Salads The Edible Garden


Salads

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I'm Alys Fowler, I'm a gardener and a writer.

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I grew up in the countryside but now my husband and I live in the city.

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I get pleasure from simple things.

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Home-baked bread,

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home-grown vegetables,

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and looking after my chickens.

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I'm completely in love with my chickens. They are perfect.

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This is my garden, a small Victorian terrace back yard, 20ft by 60ft.

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This year, I'm experimenting,

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I'm trying to avoid shop bought fruit and veg

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and live off my own, home-grown produce.

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But this won't be easy because I want my garden

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to be both beautiful and productive.

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Heaven.

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Heaven is a home-grown cucumber.

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Each week, I'll focus on different foods.

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from salads to peas, courgettes to tomatoes, even edible flowers

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and show how anyone can grow, cook and eat from their own garden,

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even if you live in a city.

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The difference in taste between

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home-grown food and shop bought is so huge.

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The minutes you put love into growing something you taste it.

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Gorgeous.

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And nothing tastes better than a just picked salad, lettuce, tomatoes

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and cucumbers which have gone from garden to plate in minutes.

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I'm realistic enough to know that I can't be totally self-sufficient.

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I'm still going to have to buy things like meat, cheese and pasta.

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But if I can grow enough fruit and veg to feed us both

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for most of the year, I'll be happy.

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So back in April I started planning what to grow.

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Coming up through here is potato, garlic.

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Then there is going to be a salad bit here, I think.

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Lettuce, lettuce, lettuce.

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Peas around here growing up through the rows.

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More lettuce. Lots of lettuce, you can't have too much lettuce.

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I'm going to keep some lettuce in these boxes up here.

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Because it is really nice just when you are feeling super tired

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to be able to come out in your bare feet and just pick your lettuce.

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All of the potatoes will remain in the pots up here.

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If there is any space left, I will put some flowers in it.

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So lettuces are crucial in my beautiful edible garden.

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I'm starting to sow them in wine boxes, salvaged from an off licence,

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and filled with compost from the garden centre.

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For my patio I've chosen to sow 'cut and come again' salad leaves.

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You don't pull them up, roots and all, like big lettuces.

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You simply trim off the leaves which then re grow for

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another couple of servings. You never want to sow out of the

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packet because you have very little control if you do it that way.

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You will sow the best part of the packet in one go.

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Take out a small amount.

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I am just scattering it across the top of the wine box.

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You just need to slightly tease the seed into the soil.

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Then firm it down just so the seed is in contact with the soil.

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And the trick to watering tiny seeds is to give them a long but gentle

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soaking because anything heavier than a sprinkle will wash them away.

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I've also been growing lettuce seedlings in trays of compost

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on my window ledges since February.

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With the arrival of milder weather those seedlings moved

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to the patio for a week or so to adjust to an outdoor life.

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And mid-April means they're now big enough to handle

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and so fine for planting into the borders.

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This soil is just so soft from all the spring rain and as it heats up,

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come summer, this will be as hard as a piece of china.

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Bur right now it is so soft and crumbly and ready to give life.

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I have got two very beautiful lettuce

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they are both the oak leaf type of lettuce.

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This one is called emerald green.

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It is a very big, beautiful, really vivid green.

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The centre is kind of acid green.

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The other one is flashy butter oak,

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which is a very pretty, marbled, burgundy lettuce.

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They are good enough in their own right just to be there.

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You then get to put them on your plate, it is genius really.

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I'll keep sowing and planting out continually over the next six months

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to guarantee I have home-grown salad right into the winter.

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Three weeks after sowing there are baby leaves sprouting.

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However, they're growing too close together

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threatening to strangle each other.

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You have to start thinning. You are aiming to have

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in this "cut and come again" system, lettuce roughly a centimetre apart.

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You do not want to waste any of these.

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You could chop off the roots and have them for tea.

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Or allow these to become bigger, maturer lettuce

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to grow somewhere else.

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There is no need to ever waste your thinnings.

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I am just putting my finger underneath the plant

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and then easing it up.

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Now and again they don't want to come.

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Another must for my salads are tomatoes.

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For me they completely capture the taste of summer.

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But because they're so cheap to buy I'm not bothering to sow any.

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Instead, my friend Dave and I are heading to a car-boot sale

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where they sell young plants.

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Although it's mainly tomatoes I'm after, I've also spotted

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sprouting broccoli, Brussels sprouts and chillies.

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I don't have any chillies and the roots are coming out the bottom,

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a really good sign that the plant is taking up the whole pot

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and it is ready to pot on so although it looks small,

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with a bit of love it will probably grow quite quickly.

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And 50p is a bit of a bargain.

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Whatever you're buying, check that the leaves are healthy

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and take the plant out of the pot to make sure the roots are

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well developed but not pot-bound.

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Do you know what tomatoes these are?

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The mother-in-law grew them, she gave them to us yesterday.

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-Does she grow good tomatoes?

-She does, actually, yes.

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Do you know if she grows them in a greenhouse or outside?

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In a greenhouse.

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OK. I am going to take a gamble. How much are they?

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20p.

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If you don't want to gamble it's best to buy plants which have been

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labelled so you know exactly which variety of tomato you are getting.

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This 20p plant and this 50p plant have quite a lot of differences

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and I am beginning to slightly regret buying this one because

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this is a named variety, so I know where I am going,

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and it's clearly a much healthier plant. I am going to put this

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down as a bit of a loss and buy one of these as well.

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But tomatoes have one big enemy - blight,

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an airborne fungus that can destroy plants - leaves, fruit and all.

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And those growing outdoors are most at risk because the fungal spores

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spread through air and thrive in our warm wet summer weather.

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So I want to hedge my bets and keep one plant growing indoors as security.

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I don't have room for a full-size greenhouse

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so I'm going to custom build my own with my handy friend, Sid.

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Greenhouses serve two main purposes. They protect your plants from

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the cold, and help to keep out pests and diseases.

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I want my greenhouse to be beautiful as well as effective, so

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I'm making it out of some salvaged 1930's windows, joined together by

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timber supports and angle brackets.

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All up, it's cost me £160.

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OK, so it is a little eccentric, but I love it.

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Out the way!

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-Perfect.

-Mind your fingers, go underneath.

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We will see if they fit.

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-Yes.

-They do, don't they?

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There is a really eery light inside.

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Yes. Open it out...

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Yeah. It's going to be perfect.

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I broke my heart last year over tomatoes.

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I grew so many different varieties and I watched them all go down to blight.

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This year, I said no tomatoes, I am not going to grow a single tomato -

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it was my big protest to the summer, and yet here I am in May, with a tomato.

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It was thanks to the car boot sale because,

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at 50p, if it doesn't work, if we have an appalling summer,

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if the blight comes back, well, I lost 50p.

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If it does work, I have got lots of lovely, tiny tomatoes.

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Gardener's Delight is one of the best, easiest tomatoes to start off with.

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Tomato plants are hungry plants,

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so you need to feed them with a kind of vitamin tonic.

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There are bottles of seaweed feed that you can buy, but I prefer to

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make my own for free. With nettles.

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I literally throw nettles into a bucket,

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add water and leave them to rot.

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They make an amazingly nutrient-rich soup.

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Be warned though - it smells revolting.

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The point is, it's good for the tomato.

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If you want lovely tomatoes, you have to suffer a bit!

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I've got one well-established tomato that a friend generously gave me a few weeks ago.

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That's the one I've chosen to cosset in my new mini greenhouse.

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It's been out on the patio until now, so I'm moving it indoors and hoping for the best.

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One salad crop you can grow outside is cool, crisp cucumbers.

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I bought some a few weeks ago from my local flower show.

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You'll need to look for outdoor varieties.

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Cucumbers are really quite fickle and they do not like cold nights.

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Make sure it is truly warm before you plant them out into the ground.

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Many people think cucumbers don't do very well outdoors in our climate.

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It is far from the truth, really.

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As long as you choose the right types, there's quite a lot of modern cultivars

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which are bred for cooler climates.

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When it is a wet summer, you get hundreds.

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When it is a hot summer, you get very sweet ones.

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You need to give them something they can climb up.

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Which is why I made this rather odd structure.

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You don't want the cucumbers to sit on the soil.

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You can imagine - a cucumber is just 100% water,

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so if it sits on the soil it just rots away.

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You have to get them up and off the ground.

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Cucumbers need very moisture-retentive soil.

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Lots of good compost or something else dug in.

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There is a tendency for the stem to rot off.

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So I like to plant my cucumber on a slight mound.

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So this is lots of lovely rich soil.

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Then the water just sort of draws off rather than sitting in a slump.

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And those cucumbers will be ready to harvest by late July,

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but early in the growing season, and there's not an awful lot to eat

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in the garden, so it's time to visit the wild larder.

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I'm talking foraging.

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My friend Ingrid lives around the corner from me.

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She's just got into gardening in a big way with her own veg patch.

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But she's never foraged before.

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Time to show her how to identify some edible wild foods.

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I was kind of hoping we might find some mint.

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It is the sort of place it would grow.

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'It's May and so, as well as mint, I should be able to find wild garlic,

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'garlic mustard and some common garden weeds that are surprisingly good to eat.'

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This is garlic mustard, try that.

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That is fantastic. That could be brilliant in a salad.

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You can feel it!

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-Not a first date salad.

-No!

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However, there are other things... like cleavers,

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or goosegrass or sticky willy, which you can wilt like spinach.

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Oh! It's very wet.

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'We're also picking lime leaves, which are a great substitute

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'for lettuce as long as you go for the young, tender leaves.'

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-It is actually quite nutty.

-Yeah.

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-A nutty taste.

-Nutty and a bit oily I think.

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-It's amazing to think we're going to get a whole salad from foraging around.

-Here you go.

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Lots of lovely wild garlic.

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It kind of becomes a complete garlic substitute for spring.

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'There are plenty of nettles here too, which we're collecting

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'for my home made tomato tonic and for Ingrid's husband, Jeremy, who wants to make nettle beer.'

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Did Jeremy give any indication how many nettles we need to pick?

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-About a bin bag full.

-How much beer is he intending to make?

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A vat.

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I have never made nettle beer.

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It sounds, quite frankly, revolting.

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'Last but not least, we're looking for dandelions to make fritters.

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'It's the flower heads we're after, which, when they're cooked,

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'have a delicious flavour like honey.'

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Gloved up.

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Back at Ingrid's, it's time to make a brew.

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It smells very potent already.

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'We need to strain the potion into a brewing bucket.'

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In it goes.

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'Then goes in some sugar and cream of tartar.'

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-Just a teaspoon of that.

-'Oh, and the juice and rind from a load of lemons.'

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Have you ever actually had nettle beer before?

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..No!

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-Sprinkle...

-'Now it's time to ferment our ale.

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'In goes the brewer's yeast, and then we have to be patient for a couple of months.'

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But while we wait, we can concentrate on a simple supper from our foraged ingredients.

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While I prepare the dandelion fritters,

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Ingrid is dressing our lime leaf salad with garlic flowers.

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I'm wilting our leafy bounty into some butter, treating it just like spinach really.

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And the dandelion flowers are dipped into a traditional pancake batter, and fried in butter.

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Our wilted greens, lime leaf salad with garlic flowers and dandelions make a perfect supper.

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Jeremy and his son Toby are keen to taste the results.

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That is amazing.

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If you're thinking of going foraging, you may be able to join a local walk.

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A good guide with pictures is the next best thing to help identify what you can and can't eat.

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If you don't recognise it, don't eat it.

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-Do you like it?

-Yes, it's really nice. It's like a fresh pancake.

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-It's nice.

-They are sweet.

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They were pretty making them as well.

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I would definitely use this.

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-Do you want more?

-Yeah!

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It's June and the garden's looking really healthy.

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This new way of growing my flowers and vegetables mixed in together seems to be working.

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When you're taught how to grow vegetables in the traditional sense,

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you give them everything in a straight line and you give equi-distance between spacing

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and that gives enough light and moisture...

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And you mustn't crowd out your neighbours! And that's all true.

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But then you go and get things like this. This lettuce has been

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essentially living under a poppy,

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but it's considerably bigger than its neighbour.

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That's probably because the poppy has been offering it, by shading it

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out, there's a little bit more moisture and it is actually growing.

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Another thing that's obviously happy are my cucumbers, which are

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scrambling up the supports I gave them and making fruits already.

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It's just over a month since I planted my first crop of lettuces.

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I particularly love the one called flashy butter oak,

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because it has these beautiful marbled leaves.

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It really tastes good.

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I'm picking a good-sized salad for two pretty much every day now.

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A good part of my salad supply is from "cut and come again"

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leaves which are romping away.

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I'll get at least another two harvests from them.

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The trick at this point is to keep it going.

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But right now,

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I am in a very happy salad place.

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As a salad junkie, I could get through up to five supermarket salad bags a week.

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'In five months, that would cost me around £150.

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'Instead, £3 worth of seed will give me a salad a day over the same period.

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'And I get that wonderful just-picked taste.'

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It's July and the young plants need lots of water,

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but my garden is in full swing.

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My beans are in flower, the honeysuckle is out,

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and my chickens are producing two eggs every day.

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Because every bit of soil in my garden has to be productive,

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wherever there's a gap I've sowed a quick-growing crop like radishes.

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They're up and ready to harvest within four to six weeks.

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And at this time of year, the new potatoes are wonderfully tasty,

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and they go perfectly with my fresh salad leaves.

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And that's not all.

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Here is my first cucumber...

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of the season. Now, it's not particularly big,

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but I don't think there is any point growing your

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cucumbers to supermarket length - you really just can't eat them all.

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So although this one is big down here,

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you'll see there's two, three, four, five...

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Once cucumbers get going, they just don't stop producing cucumbers.

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So it's much better to harvest them as little cucumbers,

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chubby things, perfect for one meal.

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Heaven! Heaven is a home-grown cucumber.

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My "cut and come again" leaves won't give me all the summer salad I need,

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so I'm also sowing more seeds straight into the soil,

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which is now warm enough to guarantee a good germination rate.

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I'll do this every few weeks to ensure I've always got little clumps

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of fast-growing leaves in between other crops.

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You'll get perfect little dots of baby salad leaves

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that you can just come and harvest once or twice when they're about 10 centimetres high.

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Salad leaves are the single easiest thing you can grow in your edible garden.

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An almost failsafe crop which keeps on coming and lasts for months.

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But it's not all good news.

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As the days get warmer, the inevitable happens.

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Tomato blight arrives in the neighbourhood,

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killing all my outdoor tomatoes.

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As I garden organically, I don't want to use chemicals to fight it off.

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This structure is the only thing that's keeping me and the tomato

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in hope that we'll still get ripening fruit.

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If even a single spore gets in there, the whole thing is over.

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So far, things are looking good,

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so if I only go in to water when necessary,

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I should get ripe fruit by the end of the month.

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It seems I spoke too soon.

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A couple of weeks later and blight has reached into my greenhouse,

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shrivelling my plants and making the fruits totally inedible.

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That's another year lost.

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I am resigned these days to the fact I cannot really grow tomatoes, even

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when I try and build funny greenhouses for them.

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We've had lots of wet, humid, hot days and this dear beautiful, large, lovely plant

0:24:010:24:09

is now riddled with blight.

0:24:090:24:13

Black stems,

0:24:130:24:15

black leaves and eventually black fruit.

0:24:150:24:20

This is truly heartbreaking.

0:24:200:24:23

So that's it, I don't think I'm ever going to bother with tomatoes until somebody

0:24:230:24:28

brings me an honest-to-God blight-resistant tomato and says,

0:24:280:24:31

"you can grow it outside and it won't get it."

0:24:310:24:34

But blight doesn't strike everywhere.

0:24:360:24:38

So I don't want to put anyone off from trying.

0:24:380:24:40

Because there's nothing quite like the taste of a home-grown tomato.

0:24:400:24:45

My friend George, for instance, has had better luck.

0:24:560:25:00

His tomatoes were sown straight into his allotment polytunnel,

0:25:000:25:03

so they haven't been exposed to any blight.

0:25:030:25:06

There's hundreds of them, and you did get a bit of blight, right?

0:25:090:25:14

Yes, but not a lot really.

0:25:140:25:16

-Beautiful, aren't they?

-Really beautiful, that's massive.

0:25:160:25:21

Look at how lovely they are.

0:25:220:25:25

I love the smell of tomatoes, don't you think?

0:25:280:25:30

It's one of my favourite smells.

0:25:300:25:33

They are proper organic stuff, aren't they?

0:25:330:25:36

Thank you, George. I thought I was not going to get to eat...

0:25:370:25:41

-What about that big one?

-Can I have the big one?

0:25:410:25:43

-Have the big one.

-That's very generous.

-Wring its neck.

0:25:430:25:47

Thanks to George and his bountiful crop,

0:25:500:25:52

I no longer have to face a summer without home-grown tomatoes.

0:25:520:25:56

-Bye, George!

-Bye.

0:26:000:26:02

Although I'm harvesting most vegetables to eat,

0:26:140:26:17

the garden is now so productive

0:26:170:26:20

that I can afford to leave some in the ground.

0:26:200:26:22

I want these to continue the cycle of flowering and

0:26:220:26:24

producing seed because sometimes that brings unexpected bounties.

0:26:240:26:28

That's a very woody radish, which is completely inedible now.

0:26:280:26:34

It's all stem inside, basically.

0:26:340:26:37

But, if you let them go completely to seed, you get these, which are radish seed pods.

0:26:370:26:45

And they are edible. They're good, spicy and they are perfect with beer.

0:26:450:26:49

So I left these guys,

0:26:490:26:52

because I knew I was going to have a party where they would make the best snack.

0:26:520:26:56

And the bees and the hover flies

0:26:580:27:03

love the flowers, so you bring all sorts of other goodies

0:27:030:27:09

into the garden. Tons of them.

0:27:090:27:12

Now I've got lots of beer snacks, all I need is some beer.

0:27:180:27:23

'And after two months of fermenting, Jeremy's nettle beer is ready to uncork.'

0:27:290:27:33

Here we go, the moment of truth.

0:27:370:27:39

-It looks good.

-Looks fantastic.

-It looks like beer.

0:27:390:27:43

It smells of... What does it smell of? Country smell.

0:27:430:27:47

Yes, home-brew.

0:27:470:27:50

Has everybody got one?

0:27:500:27:53

It is the perfect summer drink.

0:27:530:27:56

Compost beer.

0:27:580:28:00

'Well, I can't say much for that beer, but then, not everything always goes to plan.

0:28:000:28:04

'That's what I've learnt over the years about growing your own - it's swings and roundabouts.

0:28:040:28:09

'On a positive note, I haven't bought a single

0:28:090:28:11

'lettuce or cucumber since May, but sadly my tomatoes have died a death.

0:28:110:28:16

'However, just like George, we don't all share the same failures,

0:28:160:28:20

'and so you'll always find someone happy to swap

0:28:200:28:23

'the produce you do have for those that you don't.'

0:28:230:28:25

Next time in my pursuit of a beautiful but edible garden,

0:28:270:28:31

I turn my attention to leafy greens and root crops

0:28:310:28:35

like kale and beetroot.

0:28:350:28:37

They add structure and colour but as they're slow growers, there can be a bit of a hungry gap.

0:28:370:28:42

It's George to the rescue again with his rhubarb.

0:28:420:28:46

-My plants are tiny.

-Look at that, beautiful.

0:28:460:28:49

But even George can't save me from the weather, as a spring storm

0:28:490:28:52

threatens my tender infant crops.

0:28:520:28:55

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