Letter B The A to Z of TV Gardening

Hello and welcome to the A-Z Of TV Gardening,

where we sift through all your favourite gardening programmes

and dig up a bumper crop of tips and advice

from the best experts in the business.

Flowers, trees, fruit and veg - letter by letter,

they're all coming up a treat on the A-Z Of TV Gardening.

Everything we're looking at today begins with the letter B.

Here's what's coming up.

Carol Klein on the best way to plant brassicas.

When you put a seed into its own special container,

its own private home, you give it a flying start.

Mike Dilger finds out

what the birds in your garden prefer to eat.

On the menu are seeds, nuts and worms.

Ha-ha-ha!

A gardener's nightmare -

how Alice Fowler overcame losing most of her crop to hail.

No. It's not, Iz.

It's not typical weather, and it's not fair.

The berry on everyone's tip of the tongue...

-Blueberry.

-Blueberry.

-Blueberries, yeah.

-Blueberries.

-Blueberry.

-Blueberry, of course!

And Matt Baker is topping up on some beetroot wine.

It's lovely. That goes down very well.

You could easily drink a large quantity of that,

without thinking about it.

Just some of the treats we have in store.

We start with a unique show of colour from a native flower,

that usually arrives in April, after a burst of sunshine

followed by showers.

Our first B is for bluebells

and Mike Dilger has found one of the best displays in the country.

There are lots of wildlife spectacles

which we share with other countries,

but there's one that is uniquely British.

It's a spectacle that's on a scale and grandeur you will see

nowhere else in the world.

I'm with Fraser Bradbury from the Forestry Commission.

-Fraser, shall we show them?

-I think we should.

Have a look at this.

# Slow-ow, slow-ow me down

# Slow-ow, slow-ow me down... #

This is West Woods, near Marlborough in Wiltshire,

repeatedly one of the very best bluebell bonanzas.

There are bluebells for as far as the eye can see.

Front, left, back, forward - it is 100% blue, Fraser.

You must be very proud.

I am very proud. It's a sea of blue and it's here

because we manage these woodlands sympathetically for the bluebells.

-How many?

-How many bluebells? I'm only halfway through counting.

I would say kind of, probably more than millions,

we might be approaching billions.

We've got maybe 300 hectares of bluebells here,

so it's quite a large site.

It's one of those things, it's over so fleetingly, really.

The great thing about West Woods is you can get different times

when you come in, different aspects,

so the bluebells are out in one area and won't be quite out in another,

so you can walk through this wood and see bluebells beginning of May,

middle of May, end of May.

Some liken this spectacle to a cathedral,

with a wonderful carpet of flowers below.

Certainly visitors who come from near and far,

are awed by the dazzling display.

Absolutely gobsmacking.

I came here with the Ramblers Association in Bath,

about five years ago and ever since, I have been bringing friends back

to show them, because everybody has their favourite bluebell wood,

but I don't think anything matches this place.

Never been before, but came because it was recommended. It's brilliant.

This so expresses the English countryside for me

and English woods, personally.

I love England, and bluebells are especially beautiful.

Although you shouldn't pick wildflowers,

I've been given special permission to pick one bluebell

by the landowner to show you their amazing bulbs.

If I have a look at it here

and give it a good old squidge - urgh!

Look how sticky it is.

And this substance has been used down the generations

for helping bind books, but they found this material also prevented

the books from actually being eaten by things like moths

and silverfish, because of its toxic properties.

Really amazing, isn't it? Look at that!

Because it's poisonous,

most foraging woodland animals wisely leave the bluebells alone.

But there is one potentially serious threat - a foreign lookalike.

Don't these bluebells look gorgeous?

Well, they're not as lovely as they might seem,

because they're imports from the continent and the problem is,

they like mixing it with our native bluebells.

I'm meeting Mark Spencer, who works for the Natural History Museum.

-Isn't this the loveliest spot to sit?

-Absolutely fabulous.

I mean, where else, indeed, nowhere else in the world,

can you really come and see this kind of spectacle.

Particularly when you get low, you get the most incredible,

vivid blue colour the whole way round.

It is stunning, a completely unique thing.

The British landscape has really got something to go, "Wahey,

"this is ours, it is British, and we love it."

Is it likely to last?

What is the problem with this Spanish invader?

Well, we need to find out, is there a problem?

There have been concerns raised by conservationists, gardeners

and whole parts of the British Society, that there may be

a threat from the so-called Spanish bluebell, which is a plant

which has been grown in British gardens for about 300 years.

But, increasingly, there are signs that it's moving out of gardens,

partly as a throw out from people throwing away excess bulbs,

sometimes it may be because it's just naturally seeding

into the local environment, and people are concerned that

it's hybridising with the native plant and this hybridisation

may well affect the ability of our native plant

to survive into the future.

So, Mark, what is the difference between our native bluebells,

which I have here, and the Spanish conquistadors which you have?

The British plant has, classically, got a rather Gothic arch just here,

on the flower spike.

This one's wilting a bit, but the flower spike

on the Spanish and hybrid tends to be more upright.

The native plant, also, each individual flower is tubular,

straight-sided, the petals.

Whereas the Spanish are much more wide and opened out.

Leaf width is also a really useful feature.

You can see here, straight away, that this leaf is much wider than the native plant,

and also it tends to be a much more vigorous plant.

Often you find that these really are quite large,

compared to these plants here.

But, rest assured, here at West Woods

the British bluebell rules supreme.

Wasn't that beautiful? Thanks, Mike.

Now, every budding gardener should know the best way to prepare

and plant our next B, which is for bulbs.

So, let's join Monty Don for a look at all the basics.

The soil here in the nectar bar is surprisingly dry.

When you think how wet summer was,

you still think of the garden as sodden.

Here at Berryfields we're not - it's drying out fast.

I am just loosening it up, because I want to start bulb planting.

It's something that, for spring bulbs at least, needs to take place in autumn,

and any time from now right until November for tulips is fine.

But I'm going to start the process with camasses.

Now camasses have got wonderful racemes of flowers.

They look like, in many ways, a great big scilla,

but they grow about three foot tall.

Dramatic flowers in late spring, round about Whitsun, early June,

same time as alliums, but plant them now because they do start growing in autumn.

And you can see, they're a fairly big bulb, and when you're planting a bulb of any size,

a good rule of thumb is to plant it twice its own depth.

If you say that's its depth, you need twice that amount above it,

so you're really looking at quite a deep hole,

and that way it'll last much longer,

although in the first year it'll flower even if you just pushed it into the soil.

These come from North America, from damp meadows,

so they're great for fairly damp areas, like here around the pond,

or in a normal border,

because the rich soil will give them enough moisture.

If you're buying these, they'll cost you about £1.50 each.

That's really quite a lot of money to pay for a bulb, so look carefully.

Feel them, give them a squeeze - if they're not firm, don't buy them.

And when you have bought them, get them in the ground quickly.

They're growing already, they may not look it,

but they will only deteriorate, so don't leave them lying around in a shed.

Let's get these in the ground.

A trowel will do fine, I've got my little object here

which I got from India, which is great,

and that's good at making a hole,

but if you're planting a lot, it's worth investing in a bulb planter.

But what I would say is don't waste your money by buying something flimsy.

I've broken more of these than I care to recount

and I finally ended up getting a really robust one,

good, strong handle that can be replaced

and a really well-made metal cutter, and you can sink that in the ground.

And at this time of year, the ground can be hard, so it takes some effort,

pull it out and you have a ready-made hole

and the plug of soil that goes back on it.

But I also use this thing here. It's a giant dibber.

I bought it in a farm sale about 20 years ago, couldn't resist it

and it's just a shaped piece of wood, a blunt end,

a hole drilled through with a metal bar, and you use that

for stamping on and giving your depth of planting.

If you're planting hundreds on bulbs, believe you me,

it makes life a lot easier.

So, nice deep hole, pop it in,

making sure, of course, that the roots are at the bottom,

pointy end at the top, and just pop it in the ground like that.

And I'll put a cluster of about four or five in here together.

You don't need to worry too much about spacing with bulbs.

They will grow well when planted nice and tight with each other.

That can go in there, and then one more behind them.

See, that soil is like rock underneath.

And we'll plant that bulb there.

I've put in North American bulbs into the nectar bar,

but over here by the water's edge

I'm going to plant a very British bulb.

This is a native, loves damp meadows

and looks pretty insignificant, it looks like a little chickpea, doesn't it?

But, actually, that will grow into one of my favourite bulbs of all -

it's a snake's head fritillary.

It grows about nine inches tall with a curved bell

of chequered flower, a wonderful, smudgy chequerboard,

of purples and mauves and dark chocolates.

Really exquisite, and that will flower in April.

I'll plant that now.

Exactly the same sort of technique - a nice deep hole,

but here, it's pretty moist by the water's edge.

I'm just using a blade and not worrying too much

about the upside-downside bit, just pushing it in.

And the plan is to make a drift of them, so you get this sweep of bulbs

and they will seed themselves in the grass.

So, if we just get them established, we shouldn't need to plant too many more.

And what they love is winter wet.

You can see that soil is pretty wet now, because it's been flooded.

And it doesn't matter if they sit actually underwater,

for a few weeks, even, in winter.

By the same token, it doesn't matter if it's pretty dry in summer,

because as long as it's wet enough for the grass to grow in summer

then it's wet enough for the bulbs while they're dormant.

You just don't want to dry out completely.

A lot of people often ask me about grass management.

The bulbs will look after themselves, but when do you cut the grass?

It's dead simple. Just think of it like a hay meadow.

Leave it alone from mid-February, through to the end of June.

If you do that, you give the fritillaries a chance to grow,

and then set seed, and then you can cut the grass, rake it all up

and keep it cut right into autumn

without damaging the bulbs or next year's flowers.

Still to come, birds, berries and how to garden on a budget.

But before then, let's move on from flowers and onto our next B,

for brassicas.

It's the name covering a whole host of glorious garden vegetables,

and Carol Klein and Harry Wardle know just how to plant and protect them.

Brussel sprouts and kale see you through the winter months.

Early spring cabbage picks up the baton, followed by caulies,

calabrese, broccoli and swede.

Brassicas really are veg for all seasons.

I grow most of my vegetable seeds directly into the soil.

But there are some things that I love to start off in modules or pots.

When you put a seed into its own special container,

its own private home, you give it a flying start.

It can germinate and grow to be a little plant

without any interruption at all.

It doesn't have to bother about the weather, about weeds,

it's under your control until you put it out.

I always use a loam-based compost, but add grit to it.

This is some local stuff. It's really sharp

and it helps the drainage immensely.

Seedlings don't like sitting around in water.

If you want your baby plant to get quite big before you put it outside,

then use something that's deeper.

If you want to grow prize parsnips, you'd use really deep pots.

You want the compost to be firm.

So that's ready to grow, now.

One way to sow brassica seeds is in modules or trays.

All brassica seed looks the same, be it cauliflower or swede.

So one seed per module and water in.

They'll germinate in eight to ten days

and be ready to pot on or plant out in six to eight weeks.

By growing your seedlings this way, they develop a healthy,

established root system before they come into contact

with the outside soil, which can be infected

with a particularly brutal disease that attacks brassicas called club root.

This is club root. Once it's in your soil, it's very hard to get rid of.

A healthy root system should be white and fibrous.

Club root causes roots to swell,

starving the plant of nutrients and water.

Leaves wilt and plants rarely produce anything worth eating.

Harry Wardle is a remarkable gardener

and he's grown veg on his allotment near Manchester for over 25 years.

Despite numerous outbreaks of club root on the site,

Harry is determined to grow healthy greens.

What a clever boy.

Good lad.

Good boy.

'With the allotment site being under use non-stop since the 1930's,

'we have got club root build up.

'Once you've got club root, you've got it for at least 20 years.

'It's really a slime mould.

'And there's only lime and perseverance, really,

'that will cure it.'

'My sight started deteriorating at the age of 18.'

'And it turned out I was probably 36 when I lost my sight completely.'

This is home-made compost, well riddled out.

Now what I do, I sprinkle lime on to the compost,

and also a handful of blood...

..fish and bone.

I add egg shells from home,

which is extra calcium, a few of those in,

mix it like a good pudding mix, mix it well together...

'Working on 100 by 30 foot plot,

'if I were sighted it's a bit overpowering,

'but in my case all I work on is the little bit in front of me.

'All the rest of it, it's all in the mind.

'I always now dig rather a large hole and put my own mixture in,

'so the roots get well developed

'before they will even meet the outside soil,

'so, with a bit of luck, they get a decent brassica

'before club root strikes.'

I know the distance between the plants,

that anything that grows between shouldn't be there,

and obviously it's a weed and it comes up.

The proof is in the pulling.

STRAINED HEAVING

Oh, beautiful! Right, I feel that now.

That's the compost I put in, a lot of it.

See how it's lovely stuff, it breaks away?

Fibrous roots, not a sign of club root at all.

This cabbage is called Kilaxy and it's supposed to be club root resistant.

Whether it's a combination of what I've done

and their breeding, I don't know,

but to me that's a beautiful root system.

Lovely, lovely.

Right, I would say that'll make a good dinner for two. Wonderful.

All this whitefly that we suffer with

can tend to live amongst all the debris,

so what you do, really, is restrict them, to a degree.

Actually, blindness has its advantage - at least I can't see

all these lot flying about, but I'm sure they're there.

'My interest in gardening, my love of gardening,

'goes back to a very, very early age

'and even at my secondary modern school,

'we used to have huge amounts of land

'and we used to grow a lot of our own vegetables, really,

'then, to eat at school dinners.'

Good lad.

Yes, we know! We know!

'People tend to dramatise

'the freshness of veg and fruit

'but I honestly believe it's not until

'you actually taste something that has just been lifted out of the soil

'and not stuck on a shelf for weeks and weeks that you do appreciate.

'Colour, no, obviously, but the taste does mean an awful lot.'

Now forward. Good boy.

Thanks, Harry. From brassicas we move on to our next subject.

We're joining Alys Fowler this time

as she looks at another vegetable - from planting it to eating it.

This B is for beetroot.

It's April, and as well as my potatoes,

I've been sowing a range of vegetable seeds in trays.

These are beetroot, and the great thing about beetroot is,

there's no part you can't eat.

It's a tough, corky little seed, though,

so when you've placed it on the surface of the soil,

you need to press it in gently

to stop it floating away when you water.

Do that, and you'll have tiny shoots within a fortnight.

It germinates at fairly low-temperatures, it'll germinate

at about eight degrees Celsius,

so at this time of year it should be super-fast.

It's been a busy time sowing seeds and planting out my first real crops,

and things were looking good.

THUNDER RUMBLES

Until the hailstones arrived.

Well, the hail has pretty much just destroyed all my work.

And it looks like, thanks to the hail,

I'm not going to be eating anything until well into June.

No, it's not, Iz.

It's not typical weather and it's not fair.

Right, I say we all go in

and have a cup of tea.

But the trick to successful vegetable growing is to always have a back-up.

I've been growing extra seedlings on my windowsill,

and so three weeks after the hail I have a new batch to plant out.

A way of making my edible garden look as good as it tastes

is to plant my borders in drifts of colour and texture,

and that's exactly what I'm going to do with my beetroot.

It's very easy to grow beetroot in modules.

Now, you quite often get clusters of them

because the seed is actually a cluster of seeds,

so I'll have to thin those out later on, but for now...

I can just...

..pop them in.

'Yes, the time will come when I will have to be brutal

'because a cluster of seedlings huddled together in the soil

'will eventually strangle each other

'so I will have to take control,

'thinning them out by pulling out and discarding the weaker shoots

'to allow the strongest room to survive and thrive.'

'I'm planting all my young vegetables in generous quantities of compost

'because most soils, including mine, lack some nutrients.

'It's a bit like packing your kids off to school with a lunchbox,

'a ready-made meal giving them energy to grow.'

I'm starting to harvest my beetroot in earnest now,

which means I can make one of my favourite summer dishes,

which is a cold Polish soup called chlodnik.

Now, you need to use baby beets and all their leaf,

and these are perfect.

My little drift has worked out...

..superbly.

'All the other ingredients I need are also growing in the garden.

'I'm using two herbs - dill and French tarragon.'

We don't nick it. Give it back!

Every bit of the beetroot is cooked, including the leaves,

and once it's all softened, it's liquidised to a thick, soupy texture.

The rest of my home-grown ingredients include radishes,

cucumbers, Japanese bunching onions

and some sorrel leaves.

And once it's cool stir in a carton of yoghurt.

Well, I can't claim to the yoghurt, but apart from that this is my soup.

I grew it from my garden.

And now I'm going to eat it.

Even the garnish was freshly laid this morning.

Whilst the bread is still warm.

SHE LAUGHS

You're rubbish at that trick!

Brilliant. Planting tips and a soup recipe.

But it's not just food beetroot can be used for,

as Matt Baker finds out.

The dramatic sweep of the North Pennines belies a gentle side.

Away from its craggy hills and exposed moors,

one locally-grown crop is used to produce something rather unusual.

Over here, they're making wine.

Not from grapes but from this - beetroot.

And it's provided a welcome new market

for beetroot grower Neil Hodgson.

It's been on the decline, but maybe this beetroot wine might...

-Boost the sales.

-Yeah, revive them.

Have you tried this wine, then?

-No, I haven't.

-Why not?

-I'd have a go, but...

"I'd have a go!" As if it's some kind of challenge!

-OK, while I'm here, I'll give you a hand picking some.

-Good idea.

How many kilos have you got so far this week?

-If this is the beginning...

-This is the start.

-Oh, right!

Look at that one.

That's a beauty.

'Just a couple more,

'then I'm taking these over to a man who makes wine from fruit and veg.'

I've got a delivery of Neil's wine-making beetroot for you.

Oh, that's great.

First thing we have to do

is to wash them thoroughly, get all the soil off.

Right, so we can't use these, then.

-So we can't use those, but we have some that we did earlier.

-Excellent.

And these now go into the mill to be chopped.

MACHINE HUMS

-Straight in?

-Straight in.

Oh, wow!

It's a powerful machine, this!

Yes, it chops very finely.

Right, and how long does this process take, then,

to make a bottle of beetroot wine?

It takes about a month fermenting,

and then about a month settling.

And how many beetroot in one bottle of wine?

-Probably about two or three beetroots.

-OK.

Just one more for luck.

There we go.

Right. Come this way.

-Pour the beetroot in here.

-OK.

Splashes everywhere, doesn't it?

-Yes.

-Is that all right?

-Don't want it on your clothes.

Why did you think about making beetroot wine?

Well, we realised from our own veg patch

that beetroot grows easily up here, so we thought,

"Why not? It has a great colour, let's do something with it."

But does it taste as good as it looks?

It's lovely. That goes down very well. You could easily drink...

-And especially warmed up.

-..a large quantity of that.

I'm thinking about it! That's lovely, actually.

Who would've thought that your beetroot, sugar, yeast and patience

could be turned into wine?

And saving pennies is exactly what we're discussing next.

Because B is for budget gardening,

and let's find some inspiration with Andy Sturgeon

as we visit the Chelsea Flower Show.

There are several great ideas in the Future Nature Garden.

This path is made from recycled roofing slates put on edge

and it gives it this fantastic texture.

And this bench is just made from old roof joists.

You could drag these out of a skip and it wouldn't cost you a penny.

The whole garden is covered in this crushed builders' rubble and brick.

It's got a little bit of compost mixed into it,

so the plants here, which like free-draining conditions,

are planted straight into it - there isn't even any soil underneath,

but it's automatically a very attractive mulch.

Here's a neat idea that won't cost a penny

because it quite literally grows on trees.

These twigs have been stacked up inside the box

to attract beneficial insects.

It's a good idea, and it looks great.

The boundaries of your garden are very important

but they can cost a fortune.

Here's a really good way to deal with them in the 1984 garden.

This is simply just stacked logs.

And this is just a rough old concrete wall which has been painted

and it's really cheered it up.

And if you've got a bit of imagination and a few

leftover tins of paint, you can even create your own free artwork.

In the Eco Chic garden, which won the Urban Gardens' Best In Show,

there's a simple idea here.

Fencing can be very expensive,

but these are just ordinary scaffolding boards

so it's a very cheap way to make something very sophisticated.

How about this? James May's smarter than he looks

because if you make your plants and flowers out of Plasticine

if you get bored with them after a while

you can roll them up and start again.

This courtyard garden, Fenland Alchemist,

also won Best In Show in its category,

and there are some great ideas here to save money,

so it proves that you don't have to invest a lot of cash

to make an outstanding garden.

This thing I'm sitting on here - this is an old water tank from a loft

cos these things are often redundant now with modern boilers,

so there are a lot of them knocking around.

And on the flooring here there's some old stone crazy paving,

which you can pick up for just a few pounds.

Crazy paving isn't particularly fashionable at the moment,

but it's all about how you use it because it looks great here,

and you can save money by looking at things with fresh eyes.

I don't think there's a garden in the country

that doesn't have at least a few bricks lying around in it,

and in this garden, Pottering In Cumbria,

they've created this wonderful path

out of bricks that don't even have to match and it still looks wonderful.

It's simple but effective.

So there you go.

Even amongst all the ostentation here in the heart of Chelsea,

it shows there are still plenty of achievable, affordable

and realistic ideas for your garden

and it proves that good design doesn't have to break the bank.

Thanks, Andy.

Coming up later, B is for birds

and Mike Dilger finds out what they prefer to eat.

On the menu are seeds, nuts and worms.

Ha-ha-ha!

But let's look at another type of food first

because our next B is for berries.

In botanical terms, a berry is a fruit with seeds.

Rachel de Thame looks at one type that is proving very popular indeed.

Superfoods.

Well, the name is now so familiar

that it is in the Oxford English dictionary.

And it says, "A food considered especially nutritious

"or otherwise beneficial to health and well-being."

And certainly if you ask most people nowadays to name a superfood,

there's one thing they'd pretty much be guaranteed to say.

-Blueberry.

-Blueberry.

-Blueberries, yeah.

-Blueberries.

-Blueberries?

-Blueberry.

-Blueberry, of course!

Yes, the blueberry is on the tip of the tongue

when it comes to superfoods

and because of the recent popularity of blueberries,

more and more gardeners are growing them

and they're not difficult to grow.

Like rhododendrons and camellias,

they prefer acidic soil with a pH of 4 to 5.5.

If your soil isn't acidic, don't worry

because blueberries grow very well in pots.

Choose a large pot and line the bottom with crocks,

and then a layer of lime-free gravel

and fill the pot with ericaceous compost.

Blueberries are bog-loving plants. They need to be kept moist,

so I'm adding some water-retaining granules.

The tip here is to add water to the granules

before you add it to the compost.

To help keep the moisture in, add a good layer of mulch.

Water with rainwater as the lime in tap water can dilute the acidity.

Then leave your blueberries in direct sun or light shade.

Oh, and you really should grow more than one plant

of different varieties for a really good crop.

It's fascinating what other fruit botanists class as a berry.

Tomatoes, watermelons and, amazingly, even bananas

are all berries because they have seeds.

And staying on the subject, Rachel went to visit a blackcurrant farm

to find out their planting secrets.

Edward Keene, a farmer from Gloucestershire,

seems to have had them in his blood from the day he was born.

Well, I'm the third generation grower of blackcurrants.

My father and his father started in the 1950s.

I'm not sure people ever did go off blackcurrants,

but I think they have been forgotten

and they are certainly becoming more popular as the health benefits,

the vitamin C that they have and the large amounts of antioxidants

that are contained within a berry become more widely known.

Our main market would be the drinks market

and it all goes towards making cordial.

'I've calculated that we're growing about 510,000 bushes on our farm'

and I believe that they will make

around about 25,500,000 bottles and cartons of cordial.

The more traditional varieties of blackcurrants

would have required a large amount of cold weather during the winter

in order to put the bushes into dormancy.

The newer varieties have actually been bred so that they don't require

so many hours of winter chill during the winter time.

They still require cold, but not to the extent

that the older, more traditional varieties would have once required.

We're growing six varieties here.

They're all prefixed with the name Ben

because they were developed in Scotland

by the Scottish Crop Research Institute.

I would recommend one for the garden is Ben Hope,

which has been developed specifically for pest and disease resistance

and also produces a very good quality fruit.

I shouldn't really be telling you this,

but to establish a blackcurrant in the earth's actually very simple.

You take a piece of maiden wood in the winter,

it obviously hasn't got any leaves on it then,

these are the buds from where the branch will reshoot next year

and we simply push them into the ground.

After the first year, we will cut the bush down to the ground.

The second year, branches will regrow

and in the third year, you'll have enough berries to make a pot of jam.

Providing you remove one or two branches each year

from the middle of the bush, the older branches,

keep an airflow through the bush,

problems with botrytis and other diseases

will not be a problem for you.

In your garden, if you pick them,

you've probably got about 24 hours before you have to deal with them,

so you either need to eat them there and then, preserve them

or pop them in your freezer for dealing with on another date.

We know when the fruit is ready for harvest -

we first of all look to see that all the berries are black.

Secondly, we look to see if they actually come away from the sprigs.

And finally...

You taste them, and if they...

Actually, that tastes not bad at all. That's good.

I'm not qualified to say what is a superfood and what isn't,

but all I know is that they're full of great things

and if you have a little of them a day, you'll be great.

And we're staying with edible items,

but this time focusing on food favoured by our feathered friends.

This B is for birds.

Let's join Mike Dilger again,

meeting a family in Derbyshire

who want to know what their garden birds prefer for their tea.

-Hi, guys, how are you doing?

-Hello there.

Steve, Olivia, Sarah and Louis?

Four out of four! What a lovely garden you have.

It's gorgeous, isn't it?

-Why so many birdfeeders?

-We live in such a lovely part of the country

with such a diverse range of birds

that I want to attract as many as I can.

Have you seen all your dad's feeders he's put out?

Do you know why he puts different types of food in the feeders?

Because there's different types of birds

that like different kinds of food.

Exactly, spot on.

Olivia, have you seen any birds in your garden?

Um, blackbirds.

I reckon if we sit down and watch your dad's feeders,

we're going to identify a whole load more.

-Shall we do it?

-Yeah.

-Let's go!

For the next 30 minutes, we're going to keep score

on which birds come into the garden and what they prefer to eat.

On the menu are seeds, nuts 'and worms.

Ha-ha-ha!

'And the time starts...now.'

You see the robin? He's looking for mealyworms, isn't he?

Nibble some worms!

Oh, look! We've got a blue tit feeding.

One blue tit feeding on the peanuts.

Look, there's a great tit!

Another bird! There's a chaffinch.

Look at the time now. It's 12:15. Look how many birds we've seen.

'It's the shape of the bill that determines what a bird eats.'

Blue tits have a strong, stubby beak ideal for pecking nuts.

Robin and blackbird beaks tend to be more pointy,

so they can pick worms and grubs out of the ground.

Oh, look! There's another bird.

Can you see that? That's a bird called a coal tit.

There's birds everywhere, it's ridiculous.

Look! I just saw something!

Oh, there's a dunnock.

BELL RINGS

Right, guys, time up. That was very good. First of all, Louis,

can you tell me how many different types of birds we've seen?

You count the number of birds.

-Robin redbreast...

-One.

-Blackbird...

'So, in just half an hour we saw seven different species of bird

'and our survey said that seeds were the most popular food.'

Give me five.

Give me five. Top birdwatching, guys.

You don't need a pair of birdwatcher's binoculars

to spot that Mike filmed at the height of the Christmas season.

Whatever the time of year, lots of us like to keep the birds well fed.

It tempts our feathered friends to come back to our gardens

year after year - or does it?

Chris Packham might just be about to shatter some illusions.

We all like to think that we know our garden birds really well.

Some people even go so far as to give them names

but I've got to tell you that during the autumn and winter

things aren't what they seem

out there on your feeders and in the garden.

You see, most of our garden bird species

indulge in a bit of what we call chain migration,

so if you think that you know all the birds in your garden personally,

I'm afraid to say you're probably wrong.

Because if Barry the Blackbird was breeding in your hedge in the spring,

he's not here now.

He's more than likely in the South if you live in the North,

or if you live in the South, he's nipped over to France and Spain.

So who have you got in your garden if you've got a blackbird?

Well, it's more than likely Olaf,

because in the wintertime in the UK

24% of our blackbirds come from Norway,

18% from Sweden,

17% from Germany,

and 13% from Denmark.

Why do they do it?

Well, they migrate for the same reasons

that most other bird species do - hard weather and shortage of food.

Now, the first thing to say is,

OK, my garden's still packed full of food.

Why has Barry deserted me?

Well, it's the very simple reason that he's a bit of a southern softy.

He can't take the weather here, needs to go somewhere

where it equates closer to the conditions that he's grown up in

in our spring and summer.

And Olaf - well, Scandinavia at this time of year,

I've got to say, weather-wise, can be pretty unpleasant for birds,

and also there's a very short day length there,

so even if there's plenty of food,

there's not enough foraging time for Olaf to find it

and as a consequence it's much better for him to come over to this country.

And it's not just blackbirds.

If you've got robins in your garden at the moment

they're more than likely Belgian.

The blue tits, the great tits - Swedish.

So, if you really want to know the birds in your garden personally

you're going to have to be multilingual.

You're going to need to know lots of European names.

Sven, Helga,

Philippe, Juan...

And on that bird-based bombshell,

I think it's time we ended today's programme.

Do join us next time for another A to Z of TV Gardening.

Until then, goodbye.

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