Episode 4 Countryfile Spring Diaries

Across the UK, days are warmer,

brighter and longer.

In the countryside, the air is filled with bird song

and the scent of flowers.

Spring has sprung.

It's the time of year when nature wakes up.

And there are new beginnings everywhere you look.

It's a time to plant and sow.

And to get out and enjoy everything

our wonderful countryside has to offer.

All week, we're travelling the length and breadth of the UK.

The Cornish way, always a winner for you?

-Yes, it definitely is.

-That is uniquely delicious.

Double thumbs up!

Bringing the very best seasonal stories that matter to you.

There is a nest in there.

We have an owl in residence.

How exciting!

A very warm welcome to the most joyous of seasons,

this is Countryfile Spring Diaries.

Coming up on today's programme:

Paul gets top tips on how to grow prize-winning veg

from two age-old rivals.

This looks completely alien.

We better not tell Ian about this, this is one of our secrets.

Jules discovers how plastic in our waterways could end up

in our fish and chips.

You'll never believe what I just found here!

Look at that beauty!

And I'll be trying out the latest catty craze to hit the UK.

I'm here in Devon all week,

witnessing spring and the explosion in wildlife

that it brings all around us.

Here, on Exmoor National Park,

you have everything from red deer and otters

to some of the UK's rarest species of butterflies and bats.

But, on the other hand,

how close can you get to nature without actually leaving home?

Steve Brown is on the case.

Do you ever get the feeling that just maybe you're being watched?

Even on a spring day you feel it

around this ordinary looking house on the North York moors.

Because it's been rigged from top to bottom with cameras.

But owner Robert Fuller isn't scared of intruders,

he's using all this CCTV to spy on his neighbours...

..his furred and feathered neighbours.

Now, when people talk about watching the wildlife in their gardens,

this is not the usual setup.

Normally it's a bird table with a few nuts and seeds on it.

How on earth have you got all this set up here?

We've got a little carried away over the years.

So we've got barn owls, tawny owls, kestrels.

I can see here vole camera, weasel camera.

And this is all within your garden?

Yeah, all within the garden, within 100 metres of here.

It's absolutely fascinating because we're actually watching individual

animals. The male kestrel has been with us ten years.

He's actually got two female kestrels this year.

-Has he?

-He's got one on three eggs and he's courting another one

-at the moment.

-And that's her up there?

Yes, it's like a wildlife soap opera out there.

-It's compulsive viewing!

-A lot of love going on out there?

There is. We don't watch normal television any more.

This is far, far better.

On top of all those tellies,

Robert's got more than 30 cameras covering all the action.

The whole thing has cost him several thousand pounds,

a bit beyond the means of most animal lovers, I would have thought.

If I was going to set something up like this at home, how would I do it?

There's so much on the market and it's so confusing,

but a good shell camera, so these are motion-operated.

You just put these out where you think

wildlife's going to pass by and start off with some,

you know, good security cameras is the way to go.

You don't need to break the bank?

No, no. I mean you can buy a decent camera for less than £100

and get it set up to your television and get going.

And today, we're using one of those relatively cheap CCTV cameras

to get a closer look at our lover boy kestrel.

Remember, if you want to put your own wildlife camera in your garden,

don't point it at a pavement, road or your neighbour's property,

or you could be breaking the law.

There's more info on the Countryfile website.

And now the finishing touches.

Robert's attaching dead prey to the table

to keep the kestrel feeding for longer.

So, they're all settled now and the TV is all set up.

We've got the camera coming from the garden.

-Here he comes...

-He's in.

Look at that! That is amazing!

I cannot believe we've just set that up and in the time

we've boiled the kettle and got a cup of tea...

-He's in!

-And it hasn't put him off the fact his food is tethered down.

He likes it better, if it's just a quick takeaway and he comes in on the wing and grabs and goes.

-He doesn't even land.

-We all like a quick takeaway.

-Yeah.

-Did you expect that, that fast?

He's even quicker when they've got chicks.

-He'll come sometimes before I've even got back into the house, he's in.

-He's away!

That is unreal!

-It's great, isn't it?

-And we've got both of his females in the nests.

And we can literally see where he's gone from the feeding and we can see

-where he's...

-There he is.

-He's up in the nest box.

So he's feeding the mistress first.

Straight up to the mistress

and already that set-up that was less than £100

has given me more than £100 worth of excitement.

That is fantastic.

While we're here I want to go through some of the other footage you've got.

We had a count-up the other day, we've got 17,000 video clips.

17,000!

I wouldn't like to be the guy that has to go through all that.

This is like a real tender moment between newly hatched kestrel chicks

getting some of their first feeds.

Look how patient and delicate that is.

They are predators, but when you see them feeding their own chicks

it's very precise. A little bit for you and a little bit for you.

So, it's really nice to see them with these quite vulnerable little chicks

and how they look after them.

Now we've got this stoat dancing on ice.

You know, it plays in the water

and it can't work out what on earth's gone on.

Look, going to get cold feet on that trying to get through there.

-That really has confused him, hasn't it?

-Yeah.

Those 17,000 wildlife clips are a constant source of inspiration for Robert.

Wow! Look at this!

Especially when he's busy with the day job, painting.

How did you end up living in the countryside,

deciding that painting was your calling and you was going to use

36 live cameras to be able to do it?

Yeah, well I was very lucky,

I was brought up on a farm not far away from here.

My dad was keen on wildlife.

Managed 1,000-acre farm, so I was just feral as a child.

I was outside all the time

and watching the wildlife and that's how it started.

And this is like a research tool for me,

that I'm watching these animals 24/7,

so I know the animals and birds inside out before I get

actually down to painting them.

You talk about understanding the animals and you can really see that

in these pictures here.

You can see the weasel thinking, you know.

I mean, how you capture that, I don't know.

Yeah. It's amazing, if you just tilt the head slightly

it makes it look a little bit more alert

and interested in what's happening around it.

I can't help but notice a weasel has just appeared mid-interview here.

Who is this?

This is Fidget, he's a weasel that I hand-reared last year

and he's become a studio weasel.

What is a studio weasel?

I've never heard of a studio weasel!

People have house cats, don't they?

I've got a studio weasel!

That is brilliant. This was an orphan?

Yeah, basically, he'd been lost by his mother and, yeah,

he's become my companion in the studio.

He sleeps inside a walking sock.

And he seems pretty friendly.

Yeah, he's really friendly with me, but he's almost like a status dog,

that he does bite everyone apart from me.

So he sees you as friend and everyone else as foe.

So you paint, listening to the radio, looking at your videos here,

with the weasel for company?

-That's right. Yeah.

-That is one way to make a living!

It's not often we get chance to see kestrels so close up.

More often we see them hovering in the air.

They're the only birds of prey to do this.

Hence their local Dartmoor name of windhovers.

Now, some years ago kestrels were almost wiped out by pesticides

and now there's a new threat to wildlife from microplastics,

as Jules has been finding out.

Last summer, I was on the trail of a pernicious pollutant that was making

its way from our bathroom cabinets into our oceans.

-What actually are we looking at here?

-This is microbeads.

So this is the stuff that gives you that abrasive feeling on your face

if you scrub it with one of those exfoliants?

People don't realise that's what is in these things and unfortunately

we're using them and every day they're going down the drains

and then obviously out into the sea.

Microbeads from cosmetics were public enemy number one,

until the Government's pledge to ban them by the end of the year.

But it now looks like there's another plastic nasty lurking in our

waterways and much of it starts life here, in our canals and rivers.

It's easy to see the danger that plastic can have on our wildlife

when animals get caught up in the rubbish we've discarded.

But there's a bigger problem at large that we can't always see.

When plastic degrades,

it breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces

until they're no longer visible to the naked eye.

Research suggests that these so-called microplastics

are now present in around one-third of fish

and could soon affect us all,

unless we do something about it now.

One inspiring lady is already on the case.

In just 22 days,

Lizzie Carr made an epic 400-mile journey across our waterways

to highlight how much plastic rubbish

is getting into our canals and rivers.

She did it on an inflatable paddleboard.

There's a lot of attention on the global problem

and what's in our oceans, but 80% of it starts inland

from our canals and rivers, so I think it's vital

that we start thinking about it on a very local level.

And it's a shocking statistic, isn't it?

That's dreadful and that's something we can all do something about.

Absolutely. There's loads of things that we can do as individuals.

It's about being mindful, I think, of our plastic consumption,

and it's so easy to either not buy them or, you know,

re-use them, put them into recycling.

There's lots of things you can do,

just small things to make a big difference.

Over three days I collected 1,000 bottles

and then I built a raft from them.

The thing is that's impressive, but it's also really depressing.

-Depressing.

-Exactly!

Yeah.

Do you envisage people just literally chucking stuff

out of their pockets, out of their car widows, littering our canals?

I think there is an element of that, but people, to my mind,

are inherently good and they have good intentions.

Say it's been a sunny bank holiday weekend,

the bins are brimming with people's rubbish

because they've intended to do something good with them

and it gets a bit windy,

it then blows into the waterways and that's it.

It heads on then towards the oceans.

It's estimated that our canals and rivers are visited 380 million times

over the course of a year.

So, if we all picked up just a few bits of litter,

we could really help reduce the problem.

And with that, it's time I gave it a go.

-Are you in my slipstream?

-I think I am!

-Trying to make it a bit easier!

-Yeah!

I'm joining Lizzie, tentatively, on the Kennet and Avon canal,

on a hunt for plastic.

Unfortunately, though,

I don't have Lizzie's expertise when it comes to paddleboarding.

How on Earth did you do 400 miles like this?

Honestly, it does get easier once you get more comfortable.

You know, Lizzie from the side of the canal,

it looks beautifully clean,

but this is a brilliant vantage point

to see just how many bits of plastic

there are in here. It's incredible.

Yeah, absolutely. And actually now's probably a great time to start

having a bit of a clean-up, so,

let's get down on our knees because that's a bit easier.

I like what you're saying there, OK.

And see what we can find.

I can't believe I haven't fallen in yet.

How many times did you fall in on your epic trip?

I didn't, actually.

You didn't fall in over 400 miles?

I erred on the side of caution the entire time.

I couldn't shower, so I didn't want to get wet and dirty.

That deserves an OBE or something, I should think!

Brilliant!

Right, let's have a look then.

Once we get going, I'm pretty horrified

by the amount we find in what looks like clean water.

You'll never believe what I just found here.

A bit of a balloon. Look at that beauty!

I always check the sell-by dates on bottles when I find them in these sort of pockets in the reeds

and often they'll have been there for 10-12 years.

In fact, the average time for a plastic bottle to degrade

is a staggering 450 years.

It's everywhere and this is a relatively clean canal, isn't it?

This is a really clean stretch of water.

This is not representative of what I've experienced

up and down the country.

You've seen far worse, obviously.

Far, far worse.

And of course, all this visible plastic breaks down into the stuff

we can't see, the dreaded microplastics.

The problem is, it's the small bits that you're seeing.

It's these very tiny fragments that are the big problem.

You know the big plastic bottles, they're more of an eyesore,

these are having a detrimental impact on wildlife.

This is the stuff that we need to get rid of,

it's almost impossible to see with the naked eye.

And that's a terrifying thought, isn't it?

If you consider that our waterways,

whether they are man-made canals or natural rivers,

are the arteries of our nation, in many respects.

The thought they will become ever more clogged up with this soup of

plastic and bits and pieces, which isn't degrading,

it's just getting smaller and more insidious, it's a terrifying idea.

We are choking our waterways with plastics.

Yeah, but it's a battle we could win.

And it's a battle that Lizzie is determined to keep fighting.

As if 400 miles paddling across our waterways isn't enough,

Lizzie's about to take on an even greater challenge.

She'll attempt to paddleboard right across the English Channel.

Obviously I want to continue plastic patrolling,

but the other part of that will be actually collecting water samples

to have a look and identify microplastics

within that single journey, sort of systematically throughout it,

so it will be interesting to see what the results of that are too.

Now you didn't fall in on your 400-mile trek across the UK.

Do you think you're going to fall in as you try and cross the Channel?

Yes. Probably.

I think you might, too.

But Lizzie, it's a brilliant idea,

in a brilliant cause that I think is highlighting an issue that does

affect all of us, and should be relevant to all of us.

So, well done, you.

We wish you all the best of luck crossing the Channel.

Thank you very much.

Well, Lizzie's campaign has helped to highlight the problem of plastics in our inland waterways,

but it's what happens to them when they reach the open sea

that is now the real cause for concern.

Something I'll be taking a much closer look at a little bit later.

JOHN CRAVEN: A very worrying issue, indeed.

But now to a novel idea which could have a very positive effect on us

and our environment. We Brits have a soft spot for wild creatures,

these feral goats that roam Valley of the Rocks,

here in North Devon are a real favourite with the visitors here.

But we also love our pets.

Eight million of us keep cats and if you're not one of them,

but like them, well, Keeley has found a way of getting a feline fix.

We're a nation of pet lovers.

But for me, the cat is king.

These are my cats. This is Gary and this is Tony.

And not only are they cute, but they're actually good for my health.

In fact, research has proven if you own a moggy,

you're much less likely to die of a heart attack or stroke.

So, how do you benefit from this feline phenomenon

if you haven't actually got a cat?

You come to a cat cafe, of course.

The first cat cafe opened in Taiwan almost 20 years ago

and they are hugely popular in countries like Japan.

Now they're popping up all over Britain, from Cardiff to Edinburgh,

as an antidote to the stresses and strains of modern life.

This kitty cafe in the heart of Manchester

was set up by two cat-crazed sisters, Sarah and Ellie Close.

-Hello, girls.

-Hi.

This is my idea of heaven - tea, cake and cats.

-Yes.

-What's the concept? What's the idea behind it?

Why's it different to a normal cafe?

I think a cat cafe is good for stress relief.

I think that's the defining factor.

You can sort of turn up, grab a coffee and just watch cats sleep,

or watch cats play,

and by watching an animal it can be quite mindful and therapeutic.

So I guess that's the difference

between a cat cafe and a normal cafe.

There are 14 resident cats, all with their own personalities.

So, we've got Bengals who want to play and run around.

And they're just the ones you see on the sky run.

There's definitely the high maintenance ones.

So Stanley, the Siamese that's running around.

-Needs a lot of attention.

-He needs a lot of attention.

And then there's the rag dolls that are like really relaxed.

Great therapy cats. they'll just sort of roll around

and laze about all day.

Not a care in the world.

We've got a few regular customers that obviously get a favourite cat

and they want to keep coming back and checking on them

and playing with them. It's really nice to see.

When we first started doing this, there were a lot of people

that thought it was like a novelty thing, or like a pop-up thing.

But I think this can be very much a stable part of any community.

And I think we're seeing that in our repeat custom,

from people that live in the local area.

We intend it to be in Manchester for many, many years.

One regular here is Rachel Millett.

She suffers from chronic pain and anxiety

and finds the cat cafe a therapeutic place to be.

I noticed when you came in you were spotting some of the cats,

-you know them by name now.

-Yeah, it's a bit sad, isn't it?

No, but, yeah, because we've been in a few times

you get to know like their personalities

and see them grow up, like the kittens and things like that.

-And have you got a favourite?

-Definitely!

-So, who is it?

-Harvey.

-Harvey's the favourite.

Harvey's the favourite. Say it quietly.

We don't want of the others...

-So, why do you come here?

-Coming to a homely environment

makes me feel a lot more comfortable, and less pain,

which obviously helps with the anxiousness as well.

Being around the cats, and they're very calming

and I know I'm in a safe environment.

I do get a lot of satisfaction if they do come up to you

or they play with you, etc.

It's that distraction or the calming feeling of stroking them,

just kind of takes your mind off things,

makes you calm down and relax.

I've been a couple of times before,

they try and get in your coffee or things like that. So it's funny.

It makes you laugh. And my mum finds that a lot

when she comes with me as well.

She's like, she just watches me just giggle around sort of thing.

Watching all the cats, so I think it helps her as well

to know that I feel a lot better.

Contact with animals is proven to be good

for our physical and mental health,

which is all well and good if you live in the countryside.

But over 50 million of us now live in urban areas,

where cafes like this come into their own.

So, Bert, this is Gary playing fetch.

Let's see if you can do anything. What's this?

Nothing! These cats not only boost the wellbeing of customers,

they're also helping to raise cash for a mental health charity.

Mental health is very much on our agenda.

One in four people will now be diagnosed with a mental health condition in their lifetime.

And we feel there's still a lot of stigma attached to mental health.

Depression is a medical condition.

It's an imbalance of chemicals in the brain,

but I think a lot of people still think of it

more as an emotional problem. But it's not.

It's a diagnosable condition, much like diabetes or asthma.

And I think, particularly in the UK,

we're not really treating mental health the way it needs to be treated.

So that is our chosen agenda at Cat Cafe.

So one of the charities we support is Manchester Mind.

And last year we decided to make a charity calendar.

And this is what we came up with. It's a man and cats calendar.

Not just a man and cats calendar.

-No.

-Half naked men and cats calendar.

Yes!

All I can say is it did do very well and we did raise a lot of money.

And how did you get them into these poses?

How do they stay still for that long?

We had to be really patient. As you know, working with cats.

But they're pretty friendly cats that we have here.

They like the fuss, to be all about them sometimes.

It went really well.

And as if naked men and cats aren't enough,

the cafe also runs weekly yoga classes given by Kate Casinelli.

Push back to downward dog.

Surely she means downward cat!

Yoga is known to boost physical and mental wellbeing.

So, yoga with cats, well, surely that's double the benefit.

But what do the cats think of this new craze?

This is clearly a good place for human mental health,

but what about the health of the cats?

Well, the health and welfare of our cats is our top priority,

because we can't run a cat cafe without having happy, healthy cats.

We do a couple of things to make sure the welfare is protected.

One is we have house rules, which are you can't pick the cats up.

You can't wake them if they're asleep.

You can't chase them. You can't take photos with a flash.

It's to make sure the cats are protected in what is their home.

This is where they live, 24 hours a day.

We also have a cat room,

which is their space they can go at any time during the day

-if they want to get out of the cafe.

-So they are free just to go there?

Yes, of course. Yes. So you know if they're in the cafe interacting

with the customers they are choosing to be in here.

Because at any time they can go in that room, which is pretty big.

It's not like a tiny room, so yeah.

So you've got happy humans and happy cats?

Exactly!

OK, so cat cafes might seem like a bit of a crazy idea,

but after today, I can see that a spot of fun with our moggy mates

can be really good for us humans.

We all have our own ways to de-stress,

and if yoga and pets aren't for you, well, don't worry,

there is now plenty of evidence to show that our wellbeing is vastly

improved by connecting with nature.

In Wiltshire, I discovered a patch of paradise,

which is home to a rare spring bloom.

Morning life over an ancient lowland meadow in Wiltshire,

one of the finest in the whole of Europe.

And now that spring is here, this place has burst into bloom.

Not only is it one of our largest remaining traditional hay meadows,

it's also home to the largest population of this rare flower,

the snake's head fritillary.

To discover more about these flowers,

I'm meeting ecologist Emma Rothero.

Along with a team of volunteers,

she's making a detailed study of them here in North Meadow.

I suppose the best place to get a good look at them

is down at ground level. And how did it get its name then?

It is a really extraordinary plant, isn't it?

It's called snake's head

because of the way it comes up out of the ground

with its flower like that, so it looks like a snake's head.

And then fritillary we think comes from the Latin Fritillus,

which roughly translates as dice box.

And I think that refers to its very chequered pattern there.

There's some really fun local names, dead man's bell, chequered warrior.

A folfolar in Staffordshire is another example.

So people have given them exciting names because they're such an exciting plant.

North Meadow has remained largely unchanged for centuries.

Every year, when hay-making is finished,

the land has been turned over to grazing.

And that's always protected the meadow from drainage work and ploughing.

These days, volunteers help to monitor

the rare and diverse range of plants.

North Meadow became a national nature reserve 45 years ago,

and among the things you can spot here

are the delicate cuckoo flower and the vibrant marsh marigold.

27 centimetres...

But today, Emma Rothero and her team are carrying out their annual survey

into the general wellbeing of the star of the show -

the snake's head fritillary.

We're going to place this very carefully over this highly technical bamboo cane.

-Right. Just here. Like that?

-Perfect.

-Yeah.

-That's it.

With our one-metre-square grid in place,

we painstakingly log every fritillary we can see,

including the tiny single leaf newcomers.

And then, we record their height.

And that's up to about 19 centimetres there.

Across the meadow there were 200 such squares,

accurately placed in the same spot year after year.

Thanks to the canes and the precision guidance of GPS.

-How long have you been doing this for?

-This is our 19th year.

-Wow!

-So it's a good, quite a long-term study.

And what has it told you?

Well, what we can see is that the numbers of fritillaries

on this site are generally increasing,

particularly the numbers of flowering plants are generally increasing.

So, all in all, things are looking pretty good?

-They are here, yeah.

-Good.

The work now being done by both Natural England

and Emma and her friends from the Flood Plain Meadows Partnership,

should ensure this beguiling landscape continues

to be safeguarded as living, flowering history.

Spring is planting time in the nation's gardens

and many of us find it a relaxing pastime, but not everyone.

When it comes to growing giant vegetables,

well, that's a very serious business,

and in Wiltshire, Paul has enlisted the help

of some world champion growers.

We did pretty well with our veg patch last year

and it was something the whole family were proud of,

especially the harvest.

But this year, we're trying something a little more ambitious,

and when you want to go big, it pays to get the best.

Ian Neil and Kevin Forty are age-old rivals.

They are heavyweights in the world of giant vegetable growing.

I'm Ian Neil, I've been doing this since the mid-80s

and I've got four world records.

I'm Kevin Forty, a second generation giant vegetable grower.

Currently hold the world record for the longest radish.

These highly-competitive rivals have both become world champions,

but their approaches couldn't be more different.

Ian is a traditionalist,

using the same methods that have worked for generations.

Our ancestors knew how to grow,

and they didn't have fertilisers and these chemicals.

While Kevin is into the latest technology of hydroponics.

I think hydroponic growing is the next step for giant vegetables.

We first met them in last Autumn's Countryfile Diaries,

when Margherita Taylor helped them to victory

in the National Giant Vegetable Competition.

And we're leaving you on friendly terms.

Oh, yes, course you are!

Now, these two top veg growing gents

have agreed to give me the benefit of their experience,

so hopefully I can grow some whoppers myself this spring.

I'm a bit nervous, but I cannot wait to meet them.

Hi, guys. Welcome, Ian.

-Good afternoon, Paul.

-Hi, Kevin.

-Hey Paul, good afternoon.

-Thank you for coming along today.

Welcome to Wiltshire, on such a sunny spring day.

You guys are absolute legends,

and I can't wait to see what you've got to offer, so, come on.

So my plan is to grow giant chillies with Kevin's fancy new technique,

and giant marrows with Ian's tried and tested methods.

Ian first.

We are going to be growing some marrows, aren't we?

-We are.

-Super, super sized ones. What is the secret?

It's all to do with seed in this growing of the giant veg.

These are from the British record marrow.

From one of your winning marrows?

From one of my best friends.

Your best friends! That's quite nice, isn't it, your best friends?!

We put them in a plastic container,

drop of water to moisten the kitchen towel, put a lid on it

and either put them in the airing cupboard,

or if you've still got a boiler, which I have,

you can put them on the boiler.

After four or five days,

you take them out and put them in a pot that size.

Right, OK, pot them up.

-Pot them up.

-What do you pot them up in?

Bracken and wool. It's an organic one.

Why do you put a smaller tub inside another one,

two concentric circles and pad it out like that?

I've never seen that done before.

-Haven't you?

-No.

-Well, when you lift him out...

Ah, look at that, it's a mould!

This is a mycorrhizal,

it's a natural thing in nature and it encourages more roots -

-it's a fungi.

-And you drop a bit of that in?

Well, you're overdoing a bit now.

Oh, crikey, OK.

I don't have green fingers, but I tell you what, with your help,

I'm going to.

So really the secret in growing sort of world championship-sized pumpkins

or marrows or whatever you want, is having that right seed,

the genetic seed?

It is. Go to shows, talk to the exhibitors

and they'll generally give them you.

-Oh, will they?

-They will, yeah.

Well, apparently I'm not the first person

to get Ian's secrets on growing giant veg.

Well, I broke the swede record in 2011

and Snoop Dogg saw it and invited me backstage.

I was the oldest rapper there!

So, having got Ian's top tips, the burning question is -

how big will my marrows get?

We want to grow between 8-10 foot.

That is all of my veg patch!

What've I let myself in for?

Ten-foot marrow!

So, we can stick those inside there.

And in two to three weeks' time, pot them into a seven-inch diameter pot?

-Yes.

-OK, using a bit more compost?

-More compost.

-And a little bit more magic fungi?

-That's it.

-Thank you Ian, you made that so simple for me.

Right you guys, start growing right now!

I want to see some whoppers.

And I'm going to check out what Kevin's up to,

I'll leave you to clean up.

Now, Kevin is so state-of-the-art.

He grows his prize-winning veg without using any soil at all.

Welcome to the world of hydroponics.

Now, this looks totally different.

Completely alien.

Yeah, we better not tell Ian about this, this is one of our secrets.

It's got a solar panel, it's got loads of tubes, loads of wires.

This looks pretty cool, actually.

What's this at the bottom, is this some kind of reservoir?

Yeah, so all your nutrients goes into the reservoir.

The chillies will be grown in coir, the outside fibres of a coconut,

which have few nutrients,

so everything the plants need is added in Kevin's secret solution.

So this is the magic potion, so you need 30 litres of this.

In hydroponics systems, you control the amount of nutrients

your plants get, which can lead to higher yields

and even faster growing plants.

And there's another bonus.

The great thing about this is, if you don't have a garden,

and you've got a, let's say, roof terrace or a balcony, this is ideal.

It's absolutely perfect.

Although Kevin's approach is cutting edge,

he comes from a tradition of giant veg growers.

My dad started off giant vegetable growing in the UK in the early '80s,

in a pub just down the road from here.

They then decided they had to move to a different pub,

because the pub doors, it was only a single door.

We're growing chillies in this but you can grow anything in it.

You can grow absolutely anything, the opportunities are endless.

And what's really clever is that these tubes

are powered by a solar panel that pumps water

from the reservoir into the pots, and the hotter the sun,

the more water they get.

That will provide a constant drip feed

and hopefully that will get you a giant.

-Job done.

-The challenge is yours.

Thank you so much. Well, I think the challenge is against you and Ian,

we're going to see which method comes up trumps.

Can't wait!

So, whether you're a traditionalist

or fancy having a go at some hi-tech hydroponics,

you now know what it takes to grow giant veg.

It's been a huge honour having Kevin and Ian come here

and passing on some of their top tips about growing monster veg.

I just hope I can keep up their good work,

because come autumn I want to harvest some prize-winners myself.

Well, from super-sized to microscopic,

earlier on, Jules saw just how much micro-plastic is ending up

in our waterways. Well, now he's here on the coast in Devon,

to see what happens when it enters our seas.

A portion of fish and chips by the seaside,

this is one of my favourite treats,

and as a nation we get through 380 million portions

of the stuff every year.

But how would you feel if your favourite meal

came with a side of plastic?

I'm talking about the particles less than five millimetres in length

that we call micro-plastics,

and I've come to Plymouth to meet an expert on the subject,

Professor Richard Thompson.

Richard, good morning.

-Good morning.

-How are you?

I'm very good, thanks.

-What a cracking day.

-Yes, it's lovely, isn't it?

-Come aboard.

-What a lovely day for a bit of fishing, of sorts.

In particular, we're fishing for plastic.

Now, it's not every fisherman's idea of fun,

but Richard is part of an international team

researching the impact of marine litter,

specifically micro-plastics that are too small to see with the naked eye.

Well, Richard, what are we going to do this morning?

So what I want to do is to see if we can catch some floating plastic.

So what we're going to use is the manta net.

We're going to trawl it at the sea's surface,

it'll skim along the surface of the water and we'll see

if we can catch some smallish pieces of plastic.

This is quite interesting.

Lift it up and we can have a better look at it.

We've got floats under here, and a kind of letterbox opening,

the water will be about halfway up and it will pass through there.

-And into this great big net.

-Into the net at the back,

we'll get natural debris there, we'll get seaweed

and bits of wood and stuff as well, that should be there,

but we'll probably also get some plastic,

which, of course, we'd rather wasn't.

So this is the cod end where it will all accumulate,

and that's really fine, about 200 micron, mesh size.

There is still, I think, an assumption at large

that the ocean, saltwater, corrosive as it is,

can somehow magically digest whatever we chuck into it,

and of course plastic simply cannot degrade in any way, shape or form.

-It cannot disappear.

-That's been the problem, I think,

with the oceans for a long time,

that people have thought that out of sight is out of mind.

It tends to get overlooked and forgotten about,

but it isn't degrading there, it's accumulating over time.

In the 1950s, we produced 1.5 million tonnes of plastic,

but that figure has now risen to 300 million tonnes,

and this means more and more plastic is ending up in our seas.

Some suggest there'll be three times as much litter in the seas by 2025

as there is today, unless we change our ways.

Time now to cast our manta net and start fishing.

Perfect. Perfect, flying nicely.

One aspect of Richard's research is to find out how much plastic

is getting into our fish and onto our plates.

Now, you've found plastic in the guts of fish during your research,

-haven't you?

-Yeah, we've found small pieces of micro-plastic

in ten species of fish, taken from waters here near to Plymouth.

We looked at 500 individual fish.

We found plastic in about a third of them, and with most fish, of course,

you'd take the gut out before you ate it

and that's we're tending to find the plastic.

Now, because we remove the fish guts before eating,

Richard doesn't think we're in danger of eating plastic, at the moment.

It's a cause, if you like, for us to really take note.

Because plastics are a persistent contaminant,

the quantity in the environment is only going to get worse,

so if we're having this conversation in ten or 20 years' time,

maybe the quantities in wildlife would be sufficient for us

to think about maybe not eating some species.

Well, the only way we can really understand what's happening

in our seas is to have a detailed look.

It's a bit heavier than a normal ray, isn't it?

Well, it looks promising, Richard.

Well, it depends what you mean by promising!

Since micro-plastics can be smaller in diameter than a strand of hair,

the only way to really see what's in Richard's catch

is to take a closer look under a microscope.

-Shall we?

-Let's go.

Home for tea...

And a microscope.

That's a very smart magnifier, Richard.

-Look at that.

-I suspect this is polystyrene.

-Gosh, it's painstaking work though, Richard, isn't it?

-Yeah.

I mean each piece that looks a little bit unusual

has to be individually identified.

Amongst the debris is a plastic fibre

that's causing increasing concern.

It's a new plastic enemy, and it's in our clothes.

Now a potential source of those is from washing,

from laundering of clothes and textiles.

And it's the man-made ones that are the problem.

The interesting thing to me was that some types of garment were releasing

fibres five times faster than others,

and these were similar looking garments, so

that suggests to me again there's things that can be done

at the design stage to considerably reduce the emissions of fibres.

Just to be clear, these are fibres which aren't natural fibres,

we're talking about wool or cotton, we're talking about...

These were all synthetic fibres, yeah.

-And plastics therein?

-Yes.

Clothes made from synthetic materials,

like acrylic and polyester, are becoming more popular

than clothes made from natural fibres like cotton.

They're durable, stretchy, and they don't shrink.

But just one wash can release 700,000 microscopic fibres

into the environment. At that rate,

up to 190,000 tonnes of plastic fibre

could enter our seas every year.

These, presumably, are close-ups

of the fibres that they are shedding.

These are electron microscope pictures, yeah.

Essentially, it's washing down the plug hole.

-Yes.

-As the washing machine pumps the water out,

it's entering the drainage system

and then somehow it's making its way out there to the ocean.

-Yes.

-And you're finding it?

They are only very, very small pieces

but we're finding them in a lot of the samples that we look at.

I think what I'm taking away from this, Richard,

is that we are pushing the boundaries of our understanding,

in terms of how much plastic gets into our marine environment

and the types of plastic, and it's coming

from some pretty unusual sources,

not least of course the clothes that we wear.

The main message really is for all of us to dispose

of litter properly, but in the longer term,

we need to be designing with that end of life in mind,

so that more and more plastics can be recycled,

rather than ending up as waste in landfill or litter in the seas.

There's no getting away from the fact that we all live, of course,

in a disposable society.

The question that falls at the feet of us all

is what can we do about it,

how can we change our behaviour to make that process of disposal

more efficient and ultimately kinder on the environment?

It really is frightening to think that washing our clothes

is adding to plastic in our oceans.

Let's hope that further research can help us find a solution.

That's all we've got time for today, but do join us again tomorrow,

when I'll be giving you my top tips for the best places to go to

if you fancy a seasonal walk.

Keeley will be finding out how spring chickens

are helping to combat loneliness in the elderly.

It gets us out the house.

Now I know virtually all the residents by name,

it's just changed my life completely.

And I'll be on the scent of the hidden power in flowers.

So, join us then, bye for now.