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The Beechgrove Garden 2025 episode 3
Transcript
00:00Hello and welcome to Beechgrove Garden on the programme where every home should have a lot
00:20of houseplants and homegrown ties. Coming up we get houseplants health tips from a great
00:27indoor gardener. It's sort of like my indoor garden and I find that thing of being surrounded by
00:33plants quite comforting. I've got my eye out for a bargain at Kelso's Potato Day. It's a lovely sunny
00:42day and we've got a huge number of people pouring in to buy the seed potatoes. And if you haven't
00:48got much room, George starts his small space garden. You may remember back in our Christmas
00:56episode, I was sowing onion seeds and planting shallots sets. And George, they're looking
01:01quite good. They're not bad at all. I mean, these have been where in the cold greenhouse
01:05since they were planted. And the onions were sown and put into the heated propagator because
01:11they take a wee while longer, don't they? Yes. Just to get a kickstart. But they're away
01:14now and we'll get them, what I'm going to do is I'm going to pick them out into modules
01:20because we want to give them a bit of a move on. I mean, there's good roots on the thing.
01:24So these will go in here. Now, this is a 50-50 mix of beet tree compost and the white stuff
01:32is perlite. And that's to give it a wee bit more drainage, air drainage, so that you get
01:36oxygen to the roots. And it helps the plants that way. Because the roots need what? Oxygen,
01:42water and nutrients. So that's it. So you've been given your one nutrients. Look at that.
01:46Yeah. So because these were planted over the winter in the pots, to give them a real boost
01:51when they're going into the ground. We're giving them a high nitrogen feed, just scattering
01:54it round the surface. So when we dig the hole, some of that feed's going to go down into
01:58the planting hole. Now this variety, George, is Jumar and it's a nice, sweet variety.
02:03Right. And this is Kelsey. And there'll be some people down in the south of England and some
02:07of these guys look like you are showmen. They'll have bigger Kelsey onions. But look, we're
02:11later up here. Yes. You know, we're an awful lot later up here. So these will clash up and
02:15they'll make decent onions, I think. Now, all I'm going to do is just get my trowel and
02:21just pull the soil away. And when I go to plant this out, George, I want to plant it the same
02:25level it's in the pot. I don't want to bury the bulb. Ah, right. So that's why they're
02:29all sitting proud like that. Yes. That's what you're after. We've got some okay roots on
02:32that. Right. We'll just turn that over. And I want to make sure that it's standing up
02:36straight and just give it a bit of a firm in. And are these going to go back into the greenhouse?
02:40I will put these back in the greenhouse because there they'll get some care and attention.
02:45They'll be mollycoddled a little bit. They'll get some water and some extra heat. And that
02:50will spur them on. And that's quite important. Now, with the row, if we're planting it, we're
02:54only putting the one row in of shallots. But if we're putting two in, I'd say about 12 inches
02:58apart. Right. With the plants then being six to eight inches. But really, as long as there's
03:03enough space to get the whole in because we want to keep this weed free. Aye. Yeah. Now, talking
03:06about weeds, the weeds are just starting to germinate. So this is an ideal time. The soil is
03:10warm. Yep. It's starting the growing season. A real sign of hope. Magic. Oh, magic. When
03:16it comes to watering the shallots, of course, now, we can't help this when it rains, but
03:19when we're watering, we could do something about it. I've taken the rose off the watering
03:23can and I am going to water the earth, water the base of the plant. I don't want to water
03:30the foliage because if we water the foliage, then there's a real chance of creating, you
03:33know, the perfect environment for fungal diseases. That's right. Jeremy, you can stop there
03:38because what we've got to do is another special job. Oh, OK. I'll follow you on, but we're
03:43going that way.
03:44Well, Callum, we've come up to the old heather garden, which of course we're going to be revamping
03:59in memory of our great friend, Jim McCall, who sadly passed away last year. And one of Jim's
04:04favourites, George, was heathers, as we know. So the heathers that were here were a bit tired.
04:09So what the gardeners have done, they've cut them back, we're going to cultivate this
04:12area and add some of Jim's favourites. Right.
04:14But what we need to think now is the sort of overlay, the sort of final what we're wanting
04:18up here. That's exactly what I was going to say. Because you need a vision. When you're
04:22doing a big job like this, you need to think, well, what do I really want to achieve? And
04:27my idea would be that we want to achieve something which looks a little bit like a Scottish pine
04:34forest, where you've got these great stately, straight trunks that are going up. And then
04:39there's open space with all the heathers and everything underneath. So you've got the vertical
04:43lines and this sort of carpet of heathers. And that's the sort of thing that we're wanting.
04:48Now, if we go over there. Yes. And have a look back the way. And I think it's, George,
04:53when you're developing any area, that it's really important to look at it from all different
04:57angles. Aye, absolutely. Because we're going to be taking out a number of shrubs and plants
05:02here. And the thing that's important at this time of year is to check them to make sure
05:06there's no birds' nests. Yes. And we've done that. We've done that. And we're fine.
05:10Yeah. Now, I would like to take that blue spruce out. Right. And the larch there. And I really
05:15think that's going to improve the view. It's going to open it up. Because in my head, I know
05:19we're going to put an acer in here. I want to put it in that space there. That we do.
05:23And it's what the Japanese would call borrowed scenery. You're actually borrowing the scenery
05:28that's over at the other side. Yes. And that's opening out that space. I would like to
05:31take out a lot of these shrubs here and conifers. Okay. But also, you know, when you're driving
05:37through the Scottish Highlands, you see these wonderful straight stems and this carpet of
05:42heathers and blabbery and stuff underneath. So similar plants will be what we will have
05:48in here. So we need to create straight stems. And I think taking the saw and taking off all
05:53these dead branches on these tall conifers and just leaving the canopy at the top will give
05:59us that illusion, that effect. Yes. And that's what we want to do. So there's a number of
06:04things which we're opening out, giving ourselves new views. Yes. And that's important.
06:10It's giving us new views, but also by improving this area, it's going to help the Hawthorne
06:15hedge at the back. Absolutely. Now, I would take that pierce that's there, I would take that
06:19right down and let it come away. And this little conifer here goes out to you. Okay.
06:23So we've got a lot to do. We've got a lot to do. Now, we've got this tape because, so there's
06:28no confusion of what's staying and what's coming out. The tape will identify. That's it.
06:32The tape of doom, as they say. There we go. Yeah. Another one of Jim's favourites was
06:38Tatties and it wouldn't be Beech Grove without a crop. So I went to Kelso for their potato day
06:43to choose some tubers. At Kelso's potato day, organisers source dozens of rare and unusual
06:51varieties for amateur gardeners to purchase and try growing for themselves. So I've got
06:57to come here first, collect a few bags, get my pencil so I can write the varieties and then
07:02I can be let loose and choose Beech Grove Tatties for 2025.
07:07Well, I can easily say I've never been in a room filled with so many Tatties and also
07:15so many Tattie experts. So why not get some advice? John has years of experience and traded
07:21varieties all over the world. So have you got any recommendations for me?
07:27Well, there's some really interesting new ones and they've got some amazing names. You know,
07:34Jazzy's one. It produces great numbers. Yeah. And it's a nice salad, a nice texture. This
07:41one there, I'm looking at Paradox and I'd forgotten completely about that. But again, that's
07:48another good interesting one to try. An interesting name. Well, John, thank you very much. I'll go
07:54to you. This variety Paradox, it was recommended because it's a really good high yielding one and
08:05it's got good disease resistance. I think it's great to come a day like this because you could
08:10choose as many Tatties as you want of one variety, but also you get to inspect each seed potato. Oh, I can get one more in there.
08:19Amongst the hustle and the bustle, I met Keith of the Borders Organic Growers. Keith, you are the chairperson
08:28that organises the Potato Day here in Kelso. And you're pleased because this is fantastic turnout.
08:33It's going really, really well. Yeah. It's a lovely sunny day and we've got huge numbers of people pouring in to buy their seed potatoes.
08:40We'll probably hope to get just over a thousand people through the door. From our Borders' point of view, we always think of this as the start of the gardening year. Potato Day launches the gardening year for the Borders.
08:49Armed with more spuds than my local chippy, I still couldn't pass up the opportunity to talk with Alan Romans, a renowned potato biologist.
09:00I'm very keen on getting truly blight resistant varieties. And up to now, in the recent years, the most blight resistant varieties have been Sharko Mira or Sharko Exona, which are damn near bulletproof.
09:17Yeah. What one would you say we should grow then to get an early crop? Lady Crystal. It's sweet and nice. And I've got two varieties for my greenhouse. One's Lady Crystal and one's Accord.
09:27Thank you very much.
09:38Mission accomplished. I've got my tatties. I've got my advice and some recommendations. Now all we need is some decent weather.
09:45But I'm just wondering, have I bought enough?
09:48And here they are, ready to get planted. Now as you can see, I did get a bit carried away when buying all my tubers this year. And we've only got a few out there now, but we will plant them all.
10:09This variety here, Lady Crystal, was recommended to me because it's a high yielder, but also produces a very early crop. So what we're going to do is we're not going to plant this out into the main veg plot.
10:21We're going to put them into a 20 litre pot. Now, by the time I got a hold of the tubers, I sort of got what was left. The wee bulls, as we would say.
10:31Normally for a pot this size, we would put in tubers this size. We would put about three in. But what the expert recommended to me was, was plant them in pairs, put two together and still put them in a triangular form.
10:44Now, tatties like a nice sunny spot, but they also like fertile soil. So I've got a high nitrogen feed here, which I'm just going to scatter. I've got six inches of compost in the bottom there, and I'll just mix that in.
10:57And then we'll just plant our tatties in a pair.
11:01You too. That one. Still in your triangle form. Then we'll cover them over with some compost. And as they grow, we'll earth them up.
11:16But I want to start this pot in one of the glass houses, so hopefully we get an even earlier crop, a Lady Crystal.
11:23And the ones we're going to plant into the main veg plot here, Sharps Express here is a first early potato.
11:29This was a heritage variety and was developed in the 1900s. This will take around about 14 weeks to get a crop from it.
11:38And as you can see, I've had these chitting at home to encourage the sprouts, so as soon as they go in the ground, they're going to get a good head stab.
11:45Now I'm hearing there's a wee bit of a tattie shortage out there. So, a wee wartime tip for you.
11:51Have a look at your tuber. Make sure you've got some eyes on this side and some eyes on that side.
11:58And then wherever you feel appropriate, split it. Just take a knife to it and cut it.
12:03So if you only have five tubers but have space for say ten, well, because you're cutting them in half, you've now got your ten tubers to plant out.
12:11One thing though, don't just cut them and put them directly into the ground.
12:16If you do that, there's a chance they'll just rot and get mouldy. Cut them, leave them to dry for a few days and then plant them out.
12:23The second early variety we've got though, that's going to take around about 14 to 17 weeks to get a crop from it, depending on the season.
12:32The variety name is Sally. That's going to make a good mashed potato. And that was developed in 2024.
12:39So I'd like to do a wee comparison to see how far breeding has come on over that time.
12:44And the very last variety, Sarpomira, is the main crop. It's a nice red skin, big tattie, so it's good for a baked tattie.
12:53What's really good about that is it's deep rooted. So if you're planning to go away this summer, it's got good drought resistance, that's the variety to plant.
13:02It's also one of the best ones, they say, for blight resistance.
13:06So we'll get these planted and we will have another tattie check in later in the series.
13:11But for now, I've got another plot to plan.
13:23Well, George, and I'm not going to speak about it too much, but in the past, I've lost the biggest sunflower competition and the giant tattie competition.
13:35But this here, this is going to be my entry into the presenter veg competition.
13:41Right, okay. And what's the criteria for this?
13:43Pretty and productive.
13:44Okay. And Carl's judging this, isn't she?
13:46She's going to judge it in September.
13:48Right. So there's a timing issue.
13:49Yes.
13:50Okay. Right. So what's your plan for it? Come on.
13:52So I don't want to say too much, George, because I don't want to give too much away.
13:56But what I've all said is I want to have some columns in each corner to get a bit of height.
14:00Right, okay.
14:01To grow some veg and flowers up.
14:03Right, so a bit of height. So how high are they coming up?
14:05Probably about, the back one's probably about this height and shorter ones at the front.
14:09I'll give you a bit of ambition.
14:10Yes.
14:11Okay. Right.
14:12Now, I know Carl loves a dahlia, so a wee row of dahlia's in here.
14:16Right, okay.
14:17Then we're going to have some brassicus in front of that.
14:20Right, okay.
14:21A wee bit of more flowers in the middle.
14:24Aye.
14:25And then different kinds of veg at the front.
14:28But, I'll give you a laugh, I didn't know this was going to be here.
14:32Okay.
14:33So I've got some nice orange, bright marigolds at the front.
14:36I absolutely love marigolds. Favourite colour. So folk know that's Callum's plot. That's the champ's plot.
14:43That's the trademark colour, isn't it? Yes.
14:45That's the trademark colour. So how are you going to remember where you're putting it?
14:49What?
14:50I know I sound very ambitious, George, but I think you have to be.
14:52Aye, aye.
14:53Okay.
14:54So I've got some sand here.
14:55Right.
14:56And I'm just going to mark everything out to see if it's possible.
14:58So where the first column will go, I'm just going to slightly do that.
15:03And I think the column will fit in there perfectly.
15:05Okay. And then you'll do the same here and there and there and there.
15:07And then we'll get the lines, the rows in.
15:09Okay.
15:10But what I love about this, George, is, and you don't just need to do it for this kind of competition.
15:13You could do it for a border or summer bed in this place.
15:16It's like using a pencil or rubber. If I make a mistake, just look at that. Disappears.
15:22Rub it out. Make sure you rub it out so that nobody else knows what you're planning, pal.
15:27That's the idea. You know, we've got to be a wee bit secretive here.
15:30Anyway, you've got a big plot. You've got a plot which most people would be quite grateful for.
15:35Yes.
15:36In their garden. Lots of people, lots of the viewers at home, don't have a plot this size.
15:41They might just have a wee space at the back door or outside the kitchen window.
15:45So I'm going to start the small space garden over there and show them what to do in a small space.
15:51Oh, okay.
15:52Meanwhile, carry on with your marking out so you can get it right, pal.
15:54Thank you, George.
15:55Yeah. Wish you luck, I'll tell you.
15:57I don't need as much luck.
16:02Anyway, I've come over here to what is the small space garden.
16:06This is an area which you might have outside the kitchen window, outside the back door.
16:11Just a small space and you think, well, I could grow something in this.
16:14And this was a project which we also did during lockdown or just before lockdown in the back garden down at Joppa.
16:22And we produced quite a lot of very interesting little crops.
16:25Anyway, here, what I'm going to do is I'm going to sow various crops in these spaces which are between the paving slabs.
16:33Now, these paving slabs are important.
16:36They gain the heat during the day and they give off the heat at night, that little bit of extra heat.
16:42So if I sow material or seeds down the sides of those, they'll get that extra heat and they will germinate quicker.
16:51So we're making good use of these little microclimates which we get within the plot.
16:56Anyway, the first thing which we're going to do on this is we're going to feed it.
17:00And I fed this with a balanced fertilizer because we want to have something which is going to boost the crops that we sow to give us lots of leaves.
17:10The majority of crops that I'm putting in here are those which have leaves that we eat.
17:15Things like chard, things like mustard, things like wild rocket, things like radish and that where we can eat the leaves and also eat the roots.
17:23So we've got a variety of things.
17:25I started off by putting out the peas up there.
17:28Now, when you're choosing something for a plot as small as this, go for the dwarf varieties.
17:33And that is one called half pint.
17:35And it only grows up to about this height, but it will produce enough peas to give us something extra to put on the table.
17:43The other thing which I've got here is broad beans.
17:47Now, normally when we think about broad beans, and I grow some big varieties, we think about things which are going to be very tall.
17:55But this is a different one.
17:56This is one called Oscar.
17:58And if I just set these out in the plot here, I'll just put one or two out, and then I'll show you what I'm going to do with them.
18:07Because this is easy planting, this.
18:10You've got the seeds which you've put in a row, just like that.
18:13And then take your finger and then just press it down like that, right down to the knuckle, okay?
18:18So that's going down into the damp soil underneath.
18:21And the seed will swell, and what will happen then is that it will germinate.
18:25So that's what we've got.
18:26And we're putting them in quite close.
18:28Because as I said, it's a dwarf variety.
18:30It'll go up to about a foot tall, and it'll produce maybe one cluster of flowers which will then have the beans on it.
18:37So that, I'll show that again in a minute.
18:40The other thing that we've got here is radish.
18:43Now as I said, you can eat the roots of radish, nice and spicy in a salad.
18:49But you can also eat the leaves.
18:50So when it's just growing, you can eat the leaves.
18:52And what we're going to make use of here is that extra heat, which we get down the side of the slab, okay?
19:00And down the side of the border, like that there.
19:03So we've got two rows, which we can sow here.
19:07And all I'm going to do is just put this into my hand.
19:10And very thinly, very thinly, sow these down into that little channel which I've made.
19:18Now they don't need to be that deep.
19:20You're only thinking about a centimeter deep by the time that these are covered over.
19:24And we're sowing them quite thinly so that we get a reasonable crop of reasonably sized roots.
19:29So that's it.
19:30Thinking ahead, putting them down the side.
19:32There we go.
19:33Just like that.
19:34So by doing that, covering these in.
19:38And this soil is so dry that I'll need to give this a good watering with a rose on the watering can.
19:44Just so that it gets a good start in life.
19:46And that's it.
19:47Labels there.
19:48And I've made these labels out of old black plastic pots which I've cut and used a white marker pen.
19:53And that's much better than a stark white label, I think, when you're planning things and labelling things in the garden.
19:59So there we have it.
20:01A whole set of crops which will enhance and improve, perhaps, the flavour of the things that you put on the table.
20:09Now this is a small space garden, but what happens if you've not got a garden?
20:14Well, we're off to see Helen Fox in Glasgow, who during lockdown became quite interested in houseplants.
20:21And now, so many years on, her flat is a veritable houseplant paradise.
20:28I have quite a big houseplant collection.
20:35I grow and propagate a lot of plants here and give advice to people on how to take care of them.
20:41We're south facing on the front.
20:43It's an amazing light for plants.
20:45And so it's sort of become a bit of the Victorian jungle because of the style of the house.
20:50It's sort of like my indoor garden.
20:52I find that thing of being surrounded by plants quite comforting.
20:56So it's quite a nice downtime hobby, something I could do for myself,
21:00seeing you can have a chunk of time and just completely focus on the plant care and,
21:05you know, at least try for time.
21:07That's quite a nice mindful activity.
21:13Probably the favourites are in this room mostly.
21:16So the bird of paradise is some of my favourite plants.
21:19Bird of paradise is actually one that I have grown from seed.
21:23So about 20 years ago, I got a heated propagator for the garden
21:26and sort of grew some bird of paradise seeds.
21:29So that's quite a special plant I've been growing on for quite a while.
21:33Another one of my favourite plants at the moment is philodendron McDowell.
21:36It has these huge hearts-shaped pillowy leaves,
21:40and that's doing really well in this nice bright environment.
21:42So I've sort of got these sort of layers of plants depending on the light requirements.
21:47So full sun, coming back to sort of indirect slightly back from the window,
21:53and then plants further in the room which maybe can tolerate indirect light.
21:58It's really about choosing the right plant for the right environment
22:01because sometimes the symptoms of under and over watering can be very similar.
22:07I tend to find this sort of like almost with plants three requirements
22:11because obviously house plants, they're sort of out of their native environment when they're in your home.
22:15So it's thinking about their needs and how you can meet those needs in a house.
22:19So generally light, temperature and the substrate.
22:23So if they're getting a lot of light and in good substrate,
22:26they can tolerate a sort of lower temperature or temperature fluctuations.
22:30If it's a colder room but they've got a good substrate, they can adapt to lower light.
22:35It's sort of really about matching the watering to the light environment.
22:39It's almost like if you've got two out of the three of their requirements, they'll do okay.
22:44If you've got three, which often the ones in this room have the light, the temperature,
22:48this good substrate, then they really thrive.
22:51So a question I get commonly asked is what plant would suit my bathroom?
23:01Possible suggestions of things, plants that are quite adaptable would be sansevieria,
23:06a sort of snake plant, epiprimnum, perhaps philodendron scandens,
23:13which you can have as a climbing plant or a trailing plant and have a raptor for tetrasperma here.
23:20So this is the attic of the house.
23:30It's a space that I've got quite a lot of plants growing up here because I've got this really good north-facing skylight.
23:36So it's quite good to sort of get these climbing plants growing up poles.
23:39I keep a lot of my cuttings and propagations are sort of growing on here in the attic.
23:45It tends to be quite a nice, warm, even temperature environment.
23:50So that really helps to bring plants on.
23:53A part of keeping houseplants is the possibility of houseplant pests.
23:57One of the most common houseplant pests people sort of mention about is fungus gnats,
24:02the little lazy flies that fly around.
24:04So these breed in wet compost, but you just sort of routinely have a wee look underneath the leaves.
24:10If you do spot a pest, first point of action is physical removal.
24:14So just squash it or wipe it off with a cloth.
24:17If it's persistent on a plant, then perhaps use like a horticultural soap-based spray,
24:23which doesn't damage the surface cells of the leaf.
24:26And repeating that or even just doing that routinely.
24:29Plants in the shower to give them a good clean.
24:31That's a good way of removing dust, removing pests, removing hiding places
24:35to keep your plants healthy and pest free.
24:38If you do already have plants in the home and you have issues with flies,
24:42the best thing you can do is sticky traps.
24:45So these are adhesive traps that you just stick in near the soil
24:49and it will catch any flies as they emerge and stop them spreading.
25:05I've come down to the grass and gravel garden.
25:08Now this is an area which has been established for, I would say, 15, 20 years now.
25:13And what's happening is, as you know, what happens with a lot of grass plants
25:17is that they grow outwards.
25:20Grasses and crocosmias and things like that, they tend to grow out the way all the time.
25:26And what happens is that you end up with a hole in the middle.
25:29So you've got a big doughnut with just the growth on the outside.
25:33So the idea is that at this time of year, just when growth is starting
25:38and the roots are active and the foliage is just starting
25:41on the deciduous grasses, this is the best time to transplant them.
25:45So that's exactly what I'm going to do.
25:47I'm going to take a piece off the side of this one.
25:49Now I could use a fork, but it's a bit of a footer with a fork, this.
25:53So I'm just going to give it a go with the spade
25:56and make sure that I lever this out.
26:01Just like that.
26:02There we go.
26:04And that's a fair clump.
26:06See that?
26:07We've got plenty roots on that.
26:09And I'm just going to bring it down here and put it in this hole here.
26:12But I could cut this in half.
26:14You know, I could take that and just put the spade through there
26:17and make it into two bits, but I'm not going to bother.
26:20What I'm going to do is just to plant that in the hole here.
26:23And what's important when you're doing it with this, you know,
26:28think about which way it's going to grow.
26:30Look at all these roots there.
26:31Look at that.
26:32These roots will all start to regenerate.
26:35And they all grow from the base here.
26:37That's where they grow from, right from the base of the clump.
26:40So that's going in there.
26:42And you've just got to make sure that it's planted
26:46at more or less the same level as it was before.
26:50And that is about the same level.
26:52So just filling in round about it like that
26:54and make sure that you make it firm.
26:57For goodness sake, don't just throw the soil into the hole
27:00and hope that it all settles.
27:02Make sure that you firm it in.
27:04Use your fingers.
27:05Push it down the sides of the root system like that.
27:09Right?
27:10And leave a slight trough around the whole plant.
27:15Because what you're going to do next is you're going to get a watering can
27:19and you're going to give that a ripe soaking
27:22so that the plant gets established well.
27:24So that the soil is then in contact with all the new roots
27:28that are going to be produced.
27:29So that fella will be happy here.
27:32Its parent back there will take that out.
27:35Well, Callum, feast your eyes on that.
27:48What a patch of snake's head Fritillaria.
27:50This is Fritillaria meleagris and these wonderful drooping heads
27:54with, you know, the petals look as though they've got the scales of a snake on them.
27:57Yes.
27:58It's just fantastic.
27:59And when the light shines through it, it's just superb.
28:02Anyway, next week we're off to see one of the standout gardeners from last year.
28:07It's Irene Berry's little Japanese garden and it was just a little gem.
28:11And I'm looking forward to seeing that one again.
28:13So am I, George.
28:14And also we're going to be in search for different daffodil varieties in Perthshire.
28:18And Ruth will be here next week where she's setting up the automatic irrigation system
28:22for this year's tomato crop.
28:24And remember, you can always catch us anytime on the BBC Outwear.
28:27But from me and George, bye for now.
28:30Bye.
28:48Bye.
28:49Bye.