands of species
15:39in the subdivided gardens, dedicated to the explorers themselves.
15:45So the garden spans the last 300 years, bringing us to present day, and there's around 14 explorers
15:52still in the garden that were really significant in changing how we look at gardens today,
15:58and we have plants in our gardens that we don't realise actually aren't native to the
16:02British Isles.
16:06In the 1930s, after expeditions to Tibet and Bhutan, Scottish naturalist George Sheriff
16:12brought back several varieties of mecanopsis, and this is one of the historical acts celebrated
16:18in the garden.
16:22For those that may not know what the mecanopsis are, it's our beautiful big blue Himalayan
16:28poppies.
16:29This one in particular I'm talking about is one of probably the easier ones to grow.
16:35There are many myths surrounding the blue Himalayan poppy, that they're so difficult
16:39and they're really hard and don't even try and you can't la-da-da-da-da.
16:43You just need a nice dappled shade, they're very hungry plants, they're plants that like
16:48lots of food, and again the soil as well.
16:52They don't like to be dry, they don't like direct sun constantly all day, so a nice shady
16:57spot to find them.
16:59And they're easy to germinate, these ones are really good.
17:02So what you can do, if you have a collection in the garden just now, when the pods are
17:08dry, you can collect the seeds and reproduce some more plants, and it's really, really
17:12important because we are trying to conserve this much-loved and beautiful plant.
17:19George Forrest was one of the first Western explorers to visit China's Yunnan province
17:24at the turn of the 19th century.
17:26He didn't know it at the time, but he was travelling to the home of the rhododendron,
17:31and throughout his life he'd bring back hundreds of species.
17:37The garden here, we have over 120 species of rhododendrons, but this garden is really,
17:43really quite special from early in the year all the way through to now.
17:47But the lighter pink that you see behind me is people's bone of contention, and let's
17:54get rid of it, ponticum.
17:57Originally, what was happening is people brought the ponticum across and realised that they
18:03had a really good, strong plant at that point, and they thought we're going to start grafting,
18:08and they grafted a lot of species onto the ponticum, and they're so vigorous they've
18:14taken over.
18:15We've come away from doing that because we now know that the rhododendron ponticum is
18:19invasive, but rather than eradicating and come through and chopping everything down
18:23and digging it up, we're managing it.
18:25We are cutting down where we can.
18:28We're pruning and keeping it low and maintained.
18:32We can't just take it all out, we'd lose a third of the garden.
18:43Down here in our Tibetan China section, we do have some more rarer of the Mechanopsis
18:49poppies, and this one in particular here is Mechanopsis stantonii.
18:54I had it netted because there's only one that's in this section here.
18:59I needed to hand-pollinate it so I can try and produce some seed, but this one here,
19:05I just want to show you what to do.
19:07What you would do here, we've got a couple of flowers, flower heads, and within here,
19:13we're just going to do what the bees do and collect on their little hairy legs is the
19:16pollen that's within the flower.
19:19Sometimes you can knock the flower very gently to see that you can get the pollen just coming
19:24onto the petal, and I can see it's just knocking its way in there, and get as much of the pollen
19:30as you can coming onto the paintbrush.
19:34And then we're going to come down to this one here, and we're basically fertilising
19:39the plant.
19:41The female and male parts here just need to get the pollen on there.
19:47And it is just as simple as that.
19:50Now what we are going to do, normally I would have a big net in here, but because we are
19:55trying to keep it pure as well, a little Blue Peter moment here, we've got some teabags,
20:02and this one I've already emptied.
20:04These are just general purpose teabags that you get at home.
20:07What you're doing here is you're just going to protect that flower, and you're going to
20:11put them and cover it over with the teabag.
20:16So within the mechanopsis, you have fertile and infertile plants.
20:22So this is what we would hope to be a fertile plant, and that just means it will produce
20:26the seed.
20:27Because they are endangered, and we are losing plants, and we do a census every year, and
20:32every year we see and notice that there's plants just coming off and that just aren't
20:36here anymore.
20:38So it is really important, really vital.
20:40The explorers have brought all these seeds back, and the plants, and we've grown them
20:44on, and we're growing them in gardens, that now we are trying our best to conserve what
20:48we have, and that's what's really important.
21:03Right, Carlin, we've come up to the fruit cage because we want to plant some different
21:08things.
21:09When Carlin and I walked past this earlier in the season, this bed was empty.
21:13Yes.
21:14We said, what are you going to do with that?
21:15So this is what we're going to do with it.
21:16Well, originally, George, this is where we had the apples and pear trees.
21:19Now like over in the main veg plot, you don't just want to put the same things back in.
21:23One, we've got plenty of other apple trees kicking about, but also the nutrients have
21:27been taken out of the bed, and also there's a chance of disease if you plant the same
21:31thing.
21:32That's right.
21:33So a different crop.
21:34So we're picking red currants, white currants, black currants, and gooseberries, soft fruit
21:38that we want.
21:40And these are things which we're going to plant this year, and then they'll be fruiting
21:43well, I think, in about two years' time.
21:45But the thing with the red currants is that when you pick them up and look at them, you've
21:50got to look at where the soil is.
21:53And when I...
21:54I'm going to get you to plant them, you see.
21:55Oh, okay.
21:56What you want is to have a little bit of a leg at the base, or a clear piece of stem
22:00at the base.
22:01So what we want to do with this is maybe take off some of the bottom shoots, but we can
22:05leave that.
22:06We can plant them at the same depth as they are in the pot.
22:10Give it a bit of general fertiliser, and then once you've finished planting, a bit
22:15of mulch on the top.
22:16So that's the idea, and I'm sure I can leave you to get on with that.
22:19Oh yes, I could crack on.
22:20And you want them about a metre apart.
22:21Aye.
22:22Yeah.
22:23Right, that's fine, George.
22:24That'll be the right spacing for them.
22:25So I'm coming down here to where the black currants are, and what I'm going to do here
22:30is have a look at this.
22:31This is a variety called Benconin.
22:34Any variety of black currant which has Ben in the name is bred at the James Hutton Institute
22:40in Scotland, so it's hardy for Scottish conditions.
22:44But they also grow them internationally as a crop for juicing, so they'll do in most
22:49places.
22:50What I want to do with this one is I want to plant it deeper than I would plant the
22:55red currant.
22:58Now if you look at the configuration of that bush already, you'll see that there are lots
23:04of shoots coming from the base.
23:06See that?
23:07The nurseryman has grown them so that there's lots of shoots at the base.
23:11I want to plant it to about that depth there, so that the base of those shoots is covered
23:16by soil.
23:18So that as the plant grows, these buds which are underneath the soil will start to produce
23:23shoots and they grow up, and that gives us this bush form which is absolutely important
23:29when you're starting to grow black currants.
23:31So that goes into the hole and it's buried that bit deeper, or to use the proper expression,
23:37it's planted that bit deeper.
23:38So there we go.
23:39Down like that, in there.
23:42Now you can see the depth that that's at, and with the fertiliser round about it, all
23:47we need to do is to get that really planted in.
23:52Don't pussyfoot about when you're planting these things.
23:54Get the soil firmed in round about the plant, like that.
23:58Don't pat it, get it in.
24:02So there we are.
24:03Now that, you see, is planted with these shoots, the base of these shoots, well covered.
24:10And that's what you want, so you get lots of good growth later on.
24:14Now I'm going to move on to the gooseberry.
24:17With gooseberries, we plant at the same sort of depth as we planted the red currants and
24:24white currants.
24:26With gooseberry, what you want really is a piece of clear stem between the top of the
24:32soil and the first fruits, so that when you get heavy rain, it doesn't splash up and put
24:37grit on the fruit, which makes it very untidy to eat and very uncomfortable to eat.
24:43So what I'm going to do with this is, I'm going to give it a little bit of structural
24:47pruning, or remedial pruning, because I, you know, the nurserymen have just put in cuttings
24:53and grown them, but you want to grow these plants in a slightly different way.
24:56So what I'm going to do is take off that shoot there, see that one, I'm going to take that
25:01one off.
25:02There we go.
25:04I'm going to take off this one, like that.
25:09And all of a sudden, right, and I can take off that one there, now, we've now got just
25:15four shoots on this, but we've actually got four individual branches which will go out
25:21and will produce a plant which has proper structure on it.
25:25And we can get our hand right round that when we come to picking the fruit, and we don't
25:29get jagged to pieces, and that's quite important.
25:32So when this is planted, just like the red currants and the white currants, it's going
25:36to be planted just at soil level.
25:40So there we are, just at soil level, see that?
25:52It's just at soil level, don't bury it.
25:56If you bury it, you'd just spoil all the work you were talking about.
25:59There you go, and make sure it's firm enough.
26:02And then, even though, you know, even though we've had a lot of wet weather, I would give
26:07each one of these a bucket of water, just to settle them in.
26:11It moves the soil around and gets it in close contact with the small roots, and that's what
26:15you want.
26:16Well Callum, that's almost it for this week, but before we go, a couple of things to talk
26:34about.
26:35Yeah, I know, of course, we did the harvest earlier, but we've added to it, George.
26:37I mean, just look at these cucumbers, we've got an abundance of them.
26:39Well, they were coming out of your ears, they were.
26:41Yes.
26:42We've also, I mean, look at that, radish, and we've got the marigold flowers, and lettuce,
26:46but look at this.
26:47I'm jealous.
26:48You've got the creme de la creme.
26:49Life is just a bowl of cherries, and you know what, they're all mine, sir, they're all mine.
26:53Now, what's on next week?
26:54Well, next week, Lizzie's going to be joining the new Beech Grove team member, Ruth Vicos,
26:58and they're going to be showing us how to take softwood cuttings right now.
27:01Also, they're going to be talking about that dreaded weed, horsetail, and I wish them all
27:07the luck in the world if they're thinking of coming up with a cure, because I've had
27:10it on the allotment for 20 years.
27:13And if you're going to be potting in your garden next week when the programme's on,
27:16well, don't worry, you can catch it any time on the BBC iPlayer.
27:19And if you want to see this programme, or any of the other programmes so far, you can
27:22do that there as well.
27:24So, from the pair of us for now, bye-bye.
27:27Bye.
27:28Bye, George.
27:29Oh, here, get off.
27:30LAUGHTER
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