Episode 26 Gardeners' World

Gardeners' World is now running for a full hour.

So we have time to give you even more of what you love.

Hello. Welcome to Gardeners' World.

when you get warm days and cool nights

and we've had torrential rain here at Longmeadow

you get the most wonderful misty mornings.

And the garden slowly reveals itself out of that mist.

And then, as the light lifts and sifts through the haze,

you realise that amongst all the hedges,

are thousands and thousands of cobwebs,

as though mist has been trapped and spun and decorated.

And then autumn progresses and that dies away.

are an absolute measure of the season.

This week, Carol continues to look at plant families.

It's beautiful, and I'm pretty sure that it belongs to

a family called apiaceae, otherwise known...

Adam has been hard at work in his veg garden.

And Nick Macer is on the west coast of Ireland,

visiting an extraordinary forest of ferns.

I'm at Kells Bay, Kerry, where the local climate and

conditions come together to create a very special garden.

And I shall be adding umbellifers to the garden,

as well as planting bulbs for colour next spring.

We've got lots of grass here at Longmeadow.

I like grass as a green filler between spaces,

and sometimes it's lovely to walk on and sometimes it's

but whether you are a fanatical greenkeeper or whether,

like me, you're fairly carefree about it,

every now and then you do have to repair grass,

and now is the perfect moment to do that.

I'm just talking about repairing the bare patches

The thing to do is to take a bare area like this and

then just start by cleaning out any weeds.

What is it, Nige? Oh, it's gone back in.

The first thing to do is just remove any obvious weeds.

I've got a little dandelion there, that can come out.

or I do actually...and this is toys for boys...

This is a Japanese weeding knife, and it's made of

very soft metal, so you could never get a sharp edge onto it,

but it's brilliant for this type of thing,

so you just cut in there like that, and take it out.

What do you want? Go on, off you go. Move.

The next stage is to either fork it over, if it's very,

very compacted and heavy, or if it's reasonably light soil

you can just use a scratch rake and just rake like that.

that's going to quite do the job.

I'm going to just ramp it up a bit.

Yeah. You see, that's making more of an impression.

It's very dry underneath the tree.

I've mixed up a bucket which is half sharp sand,

So if we just sprinkle some of that on,

the compost is going to give a little bit of goodness and

the sand is going to help the drainage.

And then rake it so it's a little level.

That is now ready to sprinkle grass seed onto.

And at this time of year, when the air is warm,

the ground is warm and the nights aren't too cold,

So by about next April you'll be mowing this and you won't

So we'll sprinkle a little bit of seed onto that.

When you buy a packet of grass seed,

always give it a good shake before using it, because all

grass seed will be a mixture of different types of grasses.

So by shaking them it means that when you sow them

And then, whatever type of grass you're sowing

and wherever you're sowing it, sow it thinly.

You can buy grass-seed mixes now for fine lawns,

for hard-wearing football pitches, for shade.

So just take stock and choose the right seed,

but in general you won't go wrong if it's mainly rye-grass.

And then... lightly rake it over.

What I do then is just firm it in to get contact.

So the seed has got good contact with the soil, but if

it doesn't rain by the end of the day, certainly water it in,

because you don't want to push the seeds out.

And that's a very simple job, but it is a good one to do

and particularly a good one to do now.

Now, most of us grow shrubs of some kind in our gardens and

I bet most of us have one or two that have become

a bit unruly, we don't quite know how to prune them,

And Nick Bailey has been to a garden filled with shrubs

Today I've come to Windsor to look at a garden beset with

a challenge that many gardeners face.

This is the case of the overgrown shrubs

Gardens often start out with the best-laid plans.

You buy plants, get them into the garden,

get them established, and then life takes over.

And those little plants we've put in turn into monsters.

This climbing hydrangea, Hydrangea anomala petiolaris,

so it needs a serious pruning job.

And this kerria has virtually been treated like a hedge,

it's been clipped on the front but hasn't had the kind of

thinning it needs so it's not flowering very well.

Then, over on the other side of the garden here,

there's a group of phormiums which are looking a bit sad,

so I need to move them through the whole border.

And then some of these tired old shrubs that aren't

performing very well can come out and we can add some

There's lots to do so I'd better crack on.

Climbing hydrangeas are normally pruned in spring,

where you take the old flower buds off and then it allows

these new shoots to produce during the year,

which will give next year's flowers.

However, this one is totally out of control.

You can see it's come nearly a metre away from the fence,

and so we need to do a really radical prune.

This hydrangea won't necessarily rejuvenate

Now, if you're not sure, one of the easiest ways

is to make a little scrape on the surface of the stem

to see if there's any green underneath.

Or you can just make little cuts until you hit live growth,

so the three Ds - dead, diseased and damaged wood -

So each cut I'm making I'm ensuring is about

a centimetre ahead of a fresh bud or a fresh leaf.

next year we'll have a whole wall of foliage

and then the following year a wall of flower.

What I've decided to do over here is to leave this part of

the plant unpruned to let Hydrangea petiolaris

do what it does best, which is disguise things.

With a young kerria I would do a prune in spring,

after flowering, but this one is old and overgrown and

needs some serious work, so I'm going to do it now.

Lots of the tips of this kerria have been chopped off,

almost turning it into a hedge, and that's really not

the ideal way to grow it if you want lots of flower.

So I'm just tracing these back to the base and removing them.

And then once the framework is clear,

a third of the older stems, also right down to the base.

the best way to deal with a shrub like this kerria,

is to give it a thin every spring after it's flowered.

With the last bits of dead removed,

that's the rejuvenation complete.

but this one is on the rampage and needs a bit of

a gentle prune to bring it back under control.

In front of it is a hypericum and a hebe,

both of which are slightly past their sell-by date,

so I'm going to take them out and replace them.

Now I've cleared a bed, it's time to tackle the phormiums.

There's two different forms growing here.

with very straight sword-like leaves,

and back here is Phormium cookianum,

with these slightly softer, more lax leaves.

Just taking out some of the dead leaves from the base here.

You won't be able to pull them out, they're so, so tough,

So I'm holding the leaves back so I can get to the base.

It's a little bit like sheep shearing.

Luckily, this Phormium cookianum is in a pot,

so I'm going to move it further down the bed.

This position is so much sunnier that it will produce

a wonderful dome of foliage now and it will flower as well.

Where it was previously, tucked behind the other phormiums,

Don't be afraid to use your boot

if you're planting larger, stocky shrubs like this.

It will just make sure that the soil firms in

and the plant can start to absorb moisture

Don't be tempted to wait till the end

and squash it all down the sides.

I'm going to add some extra plants into the bed

to contrast and compliment with its form and foliage.

I've gone for Gaura Pink Panache.

It's brilliant for late colour -

Behind, we've got Melianthus major,

Coming a bit further forward, the Russian sage or Perovskia,

a Sedum and Anemone Honorine Joubert.

So, having moved the phormium up to here,

we've now got a lovely repetition or continuity

through the border and then with the mix of plants

that I've introduced, there'll be great colour,

form and contrast for many years to come.

Carol has been visiting RHS Rosemoor in Devon

within different plant families.

It's beautiful and I'm pretty sure that it belongs

to a family called Apiaceae, otherwise known...

Apiaceae are mainly annuals, biannuals or perennials.

Some are surprising, like the eryngium or sea holly,

where the tiny flowers are arranged in a cone,

often protected by spiky bracts.

The family that we now call Apiaceae

That's because of the shape of its flower heads.

"Umber" is the Latin for "shadow"

and each of these forms is sort of umbrella, if you like,

this plateau and each one is composed of lots and lots

of tiny flowers, which are gathered together in florets,

and all those stems emanate from one place on the stalk,

making this flower head really delightful

as there always are with plant families, to this rule,

but when it comes to their seeds,

they've all got the same sort of structure,

whether it's parsnips, astrantia,

each seed is in two parts and each seed

as you can see when I break this parsnip seed apart.

So, whether we eat the seed itself or the vegetables

this family contains lots of really important foods,

but beware - there are a few really nasty poisons

which also are members of the family.

Hemlock is one of them and we all know how poisonous that is.

The Astrantia is also a member of this intriguing family.

Its flower heads are comprised of a pin cushion

of scores of minuscule flowers and circled by papery bracts.

Ranging from deepest, darkest crimson through soft pinks

to whites, they're perfect for all but the driest garden.

Plant them in moist, fertile soil, in sun or partial shade

and keep deadheading to prolong flowering.

Of all the members of the Apiaceae family,

surely Selinum must be the godfather.

From the word go in the spring, it's magnificent.

Great, green doilies of finely cut foliage and, from them,

thrusting up these huge, purply stems.

these great umbels of beautiful creamy white flowers.

in this family are propagated from their seeds.

and if you've collected the seed yourself,

So I've got this lovely dry coriander seed now

and it's just about coming off those stems.

And it's at that stage, it's just perfect for sowing.

It's unusual, coriander seed, because it's big and round.

Most umbel seed is quite flat and skinny and what you can do

with big seed like this is to station sow it.

That simply means that you actually place the seed

where you want it to grow. It's a bit of a fiddle,

and you just work out this little matrix of the seeds,

right across the surface of your tray.

That means you won't get any damping off.

Those seedlings won't be close to one another.

They'll actually have their own sort of independence,

their own little space to grow on.

these sort of twin leaves that all seedlings produce,

but then you'll see the proper sort of ferny leaf of coriander

and it's at that stage you can actually separate these

and put them into separate little pots.

but the growing conditions are a bit different,

according to what you want to get out of it.

If you want it for seed, grow it in a hot, dry, sunny place,

starve it a bit so it flowers and produces seed.

then grow it in really lush conditions.

And then, rather than watering from above,

you just put this into a tray of water, just an inch or so.

but also lots of ornamentals, too.

Of all the culinary plants, many of them are herbs

and this is my very favourite herb of all. It's dill.

I love these fine, feathery leaves.

They just make these lovely soft sort of shapes

and the flower heads are just so beautiful -

absolutely symmetrical and covered

with these tiny bright yellow flowers.

But whether you grow them because they're decorative

or downright delicious, it's for sure

I have to say that I do like an umbellifer, too.

Fennel is always a star in the garden at this time of year

They attract butterflies and bees.

One of the things I like about fennel is if you get the seed

and chew them, you get that lovely aniseedy flavour

and it's a great stomach settler.

and will stay looking beautiful right into the new year.

These become skeletons - bony memories of what they were

but it comes and goes. It's called Angelica gigas.

This is one of my favourite umbellifers of all

it's this fantastic, rich plum colour that it has.

The other reason that it's so good in the garden is that,

almost no other plant is so addictive for bees

so fantastic for improving the wildlife in the garden

But it has one little quirky habit.

usually, once it's flowered and set seed, it dies.

Its sole purpose in life is to create seed,

this might take as long as three years to do it,

but once it happens, there's no road back.

So if I wanted to have this colour next year,

than this which does and this is more or less guaranteed

It's always a joy to plant into the Jewel Garden

because the soil is like fruitcake.

It's rich and crumbly and yet holds moisture.

Now, if you're a gardener and you love soil,

that's a very, very beautiful thing.

you'll be thinking I'm as daft as a brush, but there you go.

If I pop this in, that will go there.

Another problem with planting a mature angelica

is that they have a taproot and like all plants with a taproot,

once that grows, they do NOT like disturbance

so the taproot is not being disturbed,

A rather better root system than there was

is going to be overshadowed by these bananas in full glory

and they are unbelievably exotic and dramatic,

but Nick Macer has been to see exotic plants

and what he found really, truly is breathtaking.

where the local climate and conditions come together

to create a very special garden.

A few weeks ago, I promised you a rainforest.

Well, that's what I've come here to see.

Kells Bay Garden is on the extreme southwestern

tip of Ireland, and covers 18 hectares.

It's very naturalistic in style,

thanks to a late Victorian craze for wild-looking gardens.

They mixed native and exotic plants together informally

The garden lies in a coastal valley

which follows the course of a beautiful river

Even the river looks like it's flowing with Guinness!

The water stained brown by peat,

which lies on the rain-drenched mountains that lie inland.

With up to two metres of rain falling every year,

the climate here just about qualifies

And parts of the garden really do look like a jungle.

plants here don't just grow on the ground.

jostle for position as epiphytes.

Epiphytes are adapted for an aerial lifestyle.

They perch on the branches of trees and shrubs,

They absorb moisture from humid air

and often send their roots into damp moss instead of soil.

Mosses and ferns blanket the trees and rocks here,

creating a living emerald carpet,

just as they do in the forests of Costa Rica or New Zealand.

For me, of all the plants that hail from rainforests,

the most evocative and spectacular are tree ferns.

And here at Kells Bay, they thrive in a way

almost unequalled in the British Isles.

But through the gates to this walled garden lies something

I think most of you have never seen before.

is a tree fern that is growing out of the wall.

This has come here from a spore, a minuscule spore.

It has germinated within the wall,

that this trunk is not made of wood.

This is something you just do not see

in garden centre-bought tree fern trunks.

This is thriving, absolutely thriving,

in this perfect atmosphere for the growth of such beauties.

Here is something quite extraordinary.

Over 600 tree ferns, all over a century old.

This is a sight you would only really see

south-east Australia and Tasmania.

In the British Isles, remarkable.

These are all the species Dicksonia antarctica,

the tree fern you are most likely to see

It's hardy down to around -10 Celsius for short periods,

and needs sheltered, humid and dappled shade

Billy Alexander is the garden's owner. Lucky man!

So, what got you so interested in tree ferns?

Well, I bought a small tree fern at a plant fair in Dublin

around the mid-'90s, and it just captured my imagination

as a plant, and a few years later,

this property came on the market in the early 2000s,

and I'm now the proud custodian of probably the biggest

tree fern forest in the northern hemisphere.

Of all the gardens I've been to,

I have never seen tree ferns planted to this sort of extent.

Well, my understanding is, this tree fern here is

about 120 years old, planted in the 1890s.

And we believe that this is the mother plant

of the tree fern forest outside there,

of hundreds and hundreds of mature tree ferns,

So you're telling me that the entire garden and estate

has been populated by this one tree fern?

Who would have thought one tree fern could spawn 1,000

I love that cathedral stained glass impression

And there's one thing for certain I'm going to get -

a tree fern or two here for long weather. They are lovely.

Jane Moore visits a small garden

by the sea that is full of character.

I have a picture of what I want to create,

and what I want to do, and it's got to be there tomorrow.

We've got carrots with character too.

as he continues his odyssey of creating

a garden around his beautiful house in Lincolnshire.

Here we are at the end of July, and do you know what,

this garden just gets better and better.

It's the light levels in the morning

and the light levels in the evening.

And it makes the greens just sort of shine.

I get here and I more or less have to stop for five minutes

to actually enjoy, I suppose, just peace.

This orchard is absolutely full of atmosphere.

There's over 40 known local varieties down here

in South Lincolnshire, and I'm really, really hoping

that I've got one of them in behind me.

What I'm going to do now, though, actually is,

have a really good feast off them.

and then we'll give them a really good prune in winter.

You lot have probably already worked out by now

that I'm completely and utterly in love with this wisteria.

And it's pruning time. And guess what?

It looks stunning, so I haven't got the heart to prune it.

I'm going to have to leave it another couple of weeks.

But you look at it now, it looks completely different

with the flowers and the foliage,

but also, there's a beautiful bronze tinge to the tips.

The sets are all in, really pleased

how this terrace has come together.

All I've got left to do now is brush the kiln-dried sand in,

and I don't want to actually add mortar and cement them,

because I'm happy actually for plants to seed themselves

into the gaps. Also, you'll see that I've left the gaps

and we'll plant that up as well.

But you can really start to understand

that this sits in a much wider area.

If you remember rightly, I was having a good old rant

about front gardens and what they meant to me,

and actually about this sheer gravel that washed right up

to this beautiful old house and was doing it no justice at all.

But now, you can start to see the borders have gone in,

and I can really feel that there's going to be

Talking about plants, look at the Taxus.

That's had so much sort of foliar feed

but it's responded really, really well.

I'm using a soft broom to gently brush the sand

into the gaps in all different directions across the paving.

It's worth topping up here and there,

to ensure you fill all the gaps.

The soil I'm going to use to fill the planting pockets

It's a perfect soil mix for the plants

that I hope are naturally going to seed themselves

In the veg garden, I've been cracking on

with the hard landscaping. I've dug out for levels,

and a low retaining wall is now in place.

I'm now at the stage to build the different beds

and borders in which I'm going to grow all sorts of goodies.

Raised beds really are a fantastic way to grow

vegetables in any garden, but especially in a small garden.

It doesn't matter about your soil,

because you're raising everything up.

You can constantly improve the soil.

You can get more crop into the space,

so for me, they're absolutely brilliant.

So what I've used here is what they've described online

as half-sleepers, so good, sturdy piece of timber,

but the most important fact for me

so that means actually they're good for outside.

They're going to see that test of time

and they're not going to rot away quickly.

Sizes I've used - really, about 200 deep, which is six inches,

but you can use whatever you want.

For me, what this does, it's not as wide as a main sleeper,

so it gives me a little bit more planting space inside.

And in here in the corner, I've used these posts.

You might be wondering why they're sticking up in the air.

They're working three- or fourfold, really.

One is, they're fixed into the ground,

so they give you sort of sturdiness in the corners,

and what I've done is, actually,

I've drilled each corner to hold everything together.

But I've drilled through them as well,

and you'll see what I can do is put a rope through each post.

It means I can put a net or a fleece over the top,

and one thing that really annoys me in the garden

is when you're dragging the hosepipe around,

and all of a sudden, it's gone up the edge,

So actually, this will stop that happening.

And last but not least, you know when you're

getting on a bit, and actually, you've been weeding all day,

and you might just need a hand to get up.

So what I've done here is, I've concreted then in,

so that's a ballast and cement mix, about 8 to 1.

That'll hold them in nice and firm.

a wonderful sort of deep grey colour,

which will be a fantastic contrast

So, the veg garden's not the only place

I'm going to be growing edibles.

I've got this idea for this wonderful big old border here

meets a taste of the unexpected.

My plan is to plant a border that connects the veg garden

with the breakfast terrace and continues that edible theme.

I want to play with that whole idea of food that you can

forage from the wild, but not just from this country.

I want to use plants from across the world

and take advantage of the warm microclimate on this

By using food here, not only will it have that lovely

relationship with the veg garden,

but I can use that idea and then wrap it

all the way up and round the breakfast terrace and along

But I'm not going to rip this lavender out at the moment,

I'm just going to let the bees enjoy that wonderful nectar.

Jane Moore has been across Britain looking at inspiring

planting and design in small gardens.

This week, she's near Seaford in East Sussex.

With the sea only a stone's throw away,

it's easy to see where this gardener got his inspiration.

But I bet there have been a few battles with the elements

'creating this garden for 12 years.'

My goodness, what a little wonderland you've got here!

That's the reaction when people walk round that corner.

Either their jaw drops or they say, "Wow!"

So you get the gold star. A combination of both, actually!

Even though it's a lovely, balmy day we're seeing today,

I can't imagine it's always like this, Geoff.

We had 64mph winds over the weekend.

Right, which most gardens would not handle at all well. No, no.

Well, this didn't, but, yeah, we've worked some magic on it.

Absolutely! You certainly have! Well, it looks a picture.

Many people that live on the coast come and visit the garden

and are interested to know what's growing here,

and my answer to them nearly always is,

"You can grow anything by the sea if you look after it and

"create a sort of small microclimate for it.

And you've got some very interesting plants.

I'm guessing there's water, because I can see a gunnera.

Well, the gunnera's actually in a pot. And people always say,

"Gunneras are huge things. You walk under them.

"How can you grow them in a pot?"

But I desperately wanted one in this very small garden,

and I went to Hampton Court a few years ago and the guy

selling them said, "There'll grow according to the

"so put it in a pot and it will grow accordingly."

I'm really keen to start exploring the garden.

Can we go and have a look? We can indeed, yes.

It might be small, but there's a lot in it.

One of my favourite areas along there. Quite stunning.

It seems like your garden's always got two sides.

You've got the riot of colour down there and then up here

The logic behind that is because in essence there's

a degree of shelter from the winds

from the sea in that corner behind the house,

whereas, because the garden slopes upward,

this area here is a little bit more exposed.

I planted 800 annuals in this garden this year,

and I've probably only got about 500 of them left,

because, again, it is survival of the fittest.

But to get the effect, you need to densely plant and help them.

I love how you've used the sculptures to kind of tie up

I found that when we first came here, because the garden was

so exposed, I had great difficulty getting height.

as you looked out from the kitchen.

So the sculpture is there to get the height in the garden.

I mean, behind you we've got this umbrella.

People look at that and wonder what it is,

but it's actually a genuine Victorian topiary frame.

Now, fortunately, the two really complement each other.

I love all these little corners that you've developed.

This is particularly nice, with aeoniums and the echeverias.

Yeah, I mean, it's one part of the garden that I think you

because it's perfect for a small courtyard garden,

for a patio or even a balcony, to be honest.

And they're always great in a small pot, aren't they?

Yeah, I mean, there's lots of small pots here with

different things in, particularly in that tray.

But another nice addition is this chair,

which cost me ?1 from the local tip.

Took the seat out, put some pond liner in it with a hole in

the bottom and every year I put something different in it.

This year, we put this display of echeverias in here and this

beautiful Sagina Lime Moss in the centre.

And it's amazing how many people remark on it.

It makes a really jolly little feature, doesn't it? It does.

Of course, the great thing about using succulents is you

don't need to worry about the watering, either! That's true.

Oh, I love this little framed area.

But they all look like annual bedding plants.

If you saw this area in May, you'd get a real surprise,

because it's this beautiful set of steps that you can no

longer see because I've just covered each side of it with

There are about ten large pots that line these steps,

I have a picture of what I want to create and what I

want to do, and it's got to be there tomorrow.

So that's why I use these pots and the annuals, because, OK,

it takes time for them to grow but I can see what I want and

it turns out pretty spectacularly.

It's pretty spectacular, as you say.

Usually, a small garden is more about what you leave out,

but Geoff hasn't worried about that.

Instead, he's packed everything he likes in and tied it all

together with sculpture and art.

Come on. Oh, come on, bring it here. Good girl.

Good girl. Good girl, bring it to me.

I love the way that behind the seemingly ordinary front

doors of so many houses in this country are gardens that are

And what's great about Geoff's garden is that you can see it.

It's part of the National Gardens Scheme.

you can get details of when he opens it up.

I've been planting bulbs into pots over the last month,

but bulbs in grass or open ground is a much looser affair.

I have a crocus here, Crocus tommasinianus.

It comes from the area round Bulgaria and Romania,

and it will grow perfectly well in deciduous woodland.

Now, bearing in mind this is deciduous woodland,

and that means that the leaves all fall and there is nothing

to stop the light coming through in early spring other

than the branches themselves, and they flower

as soon as there's a little bit of winter sunshine.

It has a kind of very simple sort of shout of joy,

it just opens like that in this silvery lilac colour, and

the great thing is that they seed very freely.

I'm going to plant this batch here in the copse around the

This is a dog I had called Beaufort,

who was buried here in '99, and this is Poppy's grave,

and I think she was about 2003, 2004.

And to have them flowering in spring will be a good thing.

Now, it doesn't work if you plant bulbs in rough grass or

trying to select the right spot.

And the easiest and best way to do it is simply throw them

on the ground and plant them where they land.

And if that means planting them in odd batches and lumps and

groups, it doesn't matter, because they will look natural.

So, like that. And then another batch there.

And because the corms are so small,

it's not worth having a bulb planter of any type.

Just a sharp trowel does the job fine.

If you can plant them a few inches deep,

so much the better. And you see this?

I'm not worrying about putting them the right way up or

anything like that, I'm just sticking 'em in.

Of course, what you think is if I planted this...

..we'd have a tennis-ball plant. Good boy.

When you're planting any bulb into rough grass,

and that is not to cut the grass until the foliage of

the bulb, whatever it might be, has fully died back.

And the reason for that is that if you cut off the foliage

too soon, the bulb won't be fed properly, so next year's

flowers won't be so good or even not show at all.

But the good thing about crocus generally

and Crocus tommasinianus in particular

is very often these have completely disappeared

by mid-May and you can cut the grass back if you want to

and keep it mown and treat it as lawn.

The whole point of this kind of planting is it takes you to

that space where the tightly controlled world of

horticulture meets the looseness of the natural world.

And somewhere between the two of them

you get really beautiful, interesting things.

However, sometimes the tightly controlled world of

horticulture is something to be celebrated.

And in Newark in Nottinghamshire,

delightfully bonkers vegetables.

I've been growing giant vegetables as

a hobby for 25 years, at least.

I currently hold the record for the heaviest carrot,

and that was in 2014, and it weighed exactly 20 pounds.

And that broke the previous record,

which had stood for well over 20 years.

And so far I've held it, more importantly!

I always say growing giant vegetables is a fun hobby,

but it's serious to me to actually grow the stuff.

I try to research the best methods, keep records,

ask other growers, go to seminars on growing,

I'm quite pleased with this. It's, erm...

a very dense beetroot. They weigh heavy.

'Over the years, I've been fortunate enough to hold quite

'I think the first world record I had was for a cucumber,

'something like 15 world records.

'I've done reasonably well over the years

'I think, going back a long time,

'I think I did have the record for the heaviest parsnip,

'but that's been well beaten since then.

'I don't seem to be any good at it any more.'

Not a good one, no. No.

National Giant Vegetable Competition round the country,

so we've travelled a lot up and down the country,

showing vegetables! Lots of people who grow marrows, er,

so they can have a bit of luck and have a big marrow.

Not everybody wants to be perhaps dedicated enough

I'll be talking to someone and they'll say,

"Well, I've just come back from a couple of weeks in Spain,"

"so I don't think you're going to win much."

I wouldn't like to be away for a couple of weeks in summer.

If you're not there, well, everything's lost, isn't it?

Carrots, I've never done really well until the last few years

and since then I've come to the fore with them.

I don't know whether it's just having the right seed

or changing my growing methods, but it's working, anyway.

So I've got, basically, a normal deep plant pot.

I'm going to turn it upside down

so the carrot will actually grow up through there.

You can really grow a big carrot from seed

that you can buy from a dedicated seed merchant

and if you can get a good strain of long carrot,

really anybody could grow a big carrot.

over the years with my weights by starting early

in the greenhouse, so I'm sowing things like carrots

with heat and once they've germinated,

perhaps into February, put an artificial light on them.

So that'll continue until obviously the weather,

and I can plant out in the open ground in April.

When I'm preparing the planting station in my half-barrels,

I mix my own, you know, free-draining compost for that,

but I incorporate a high-phosphate

and a high-potash fertiliser in that at that time.

for Harrogate Autumn Flower Show,

which we have to stage overnight into Friday morning.

It's a three-day show over the weekend.

The main thing with carrots and parsnips is to look at what

sort of a crown there is. It's a good start.

Fingers crossed that it all comes out all right

If not, I might just have to dig another one.

Quite healthy foliage, isn't it?

This is the most exciting bit, really.

You're either really pleased with the result,

what you've grown, or you're disappointed.

But, I mean, either way, it's exciting. Yes, yes.

We'll take that away and then we can see what we've got.

I mean, the whole aim of lifting the carrot for the show

is to enter it in the class for the heaviest carrot,

so it's important to get every little bit of taproot

and every part of the carrot we can out of the ground.

It might just be that difference between winning

and losing or coming second or not getting a prize at all.

Now we're getting down to this bit and it's gone very thin,

They haven't got those big strong heavy roots

We might sort of get it if we can.

Yeah. THEY GROAN

It's a good lump of carrot, isn't it?

It's all weight. There aren't any faults with it.

I don't think this is going to break me own record.

but until I get it finely trimmed, you never know really.

I'm quite happy with it. It's a good one. It's a real solid...

It's all solid all the way round, in't it?

At the Harrogate Autumn Flower Show, Peter swept the board

with his giant veg, including his monster carrot.

I don't think Peter is going to be troubled by my carrots.

if not a disaster, it's a disgrace.

There was very, very poor germination and those that

never quite took off and, to be honest,

because we had a very good carrot crop last year.

Now, most of these are a fairly regular carrot shape,

without any embarrassing or otherwise hilarious oddities.

But we can all enjoy a funny carrot,

so if you've got any vegetables -

they don't have to be just carrots - that you think are

side-splitting because of their oddities or rudeness,

then you can e-mail us a picture or send them

to our Facebook page and if we think they're fit

for human consumption, we'll show them on the programme,

although it might have to be after the watershed

The turnips and the kohlrabi are doing very well.

And you just take off the foliage, like that,

and if you grate that, you can eat it raw.

And then the turnips have grown really fast.

and turnips are a treat with a bit of brown sugar,

so the turnips are coated in this kind of caramel

and you have a sweetness from that with a slight bitterness

from the turnip and it's a very good taste indeed.

And this is a whopper. This is too big, I think.

I like my turnips smaller than that. Yeah, that's a good size.

That's about the right size for a turnip for me.

We've got the chicory here, which is absolutely

a winter plant, and I'll be taking off the lower leaves.

I like that at this time of year.

There's a sense of two seasons coming together,

one which you're leaving in a great sort of bounteous harvest

and the other which you're entering and trying to manage

so that in the months to come you'll have lots to pick.

And you don't have to worry about months to come -

just think about this weekend, because here are some jobs.

If you buy prepared hyacinth bulbs, they can be planted

so that they flower indoors by Christmas.

Use a gritty compost and leave a half to a third

Water them and then put them somewhere dark.

and don't let them dry out completely.

Yew hedges can be cut later in the year than most other kinds,

A good cut now will keep it looking crisp and trim

right through winter on into late spring.

If you've got a young yew hedge like this one,

just cut the sides and any extra-long shoots on the top.

Inevitably, windfalls drop from apple trees

I like to put a container under each tree

and they can be used for juicing or cooking

or eating raw if there's any ripeness to them,

but to get the best from an apple,

you need to pick it ripe and handle it with care.

Twist each fruit carefully and it comes away in your hand.

Store it somewhere cool and dark,

taking real care not to damage the fruit.

Now, it's turned out to be a lovely day here at Longmeadow,

but at this time of year we can,

extreme heat, extreme rain, extreme wind, just about

everything, so let's see what's on offer for us this weekend.

whoever that may be. means some getting off to a soggy

The combination of the fake wasps' nest and the screens

across the door seem to have kept the wasps at bay

and it's looking good. It's looking a good harvest.

I have tasted a few and this is Black Hamburg and we want

the colour to be really quite rich,

There we are. Isn't it wonderful?

Well, I reckon that's a pretty good harvest and we should get

at least a basket of ripe grapes every week

for the next month, six weeks or so.

And we need something to look forward to, because yesterday

so now the days are losing the race with light.

so let's treasure every moment of daylight that we have.

No more daylight to share with you today, I'm afraid.

But I'll be back here at Longmeadow

and we will all be back next week at the same time

with another full hour, so until then, bye-bye.