Episode 15 Gardeners' World


Episode 15

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Hello! Welcome back to Gardeners' World.

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It's been four weeks, and during that time it has rained

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and it's rained,

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and then when it finished raining, it rained some more.

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It's been the most appalling summer so far,

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but funnily enough, the garden hasn't suffered too much.

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Here at Longmeadow, everything has grown. Lots of flowers.

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Look at the dahlias, for example. You'd think they need more heat

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but they seem to be quite comfortable.

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So not anything to be too gloomy about,

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but quite a lot of work to do,

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and the garden's hitting that stage

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which is getting fuller and the richness comes with that fullness,

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and then goes right through August and September.

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So a lot to do at this point

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to get ready to enjoy the rest of summer.

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Carol will be celebrating one of the most versatile

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and loved of all plant families - the geranium.

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It's difficult to go wrong with geraniums.

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They just associate themselves so beautifully with other plants.

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And Rachel goes back to visit her novice gardeners

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at the Didcot army barracks

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to see how the community garden there is flowering.

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Oh, wow! Ha, look at that!

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There's nothing more exciting

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than a brand-new garden just beginning to emerge.

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And I'll be in the wall garden revamping it and planting it up

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so it'll look at its best right into autumn.

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And I'll also be sowing veg that will carry me through summer,

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as far as possible to the first frost.

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BIRDSONG

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One of the bits of the garden that's giving me the most pleasure

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at the moment is actually one of the least colourful -

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it's the grass borders which I planted up just over a year ago,

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and they were very sparse

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and really nothing much happened last year.

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But, boy, it's all happened this year.

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And the combination of the different textures

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like the Miscanthus, and then you've got the Stipas

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with their lovely oaten heads

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and the Verbascum's coming up through there.

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We've got the Knautia floating through,

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the Cephalaria, which is growing enormously tall -

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all these different textures, that's the key to it,

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are working together and just seem to be having a whale of a time.

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It's extraordinary how plants can be enjoying themselves,

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and, as a gardener, I did nothing, just stand back and enjoy it myself.

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Now, there are lots of good things happening in the wall garden,

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so let's be positive.

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Fabulous lilies and a general sense of

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sort of summer energy coming through.

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But, I have to qualify that by saying, the roses,

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which should be doing their stuff now, have had a dreadful summer.

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The thing to do is to tidy them up. Just go around

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and deadhead what needs it and you'll find it's almost everything.

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You cut it off and you're not left with very much.

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For these old roses, they won't reflower, or, if they do,

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it won't be until September and then not very much.

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If you've got hybrid teas or floribunda

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then it's worth paying lots of attention and they'll keep going,

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but I'm afraid for me here in the wall garden,

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the roses have not been a success and that is that.

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However, let's be positive,

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because there's lots you can do, lots you can do now,

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to make this part of the garden,

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and any part of the garden, look great later in the year.

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For example, the sweet rocket,

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which was so important in May

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and was bright and fresh, is over.

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It's a biennial, these are the seedpods.

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It's not going to do anything else this year.

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I'm going to take most of it out, clear some space,

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do a bit of cutting back,

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but not destroy the general feel of the garden.

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This housekeeping will create the opportunity for new plants,

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which will then put on their display later on in summer.

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You notice some of these... I'm cutting some, I'm pulling.

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There's a bit of regrowth

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on some of the sweet rocket which might produce flowers

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later in the year, so it's really a question of what's suitable.

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That foxglove can come out.

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It's like hand weeding.

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Actually getting in a border,

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you get the feel of it and see where the spaces are

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and where they're not, which is equally important.

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With a plant like the geraniums,

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you can see that they've finished flowering.

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If you cut hard at the base - don't leave half the plant,

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cut the whole thing down to the ground - that will get light

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and air in and it's actually amazing how quickly geraniums regrow.

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Of course, this extreme growth,

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which has been wet for weeks,

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is absolutely ideal for harbouring slugs and snails,

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particularly slugs.

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We've been inundated with people saying how bad it's been

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and what's the best way to deal with them.

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So if you've got any particular method that's failsafe,

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contact us through our gardening dilemmas.

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Otherwise, if you want to find out all the various ways

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of approaching the slug and snail problem, go to our website.

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Removing dead and congested plants

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creates space to replenish and refresh the border.

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The plants that I've got to fill these gaps

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are all half-hardy annuals.

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Half-hardy annuals just simply means it's not frost-resistant.

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So these have been grown from seed under glass

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and are now ready to go out. And you could buy these anywhere.

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So we've got Nicotiana sylvestris.

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And this is the enormous tobacco plant

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and in the right soil will grow about six foot tall

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with these lovely, great, long,

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dreadlock-like white trumpets of flower

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which smell sort of musty and musky and oily,

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especially at night when they've baked in the sun.

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We've got two types of cleome -

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'Cherry Queen' and 'White Queen'.

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Cleome, the spider plant

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which has this mad head,

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is a bit spiny. It will grow about four or five foot tall,

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and, again, just keep flowering.

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And the flowers are produced as it goes up

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so you don't need to deadhead it. It just keeps coming.

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And, finally, Cosmos 'Purity' -

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very well-known plant. Rightly so, it's a cracker.

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White daisies that again will keep going

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until the first frost, so all good-value plants.

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I can put a tobacco plant in there

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and I'll put some cosmos nearer the front,

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and, as for planting, there's no mystery.

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You make a hole, you put them in.

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You plant them so that that level is about there

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and you just gently firm the soil around them,

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give them a good soak and let them get on with it.

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At this time of year, there's no problem, because it is warming up,

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there's plenty of moisture in the ground, they will grow.

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These Nicotiana have actually been potted on.

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Because the weather was bad, we couldn't plant them out,

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therefore they were outgrowing their pots. The big plants

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have big root systems, so they've gone into bigger pots.

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But it does mean that they're really nice, big, healthy plants.

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Obviously, this kind of planting is a slow process.

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You want to take your time, and considerate it and move things around,

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and it's all part of a long rhythm of planting.

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It sometimes can be evaluated over years,

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but Rachel has been involved with a project that has been begun

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and will see its fruition within one growing season.

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That's at Didcot army barracks with a group of first-time gardeners

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who've been making a cut flower garden.

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She's been back to see how they're getting on.

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I must say, I'm really keen to see

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how the garden here at Didcot is progressing.

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It's been more than four months now since they started work

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and the idea is really to enhance the lives, not only of servicemen

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here on the barracks, but their families too.

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The bare brown plot was sown with annuals

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so they would see results quickly and have plants flowering this year.

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But they've had the worst weather to contend with

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and plants have been slow to get going.

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Well, they say mighty oaks from little acorns grow

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and it's been about two months since the first seedlings here

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started poking out through the soil,

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so let's see how they're getting on.

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Oh, wow! Ha, look at that!

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You see, there is nothing more exciting than a brand-new garden

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just beginning to emerge.

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Here you are! Hello!

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-ALL:

-Hi!

-You ought to be congratulated.

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I'm so impressed by what's going on over there, it's fantastic.

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-We've got flowers!

-Yeah, you've got flowers! It works!

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-Have you enjoyed it?

-Yeah, we've had a lovely time.

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It's been real good fun.

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Hard work as well, or not too bad?

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A lot more work than we thought it would be, but it's nice to learn.

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It looks very verdant, lots of green. So we'll go and see that

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everything's flowering properly as well, it's not just leaves.

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But I think it's great. Let's go and have a look.

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-Bring babies, children. All hands on deck!

-Come on, then.

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Fraser, are you coming too? Come on then, Fraser.

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Right, where shall we start?

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There are dahlias at the back. Let's go and have a look at those.

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Right, dahlias, what do you think of these, then? Are you happy with them?

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Well, they've kind of not grown there,

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and they've all grown that side!

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What's quite interesting is now that these big trees are fully in leaf,

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you can see how far that leaf canopy comes out

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and dahlias need really hot, sunny weather.

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So although they look fantastic cos there's lots of leaf

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and they're very tall, in fact what's happened is that

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they've really desperately been searching for some light

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and I'd be very surprised if you get any flowers from that.

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You might, but they'll be pretty scrawny.

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These ones don't look quite so impressive

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and you've also got a bit of slug damage on them.

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But I think you've a better chance of getting more flower

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-there later in the summer.

-Yeah.

-Mmm-hmm.

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It's not all bad news, though. We can try to rescue some of them.

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I get Amy to cut back the large, leggy dahlias to encourage new side shoots

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and although the new stems will be smaller and stockier,

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with some strong sunshine they might just straighten up and produce flowers.

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Just look how beautiful all this is. Fantastic growth on it.

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I had noticed in there you've got some black fly there.

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They tend to cluster around these top soft parts at the very tips

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and they suck the sap, and that means they can distort the growth

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and, in fact, they can spread virus that way as well.

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So with a small infestation like this I would just go round

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and just brush them off, pull them off.

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Just always keep an eye open when you're out in the garden.

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The sweet peas have been relishing the wet weather recently

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and are romping away.

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But stray stems need a bit of encouragement

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to make them grow skywards.

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I think what's nice about this is I love cut flowers in the house,

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but I'm very much a lilies, tulips kind of person and I think

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this has broadened my mind a bit as to what other things you can have.

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Lots of plants are starting to flower.

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The honeywort, Cerinthe major,

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is already putting on a show,

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and to keep it flowering throughout the summer we cut back a few stems

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and give it a foliar feed to ensure new growth remains strong and sturdy.

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Well, our novice gardeners are doing incredibly well.

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I think they're really beginning to get the hang of it now.

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They're getting the gardening bug and they've worked so hard.

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I'm very impressed, I must say.

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And, yes, we've got a few things in flower,

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but I can't wait to see their faces when it really gets going.

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Now, most of us have had a fairly difficult time of it trying to grow veg.

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It's been a struggle.

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My biggest disaster, without question, are the carrots.

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Pretty pathetic.

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However, it's not too late to sew another batch of carrots

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and that's what I'm going to do.

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The important thing is not to try and hang on to the shreds

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and tatters of the original crop. This has had it.

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What I will do is just lift and see what's in there...

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See, a magnificent specimen. Such a shame.

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These were cosmic purple.

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Would have been nice if we had had a crop of purple carrots

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because carrots don't have to be orange.

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The original ones were purple and white.

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And orange ones were only introduced in the 17th century.

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What's happened is all this rain on this heavy soil has compacted it.

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And that now... See, look at that. I can take a handful of that

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and it's just clay, and that's not good for carrots.

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So I shall dig the whole thing over, loosen it up and lighten it.

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Right, I just want to put this to the record.

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This is the sum total of my carrot crop for summer 2012.

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Right, that isn't perfect. I mean, it's slightly wet,

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slightly claggy, but I think it's more important to get

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the seeds in than to wait for perfect conditions,

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cos in this summer I don't think they're ever going to come.

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But the soil has now got air,

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and, as a result, it's really important to stay off it.

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Now, I've got two varieties here - Autumn King and Flyaway.

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I'm going to sew Autumn King first.

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Carrot seeds are small and each carrot wants to be spaced,

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ideally, about an inch or two apart.

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It's just a question of sprinkling them

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as evenly as you can between the boards.

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That's it.

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Now, that was a rescue mission.

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Now for something a little bit more pro-active

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because now is the time to plant our leeks.

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I do stress that actually now is the time to sew

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or plant an awful lot of things.

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If you've had a disaster in your veg garden,

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you can re-do almost anything.

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And if you haven't grown any veg at all yet, doesn't matter.

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Lots you can do and get a harvest

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in late August and September and October.

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I'm going to plant out my leeks.

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Now, I sewed these earlier on in spring

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but you can buy leek plants from garden centres

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so you're not going to miss out if you haven't sewn any.

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Two ways to do this - either plant them out in modules or pots like this.

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You can see I sewed them in a deep pot

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so you've got a nice strong root system. I'll show you that.

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There we go. You can see the roots starting to pile up

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and coil up at the bottom of the pot.

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Certainly time to put them out.

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And so that, if it's planted out in one unit, when I dig it up

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I dig them up as a unit and although the plants will be smaller,

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they'll be perfectly tasty and very easy to manage,

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and I do that quite a lot.

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Or I can break it up and plant each one as a bare root seedling

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and I think that's what I'm going to do here.

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Now, when I've planted out all my leeks,

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I'm going to sew some French beans.

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And French beans are perfect for sewing now.

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They like heat and like to grow away strongly,

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and I bet if you've sewn them a few months ago,

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they'll be sitting there looking very unhappy.

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Put them in the ground now, they'll grow fast

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and you'll have a really good harvest in September,

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IF we get some sun, but that's beyond our control.

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I'll tell you a plant that has done really well this year,

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despite the rain, is the geranium.

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And Carol is celebrating the wild geranium

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as well as all the wonderful cottage garden varieties

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in a visit to East Lambrook Manor in Somerset.

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Once upon a time this was the site of two collieries.

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Since their closure in 1869, Mother Nature's stepped in,

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covering the landscape in a host of plants.

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Over 160 different species have established themselves here

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and are among them are several species of geranium.

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Most of us have one or two geraniums in our gardens

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but this is one of the wild antecedents of those geraniums.

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It's Geranium pratense

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and it's surely one of our most beautiful wildflowers.

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Pratense means "of meadows" and it used to be a plant of hay meadows,

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growing alongside grasses and other beautiful perennial flowers.

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Geoffrey Grigson, the well-known botanist, described it as,

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"Haunting the verges like an encampment of gypsies."

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And that has the pure romance of this plant.

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It's called meadow cranesbill.

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And that's because of the shape of its seed heads

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which resemble the head and the beak of a crane.

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"Geranos" is the Greek for a crane.

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And most geraniums have five simple petals.

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And on the back is this lovely star-shaped calyx.

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Sometimes you can even see it through their translucent petals.

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This is the sort of picture that we'd all love to emulate,

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but you could never recreate anything just as beautiful as this.

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Plants woman and author Margery Fish famously said,

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"When in doubt, plant a geranium,"

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and that's exactly what she did.

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Margery Fish moved to East Lambrook Manor

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just before the Second World War and set to work.

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She created a garden which, to this day,

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remains THE iconic cottage garden.

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Head gardener Mark Stainer has worked here since 1975.

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He knows every inch of the place.

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Geraniums are very important to this garden.

0:20:290:20:32

She started collecting geraniums way back in the 1940s.

0:20:320:20:35

As a novice gardener, she would have been thrilled

0:20:350:20:37

how they could split up and distributed around the garden,

0:20:370:20:41

-filling nooks and crannies.

-Isn't that 'Mrs Kendall Clark?'

-It is.

0:20:410:20:46

It's a seedling. These have just seeded.

0:20:460:20:48

I haven't planted these. They've just arrived there.

0:20:480:20:50

I often think this is the presence of Mrs Fish in the garden.

0:20:500:20:53

You don't see her, but she's here,

0:20:530:20:55

filling in parts that she would like to see filled.

0:20:550:20:58

And Mrs Fish collected geraniums all her life,

0:20:580:21:00

she wrote about them enthusiastically in her books,

0:21:000:21:03

and it's through her writings that she's inspired so many people

0:21:030:21:07

in their love of geraniums.

0:21:070:21:09

-Including me.

-Including you, yes, absolutely.

0:21:090:21:11

The beauty of geraniums

0:21:130:21:14

is the foliage blends in with any herbaceous border

0:21:140:21:17

and the flowers seem to combine well with any colour scheme.

0:21:170:21:21

I think if you've got a new border, plant a few geraniums in,

0:21:210:21:24

and very shortly you've got that air of permanence.

0:21:240:21:27

Geraniums come from all over the Northern Hemisphere,

0:21:280:21:33

from the Far East, right through Asia and Europe and across to America.

0:21:330:21:38

And they've evolved with different sorts of habitats

0:21:380:21:42

so you find geraniums that do brilliantly well in shade

0:21:420:21:46

and some that are completely at home out in baking sun.

0:21:460:21:50

Now, down here in the ditch garden, one geranium is really predominant.

0:21:500:21:55

It's in complete control.

0:21:550:21:57

This is Geranium oxonianum.

0:21:570:22:00

It'll grow in dense shade or out in full sun.

0:22:000:22:04

But when it gets above its station,

0:22:040:22:06

you can take the secateurs or the shears to it

0:22:060:22:09

and just chop it down to the ground.

0:22:090:22:12

Within a few weeks, the foliage will be back

0:22:120:22:15

and after that, it will flower again with gay abandon.

0:22:150:22:19

I've never met this lovely geranium before today.

0:22:310:22:35

This is one called 'Tiny Monster'.

0:22:350:22:38

It's one of a brand-new range of hybrids

0:22:380:22:41

that have been developed during the last 15 or 20 years.

0:22:410:22:45

And it's a geranium that adores a sunny position.

0:22:450:22:48

Its parents are Geranium sanguineum, the 'Bloody Cranesbill'

0:22:480:22:53

and Geranium psilostemon.

0:22:530:22:55

It's got this really endearing habit of lolloping forwards

0:22:550:22:59

and making these great bit clouds of foliage

0:22:590:23:02

smothered in big magenta flowers.

0:23:020:23:05

When Margery Fish started using geraniums,

0:23:150:23:18

her repertoire would have been very limited.

0:23:180:23:20

But she would have loved some of the wonderful new cultivars and selections

0:23:200:23:26

that are available today.

0:23:260:23:28

This dark-leafed form of pratense wouldn't have been around then.

0:23:280:23:32

But she would have honed in on it

0:23:320:23:34

and probably used it in just the same sort of way.

0:23:340:23:37

Doesn't it look lovely

0:23:370:23:39

contrasting with these straight spikes of the Sisyrinchium

0:23:390:23:43

and these bright ones here?

0:23:430:23:47

I think the reason we gardeners love geraniums so much

0:23:490:23:53

is they're so amenable and they just associate themselves

0:23:530:23:57

so beautifully with other plants.

0:23:570:23:59

I think, really, it's difficult to go wrong with geraniums.

0:23:590:24:03

This is the conclusion of a trial that I began in spring.

0:24:160:24:20

Last year's new potatoes were very disappointing. They grew sort of OK,

0:24:200:24:24

but the taste was non-existent and they broke up when they were cooked.

0:24:240:24:27

And that was a result of too much cold, too little water,

0:24:270:24:31

and irregular water.

0:24:310:24:32

This year, the growing conditions have been different.

0:24:320:24:35

But I really wanted to see which was the best new potato,

0:24:350:24:38

both for crop, health, and also, most importantly, for taste.

0:24:380:24:43

So I'm digging a selection from each of the six varieties I've grown.

0:24:430:24:47

I'm going to taste them later on.

0:24:470:24:49

Now, while I'm doing this,

0:24:490:24:50

here are some other jobs you can do this weekend.

0:24:500:24:54

It's been a tough year for tomatoes.

0:24:560:24:58

But there's every chance of green tomatoes ripening

0:24:580:25:01

as soon as we get some sun.

0:25:010:25:03

But to help this, remove the lower leaves from each plant,

0:25:030:25:06

up to the second truss of tomatoes.

0:25:060:25:09

This means the lowest truss will get maximum sun and air

0:25:090:25:14

which will speed up ripening

0:25:140:25:16

and also reduce the risk of fungal diseases.

0:25:160:25:20

Because of the rain that we've had,

0:25:200:25:22

there's a huge amount of lush growth

0:25:220:25:25

and this means that most plants need supporting.

0:25:250:25:28

Check any supports you have and reinforce them where necessary.

0:25:280:25:31

And if they're a really tall plant, like this Onopordum,

0:25:310:25:34

give it a strong stake,

0:25:340:25:35

because they're not going to get any smaller,

0:25:350:25:38

and we're almost certain to have some high winds.

0:25:380:25:42

Beaded irises can become rather congested

0:25:420:25:45

and it's a good idea to lift the rhizomes

0:25:450:25:48

and divide them every three or four years.

0:25:480:25:50

When you lift them, be careful not to damage the roots.

0:25:500:25:53

Break the rhizomes or cut them into separate pieces

0:25:530:25:56

and replant spaced out.

0:25:560:25:59

Leave the rhizome on the surface so it can bake,

0:25:590:26:02

and next year, they will flower with renewed vigour.

0:26:020:26:05

Come on, you, you can have your tasting in a minute. You jump up there.

0:26:120:26:16

I dug two plants' worth of potatoes

0:26:160:26:18

from each of the six varieties of new potatoes.

0:26:180:26:21

You can see straight away huge difference in quantity and shape.

0:26:210:26:26

On Sharpe's Express, a pretty good harvest from that.

0:26:260:26:30

Pretty regular size. A bit of scab, but they've all got that this year.

0:26:300:26:33

On International Kidney, a pathetic return from two plants.

0:26:330:26:37

And yet look at Duke of York. That's a real bumper crop. So that's good.

0:26:370:26:43

Winston - they're enormous! That's a new potato, and, yet...

0:26:430:26:46

I know, look at that, that's like a ball.

0:26:460:26:48

A new potato as big as any baker.

0:26:480:26:51

We've got Foremost, very scabby, and then Swift, another tiny crop.

0:26:510:26:56

I've cooked them exactly the same way -

0:26:560:26:58

just boiled simply in water - and tried to cut them the same size.

0:26:580:27:01

And you can see Sharpes Express has broken up completely.

0:27:010:27:04

International Kidney held its shape well.

0:27:040:27:07

Duke of York - another one that's almost blown apart.

0:27:070:27:10

Winston is looking very good.

0:27:100:27:12

Foremost, the skin's come off,

0:27:120:27:15

and Swift, the skin's come off a little bit.

0:27:150:27:17

So, again, big differences.

0:27:170:27:19

The critical thing is the taste test.

0:27:190:27:21

So I'm going to do this for you.

0:27:210:27:23

Flowery.

0:27:270:27:29

Not great.

0:27:320:27:34

There's big variation in the mouth,

0:27:360:27:38

as there does seem to be in the soil, ranging from very dry,

0:27:380:27:42

almost powdery, to the quite buttery, almost watery, texture.

0:27:420:27:48

Swift is the most conventional texture of a new potato.

0:27:480:27:51

I quite like the way that Winston has a soft melting texture,

0:27:510:27:58

but none of them are outstanding on taste,

0:27:580:28:00

which I think I'll put down to the amount of rain we've had.

0:28:000:28:03

But they'll all get eaten and they'll all get enjoyed.

0:28:030:28:05

And I would like to hear from you.

0:28:050:28:07

If you've tried new potatoes, a number of varieties,

0:28:070:28:10

let us know how you got on,

0:28:100:28:12

both in the ground and also when you ate them.

0:28:120:28:15

I'll be back next week. I'll see you then. Bye-bye.

0:28:150:28:18

Do you want a potato? No? Try one of these.

0:28:180:28:22

Wait.

0:28:220:28:23

Is that good?

0:28:360:28:37

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