The Beechgrove Garden 2024 Episode 19

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00:00Hello and welcome to Beechgrove Garden. On the programme, back on the allotment with
00:17George and battling with bamboo. Coming up, how to manage bamboo without it
00:25taking over. In a cold, wet summer, we escaped a sunny Joppa with George and a
00:34garden to sit out in, in Gairloch.
00:41So Ruth, back in May we were planting out some carrots and here we like a little
00:48bit of a trial on Beechgrove. This row here that I sowed was a resistafly
00:54variety and it was supposedly resistant to the dreaded carrot fly. Yeah, carrot
00:59fly is a huge problem for gardeners and allotmenteers alike because the fly
01:04itself is just so good at sniffing out carrots but also parsley and celery and
01:10things like that as well. So from over a mile away they can actually smell the
01:15crop and just come in and start eating away at it. Yeah, so what we've done is
01:19we've sown really quite thinly so that we don't need to, you know, thin it out
01:24and make more smell for the carrot fly. But what they do is they come and they
01:29lay their eggs right at the very base of the leaves and then once the egg hatches
01:34out the larvae goes in for the carrot and feasts on the carrot and just spoils
01:39your whole crop which isn't what you want. Absolutely not. Should we take a
01:44look under the fleece? Yeah, definitely. Now these two varieties called nymph and
01:51yellowstone, they aren't carrot fly resistant so they were sown under some
01:56fleece and they look to be doing really well but you know it doesn't always have
02:01to be fleece that you cover them with, you can protect them with other ways.
02:04Yeah, absolutely because I mean they are looking really great but they have I
02:08think started to succumb to the heat under the fleece and so what I would
02:11always recommend is start sort of like interplanting with things like alliums
02:16because they are really strongly smelling so your onions, your garlic,
02:20chives, these kind of things, sort of planting in between your carrots and
02:23that will just disrupt the smell of the carrots themselves, it kind of overwhelms
02:27it so then the flies can't really smell it. Yeah, you could also use some
02:31calendula around your plot border as well, that is always a good one to have.
02:36But you know harvesting carrots maybe in about a month's time is going to be
02:42really exciting to see the difference but the great thing about carrots is you
02:46don't need to harvest them all at once, you can leave them in the ground for
02:50quite a while, it's even suggested that you leave them until the first frost is
02:55over which makes them particularly sweet. So hopefully when it comes time to
03:01harvest them we'll have a really nice healthy crop of carrots. Yeah, definitely
03:05but I think what would be really good to see as well is if these ones have
03:08deterred the pest but if they haven't when you do come to harvest I would
03:12always recommend just sowing something else here next year because they will,
03:15the larvae will overwinter and you don't want to then have the problem next year too.
03:19No, so let's get them covered over again.
03:35Bamboo is a really versatile plant. Globally it's really important for the
03:40timber industry because of how strong each of these canes are. Here in the UK
03:46we grow it predominantly for screening, for naturalistic planting but it could
03:52also be quite good for sound barriers as well. However we get a lot of letters
03:56from viewers about the way that it grows because it quite aggressively spreads.
04:02This variety here is Phyllostachys aurea, aptly named for its beautiful golden
04:09stems and you can also get other types of Phyllostachys as well. Phyllostachys
04:13nigra is really popular, it has the black stems. So when we're thinking about how
04:18it grows and the reason why it's so problematic it's because it spreads via
04:22rhizomes. So rhizomes are modified stems that will put roots and shoots on, roots
04:30from each of the nodes and it will also put stems on as well. As the plant then
04:35begins to establish we'll start to see more mature canes coming through and
04:42then these fully fledged proper bamboo canes. It can be really problematic for
04:47gardeners, particularly if it does spread into your neighbour's garden. It can be quite
04:52difficult to maintain. However there are some things that we can do. So if we are
04:59thinking about just a sort of a general maintenance we can be using our secateurs
05:04and just be going right into the base. So we're going to go right into the base
05:09here and down to the bottom and we're just going to snip that off and pulling
05:16these out like that and just working our way along until all of these more
05:20juvenile canes have been removed. Once we've done that we can also then be
05:24using a hand fork and just be prising up the rhizomes as gentle as possible
05:31not to break them. If you do end up breaking them that's fine as long as
05:35you're pulling them out. If you were to leave broken rhizomes you would end up
05:38with more plants which is obviously not the purpose of what we're doing. Some of
05:42the rhizomes could be quite firm so you might have to use a bigger fork and use
05:48your feet to really just drive that in, dig deep and pull all of those out.
05:54With your larger more mature canes that we've got here you're gonna need a bigger
05:58tool. Secateurs are just not gonna cut it. So what we're gonna end up doing here
06:03is actually just using a pair of loppers hopefully and again just taking it right
06:08down to the base. It's exactly the same as what we've already done. Going right in
06:13there and just cussing the cane away like that. Just be mindful that it may
06:20fall and it might need a couple of cuts to just get it out successfully. As I
06:26said they are grown for timber so they're quite firm. We'll just take that
06:31one out. We might also want to think about if we are adding bamboo a couple
06:35of different things. So one of them would be if we do buy phyllostachys or any of
06:40the running varieties you might want to put it in a big pot. A very big sturdy pot
06:46and actually sink that into the ground. What that will do is just help prevent
06:50those rhizomes from spreading. You can get other sort of bamboo barriers as
06:55well that you can add to the soil and again they just do the same thing. They
06:59just prevent those rhizomes from spreading as much as they possibly can.
07:03But there are alternatives too. So whilst this is a running variety there are
07:09clump forming varieties of bamboo that you can get. So Fargesia is a really nice
07:13genus. Comes in a variety of colours from golden like this one right through to
07:19the black cane varieties such as Fargesia black pearl. But now over to
07:25George at his allotment in sunny Joppa.
07:29Well hello and welcome to my allotment in sunny Joppa. Well it's not really
07:40sunny today. It's dull and it's a bit bleak. But I don't know what sort of year
07:45you've had in your garden and allotment but I've struggled a bit here because we
07:50had so much rain early on. Then we had a very dry May and then we've had rain in
07:55June and into July. And I'm on a light sandy soil here. It's a raised beach and
08:01what happens is when you get a lot of rain it drains all the nutrients out the
08:07soil and away beyond the reach of the plants. And so you end up with poor
08:11growth. Because it's not being so sunny we don't get very good growth. And then
08:17because it's been damp well it's one or two diseases that come in as well. Who
08:22would own an allotment?
08:37One of the things which I do not like in allotments is bare soil because that
08:41gives the weeds a chance to grow. So if you have a canopy of crops over it the
08:46weeds are well they're kept back and they don't grow as well. So I've got to
08:50plant this area up here. This was a space which had some Swiss chard in it
08:55and it had grown right through the winter and was giving us something to
08:59eat and use in the kitchen right through until the beginning of June. It's
09:04been taken out and now we're into this point where we need to replant. Now what
09:08I'm going to replant with is this is celeriac and it's a variety called
09:13Giant Pragg. Now that's the one where you see in supermarkets about the size of a
09:17very big grapefruit and it looks terribly knobbly but has a taste a bit
09:21like celery. So that's going in here. Now this area because we'd had a crop in
09:26here before it had to be fed. So it's been fed with some shredded farmyard
09:31manure and with some balanced fertilizer so that there's a good boost within the
09:37soil because I have to say that celeriac if you don't feed it and don't give it
09:42lots of water you'll not get much of a crop. So that's what we've got to do with
09:46this here. As I say the soil here even after a lot of rain is something that it
09:55can get very very dry and you've got to keep the water going on my allotment.
09:59This is quite important so I have a water bucket that I can take water out of
10:03but that's it. Right on we go. We'll plant this and then crops that will go in here
10:08afterwards I've got one or two French beans that I'll put in and there might
10:13be a row of peas as well. So I'll carry on and fill that space with French beans
10:20and and possibly as I said some peas but I've come to do some harvesting now and
10:25I've come over to the onion patch which is here. This is the variety Red Barn.
10:30It's the first time I've tried it and what I did this year was I planted out
10:35three sets in my yogurt plots and that way drew them on at home and then
10:40planted them out and what we've got now are some reasonably sized onions and
10:45rather than leave them in the soil here because we're still getting a lot of wet
10:49I'm going to lift them. Right so we lift these and because I'm not too worried
10:54about them, there they are, look at that, there we go, these are reasonably clean
11:01on the bottom and that's what I worry about because one of the problems I have
11:05here is that I get white rot and with the soil damp, look there you go, that's
11:11the white rot there and that is quite soft and it will go right up through the
11:16onion and the onion will be no use at all so that will have to be set to one
11:19side so that it can be used quickly because that one is one which has got
11:24some rot in it but the rest of them seem to be okay. So there's another
11:30couple there, right, this one's okay, that's quite a good one so we'll put
11:36that beside that.
11:45Right to continue the harvesting sequence I've come up to this deep bed
11:51where I planted cauliflower early in the year. Now I planted two different types, I
11:56planted one which was club root susceptible and I planted another one
12:02which was club root resistant and I have to say that it's quite obvious which is
12:08which. Normally when I lift cauliflower or cut cauliflower I would just cut them
12:14but here I'm going to dig up the root as well, right. If you wanted to see
12:22club root there it is there and what has happened you see because all because all
12:27of these roots have been parasitised by the fungus then what happens is that it
12:33loses the ability to absorb water and that's why the whole thing goes, well, a
12:37bit limp. So that's going to be just cut off, right, we'll just cut these off and
12:45that's still a perfectly usable cauliflower, nothing wrong with it. So
12:51that's that one and then if I go to the variety which is club root resistant and
12:57do the same with that, first thing that you will notice is it's a much bigger
13:05root system, look at that, it's a much bigger root system. If I give that a
13:10good shake out there's no club root in that at all. This is the variety Zaragoza
13:19and I have found that that is wonderfully successful in my allotment
13:24here. So that produces very large curds, that's the only trouble that you get
13:31large curds, that's the name we give to the white bit in the middle and when I
13:36cut that back, just look at that, eh, look at that, get the cheese sauce out, that's
13:45brilliant and not a bit of club root. So I have to grow club root resistant ones
13:51because this ground is polluted with club root. So this one's for the harvest.
13:58I may have been a bit gloomy when we came to the allotment to begin with but
14:17look at the harvest, it's amazing what the season will produce for you, even
14:22although it's been a poor season so far, look what we've got, cauliflower, beans,
14:26carrots, this is the variety Caledonian Red, a little potato and red barn. So a
14:32multi-coloured feast for us later on and remember you always eat with your eyes.
14:48These Primula denticulata have performed really well this season and after they've
14:54finished flowering it's really a good idea to lift and split them. Now they're aptly
14:59named the drumstick Primula because they produce these really nice straight stems
15:05and on top of the stems they have these spherical cluster heads of flowers in
15:10pink, white and purple. Now the bees love them during those early and spring
15:19months when there's maybe not so much food for them but you really want to be lifting
15:26and splitting your plants maybe in the early morning when the plant isn't going to get so
15:34stressed but I've got a really nice clump here and I've got the perfect spot for it over there.
15:40Dividing Primulas every two to three years is a really great idea because they can get
15:54quite congested and this is going to affect their flowering. So what you want to do is
16:01you want to very carefully break them apart
16:09just like this with your hands and you can see that when you do it like this the roots should
16:18come away relatively easily and what you've got there is one nice healthy plant ready to be
16:28planted. Now Primulas like full sun to partial shade so in this bed here with a little bit of
16:36shade from the canopy of this tree it's going to be perfect and it's going to be planted in
16:41amongst these geraniums so after the Primulas have finished flowering the geraniums will take
16:48over and that succession of colour in your garden is always something that is really
16:57really nice. So what you want to do is you want to make sure that they're nicely
17:04firmed in. I would space them probably between 20 and 30 centimetres apart to give them a really nice
17:17bit of room to help them spread. Now of course if you don't have any room in your garden once you
17:25have lifted and split them you could easily pop them into some pots give them to neighbours or
17:33family members because you've just made a whole heap of free plants which is always brilliant.
17:45Once they've settled in nicely you want to give them
17:49a really good drink of water and you want to make sure that you water them throughout these hot
18:00sunny days of summer but planting them up just now will make sure that they're really well established
18:09in time for the winter months and hopefully by next spring they'll put on a wonderful display of
18:15flowers. Gairloch in west of Ross has some spectacular scenery and what better place
18:23to have a garden and relax and enjoy the view. This is the Gairloch Sotu Tree and as the name
18:32suggests the Sotu Tree is a place to sit out in. It's in a beautiful location but a site with many
18:38gardening challenges. We refer to the gardening here as being gardening on the edge because we
18:52have to face all sorts of perils. People say to me why on earth did you put a garden in a place
18:59where it has no shelter, it gets the sea spray, the winds and I say well quite simply because it
19:07wasn't meant to be a garden it was just meant to be a place to sit out but what the community has
19:13done is help it evolve into a garden and it's now beautiful for all to see. It's worth pointing out
19:20that 10 years ago from the roadside here you couldn't see the sea from here and the reason for
19:27that is that this whole verge was overwhelmed by gorse. It was six to eight feet high and there
19:34was an absolute mess and one day somebody came into the shop and they said there's not a single
19:43seat to be had the whole length of pier road even though this is meant to be the leisure end of the
19:46village. So I decided to try and make amends and we created a little fundraising box and we managed
19:54to raise enough money to clear a small square about three meters by two and a half. The very
20:00first square was just opposite the shop where we thought we could keep an eye on things
20:04but very rapidly it grew arms and legs and it has extended to its full 206 meter length.
20:15Because it is a garden it shouldn't be here. It has triumphed if you like against the weather
20:24and people and cars and red deer. It's cheered up an area, it's focal point. Locals as well come and
20:34bring a cup of coffee and meet friends and chat and we once come and use the quad bikes.
20:40It's very much part of the community.
20:43Our gardening here is a challenge. On high tides the spray comes over, the waves break onto the
20:49gardens, we have barrels washed away into the lock on occasions when we have really bad storms.
20:55So it's a challenge to work here with the salt, the spray, the wind and the rain.
21:12One of the first challenges that we had to overcome was this crash barrier. It's pretty
21:18monstrous in appearance and whilst we would never totally disguise it we could take its aisle away
21:24from it with plants. We costed containers and window boxes were going to be terribly expensive
21:30and then one local came up with a brilliant idea that already there are two ends to a window box.
21:37There is already one side so we just need one piece of wood going down this side joining the
21:43crash barrier and we have a complete window box and I think we did about 30 yards for £60.
21:57These are aeoniums. They originate from Atlantic islands, principally the Canaries, and they do
22:03very well here because the conditions that they experience naturally are replicated here. It's
22:09very wet, it's very windy, it's very salty. They are not hardy enough to remain out all year round
22:17so we plant them out in late spring and then they grow very well in these conditions through the
22:23summer and then in the late autumn we'll lift them, take them inside, dry them out completely
22:31and then let them rest for the winter before we bring them out again next year.
22:37And now for some of the perennial plants of the satutory which do particularly well. I love the
22:42angel's fishing rod, the diorama. In order to bulk out the plant I put two or three seedlings in a
22:49pot but unfortunately I mixed the seeds so here we've got two forms growing side by side but it
22:56doesn't matter. It looks gorgeous. We've also got agapanthus which work really well here. They love
23:02the moisture left out all year round. We don't have to lift them and bring them in over winter
23:07or pot them up and we do have failures. An astilbe. I think the ground is just not deep enough for it.
23:13We get the moisture, we get the rain and they do like wet conditions but it just needs better
23:20conditions so we'll lift it and find somewhere better for it. And then as we walk along we find
23:27another success story. Fuchsias do particularly well. This is a beautiful red form. It's hardy,
23:34stays out all year round. We tidy it up in the winter and in the springtime it produces new
23:41growths, new flowers and flowers throughout the summer. A real doer.
23:55I think people like to be involved for a number of reasons. For some of them
23:59perhaps they haven't much of a garden here themselves and they enjoy working in this garden.
24:04They certainly enjoy being part of a team. Many of them will say that they've learned an awful
24:11lot while they've been part of the team. We share all sorts of information and experience.
24:16So for all of us it's a really special place and I think when you can sit in a lovely garden
24:22and it's very peaceful and you've got this wonderful view across the lock
24:26there's no better place to be.
24:39The weather this summer has been nothing short of rubbish for us so far
24:43but it has been incredible for slugs unfortunately. But you know it's not all doom and gloom. There
24:49are a variety of things that we can do as growers and gardeners to protect our plants and one of
24:54the things I love to do is go on a slug hunt at night. Get the head torch on, get your bucket,
24:59collect up all of those slugs and then go and release them somewhere maybe but on the roadside
25:04or a park or somewhere where they are not going to do your garden any harm. What I would say though
25:09is just when you are collecting them is just to be mindful that there are different species
25:14and some of them are actually predatory. So trying to leave those leopard slugs, the spotty ones,
25:20they'll actually help to eat other slugs but also encouraging beetles and birds into the garden,
25:26toads, frogs, they all will contribute and kind of work with nature. Yeah I mean if you've got
25:32young crops as well I like to put these copper rings around things like dahlias and stuff. They
25:39provide a little bit of protection for your plants when they are young and vulnerable but you know
25:45making sure that your plants are as healthy as possible that is going to give them the best
25:50chance of surviving any slug attacks. So making sure that they're planted in the right place,
25:56the right conditions so that they're going to thrive. But you know there are a whole heap of
26:01varieties of plants that don't really seem to be affected by slugs. So you've got your echinops,
26:07your lady's mantle, lambs ear and hydrangeas. So there are a whole heap of plants that are suitable
26:13for lots of different gardens that you can plant. And actually the other thing about doing that
26:18which is fantastic is that you're then diversifying the different plants that you have in your garden
26:24that will encourage more biodiversity and again working with nature to try and control that slug
26:29problem definitely. Well that is all from us for now. But before we go Ruth look we are here with
26:44hydrangea Annabelle and she is looking stunning with her lime green leaves and her frothy creamy
26:51flowers. You're blending in beautifully there. I know I've dressed for the occasion it would seem.
26:56Yeah the hydrangeas are looking absolutely stunning at the moment. All of them are out in
27:00full bloom. We've got them dotted all over the garden. Different colours, different shapes.
27:05There really is just a hydrangea for any garden. Yeah pink's my favourite. Anyway Kirsty and Callum
27:11will be back in the garden next week and they will be planting out the pond. And we'll have an update
27:15from George. He's in his garden in sunny Joppa. But if you want to catch any of the series so far
27:20you can head over to BBC iPlayer where the whole thing is there for you to enjoy at any point in
27:25time. But from the two of us, it's bye for now. Bye.
27:55Bye.