Skinny-Jeaned Gardeners, Beach Watch & Rocket's Island Blue Peter

On the show we are celebrating the Green Blue Peter badge. Celebrity

gardener, dared Diarmuid Gavin, is here with us.

If you love special effect, find out how they were made 400 years ago.

That is coming up on today's live Blue Peter!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE. Hi! You with watching Blue Peter it

is live from the Blue Peter garden, hello to you, hello to our guest,

and how about a cheer! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE.

Barney, Barney...it's making me feel very GREEN fingered... Good Radzi.

Do you think we're making the viewers GREEN with envy being out

here? Yes, you two, we get it! We're out in the garden today because

we're getting excited about this little beauty. Yes, the green Blue

Peter badge is about conservation, nature and how you can help to

improve the environment. If you planted a tree, or got involved in

recycling. Send us your information. Let us know if you have a green

badge, what did you do. We are inspiring others watching to get

theirs too. I am wearing mine with pride. I was

involved in a huge clean-up. If you want to know what happened, stay in

touch. Get involved, head to the website

at: Bbc.co.uk/bluepeter. We will read out as many comments as we can

at the end of the show. So, maybe you are like us, you have

a garden, or been for a walk in the park, you have seen the wildlife,

the bees, the butterflies and those hovering ones, like Wasps. Do you

mind, I'm on telly. I can't do this right now. I found out recently by

planting shrubs and different plants, you can attract this kind of

plant. The boys, the Skinny Jean Gardeners, you will have seen them

on Jimmy's Farm, they helped me to do this.

You missed! Properly missed! Ouch! Everyone is busy here, I never take

the time to sit in the Blue Peter garden to relax. There is no time to

read the paper, to get the garden in condition for the spring.

I am not here to do the gardening... You will need this, And this, and

that. Did he nick my brew? Meet Dale sfr

the Skinny Jean Gardeners. Today they are here to help in the Blue

Peter garden. I have my gloves, spade and that is

about it. What are we going to do today? We are going to make a garden

for the bees and the insects. A haven for them. We are making a

hotel out of a chest of drawers. We are using this chest of drawers

but you can find wormeris in the shops.

Make sure you ask an adult to help with the drilling.

OK, what is next? Stones. We don't want the worms escaping and it is

brilliant for the drainage. Next is the come post. That is where they

are living and chilling out. Is there a rule to how much you put

in? A good layer. Now we get wormy.

Remember not to touch them it burns their skin.

I love that we are building a workforce it is brilliant. Newspaper

goes in to help keep things moist, then some food.

Last night's food scraps. Mainly vegetables. Make sure you collect

the greens. A fine layer of it. Tend to the wormery to ensure you get a

good come post. Wormeris can produce a rich come

post in a few weeks. But remember, worms do not like acidic foods, so

steer clear of lemons, onions and garlic. Now we need colour to add to

the garden. Wild pliers are the best, you don't

have to look after them too much. Obviously not everyone has a garden,

they have a call bonny? Well, you can do these in little pots, and Lee

has even used a shoe. Really? We need come post. And some seedings.

These can be big or wild flowers but they will bring colour and nature to

your garden. Let's find somewhere to put it. With

the wild flowers sorted and the wormery sorted, next is a new

village for our friends. We need some frog-friendly plants.

How do you learn to do this? Did you look it up online? You really have

to use your imagination. With gardening, you want to recycle, and

upcycle and to be imaginative. Why have the pond for the frogs

separate from the ponds for the fish? The fish in this pond would

eat the frogspawn. We don't want that to happen. We want the frogs to

flourish. It is better for the fish to hang out over there and the frogs

to have a bit of a party there. Now wait. Don't grab frogs from

someone else's garden, let the frogs come to you.

And one finishing touch, every frog village needs to have. That is its

own frog MacTo tell all the other frogs where they are.

Genius. Whoa, there is more work to be done,

Barney. Hi, guys there is a squirrel! Oi! Works every time.

Thank you very much, Dale and Lee. I had a great time learning how to

garden. Not sure about the tight pants, though, I like the bayy in my

trout! Now the garden, the wormery is making rich come post. To be used

elsewhere in the garden and the frog village for our amphibious friends.

But that is not it. There is more to do. And like magic, there is Radzi

to tell you more of what is happening.

. Indeed. A new feature in the Blue Peter garden, the man to do that is

the man who is headed a shoulders above the gardening rest, that is

Diarmuid Gavin! Welcome to the Blue Peter garden. I know it holds a dear

place in your heart? It is amazing to be here. I started watching the

first gardener in the Blue Peter garden and since then I have been

hooked. Now, Alex, Rachel, Emily and Aidan,

are we ready to reveal the brand new garden feature? Yeah! Ladies and

gentlemen, boys and girls, please, give it up for the flower ship! Look

at that! Diarmuid Diarmuid, what inspired you to create this

fantastic truck tower? We wanted to represent the great badge. We wanted

the Blue Peter badge. I had seen a statue of a Yorkshire terrier, five

feet high. So we decided to try to recreate the Blue Peter ship in your

garden. How did you construct this? We got a

blacksmith to create the shape with the chicken wire and used moss to

line it all in and keep the come post in. That is doing a great job

for us. This is sphagnum moss. There are about 120 different varieties of

moss. This holds about five times the volume of water and slowly

releases it. During the First World War, when the soldiers were in the

trench, there was not a lot of medicine. If the soldiers were cut,

they would use this because it has antibacterial pock perts. It saved

lives. Wow! Emily has this moss here. It

holds a lot of water. We are going to put it to the test. Rachel, are

you ready for this? Yes. OK, let's pour that water. Pour,

pour, pour. That will do perfectly. You can really see it has absorbed a

lot of water! It is like a sponge it absorbs it, keeps it, so we fill

this with plants, daysis, African daysis, sage, mint, and as it begins

to dry out, there is more water within the moss.

You have done a fantastic job. Thank you very much for coming in and many

thanks to Diarmuid Gavin. Delighted to be here.

Lindsey over to you. Thumbs up from over here. We have

another special occasion to tell you about. 450 years ago, Britain's Mays

famous playwright was born, that is of course, William Shakespeare. I

absolutely love his work. To celebrate his birthday, I got to go

to the Globe Theatre in London and find out more about the #k7 special

Effects Day. Shakespeare said that all of the

world is a stage. When his plays were performed that was true. The

first theatres were massively popular. In 1599 the Globe first

built. Along the Thames. It allowed Shakespeare's work to be enjoyed by

many of the crowd. I am here to show you how to woo the

audience, Elizabethan style. I am meeting Doctor WillTosh. En on

16th century theatres. So, this is an amazing occasion,

tell me about the space? In Shakespeare's time, theatre was

popular entertainment. The theatre would have held up to 3,000 people,

watching a different play each day. Now when you go to the theatre,

there is lots of lights, music, how did it work then? Shakespeare did

not have a way to light the stage. The plays were performed like this,

the audience were as lit as the actors. So the playwrights used

language and also special effects. So, shall we go and make some magic?

Yes. Shakespeare loved special effects and used them to create

storms that shocked and amazed audiences. I am going to be shown

how it was done. This is the attic where the effects

were produced. Now, what is this? This is how to

create thunder. And how Shakespeare would have created it as well.

A box and French balls? Yes. Shakespeare would have used canon

balls or military bullets but we find these easier to get hold of.

Can I do this? Yes. Let's have a go.

I'm on thunder duty! Now a storm is not a storm without lightening, is

it? No, to do that, we have to go up here. This is Brian, our stage

manager. Hi. So this is the highest point of

The Globe? Yes, it is. This is the gallery. At about

2.00pm, there would have been effects used to encourage the late

comers to come into the space. What is this? This is the hand of

God, holding a lightening bulb. It is ready to fly down.

For Shakespeare, the stage represented the world. The ceilings

and the trap doors were used for magical creatures or the Gods to

appear. I can't wait to have a go. That is heavy! I can't even pull it

with my whole weight on it! OK. We have it. This is a pretty long way

down. How far down is that? That is over

12 metres to the floor of the stage. Let's lower it in.

That is heavy! It is not a smooth... Move.

You are doing fine. Is that OK? Go. Just mind your

fingers. That is it. It is lowered. I would high five you

but I don't want to let go of the rope! We are heading from the

highest point of the theatre to the lowest. Coming up from below the

stage would have meant a big, bad entrance.

# Flash! Here we are under the stage. This is where we make our

entrance if you were a character up to no good. If there were evil,

super supernatural character characters coming up from the earth

into the awed nonce -- audience. What if I were to come up with a

bang? We could do that. Let's do it. I like the sound of

that! You will need some of these. Thank you.

Stand by... That was so loud! I really jumped.

. I really didded. What else could we do? We could give

you clouds of smoke. Today we use a smoke machine but in Shakespeare's

day it would have been actual smoke, using charcoal and carbon to create

the clouds of noxious smoke. They would have smelled it as well!

Definitely. Here we go. That's amazing.

That's made a proper entrance tonne the stage there. That looks

brilliant. But in Shakespeare's time, this would have been real

smoke and gunpowder and it was quite dangerous. In fact, in 1613, a

cannon effect set fire to the thatch in the theatre and it burned to the

ground. I can see why you are using safer, modern precautions then.

Thank you so much. I've had such a good time, thank you. It's been my

pleasure. Thanks too, Brian. It's amazing to think that some of the

special effects I've seen today are almost exactly as they would have

seen in Shakespeare's time. This place really is a little bit of

magic! Amazing. How cool is that? Really

cool. That was one of my favourite things there, going

behind-the-scenes at the Globe. Amazing how you can be so creative

with so little. Speaking of which, crayons and paper, look at all the

pictures, spot your stuff? Take a look. You have to look at Alishah's

picture from Birmingham. She's made a bus stop from cuttings in a

newspaper and magazine. Really recycling. Indi from Middlesex did

this. She's made an apron out of all plastic bags. Give us a twirl. I'll

wear it for the next pancake-off. Love it. This is the epic

environment booklet Bihar yet from Lincolnshire. It's a pop-up. You

have a bin lid that moves up and down. There's a tap that drips as

well. And my favourite at the back is 3D litter. If what you have seen

has inspired you to get involved and you would like to earn a green

badge, get involve and do something to make your design stand out.

Include your full name, address and date of birth because otherwise we

can't give you one of these! Thank you, Aiden. He's our model today.

You are going to need a bigger jumper for that. Shush!

Now, what is pretty fair to say is the fact that you are very concerned

about litter. William from Gloucestershire made this picture

after seeing an awful lot of plastic on a beach in Scotland. He thinks we

should recycle more and I couldn't agree more, my friend. We see litter

in parks, streets and everywhere, but also even at the beaches. Oh, I

do like to be beside the seaside... Well, I do actually. When it's not

covered in rubbish. Last year, over 200,000 pieces of

litter immediate their way on to British beaches. That's more than

ever before. Over half of that was plastic litter like this. Plastic

takes up to 1,000 years to biodegrade and because it hangs

around for so long, it's a huge threat to marine wildlife.

Wales, seabirds, seals, even sea turtles, are all affected. So I'm

that n the North East of England at Whitley Bay to join in with a beach

clean organised by a beach watch officer from The Marine Conservation

Society. They have been helping local communities clean up the

coastline for the last 20 years. We have volunteers here all primed and

ready to go. What do I need toe get startd? A few bits and pieces. A

little picker. We need a bag to put the rubbish in and some gloves. We

need to make sure that whenever we are picking up litter, we are not

picking it up with bare hands. I'm up for this. Are you guys?

ALL: Yeah... Let's go! There you go. Our volunteers get

straight down to business. Even the cleanest beaches can have litter

washed ashore and it all needs collecting.

Look at the size of that! That is unbelievable. What's that? It's a

lobster. There are bots of bottle and net in there. All sorts of

different types of Lizzer in there. We need to get this off the beach

and into the bag. It takes a bit of wrestling. And I mean wrestling! --

litter. You can see that metal bit at the

end there. That could be really, really dangerous this. Could get

trapped around the necks of birds. Also seals as well. It cuts into

their skin and it really isn't very good for them.

This is really horrible wire. It's got lots of other things that have

been caught up inside as well. This is quite interesting. A plastic bag.

Now, these are really awful once they end up in the sea and they can

cause a huge amount of problems for see turtles because they normally

eat jellyfish, then the turtles eat the plastic bags because they think

it's a jellyfish and they end up in their stomachs.

Why is plastic litter in particular so bad for wildlife? Plastic remains

in the sea for such a long time, for years and years and years, and,

unfortunately, our marine animals are eating the litter. This is a

picture of a Minke whale, the type we get here. Scientists wanted to

know why it died, so they opened up its stomach. This was the amount of

plastic found in the stomach, the actual plastic, 800 grammes. This is

how much 800 grammes actually is. All of that? Yes. With that amount

of plastic in their stomach, they can't eat properly, they can't move

around properly. They don't have a lot of energy. It's shocking to

think that plastic litter, no matter how big or small, remains so

dangerous to marine animals so long after it's dropped. Cleaning up

litter really can make a difference. Just time for one final sweep of the

beach. Before Lauren and I record what's been found.

Now time to find out just how much litter they have collected today.

Yes, well, you guys all collected a massive 45 bags that weighs an

astonishing 175 kilograms. You have done an amazing job. Thank you ever

so much. You've earned yourself one of these, the Blue Peter green

badge! Give yourselves a huge round of applause!

Did you see how much litter we collected? 46 bags. 175 kilos. It's

amazing. Litter is a huge problem and we can all help. Grab a

grown-up, head online and findth find an event near you. Get

involved. If you do, draw a picture, take a picture, let us know and you

might get your very own Blue Peter badge. We know the Blue Peter Garden

is a magical place, but not as magical as Dirgelmor, known for its

healing powers. It's where Rocket Boulsworth lives.

It's such a magical place, I can appear in two places at the same

time. Let's give it up for the cast. Let's talk about your character,

Joe, you play Rocket. Let's talk about the magical place he is from?

It's about a foster family, which includes myself, Alli and our

parents and it's about foster families that take in kids on a

regular basis and it's about what happens while they are there.

Magical stories as well. The Ancient Oracle of Ballabungie is one that we

are going to find out about now. Let's see what it looks like. Is

this the Ancient Oracle of Ballabungie Snell Yes. It's him. Can

you really answer any question in the whole world? Try me... So he can

tell the future? Past, present and future, yes. So let's imagine

there's a real one, there's a phone box in the back, what is it going to

be? Apart from the lottery numbers. My dad and I are big Chelsea

supporters, I would ask if they are going to win the league this season.

And the Orical would say... Yes! No. It's about having a bit of faith.

Jordan, your character, a very unique name, dicker. Where does that

come from? His parents used to call the remote the Dibber and Dibber

wouldn't let go of it, he'd take it everywhere while some kids would

have an action figure or teddy bear, he had a remote. I want to ask you a

more serious question. Acting is very important. If you have an

experience in life, you can bring it to life on the screen. Let's see

what I'm talking ability here. This is amazing.

New new - Gangnam Style They were doing a dance.

Embarrassing to be caught doing that. Has that happened in real

life? You did it so convincingly? Well, yes, there was a school disco

and me and my group just thought, yes, let's do a dance because there

might be a dance back and there was. So we were just laughing at the

girls because they had it prepared and we were doing our thing, then it

was my solo then, I hear a rip at the back of my trousers. Everyone

was laughing and I had to run out the room. Not a good thing. Let's

talk to Helen now about your character, Alli. We have seen tad

Kath, the Ancient Oracle as well of course, mythical characters.

Anything else you can tell us about? There's so much. So many more

things. There's a bull introduced in one of the episodes which is really

good. A really fun character Mary Mack, she thinks she's a Queen of

fairies, so interesting to find out if that's true or not. What is it

like playing these characters? It's difficult to normal life. You have

magical and mystical life, but how do you get yourself immersed into

the magic of it all? I suppose we just imagine ourselves in that

situation, but with me, to be honest, I've got to say, me and

Dibber were very similar -- we are very similar. We have a sneak peak

from Monday's episode, on at 5. 25. Have a look.

What was that? ! I don't know. We weren't the only ones who felt it.

Where's Brandon? Find out on Monday at 5. 25 on CBBC.

Now a round of applause for our cast everybody.

You are talking to us pact what you have done to get a Blue Peter badge.

One viewer says, I made theby hotel that Blue Peter made. I remember

that. Another viewer says, I got mine

because I'm part of the school nature club and made a bird cage

from a plank of wood which now has a bird inside it. Another viewer says

I made something out of waste wood. Another viewer said, I got my green

badge because on fireworks night I save add hedgehog from a bonfire

sent in a letter about it. More details on the website at

www.bbc.co.uk/bluepeter. Next week's show. Tim Peake is a

here, he's an astronaut. Never felt so sick in my life. Good flip

though. And we go to see the longest tunnel in the world. We meet a

theatre company who turn rubbish into puppets. A round of applause

from this lot! APPLAUSE

Bye!