Browse content similar to Salads. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
I'm Alys Fowler, I'm a gardener and a writer. | 0:00:05 | 0:00:08 | |
I grew up in the countryside but now my husband and I live in the city. | 0:00:11 | 0:00:15 | |
I get pleasure from simple things. | 0:00:18 | 0:00:21 | |
Home-baked bread, | 0:00:21 | 0:00:23 | |
home-grown vegetables, | 0:00:25 | 0:00:27 | |
and looking after my chickens. | 0:00:27 | 0:00:30 | |
I'm completely in love with my chickens. They are perfect. | 0:00:30 | 0:00:33 | |
This is my garden, a small Victorian terrace back yard, 20ft by 60ft. | 0:00:36 | 0:00:42 | |
This year, I'm experimenting, | 0:00:42 | 0:00:44 | |
I'm trying to avoid shop bought fruit and veg | 0:00:44 | 0:00:47 | |
and live off my own, home-grown produce. | 0:00:47 | 0:00:49 | |
But this won't be easy because I want my garden | 0:00:49 | 0:00:52 | |
to be both beautiful and productive. | 0:00:52 | 0:00:54 | |
Heaven. | 0:00:57 | 0:01:00 | |
Heaven is a home-grown cucumber. | 0:01:00 | 0:01:02 | |
Each week, I'll focus on different foods. | 0:01:04 | 0:01:07 | |
from salads to peas, courgettes to tomatoes, even edible flowers | 0:01:07 | 0:01:13 | |
and show how anyone can grow, cook and eat from their own garden, | 0:01:13 | 0:01:17 | |
even if you live in a city. | 0:01:17 | 0:01:18 | |
The difference in taste between | 0:01:31 | 0:01:32 | |
home-grown food and shop bought is so huge. | 0:01:32 | 0:01:35 | |
The minutes you put love into growing something you taste it. | 0:01:37 | 0:01:42 | |
Gorgeous. | 0:01:42 | 0:01:43 | |
And nothing tastes better than a just picked salad, lettuce, tomatoes | 0:01:43 | 0:01:48 | |
and cucumbers which have gone from garden to plate in minutes. | 0:01:48 | 0:01:52 | |
I'm realistic enough to know that I can't be totally self-sufficient. | 0:01:57 | 0:02:01 | |
I'm still going to have to buy things like meat, cheese and pasta. | 0:02:01 | 0:02:05 | |
But if I can grow enough fruit and veg to feed us both | 0:02:05 | 0:02:08 | |
for most of the year, I'll be happy. | 0:02:08 | 0:02:10 | |
So back in April I started planning what to grow. | 0:02:10 | 0:02:14 | |
Coming up through here is potato, garlic. | 0:02:14 | 0:02:17 | |
Then there is going to be a salad bit here, I think. | 0:02:19 | 0:02:22 | |
Lettuce, lettuce, lettuce. | 0:02:22 | 0:02:25 | |
Peas around here growing up through the rows. | 0:02:25 | 0:02:29 | |
More lettuce. Lots of lettuce, you can't have too much lettuce. | 0:02:29 | 0:02:33 | |
I'm going to keep some lettuce in these boxes up here. | 0:02:33 | 0:02:37 | |
Because it is really nice just when you are feeling super tired | 0:02:37 | 0:02:40 | |
to be able to come out in your bare feet and just pick your lettuce. | 0:02:40 | 0:02:44 | |
All of the potatoes will remain in the pots up here. | 0:02:44 | 0:02:48 | |
If there is any space left, I will put some flowers in it. | 0:02:48 | 0:02:51 | |
So lettuces are crucial in my beautiful edible garden. | 0:02:51 | 0:02:56 | |
I'm starting to sow them in wine boxes, salvaged from an off licence, | 0:02:56 | 0:02:59 | |
and filled with compost from the garden centre. | 0:02:59 | 0:03:02 | |
For my patio I've chosen to sow 'cut and come again' salad leaves. | 0:03:02 | 0:03:06 | |
You don't pull them up, roots and all, like big lettuces. | 0:03:06 | 0:03:09 | |
You simply trim off the leaves which then re grow for | 0:03:09 | 0:03:12 | |
another couple of servings. You never want to sow out of the | 0:03:12 | 0:03:16 | |
packet because you have very little control if you do it that way. | 0:03:16 | 0:03:20 | |
You will sow the best part of the packet in one go. | 0:03:20 | 0:03:23 | |
Take out a small amount. | 0:03:23 | 0:03:25 | |
I am just scattering it across the top of the wine box. | 0:03:25 | 0:03:30 | |
You just need to slightly tease the seed into the soil. | 0:03:30 | 0:03:35 | |
Then firm it down just so the seed is in contact with the soil. | 0:03:35 | 0:03:40 | |
And the trick to watering tiny seeds is to give them a long but gentle | 0:03:46 | 0:03:49 | |
soaking because anything heavier than a sprinkle will wash them away. | 0:03:49 | 0:03:53 | |
I've also been growing lettuce seedlings in trays of compost | 0:04:01 | 0:04:04 | |
on my window ledges since February. | 0:04:04 | 0:04:06 | |
With the arrival of milder weather those seedlings moved | 0:04:06 | 0:04:09 | |
to the patio for a week or so to adjust to an outdoor life. | 0:04:09 | 0:04:13 | |
And mid-April means they're now big enough to handle | 0:04:13 | 0:04:17 | |
and so fine for planting into the borders. | 0:04:17 | 0:04:19 | |
This soil is just so soft from all the spring rain and as it heats up, | 0:04:19 | 0:04:23 | |
come summer, this will be as hard as a piece of china. | 0:04:23 | 0:04:27 | |
Bur right now it is so soft and crumbly and ready to give life. | 0:04:27 | 0:04:32 | |
I have got two very beautiful lettuce | 0:04:32 | 0:04:34 | |
they are both the oak leaf type of lettuce. | 0:04:34 | 0:04:37 | |
This one is called emerald green. | 0:04:37 | 0:04:39 | |
It is a very big, beautiful, really vivid green. | 0:04:39 | 0:04:44 | |
The centre is kind of acid green. | 0:04:44 | 0:04:46 | |
The other one is flashy butter oak, | 0:04:46 | 0:04:49 | |
which is a very pretty, marbled, burgundy lettuce. | 0:04:49 | 0:04:52 | |
They are good enough in their own right just to be there. | 0:04:52 | 0:04:56 | |
You then get to put them on your plate, it is genius really. | 0:04:56 | 0:05:00 | |
I'll keep sowing and planting out continually over the next six months | 0:05:02 | 0:05:07 | |
to guarantee I have home-grown salad right into the winter. | 0:05:07 | 0:05:11 | |
Three weeks after sowing there are baby leaves sprouting. | 0:05:13 | 0:05:17 | |
However, they're growing too close together | 0:05:17 | 0:05:20 | |
threatening to strangle each other. | 0:05:20 | 0:05:22 | |
You have to start thinning. You are aiming to have | 0:05:22 | 0:05:26 | |
in this "cut and come again" system, lettuce roughly a centimetre apart. | 0:05:26 | 0:05:32 | |
You do not want to waste any of these. | 0:05:32 | 0:05:35 | |
You could chop off the roots and have them for tea. | 0:05:35 | 0:05:39 | |
Or allow these to become bigger, maturer lettuce | 0:05:39 | 0:05:43 | |
to grow somewhere else. | 0:05:43 | 0:05:45 | |
There is no need to ever waste your thinnings. | 0:05:45 | 0:05:49 | |
I am just putting my finger underneath the plant | 0:05:49 | 0:05:54 | |
and then easing it up. | 0:05:54 | 0:05:56 | |
Now and again they don't want to come. | 0:06:00 | 0:06:04 | |
Another must for my salads are tomatoes. | 0:06:07 | 0:06:09 | |
For me they completely capture the taste of summer. | 0:06:09 | 0:06:12 | |
But because they're so cheap to buy I'm not bothering to sow any. | 0:06:14 | 0:06:17 | |
Instead, my friend Dave and I are heading to a car-boot sale | 0:06:19 | 0:06:23 | |
where they sell young plants. | 0:06:23 | 0:06:25 | |
Although it's mainly tomatoes I'm after, I've also spotted | 0:06:37 | 0:06:41 | |
sprouting broccoli, Brussels sprouts and chillies. | 0:06:41 | 0:06:44 | |
I don't have any chillies and the roots are coming out the bottom, | 0:06:44 | 0:06:48 | |
a really good sign that the plant is taking up the whole pot | 0:06:48 | 0:06:51 | |
and it is ready to pot on so although it looks small, | 0:06:51 | 0:06:53 | |
with a bit of love it will probably grow quite quickly. | 0:06:53 | 0:06:56 | |
And 50p is a bit of a bargain. | 0:06:56 | 0:06:58 | |
Whatever you're buying, check that the leaves are healthy | 0:07:00 | 0:07:03 | |
and take the plant out of the pot to make sure the roots are | 0:07:03 | 0:07:06 | |
well developed but not pot-bound. | 0:07:06 | 0:07:08 | |
Do you know what tomatoes these are? | 0:07:11 | 0:07:14 | |
The mother-in-law grew them, she gave them to us yesterday. | 0:07:14 | 0:07:18 | |
-Does she grow good tomatoes? -She does, actually, yes. | 0:07:18 | 0:07:21 | |
Do you know if she grows them in a greenhouse or outside? | 0:07:21 | 0:07:24 | |
In a greenhouse. | 0:07:24 | 0:07:26 | |
OK. I am going to take a gamble. How much are they? | 0:07:26 | 0:07:30 | |
20p. | 0:07:30 | 0:07:32 | |
If you don't want to gamble it's best to buy plants which have been | 0:07:32 | 0:07:36 | |
labelled so you know exactly which variety of tomato you are getting. | 0:07:36 | 0:07:40 | |
This 20p plant and this 50p plant have quite a lot of differences | 0:07:44 | 0:07:49 | |
and I am beginning to slightly regret buying this one because | 0:07:49 | 0:07:53 | |
this is a named variety, so I know where I am going, | 0:07:53 | 0:07:56 | |
and it's clearly a much healthier plant. I am going to put this | 0:07:56 | 0:07:59 | |
down as a bit of a loss and buy one of these as well. | 0:07:59 | 0:08:02 | |
But tomatoes have one big enemy - blight, | 0:08:05 | 0:08:08 | |
an airborne fungus that can destroy plants - leaves, fruit and all. | 0:08:08 | 0:08:13 | |
And those growing outdoors are most at risk because the fungal spores | 0:08:13 | 0:08:17 | |
spread through air and thrive in our warm wet summer weather. | 0:08:17 | 0:08:22 | |
So I want to hedge my bets and keep one plant growing indoors as security. | 0:08:22 | 0:08:27 | |
I don't have room for a full-size greenhouse | 0:08:27 | 0:08:29 | |
so I'm going to custom build my own with my handy friend, Sid. | 0:08:29 | 0:08:33 | |
Greenhouses serve two main purposes. They protect your plants from | 0:08:40 | 0:08:45 | |
the cold, and help to keep out pests and diseases. | 0:08:45 | 0:08:49 | |
I want my greenhouse to be beautiful as well as effective, so | 0:08:58 | 0:09:01 | |
I'm making it out of some salvaged 1930's windows, joined together by | 0:09:01 | 0:09:06 | |
timber supports and angle brackets. | 0:09:06 | 0:09:08 | |
All up, it's cost me £160. | 0:09:08 | 0:09:11 | |
OK, so it is a little eccentric, but I love it. | 0:09:13 | 0:09:16 | |
Out the way! | 0:09:20 | 0:09:23 | |
-Perfect. -Mind your fingers, go underneath. | 0:09:23 | 0:09:26 | |
We will see if they fit. | 0:09:26 | 0:09:28 | |
-Yes. -They do, don't they? | 0:09:28 | 0:09:30 | |
There is a really eery light inside. | 0:09:32 | 0:09:34 | |
Yes. Open it out... | 0:09:34 | 0:09:36 | |
Yeah. It's going to be perfect. | 0:09:37 | 0:09:40 | |
I broke my heart last year over tomatoes. | 0:09:57 | 0:09:59 | |
I grew so many different varieties and I watched them all go down to blight. | 0:09:59 | 0:10:03 | |
This year, I said no tomatoes, I am not going to grow a single tomato - | 0:10:03 | 0:10:07 | |
it was my big protest to the summer, and yet here I am in May, with a tomato. | 0:10:07 | 0:10:12 | |
It was thanks to the car boot sale because, | 0:10:12 | 0:10:15 | |
at 50p, if it doesn't work, if we have an appalling summer, | 0:10:15 | 0:10:18 | |
if the blight comes back, well, I lost 50p. | 0:10:18 | 0:10:21 | |
If it does work, I have got lots of lovely, tiny tomatoes. | 0:10:21 | 0:10:25 | |
Gardener's Delight is one of the best, easiest tomatoes to start off with. | 0:10:25 | 0:10:29 | |
Tomato plants are hungry plants, | 0:10:30 | 0:10:32 | |
so you need to feed them with a kind of vitamin tonic. | 0:10:32 | 0:10:35 | |
There are bottles of seaweed feed that you can buy, but I prefer to | 0:10:35 | 0:10:40 | |
make my own for free. With nettles. | 0:10:40 | 0:10:42 | |
I literally throw nettles into a bucket, | 0:10:42 | 0:10:45 | |
add water and leave them to rot. | 0:10:45 | 0:10:47 | |
They make an amazingly nutrient-rich soup. | 0:10:47 | 0:10:51 | |
Be warned though - it smells revolting. | 0:10:51 | 0:10:55 | |
The point is, it's good for the tomato. | 0:10:57 | 0:10:59 | |
If you want lovely tomatoes, you have to suffer a bit! | 0:10:59 | 0:11:04 | |
I've got one well-established tomato that a friend generously gave me a few weeks ago. | 0:11:08 | 0:11:13 | |
That's the one I've chosen to cosset in my new mini greenhouse. | 0:11:13 | 0:11:16 | |
It's been out on the patio until now, so I'm moving it indoors and hoping for the best. | 0:11:16 | 0:11:21 | |
One salad crop you can grow outside is cool, crisp cucumbers. | 0:11:32 | 0:11:36 | |
I bought some a few weeks ago from my local flower show. | 0:11:36 | 0:11:40 | |
You'll need to look for outdoor varieties. | 0:11:40 | 0:11:43 | |
Cucumbers are really quite fickle and they do not like cold nights. | 0:11:43 | 0:11:47 | |
Make sure it is truly warm before you plant them out into the ground. | 0:11:47 | 0:11:51 | |
Many people think cucumbers don't do very well outdoors in our climate. | 0:11:52 | 0:11:57 | |
It is far from the truth, really. | 0:11:57 | 0:11:59 | |
As long as you choose the right types, there's quite a lot of modern cultivars | 0:11:59 | 0:12:04 | |
which are bred for cooler climates. | 0:12:04 | 0:12:07 | |
When it is a wet summer, you get hundreds. | 0:12:07 | 0:12:10 | |
When it is a hot summer, you get very sweet ones. | 0:12:10 | 0:12:14 | |
You need to give them something they can climb up. | 0:12:14 | 0:12:17 | |
Which is why I made this rather odd structure. | 0:12:19 | 0:12:22 | |
You don't want the cucumbers to sit on the soil. | 0:12:22 | 0:12:25 | |
You can imagine - a cucumber is just 100% water, | 0:12:25 | 0:12:28 | |
so if it sits on the soil it just rots away. | 0:12:28 | 0:12:30 | |
You have to get them up and off the ground. | 0:12:30 | 0:12:33 | |
Cucumbers need very moisture-retentive soil. | 0:12:34 | 0:12:38 | |
Lots of good compost or something else dug in. | 0:12:38 | 0:12:42 | |
There is a tendency for the stem to rot off. | 0:12:42 | 0:12:45 | |
So I like to plant my cucumber on a slight mound. | 0:12:46 | 0:12:51 | |
So this is lots of lovely rich soil. | 0:12:53 | 0:12:56 | |
Then the water just sort of draws off rather than sitting in a slump. | 0:12:58 | 0:13:04 | |
And those cucumbers will be ready to harvest by late July, | 0:13:07 | 0:13:10 | |
but early in the growing season, and there's not an awful lot to eat | 0:13:10 | 0:13:14 | |
in the garden, so it's time to visit the wild larder. | 0:13:14 | 0:13:17 | |
I'm talking foraging. | 0:13:17 | 0:13:19 | |
My friend Ingrid lives around the corner from me. | 0:13:24 | 0:13:27 | |
She's just got into gardening in a big way with her own veg patch. | 0:13:27 | 0:13:31 | |
But she's never foraged before. | 0:13:31 | 0:13:32 | |
Time to show her how to identify some edible wild foods. | 0:13:32 | 0:13:37 | |
I was kind of hoping we might find some mint. | 0:13:45 | 0:13:48 | |
It is the sort of place it would grow. | 0:13:49 | 0:13:52 | |
'It's May and so, as well as mint, I should be able to find wild garlic, | 0:13:53 | 0:13:57 | |
'garlic mustard and some common garden weeds that are surprisingly good to eat.' | 0:13:57 | 0:14:03 | |
This is garlic mustard, try that. | 0:14:04 | 0:14:07 | |
That is fantastic. That could be brilliant in a salad. | 0:14:09 | 0:14:11 | |
You can feel it! | 0:14:13 | 0:14:15 | |
-Not a first date salad. -No! | 0:14:15 | 0:14:18 | |
However, there are other things... like cleavers, | 0:14:20 | 0:14:23 | |
or goosegrass or sticky willy, which you can wilt like spinach. | 0:14:23 | 0:14:27 | |
Oh! It's very wet. | 0:14:29 | 0:14:31 | |
'We're also picking lime leaves, which are a great substitute | 0:14:44 | 0:14:47 | |
'for lettuce as long as you go for the young, tender leaves.' | 0:14:47 | 0:14:51 | |
-It is actually quite nutty. -Yeah. | 0:14:51 | 0:14:53 | |
-A nutty taste. -Nutty and a bit oily I think. | 0:14:53 | 0:14:56 | |
-It's amazing to think we're going to get a whole salad from foraging around. -Here you go. | 0:14:56 | 0:15:01 | |
Lots of lovely wild garlic. | 0:15:04 | 0:15:06 | |
It kind of becomes a complete garlic substitute for spring. | 0:15:06 | 0:15:11 | |
'There are plenty of nettles here too, which we're collecting | 0:15:11 | 0:15:15 | |
'for my home made tomato tonic and for Ingrid's husband, Jeremy, who wants to make nettle beer.' | 0:15:15 | 0:15:21 | |
Did Jeremy give any indication how many nettles we need to pick? | 0:15:23 | 0:15:28 | |
-About a bin bag full. -How much beer is he intending to make? | 0:15:28 | 0:15:31 | |
A vat. | 0:15:31 | 0:15:33 | |
I have never made nettle beer. | 0:15:34 | 0:15:37 | |
It sounds, quite frankly, revolting. | 0:15:37 | 0:15:40 | |
'Last but not least, we're looking for dandelions to make fritters. | 0:15:43 | 0:15:47 | |
'It's the flower heads we're after, which, when they're cooked, | 0:15:48 | 0:15:52 | |
'have a delicious flavour like honey.' | 0:15:52 | 0:15:54 | |
Gloved up. | 0:16:00 | 0:16:01 | |
Back at Ingrid's, it's time to make a brew. | 0:16:01 | 0:16:04 | |
It smells very potent already. | 0:16:10 | 0:16:13 | |
'We need to strain the potion into a brewing bucket.' | 0:16:14 | 0:16:18 | |
In it goes. | 0:16:18 | 0:16:20 | |
'Then goes in some sugar and cream of tartar.' | 0:16:23 | 0:16:25 | |
-Just a teaspoon of that. -'Oh, and the juice and rind from a load of lemons.' | 0:16:25 | 0:16:30 | |
Have you ever actually had nettle beer before? | 0:16:31 | 0:16:34 | |
..No! | 0:16:37 | 0:16:39 | |
-Sprinkle... -'Now it's time to ferment our ale. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:44 | |
'In goes the brewer's yeast, and then we have to be patient for a couple of months.' | 0:16:44 | 0:16:49 | |
But while we wait, we can concentrate on a simple supper from our foraged ingredients. | 0:16:49 | 0:16:53 | |
While I prepare the dandelion fritters, | 0:16:55 | 0:16:58 | |
Ingrid is dressing our lime leaf salad with garlic flowers. | 0:16:58 | 0:17:01 | |
I'm wilting our leafy bounty into some butter, treating it just like spinach really. | 0:17:05 | 0:17:10 | |
And the dandelion flowers are dipped into a traditional pancake batter, and fried in butter. | 0:17:14 | 0:17:19 | |
Our wilted greens, lime leaf salad with garlic flowers and dandelions make a perfect supper. | 0:17:25 | 0:17:32 | |
Jeremy and his son Toby are keen to taste the results. | 0:17:32 | 0:17:35 | |
That is amazing. | 0:17:35 | 0:17:38 | |
If you're thinking of going foraging, you may be able to join a local walk. | 0:17:38 | 0:17:42 | |
A good guide with pictures is the next best thing to help identify what you can and can't eat. | 0:17:42 | 0:17:47 | |
If you don't recognise it, don't eat it. | 0:17:47 | 0:17:50 | |
-Do you like it? -Yes, it's really nice. It's like a fresh pancake. | 0:17:50 | 0:17:55 | |
-It's nice. -They are sweet. | 0:17:55 | 0:17:59 | |
They were pretty making them as well. | 0:17:59 | 0:18:02 | |
I would definitely use this. | 0:18:03 | 0:18:05 | |
-Do you want more? -Yeah! | 0:18:05 | 0:18:06 | |
It's June and the garden's looking really healthy. | 0:18:14 | 0:18:16 | |
This new way of growing my flowers and vegetables mixed in together seems to be working. | 0:18:16 | 0:18:22 | |
When you're taught how to grow vegetables in the traditional sense, | 0:18:23 | 0:18:26 | |
you give them everything in a straight line and you give equi-distance between spacing | 0:18:26 | 0:18:31 | |
and that gives enough light and moisture... | 0:18:31 | 0:18:33 | |
And you mustn't crowd out your neighbours! And that's all true. | 0:18:33 | 0:18:37 | |
But then you go and get things like this. This lettuce has been | 0:18:37 | 0:18:42 | |
essentially living under a poppy, | 0:18:42 | 0:18:46 | |
but it's considerably bigger than its neighbour. | 0:18:46 | 0:18:50 | |
That's probably because the poppy has been offering it, by shading it | 0:18:50 | 0:18:54 | |
out, there's a little bit more moisture and it is actually growing. | 0:18:54 | 0:18:58 | |
Another thing that's obviously happy are my cucumbers, which are | 0:18:58 | 0:19:02 | |
scrambling up the supports I gave them and making fruits already. | 0:19:02 | 0:19:06 | |
It's just over a month since I planted my first crop of lettuces. | 0:19:11 | 0:19:14 | |
I particularly love the one called flashy butter oak, | 0:19:14 | 0:19:17 | |
because it has these beautiful marbled leaves. | 0:19:17 | 0:19:20 | |
It really tastes good. | 0:19:20 | 0:19:22 | |
I'm picking a good-sized salad for two pretty much every day now. | 0:19:34 | 0:19:39 | |
A good part of my salad supply is from "cut and come again" | 0:19:41 | 0:19:45 | |
leaves which are romping away. | 0:19:45 | 0:19:47 | |
I'll get at least another two harvests from them. | 0:19:47 | 0:19:50 | |
The trick at this point is to keep it going. | 0:19:51 | 0:19:54 | |
But right now, | 0:19:54 | 0:19:56 | |
I am in a very happy salad place. | 0:19:56 | 0:19:59 | |
As a salad junkie, I could get through up to five supermarket salad bags a week. | 0:20:06 | 0:20:12 | |
'In five months, that would cost me around £150. | 0:20:12 | 0:20:15 | |
'Instead, £3 worth of seed will give me a salad a day over the same period. | 0:20:15 | 0:20:20 | |
'And I get that wonderful just-picked taste.' | 0:20:20 | 0:20:23 | |
It's July and the young plants need lots of water, | 0:20:32 | 0:20:35 | |
but my garden is in full swing. | 0:20:35 | 0:20:37 | |
My beans are in flower, the honeysuckle is out, | 0:20:37 | 0:20:41 | |
and my chickens are producing two eggs every day. | 0:20:41 | 0:20:46 | |
Because every bit of soil in my garden has to be productive, | 0:20:50 | 0:20:53 | |
wherever there's a gap I've sowed a quick-growing crop like radishes. | 0:20:53 | 0:20:57 | |
They're up and ready to harvest within four to six weeks. | 0:20:57 | 0:21:01 | |
And at this time of year, the new potatoes are wonderfully tasty, | 0:21:01 | 0:21:05 | |
and they go perfectly with my fresh salad leaves. | 0:21:05 | 0:21:09 | |
And that's not all. | 0:21:09 | 0:21:11 | |
Here is my first cucumber... | 0:21:11 | 0:21:16 | |
of the season. Now, it's not particularly big, | 0:21:16 | 0:21:19 | |
but I don't think there is any point growing your | 0:21:19 | 0:21:21 | |
cucumbers to supermarket length - you really just can't eat them all. | 0:21:21 | 0:21:27 | |
So although this one is big down here, | 0:21:27 | 0:21:31 | |
you'll see there's two, three, four, five... | 0:21:31 | 0:21:34 | |
Once cucumbers get going, they just don't stop producing cucumbers. | 0:21:34 | 0:21:38 | |
So it's much better to harvest them as little cucumbers, | 0:21:38 | 0:21:45 | |
chubby things, perfect for one meal. | 0:21:45 | 0:21:48 | |
Heaven! Heaven is a home-grown cucumber. | 0:21:54 | 0:21:58 | |
My "cut and come again" leaves won't give me all the summer salad I need, | 0:22:02 | 0:22:06 | |
so I'm also sowing more seeds straight into the soil, | 0:22:06 | 0:22:09 | |
which is now warm enough to guarantee a good germination rate. | 0:22:09 | 0:22:12 | |
I'll do this every few weeks to ensure I've always got little clumps | 0:22:12 | 0:22:17 | |
of fast-growing leaves in between other crops. | 0:22:17 | 0:22:20 | |
You'll get perfect little dots of baby salad leaves | 0:22:20 | 0:22:25 | |
that you can just come and harvest once or twice when they're about 10 centimetres high. | 0:22:25 | 0:22:30 | |
Salad leaves are the single easiest thing you can grow in your edible garden. | 0:22:31 | 0:22:36 | |
An almost failsafe crop which keeps on coming and lasts for months. | 0:22:36 | 0:22:41 | |
But it's not all good news. | 0:22:41 | 0:22:43 | |
As the days get warmer, the inevitable happens. | 0:22:43 | 0:22:47 | |
Tomato blight arrives in the neighbourhood, | 0:22:47 | 0:22:50 | |
killing all my outdoor tomatoes. | 0:22:50 | 0:22:52 | |
As I garden organically, I don't want to use chemicals to fight it off. | 0:22:52 | 0:22:56 | |
This structure is the only thing that's keeping me and the tomato | 0:22:56 | 0:23:02 | |
in hope that we'll still get ripening fruit. | 0:23:02 | 0:23:06 | |
If even a single spore gets in there, the whole thing is over. | 0:23:06 | 0:23:11 | |
So far, things are looking good, | 0:23:13 | 0:23:15 | |
so if I only go in to water when necessary, | 0:23:15 | 0:23:19 | |
I should get ripe fruit by the end of the month. | 0:23:19 | 0:23:21 | |
It seems I spoke too soon. | 0:23:37 | 0:23:39 | |
A couple of weeks later and blight has reached into my greenhouse, | 0:23:39 | 0:23:43 | |
shrivelling my plants and making the fruits totally inedible. | 0:23:43 | 0:23:47 | |
That's another year lost. | 0:23:47 | 0:23:49 | |
I am resigned these days to the fact I cannot really grow tomatoes, even | 0:23:51 | 0:23:57 | |
when I try and build funny greenhouses for them. | 0:23:57 | 0:24:01 | |
We've had lots of wet, humid, hot days and this dear beautiful, large, lovely plant | 0:24:01 | 0:24:09 | |
is now riddled with blight. | 0:24:09 | 0:24:13 | |
Black stems, | 0:24:13 | 0:24:15 | |
black leaves and eventually black fruit. | 0:24:15 | 0:24:20 | |
This is truly heartbreaking. | 0:24:20 | 0:24:23 | |
So that's it, I don't think I'm ever going to bother with tomatoes until somebody | 0:24:23 | 0:24:28 | |
brings me an honest-to-God blight-resistant tomato and says, | 0:24:28 | 0:24:31 | |
"you can grow it outside and it won't get it." | 0:24:31 | 0:24:34 | |
But blight doesn't strike everywhere. | 0:24:36 | 0:24:38 | |
So I don't want to put anyone off from trying. | 0:24:38 | 0:24:40 | |
Because there's nothing quite like the taste of a home-grown tomato. | 0:24:40 | 0:24:45 | |
My friend George, for instance, has had better luck. | 0:24:56 | 0:25:00 | |
His tomatoes were sown straight into his allotment polytunnel, | 0:25:00 | 0:25:03 | |
so they haven't been exposed to any blight. | 0:25:03 | 0:25:06 | |
There's hundreds of them, and you did get a bit of blight, right? | 0:25:09 | 0:25:14 | |
Yes, but not a lot really. | 0:25:14 | 0:25:16 | |
-Beautiful, aren't they? -Really beautiful, that's massive. | 0:25:16 | 0:25:21 | |
Look at how lovely they are. | 0:25:22 | 0:25:25 | |
I love the smell of tomatoes, don't you think? | 0:25:28 | 0:25:30 | |
It's one of my favourite smells. | 0:25:30 | 0:25:33 | |
They are proper organic stuff, aren't they? | 0:25:33 | 0:25:36 | |
Thank you, George. I thought I was not going to get to eat... | 0:25:37 | 0:25:41 | |
-What about that big one? -Can I have the big one? | 0:25:41 | 0:25:43 | |
-Have the big one. -That's very generous. -Wring its neck. | 0:25:43 | 0:25:47 | |
Thanks to George and his bountiful crop, | 0:25:50 | 0:25:52 | |
I no longer have to face a summer without home-grown tomatoes. | 0:25:52 | 0:25:56 | |
-Bye, George! -Bye. | 0:26:00 | 0:26:02 | |
Although I'm harvesting most vegetables to eat, | 0:26:14 | 0:26:17 | |
the garden is now so productive | 0:26:17 | 0:26:20 | |
that I can afford to leave some in the ground. | 0:26:20 | 0:26:22 | |
I want these to continue the cycle of flowering and | 0:26:22 | 0:26:24 | |
producing seed because sometimes that brings unexpected bounties. | 0:26:24 | 0:26:28 | |
That's a very woody radish, which is completely inedible now. | 0:26:28 | 0:26:34 | |
It's all stem inside, basically. | 0:26:34 | 0:26:37 | |
But, if you let them go completely to seed, you get these, which are radish seed pods. | 0:26:37 | 0:26:45 | |
And they are edible. They're good, spicy and they are perfect with beer. | 0:26:45 | 0:26:49 | |
So I left these guys, | 0:26:49 | 0:26:52 | |
because I knew I was going to have a party where they would make the best snack. | 0:26:52 | 0:26:56 | |
And the bees and the hover flies | 0:26:58 | 0:27:03 | |
love the flowers, so you bring all sorts of other goodies | 0:27:03 | 0:27:09 | |
into the garden. Tons of them. | 0:27:09 | 0:27:12 | |
Now I've got lots of beer snacks, all I need is some beer. | 0:27:18 | 0:27:23 | |
'And after two months of fermenting, Jeremy's nettle beer is ready to uncork.' | 0:27:29 | 0:27:33 | |
Here we go, the moment of truth. | 0:27:37 | 0:27:39 | |
-It looks good. -Looks fantastic. -It looks like beer. | 0:27:39 | 0:27:43 | |
It smells of... What does it smell of? Country smell. | 0:27:43 | 0:27:47 | |
Yes, home-brew. | 0:27:47 | 0:27:50 | |
Has everybody got one? | 0:27:50 | 0:27:53 | |
It is the perfect summer drink. | 0:27:53 | 0:27:56 | |
Compost beer. | 0:27:58 | 0:28:00 | |
'Well, I can't say much for that beer, but then, not everything always goes to plan. | 0:28:00 | 0:28:04 | |
'That's what I've learnt over the years about growing your own - it's swings and roundabouts. | 0:28:04 | 0:28:09 | |
'On a positive note, I haven't bought a single | 0:28:09 | 0:28:11 | |
'lettuce or cucumber since May, but sadly my tomatoes have died a death. | 0:28:11 | 0:28:16 | |
'However, just like George, we don't all share the same failures, | 0:28:16 | 0:28:20 | |
'and so you'll always find someone happy to swap | 0:28:20 | 0:28:23 | |
'the produce you do have for those that you don't.' | 0:28:23 | 0:28:25 | |
Next time in my pursuit of a beautiful but edible garden, | 0:28:27 | 0:28:31 | |
I turn my attention to leafy greens and root crops | 0:28:31 | 0:28:35 | |
like kale and beetroot. | 0:28:35 | 0:28:37 | |
They add structure and colour but as they're slow growers, there can be a bit of a hungry gap. | 0:28:37 | 0:28:42 | |
It's George to the rescue again with his rhubarb. | 0:28:42 | 0:28:46 | |
-My plants are tiny. -Look at that, beautiful. | 0:28:46 | 0:28:49 | |
But even George can't save me from the weather, as a spring storm | 0:28:49 | 0:28:52 | |
threatens my tender infant crops. | 0:28:52 | 0:28:55 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:29:09 | 0:29:12 | |
E-mail [email protected] | 0:29:12 | 0:29:15 |