TBG 2024 episode 19
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LearningTranscript
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 garden to
00:34sit out in, in Gairloch. So Ruth, back in May, we were planting out
00:45some carrots and here we like a little bit of a trial on Beechgrove. This row here that
00:51I sowed was a resistafly variety and it was supposedly resistant to the dreaded carrot
00:58fly. Yeah, carrot fly is a huge problem for gardeners
01:01and allotmenteers alike because the fly itself is just so good at sniffing out carrots, but
01:07also parsley and celery and things like that as well. So from over a mile away, they can
01:13actually smell the crop and just come in and start eating away at it.
01:18So what we've done is we've sown really quite thinly so that we don't need to thin out and
01:25make more smell for the carrot fly. But what they do is they come and they lay their eggs
01:30right at the very base of the leaves and then once the egg hatches out, the larvae goes
01:35in for the carrot and feasts on the carrot and just spoils your whole crop, which isn't
01:41what you want. Absolutely not. Should we take a look under
01:44the fleece? Yeah, definitely. Now these two varieties
01:49called nymph and yellowstone, they aren't carrot fly resistant, so they were sown under
01:55some fleece 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 think,
02:08started to succumb to the heat under the fleece. So what I would always recommend is start
02:13sort of like interplanting with things like alliums because they are really strongly smelling.
02:18So your onions, your garlic, chives, these kind of things, sort of planting in between
02:23your carrots and that will just disrupt the smell of the carrots themselves. It kind of
02:27overwhelms it. So then the flies can't really smell it.
02:30Yeah. You could also use some calendula around your plot border as well. That is always a
02:35good one to have. But you know, harvesting carrots maybe in about a month's time is going
02:41to be really exciting to see the difference. But the great thing about carrots is you don't
02:47need to harvest them all at once. You can leave them in the ground for quite a while.
02:52It's even suggested that you leave them until the first frost is over, which makes them
02:56particularly sweet. So hopefully when it comes time to harvest them, we'll have a really
03:02nice healthy crop of carrots.
03:04Yeah, definitely. But I think what would be really good to see as well is if these ones
03:08have deterred the pest. But if they haven't, when you do come to harvest, I would always
03:12recommend just sowing something else here next year because they will, the larvae will
03:16overwinter and you don't want to then have the problem next year too.
03:19No. So let's get them covered over again.
03:22Bamboo is a really versatile plant. Globally, it's really important for the timber industry
03:41because of how strong each of these canes are. Here in the UK, we grow it predominantly
03:47for screening, for naturalistic planting, but it could also be quite good for sound
03:53barriers as well. However, we get a lot of letters from viewers about the way that it
03:59grows because it quite aggressively spreads.
04:03This variety here is Phyllostachys aurea, aptly named for its beautiful golden stems.
04:10And you can also get other types of Phyllostachys as well. Phyllostachys nigra is really popular.
04:15It has the black stems. So when we're thinking about how it grows and the reason why it's
04:19so problematic, it's because it spreads via rhizomes. So rhizomes are modified stems that
04:26will put roots and shoots on, roots from each of the nodes, and it will also put stems on
04:33as well.
04:34As the plant then begins to establish, we'll start to see more mature canes coming through
04:42and then these fully fledged, proper bamboo canes. It can be really problematic for gardeners,
04:48particularly if it does spread into your neighbour's garden. It can be quite difficult to maintain.
04:53However, there are some things that we can do. So if we are thinking about just a sort
05:00of a general maintenance, we can be using our secateurs and just be going right into
05:06the base. So we're going to go right into the base here and down to the bottom and
05:12we're just going to snip that off and pulling these out like that and just working our way
05:18along until all of these more juvenile canes have been removed.
05:21Once we've done that, we can also then be using a hand fork and just be prising up the
05:28rhizomes as sort of gentle as possible, not to break them. If you do end up breaking them,
05:34it's fine as long as you're pulling them out. If you were to leave broken rhizomes,
05:38you would end up with more plants, which is obviously not the purpose of what we're doing.
05:42Some of the rhizomes could be quite firm, so you might have to use a bigger fork and
05:47use your 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 going to need a bigger tool.
05:59Secateurs are just not going to cut it. So what we're going to end up doing here is actually
06:04just using a pair of loppers, hopefully, and again, just taking it right down to the base.
06:09It's exactly the same as what we've already done, going right in there and just cussing
06:15the cane away like that. Just be mindful that it may fall and it might need a couple of
06:23cuts to just get it out successfully. As I said, they are grown for timber, so they're
06:28quite firm. We'll just take that one out.
06:32You might also want to think about, if we are adding bamboo, a couple of different things.
06:36So one of them would be if we do buy phyllostachys or any of the running varieties, you might
06:43want to put it in a big pot, a very big, sturdy pot, and actually sink that into the ground.
06:48What that'll do is just help prevent those rhizomes from spreading. You can get other
06:53sort of bamboo barriers as well that you can add to the soil. And again, they just do the
06:58same thing. They just prevent those rhizomes from spreading as much as they possibly can.
07:04But there are alternatives too. So whilst this is a running variety, there are clump-forming
07:09varieties of bamboo that you can get. So Fargesia is a really nice genus. It comes in a variety
07:15of colours, from golden like this one, right through to the black cane varieties, such
07:21as Fargesia black pearl.
07:24But now, over to George at his allotment in sunny Joppa.
07:36Well hello and welcome to my allotment in sunny Joppa. Well, it's not really sunny today.
07:41It's dull and it's got a bit of drich. But I don't know what sort of year you've had
07:46in your garden and allotment, but I've struggled a bit here because we had so much rain early
07:51on. Then we had a very dry May, and then we've had rain in June and into July. And I'm on
07:58a light sandy soil here. It's a raised beach. And what happens is, when you get a lot of
08:03rain, it drains all the nutrients out the soil and away beyond the reach of the plants.
08:10And so you end up with poor growth. Because it's not been so sunny, we don't get very
08:15good growth. And then because it's been damp, well, it's one or two diseases that come in
08:21as well. Who would own an allotment?
08:37One of the things which I do not like in allotments is bare soil, because that gives the weeds
08:42a chance to grow. So if you have a canopy of crops over it, the weeds are, well, they're
08:47kept back and they don't grow as well. So I've got to plant this area up here. This
08:52was a space which had some Swiss chard in it, and it had grown right through the winter
08:58and was giving us something to eat and use in the kitchen right through until the beginning
09:02of June. It's been taken out, and now we're into this point where we need to replant.
09:07And what I'm going to replant with is, this is celeriac, and it's a variety called Giant
09:14Prag. Now that's the one where you see in supermarkets, about the size of a very big
09:18grapefruit, and it looks terribly knobbly, but has a taste a bit like celery. So that's
09:22going in here. Now this area, because we'd had a crop in here before, it had to be fed.
09:29So it's been fed with some shredded farmyard manure and with some balanced fertiliser,
09:34so that there's a good boost within the soil. Because I have to say that celeriac, if you
09:40don't feed it and don't give it lots of water, you'll not get much of a crop. So that's what
09:45we've got to do with this here. As I say, the soil here, even after a lot of rain, is
09:53something that it can get very, very dry. And you've got to keep the water going on
09:58my allotment. This is quite important. So I have a water butt that I can take water
10:02out of, but that's it. Right, on we go. We'll plant this, and then crops that will go in
10:08here afterwards. I've got one or two French beans that I'll put in, and there might be
10:13a row of peas as well. So I'll carry on and fill that space with French beans and possibly,
10:22as I said, some peas. But I've come to do some harvesting now, and I've come over to
10:26the onion patch, which is here. Now this is the variety Red Barn. It's the first time
10:31I've tried it, and what I did this year was, I planted out three sets in my yoghurt pots,
10:38and that way, drew them on at home, and then planted them out. And what we've got now are
10:42some reasonably sized onions. And rather than leave them in the soil here, because we're
10:48still getting a lot of wet, I'm going to lift them. Right, so we lift these, and because
10:53I'm not too worried about them, there they are. Look at that. There we go. These are
11:00reasonably clean on the bottom, and that's what I worry about, because one of the problems
11:05I have here 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 onion,
11:16and the onion will be no use at all. So that will have to be set to one side, so that it
11:21can be used quickly, because that one is one which has got some rot in it. But the rest
11:27of them seem to be okay. So there's another couple there. Right, this one's okay. That's
11:35quite a good one, so we'll put that beside that.
11:46Right, to continue the harvesting sequence, I've come up to this deep bed where I planted
11:52cauliflower early in the year. Now, I planted two different types. I planted one which was
11:58club root susceptible, and I planted another one which was club root resistant. And I have
12:05to say that it's quite obvious which is which. Normally, when I lift cauliflower or cut cauliflower,
12:13I would just cut them. But here, I'm going to dig up the root as well. Right. Now, if
12:21you wanted to see club root, there it is there. And what has happened, you see, because
12:27all of these roots have been parasitised by the fungus, then what happens is that it loses
12:33the ability to absorb water, and that's why the whole thing goes, well, a bit limp. So
12:39that's going to be just cut off, right? We'll just cut these off. And that's still a perfectly
12:48usable cauliflower. Nothing wrong with it. So that's that one. And then if I go to the variety
12:54which is club root resistant, and do the same with that, first thing that you will notice
13:03is it's a much bigger root system. Look at that.
13:07That's a much bigger root system. If I give that a good shake out,
13:11there's no club root in that at all. This is the variety Zaragoza, and I've found that that is
13:21wonderfully successful in my allotment here. So that produces very large curds. That's the
13:28only trouble, that you get large curds. That's the name we give to the white bit in the middle.
13:36And when I cut that back, just look at that, eh? Look at that. Get that cheese sauce out.
13:45That's brilliant. And not a bit of club root. So I have to grow club root resistant ones because
13:52this ground is polluted with club root. So this one's for the harvest.
14:05I may have been a bit gloomy when we came to the allotment to begin with, but look at the harvest.
14:19It's amazing what the season will produce for you. Even although it's been a poor season so far,
14:24look what we've got. Cauliflower, beans, carrots. This is the variety Caledonian Red,
14:30a little potato and red barn. So a multi-coloured feast for us later on.
14:35And remember, you always eat with your eyes.
14:48These Primula denticulata have performed really well this season. And after they've finished
14:54flowering, it's really a good idea to lift and split them. Now, they're aptly named the
15:00Drumstick Primula because they produce these really nice straight stems. And on top of the
15:06stems, they have these spherical cluster heads of flowers in pink, white and purple.
15:13Now, the bees love them during those early spring months when there's maybe not so much
15:21food for them. But you really want to be lifting and splitting your plants,
15:29maybe in the early morning when the plant isn't going to get so stressed.
15:35But 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
15:46they can get quite congested and this is going to affect their flowering.
15:50So what you want to do is, you want to very carefully break them apart.
16:02Just like this. And then you want to take a piece of paper and you want to fold it in half.
16:10With your hands. And you can see that when you do it like this, the roots should come away
16:19relatively easily. And what you've got there is one nice healthy plant ready to be planted.
16:29Now, Primulas like full sun to partial shade. So in this bed here with a little bit of shade
16:37from 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
17:15nice bit of room to help them spread. Now, of course, if you don't have any room in your garden
17:25once you have lifted and split them, you could easily pop them into some pots, give them to
17:31neighbours or family members because you've just made a whole heap of free plants,
17:39which is always brilliant.
17:45Once they've settled in nicely, you want to give them a really good drink of water.
17:55And you want to make sure that you water them throughout these hot, sunny days of summer.
18:03But planting them up just now will make sure that they're really well established in time for the
18:10winter months. And hopefully by next spring, they'll put on a wonderful display of flowers.
18:17Gerlach in west of Ross has some spectacular scenery and what better place to have a garden
18:23and relax and enjoy the view. This is the Gerlach Sotu Tree, and as the name suggests,
18:32the Sotu Tree is a place to sit out in. It's in a beautiful location,
18:37but a site with many gardening challenges.
18:47We refer to the gardening here as being gardening on the edge,
18:51because we have to face all sorts of perils. People say to me,
18:56why on earth did you put a garden in a place where it has no shelter, it gets the sea spray,
19:03the winds? And I say, well, quite simply, because it wasn't meant to be a garden.
19:09It was just meant to be a place to sit out. But what the community has done
19:13is help it evolve into a garden. And it's now beautiful for all to see.
19:19It's worth pointing out that 10 years ago, from the roadside here, you couldn't see the sea from
19:24here. And the reason for that is that this whole verge was overwhelmed by gorse. It was six to
19:32eight feet high, and there was an absolute mess. And one day, somebody came into the shop,
19:40and they said, there's not a single seat to be had the whole length of pier road,
19:45even though this is meant to be the leisure end of the village.
19:48So I decided to try and make amends, and we created a little fundraising box. And
19:53we managed to raise enough money to clear a small square, about three meters by two and a half.
19:59The very first 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 has extended to its full 206 meter length.
20:15Because it is a garden, it shouldn't be here.
20:19It has triumphed, if you like, against the weather and people and cars and red deer.
20:29It's cheered up an area, it's a focal point. Locals as well come and bring a cup of coffee
20:35and meet friends and chat. And we once come and use the quad bikes. It's very much part
20:41of the community. Gardening here is a challenge. On high tides, the spray comes over, the waves
20:53break onto the gardens. We have barrels washed away into the lock on occasions when we have
20:59really bad storms. So it's a challenge to work here with the salt, the spray, the wind and the
21:05rain. One 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 pounds.
21:49These are aeoniums. They originate from Atlantic islands, principally the Canaries. And they do very
21:55well here because the conditions that they experience naturally are replicated here. It's
22:01very wet, it's very windy, it's very salty. They are not hardy enough to remain out all year round.
22:09So we plant them out in low-lying areas. And then we plant them out in high-lying areas.
22:17So we plant them out in late spring, and then they grow very well in these conditions through
22:23the summer. And then in the late autumn, we'll lift them, take them inside, dry them out completely,
22:30and 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 Satu tree, which do particularly well.
22:41I love the angel's fishing rod, the diorama. In order to bulk out the plant, I put two or three
22:48seedlings in a pot, but unfortunately, I mixed the seeds. So here we've got two forms growing
22:54side by side, but it doesn't matter. It looks gorgeous. We've also got agapanthus, which work
23:01really well here. They love the moisture, left out all year round. We don't have to lift them and
23:06bring them in over winter or pot them up. And we do have failures. An astilbe. I think the ground
23:12is just not deep enough for it. We get the moisture, we get the rain, and they do like wet conditions,
23:18but it just needs better conditions. So we'll lift it and find somewhere better for it.
23:24And then as we walk along, we find another success story. Fuchsias do particularly well.
23:31This is a beautiful red form. It's hardy, stays out all year round. We tidy it up in the winter,
23:38and in the springtime, it produces new growths, new flowers, and flowers throughout the summer.
23:45A real doer.
23:55I think people like to be involved for a number of reasons. For some of them, perhaps they haven't
24:00much of a garden here themselves, and they enjoy working in this garden. They certainly enjoy being
24:06part of a team. Many of them will say that they've learned an awful lot while they've been part of the
24:12team. We share all sorts of information and experience. So for all of us, it's a really
24:19special place. And I think when you can sit in a lovely garden, and it's very peaceful,
24:23and you've got this wonderful view across the loch, there's no better place to be.
24:30The weather this summer has been nothing short of rubbish for us so far, but it has been incredible
24:45for slugs, unfortunately. But you know, it's not all doom and gloom. There are a variety of things
24:50that we can do as growers and gardeners to protect our plants. And one of the things I love to do is
24:55go on a slug hunt at night, get the head torch on, get your bucket, collect up all of those slugs,
25:01and then go and release them somewhere, maybe on the roadside or a park or somewhere where they
25:06are not going to do your garden any harm. What I would say though, is just when you are collecting
25:11them, is just to be mindful that there are different species, and some of them are actually
25:15predatory. So trying to leave those leopard slugs, the spotty ones, they'll actually help to eat
25:21other slugs, but also encouraging beetles and birds into the garden, toads, frogs, they all will
25:28contribute and kind of work with nature. Yeah, I mean if you've got young crops as well, I like to put
25:34these copper rings around things like dahlias and stuff. They provide a little bit of protection
25:41for your plants when they are young and vulnerable. But you know, making sure that your plants are as
25:47healthy as possible, that is going to give them the best chance of surviving any slug attacks.
25:53So making sure that they're planted in the right place, the right conditions, so that they're going
25:58to thrive. But you know, there are a whole heap of varieties of plants that don't really seem to be
26:04affected by slugs. So you've got your echinops, your lady's mantle, lambs ear and hydrangeas. So
26:10there are a whole heap of plants that are suitable for lots of different gardens that you can plant.
26:16And actually, the other thing about doing that, which is fantastic, is that you're then diversifying
26:22the different plants that you have in your garden. That will encourage more biodiversity
26:26and again, working with nature to try and control that slug problem. Definitely.
26:39Well, that is all from us for now. But before we go, Ruth, look we are here with hydrangea
26:45Annabelle. And she is looking stunning with her lime green leaves and her frothy creamy flowers.
26:52You'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
27:10Callum will be back in the garden next week and they will be planting out the pond. And we'll
27:14have an update from George. He's in his garden in sunny Joppa. But if you want to catch any of
27:19the series so far, you can head over to BBC iPlayer, where the whole thing is there for
27:23you to enjoy at any point in time. But from the two of us, it's bye for now. Bye.