Letter C The A to Z of TV Gardening

Hello and welcome to The A To Z Of TV Gardening.

We're on a mission to dig up the best advice and tips

from all your favourite TV garden programmes and presenters.

So join me as, letter by letter, one by one,

we explore everything from flowers and trees to fruit and veg

on The A To Z Of TV Gardening.

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

Here's what's coming up.

Will it be 24 CARROT gold?

Joe Swift tries to grow the best bunch in Britain...

-I hope you've got the right seed.

-Sweet candle.

-Oh, my God. You've got the very best.

-Yeah-ha-ha!

-It's winning everywhere.

-Mwah!

..Alys Fowler is in Kent, checking out cherries...

..and we get clued-up on clematis with Glenis Dyer.

And it's just starting to flower. It will go on and on and on,

because the herbaceous ones do.

Just some of the treats we have in store.

And we start by heating things up with the fieriest of vegetables -

you've guessed it - C is for chillies.

And food reporter Jay Rayner

is on a quest to find the hottest of them all.

Chillies - a third of the world eats them every day.

In the UK, we've turned up late to the chilli party.

But our tastes are changing, and, right now, UK chilli sales are hot.

But why have we grown a love for something that actively hurts our taste buds?

Have we developed heat-resistant tongues or are we just being macho?

JOHNNY CASH: # Love is a burning thing... #

Capsaicin is the compound that makes chillies hot.

It stimulates both temperature and pain sensors,

confusing the brain and burning the tongue,

so why do we crave it?

Here's the science bit.

Eating chillies releases endorphins in the body which are a kind of natural opiate.

So while you're unlikely to get addicted to chillies,

it's not surprising that the fiery hit is a hard habit to break.

The power of the chilli isn't just in its taste -

capsaicin is the burning chemical in police pepper spray.

There's a scientific scale used to measure the heat of chilli peppers like this -

Scoville heat units measure the number of times

a chilli extract must be diluted in water for it to lose its heat.

Now something with a real kick like Tabasco sauce scores 2,500 on the Scoville scale.

But the lovely One Show team want me to seek out

the legendary ghost pepper,

which is over one million on the Scoville heat scale.

It's nice to know they care.

The ghost pepper is one of the fiery chillies known as the nagas,

which are native to Bangladesh.

But to find one I only need to go to head to Bedfordshire,

where at this chilli farm you can pick your own,

and business is booming.

There are lots of serious foodies out there

that ask for the different varieties.

They're asking for the poblanos,

jalapenos, the Scotch bonnets,

cos they've found a great recipe that they want to cook.

But with hundreds of varieties of chilli to dabble with,

how to you choose the right one?

-Size does matter in chilli land.

-OK.

So generally the smaller the chilli -

such as the Dorset naga -

the smaller, the hotter.

But now I'm going to take on the hottest naga variety here -

the ghost chilli.

At over one million on the Scoville scale,

this is one of the hottest types of chilli in the world.

There you go.

OK, here goes.

I think I've bitten into a dud, until I get to the seeds.

Oh. Oh, ha-ha!

Ooh!

-OK.

-Just remember the tip is the mildest bit.

The closer you get to the seeds, the hotter it gets.

-My diaphragm's going.

-Do you need any milk?

-Yes. Please.

I see a bit of sweat as well building up?

Don't do this at home!

Right, if that didn't scare you off,

here's more from Jason Nickels and Stephen Waters,

two chilli farmers from Devon.

There's thousands of varieties to choose from -

all sorts of different colours, heats, flavours.

It's not just about... mild, medium or hot,

it's really about, "What does this chilli do when it's dried?

"What does it do when it's pickled?" and so on.

They're the same family as tomatoes and potatoes.

Most of the varieties originate from South America.

But they've spread around the world.

It's the variety that determines the heat, really.

But, within that, there's also environmental factors.

Temperature is one of them.

Chillies that are grown at 90 degrees are considerably hotter

that those that are grown at 70 degrees.

The heat is a stimulant to the chemical known as capsaicin.

There are supposed to be 16 or so different strands of it,

and it basically stimulates the same reaction in you as heat.

So if you were to rub a hot chilli on the back of your hand, for instance,

then immerse it in warm water, it would feel hotter than it was.

This is a Peruvian chilli called aji limon -

and the name says it really, it has a very lemony taste.

It's very zesty in its fresh form. Quite fiery.

So it has to be chopped quite finely.

The unusual thing about this chilli is that when you dry it,

it actually looks and smells and tastes like a banana.

This is the Hungarian wax chilli.

These are quite mild ones.

And very good for chopping into salads or eating on their own, or frying up.

Just flash-frying these padron peppers.

This is a popular Spanish tapas. Fry the peppers

for about five minutes,

making sure, you turn them over now and again,

until they're blistered all over.

Sprinkle them with sea salt

and as soon as they're cool enough, start eating them.

Just pop them in like oysters.

One of the ways of preserving chillies is to smoke them.

These are jalapenos,

which are a particularly big and thick-fleshed chilli.

To dry them, put them in a smoker.

And after 48 hours of smoking over oak chips,

you end up with something like this.

The orange ones are the hotter ones.

This is an aji amarillo. A very fruity chilli.

Chilli chocolate in the middle.

-Is that the very hot one?

-Well...

Very nice, yeah.

We're no longer sat at desks any more,

we're out digging, we're planting, we're picking, we're cooking

all sorts of different things.

Variety is the spice of life.

Now from a vegetable that makes your tongue tingle

we move onto one that, according to popular myth,

helps you to see in the dark.

Also under the letter C are carrots.

It's a bit scary this, Charlie!

Joe Swift hopes he can cut it at the RHS carrot-growing contest.

But to make sure he doesn't fall

flat on his face,

he got a little help from multi-award winner Charles Maize.

-Charlie!

-Good afternoon, Joe.

Good afternoon. Nice to meet you.

I've seen you many times on the television,

but I've never met you personally.

-It's delightful to see you.

-Come in, Charlie.

-I'll show you the garden.

-Righto.

Right, Charlie, this is my garden.

It's not very big, but it is south-facing. It's nice and sunny.

-It's got plenty of sun coming in, Joe.

-Yeah, loads of sun.

-Beautiful.

Right then, Charlie. What about me carrots?

-You think a load of gravel in the bottom?

-That's the "in" thing, Joe.

Lovely. So what's next, then?

The next is the sharp sand, filled to about three inches from the top.

How's that, Charlie? Is that compacted?

That's good. That's excellent, Joe.

-I don't think you can better that.

-OK, so what's next, then?

The next thing is taking the cores out.

-You're aiming to get eight carrots in here, I think.

-Yeah.

-But if we take it about say two inches from there...

-OK.

..and then as far down as...

-down to the drainage pebbles.

-Yeah.

-And then...

-Beauty!

What do you reckon, Charlie, is it going to hold? Let's have a look?

-It looks pretty good to me.

-Oh, yes.

And when you press it down...

-turn like that.

-Give it a twist.

And then, hopefully, Joe...

-Is it comin' up?

-Have a look, Joe.

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

-Any droppin' out?

-Not a drop!

-Just look at that.

Look at that!

-You got 24 carrots to get three from.

-Yeah, three out of 24.

Sounds easy, Joe? I grew 90 and I couldn't get five for the national championships.

Don't tell me that now!

I'm just getting excited and you're dampenin' my enthusiasm.

Oh, Joe, I haven't damped your enthusiasm!

Press it as far down as you can, Joe.

-OK?

-Oh, that's a fine, Joe.

-Beautiful, isn't it?

-Isn't it lovely?

What do I need next, then, for the compost mix?

Well, you need a good quality top soil or loam.

OK.

Some fine builder's sand now.

And I think you're going to use compost, aren't you?

You want a bucket of each.

Give it a good shake as you're putting it in.

There you are.

Give it a good mix in.

OK, I reckon that's ready to be sieved.

-Just look here now, you cannot have those lumps in.

-No.

If you have those lumps in, the carrot has got to go round it

and it will have a bevelled side.

It's not going to be truly clean all the way down.

It feels nice, it feels as though it's mixed together nicely.

-That is a really good texture.

-That's a nice texture.

-Can't fault that, can you?

-You cannot fault that.

We're going to have to add this seaweed meal.

And also you've got another nutrient there, an organic one.

-Seaweed?

-Yeah, three of those, Joe.

Three of those. Now, some lime.

You said, "Get some lime," so I've got some.

-Oh, gosh, you've the ordinary garden lime?

-Yeah.

-Ah, well, Joe, there's better lime than that.

-What's that, then?

Here it is. That's come all the way from Pentyrch near Cardiff.

-It's dolomite lime.

-OK.

It's absolutely out of this world, carrots love it.

-Another three scoops in there, Joe.

-Three scoops?

Three scoops of everything, isn't it?

Now you've got...

You told me to get this, that's the stuff, isn't it?

Joe, this is the business. That's what I've used on my tomatoes for the last four to five years.

Because we're on the BBC, we can't mention his name but this is like gold dust.

-Joe, it gives you that edge.

-I need an edge, that's what I need.

The price of it, you've said the right word, "Gold dust."

Price of that, it's not cheap.

But, Joe, anything that's good never comes cheap.

No, that's a good point. Now how many, don't tell me, three?

Three or four, Joe.

There's no...

As long as you don't put five or six in, you're not going to kill them, Joe.

Well, it's not quite gold dust, it's actually an organic feed

based on 70 million-year-old mineral deposits. So there!

-Nice bit of stuff.

-OK, what's next, Charlie?

How do we get that into there?

You'll need a funnel, you can't put it in with your hands because,

then it'll drop right down and then you'll want

a round implement to press it down.

-Not too hard, so there's no air pockets. That's lovely.

-Yeah?

I've got a seed right here, Charlie. That's the one, isn't it?

-I hope you've got the right seed.

-Sweet candle.

-Oh, my God, you've got the very best. It's winning everywhere.

-Mwah!

Three in the middle. Make certain they're in the middle, Joe.

And now you want to level it off in a nice bit of compost.

-Thank you so much for your help.

-Happy to help you, Joe.

-I'm going to be phoning you every day.

-Well, phone me when you want to.

-I will do. I'll see you soon.

-Thank you, Joe. All the best. Goodbye.

Bye-bye.

I didn't expect there'd be this much work.

I just thought you put a few tubes around.

I've got three dustbins, I've got how many bags of sand?

Compost, more sand, topsoil, three different types of feed

and I've got to water them and I've got to protect them

and I've got to love them and they will do well.

We'll find out later how Joe's getting on.

Let's move away from the vegetable plot.

It's time to look at one of Britain's favourite cut flowers.

Our next C is for chrysanthemums,

which in Greek means "golden flower",

and here's Alys Fowler with some planting tips.

If you've only got 30 minutes to spare in your garden this weekend,

then try sowing something really unusual like this,

which is a chop suey green,

or sometimes known as a chrysanthemum green,

and it's a very pretty chrysanthemum,

but it's grown mainly for its small foliage,

which is used traditionally in Japanese and Chinese food.

It has an incredibly...distinct...

very green, slightly bitter taste, which is amazing

when you stir-fry or in with dishes with chicken and ginger.

It just brings this really interesting element

and this is probably the last chance to sow it.

Now, it's quite a small seed.

And really all that needs to happen...

..is for you to sow it on the surface. Just press it in.

Give it a good watering and up it will come and the more you chop it,

the more it branches out just like any chrysanthemum.

In the spring, you let it flower and you get these beautiful, pretty little flowers.

And then you can just let it flower and set seed, collect the seed

and start the whole cycle again.

And there's a wide variety of chrysanthemums you can grow in your garden.

Have a look at what this Cheshire farm have on display.

Chrysanthemums originate from Japan.

And these varieties you see here have all been bred in the UK.

Nowadays, people say it's a Victorian flower, but I do think

it's having a resurgence

and people are really liking

the chrysanthemum again.

If you look at them, they're absolutely stunning

when you get them en masse like this.

It started in 1958 with my father. I joined the business in 1977.

My brother joined then in 1981.

We built this about 12 years ago.

This is when the expansion of the nursery really took place.

And we went from having around half an acre to now we have 5.5 acres.

One of the problems with chrysanths is getting clean stock,

which, in the last ten years, we've managed to get our own clean stock,

which is tested every year.

We felt the public was getting a bit of a raw deal

because the plants they were getting had virus or disease.

So we felt, "Why can we not take clean stock we produce and give it to the public?"

Then they should be able to produce the same quality as we do.

And 2009, we launched it.

The sprays are very easy to grow as a cut flower, they really are.

Blooms are a more specialised subject to grow.

It takes approximately five weeks to get to this stage from planting.

And the centre budding which the girls are doing here,

basically it's a question of taking the centres out like that.

And it means instead of getting one predominantly big flower

at the top, you get a nice spray where they all come level.

We have one called Energy

that looks completely different to everything else.

It's, like, green with spiky petals around it.

That's very popular.

This is the crop of misty varieties, which is the most popular we grow.

This one's Golden Misty.

In here, we have about 200,000 stems.

Roughly seven days from now will start replanting this.

After 14 days, we will have completely replanted it with Christmas crop.

Beautiful flowers there, and in case you are wondering,

they got the gold medal at the 2009 Tatton show.

Chrysanthemums are quite easy to grow, but make sure you avoid

planting them under night-lights, as it slows down the flowering process.

OK, coming up is one of the most rewarding veg to grow.

In fact, one plant can feed a whole family. C is for courgettes.

And here is veg expert, Carol Klein, with all you need to know.

These were sown in April, the end of April.

Hello, Highbrow.

Bit of grub for you there. How are you doing?

Have you brought up those youngsters yet?

BIRDSONG

So, I'm going to plunge each one of these into a ten litre pot.

This is a striped one, I think it's called Striato d'Italia.

And I like eating the flowers of these,

just as much as I like eating the fruit.

I've also grown a whole load of yellow ones called Gold Rush,

and it produces an abundance of yellow fruits.

The reason I'm not planting the straight into the ground is I've run out of space.

Because this is going to grow into a phenomenally big plant.

We've got these nice old hessian sacks.

So the whole thing looks a bit more rustic.

All cocoa bits have flat oval seeds.

Sowing them on their side discourages rotting and it promotes successful germination.

Sow them in April and plant them into their final positions after the last frosts.

I've got eight pots of courgettes, because I really do love them,

and I'm standing them in-between the beans and peas where it's really sunny.

All they need is plenty of water and because they are in pots,

a nitrogenous feed every week.

They'll keep producing fruit right through till October.

Our next encounter is with a climber.

This C is for clematis, and here's Glenis Dyer, of the British Clematis Society.

There are at least 150, probably nearer 200,

different varieties of clematis in the garden.

You get very attached to them.

Or they get very attached to you, I'm not sure how I should put it.

But I do love them.

Each one that comes out is different, because actually

they're all your old friends and because we've got so many

in the garden, you've got something that comes out every month of the year.

But they're all so different.

You see the huge ones like dinner plates, but there are medium-sized ones,

and tiny, wee ones with little bells of about an inch or so long.

The ones which are easiest to grow are the herbaceous ones.

And the later-flowering ones, which is all the Viticella types,

the Texensis types, are very reliable and the later-flowering large, flowered hybrids.

These, along this section, are mainly herbaceous.

This particular one has a huge flower.

It was bred in Russia about 1970, I think.

And this one is called, Pamiat Serdtsa.

And it's just starting to flower.

It will go on, and on, and on, because the herbaceous ones do.

If you want to keep herbaceous clematis short,

or indeed any of the clematis short, you can chop them down.

We call it the Chelsea Chop, because you do it round about Chelsea week.

Reduce them by a couple of feet and that way,

you get twice as many flowers and they flower that little bit lower.

You can more or less control the height of your border.

I think most of the people who come round are quite surprised at the variety.

They see the large-flowered ones in the garden centres

and some of them probably have got them in their gardens,

but very often they haven't seen the tiny ones, the species.

These are the ones I love showing them because they need a wider audience.

Eric, we need some string over here to tie this one up.

OK, I'll be round.

Look at this.

'My husband Eric is maybe not

'so obsessive about the plants as I am, but he's so co-operative.'

He builds all these structures that they can ramble over.

He gives them their heads. He puts up ladders and supports for them.

We've got cones, all sorts of things in the garden.

This is an integrifolia that I grew from seed.

It's extremely vigorous. Huge, great leaves.

They're much bigger than a lot of the integrifolias

that you see but you can grow these so easily yourself from seed.

That'll do for now anyway.

Next year, taller support.

Some people call them clem-ATIS. Some people call them CLEM-atis.

In America, they call them cle-MATIS and in France,

they're called clematite.

It doesn't matter what you call them as long as you grow them.

We're moving on now to one of Britain's native fruits.

This C is for cherries.

Kent was the first place cherries were planted in the 16th century

and it's still leading the way today.

Alys Fowler is back

and, this time, she's searching for the history of cherries in Britain.

This is a tradition orchard with traditional wide spacing

and huge trees.

Hence the need for these tall ladders.

The ladders have a wonderful feel.

You can tell that hundreds of people have climbed up and down them.

And they're stained this brilliant cherry-red along each rung.

This is Kent farming with a rich history.

John Leigh-Pemberton's family had been growing cherries here for more

than three generations and, as with any old orchard,

the fruit trees can tell their own stories.

If you have a look around this side,

-you can see where it's growing out of the side of the tree.

-Yes.

What's happened is, the graft is here,

that's where the top stop was put onto the tree.

This is the root stock. This has shot out from beneath.

It's showing its true form which is a wild cherry tree

and it's got these little wild, sour fruits on,

with tiny stones and tiny pips.

It is from that the cultivated cherries have developed and,

probably, if you look up here, that's a cultivated cherry.

It looks a huge difference in size as well.

Huge difference from these little tiny things that we've got there.

The wild cherry is native to Britain.

And we've always eaten it and it was one of our early foraged foods.

There's evidence in Bronze Age sites.

When did we go from eating this to eating this?

The Romans, I think, were probably the first to start grafting

cherries and selecting varieties and propagating them.

If you grow from seed,

you're only ever going to have a tree of one variety.

The only way to get lots of trees of the same variety is by grafting.

In the UK, the real start of the fruit industry in Kent was

with a chap called Richard Harris who was Henry VIII's fruiterer.

Harris set up an orchard in nearby Teynham

and brought graft wood in from France,

all on the orders of a king who wanted a sweeter

cherry for his dinner table.

-Henry VIII really backed...

-Oh, he backed it.

He saw it as part of his attempt to modernise the country.

He probably saw the French were doing it better

and thought that we should do something about it.

There's a wonderful description

in William Lambard's Perambulation Of Kent

which is one of the first county guides

written in 1570 of Richard Harris's orchards.

And it says, "In the year of our Lord Christ 1553,

"he obtained 105 acres of good ground in Teynham which

"he divided into ten parcels and, with great care, good choice

"and no small labour and cost, brought plants from beyond the seas

"and furnished this ground with them

"so beautifully, as they not only stand in most right line, but seem

"to be of one sort and fashion as if they had been drawn through one mould

"or wrought by one and the same pattern."

It's just so beautifully written.

You can see that, for Lambard, to walk into this orchard

and see trees in a straight row, in a completely new style of growing

must have been really a wonderful thing for him.

I can see why it's called the Garden of England, Kent,

because it does just have such a romantic air.

It is lovely and very romantic but I'm afraid that it's in the past.

It's as much in the past as taking your children to

school on a horse and cart.

It's very lovely but it doesn't fit with what the world wants.

The cherries that come out of this orchard,

I would not be able to sell in a supermarket.

In West Germany, breeders had created a new dwarf root stock called Gisela.

For farmers like John, it was the perfect solution.

The trees only grow to around three metres or ten feet tall.

They make it much easier to pick.

-And I pick like that?

-You pick like that.

-Not holding the fruit.

-You pick with the string.

-And the colour?

-Colour wants to be...

There is a good example.

The left-hand cherry is the right colour.

The right-hand one is a bit too dark and it's also too small anyway.

That's going on the ground, too.

The dwarf trees can even be grown under covers to protect them

from rainstorms,

further guaranteeing the crop for supermarket shelves.

There's a big renaissance going on in UK cherry-growing.

The acreage is expanding after years and years of decline.

The techniques are improving.

We've got better varieties of cherry,

we've got better root stocks, smaller trees.

We've got tunnels.

All sorts of things are working in the industry's favour.

The key to this whole renaissance

-is about having this smaller root stock, isn't it?

-Absolutely.

Suddenly, our picking costs are halved.

Suddenly, we had trees that we can manage and prune easily.

We don't need ladders or anything.

These trees are eight or nine years old.

They're still only this size

and they'll be smaller once we've pruned them after finishing picking.

It's completely revolutionised the business.

Kent broke new ground with the first cherry orchards

but the traditional trees pioneered by Henry VIII have had their day.

'Cherries are part of a bigger story of Kent -

'a reflection of the willingness of farmers to use new ideas

'and make them their own.'

In the best of both worlds, our farmers like John,

who are going to keep the old orchards going for as

long as possible but invest in the future of cherries,

and the future of cherries are small and covered and perfectly ripe.

And we stay with fruit for the next addition to our list of Cs -

fruits that the Victorians considered to be statements of wealth and status.

Up next, C is for citrus.

We're visiting a family-run nursery where they're

responsible for saving an historic collection of citrus plants.

People don't think of England as being a citrus-growing area,

especially Norfolk, being flat and wet and windy.

We're proud here to have the national citrus collection.

There's only one like it in the country.

We have 60-70 varieties of citrus here.

They vary from key limes which you can use in pies or making jams

or the kaffir lime you use in cooking.

There are several different lemons.

Probably the most unusual one is the citrus medica which has

extremely large fruits.

They're the size of a small rugby ball.

Grapefruits also.

And you've got lots of oranges. There's sweet oranges for eating.

And also blood oranges which have a very distinctive flavour.

Most of these are here thanks to the collection being set

up by my father Terry 20 years ago.

I bought the collection in 1983, but it was Thomas Rivers

the famous nurseryman from Sawbridgeworth

who inspired citrus-growing and the collection.

Thomas Rivers was a very enquiring sort of man.

He corresponded with people like Charles Darwin.

He's been collecting, breeding and producing new varieties of

fruits, resuscitating old varieties, collecting them from all over Europe.

When Rivers' nursery closed down, we decided to take over the collection.

There were lots of varieties which, if I didn't rescue them,

no-one was going to. They were going to be lost.

I didn't know what I'd taken on.

We'd never grown citrus before and we'd got no heated greenhouses.

We were on our own,

because there was no-one else in the country growing

citrus at all except for a few of the grand houses.

My son Stephen now looks after the national collection.

The collection is looked at every day.

You look for signs of any pests

that might have flown in overnight, for example.

They're watered every other day. They're fed every week with a liquid feed.

We also spray with seaweed once a week which thickens the leaves up.

It also adds a few vital nutrients into the leaves as well.

It reinforces them against disease

and makes it harder for pests to attack.

All our plants are grown in a peat-free compost.

For citrus, it's more important that they have a free-draining compost.

They don't like wet feet.

If you are going to start growing citrus,

there are plenty of choices to go with -

lemons which give you lots of blossoms

and lots of fruit all year round

or you can have lime trees for the gin and tonic.

We put them in pickles. Some of the pickles can be very hot.

If you're not careful, they can blow the back of your throat off.

Most gardens can have citrus in them somewhere

if you've got a conservatory, greenhouse or sheltered spot.

You can grow them on a windowsill if you choose the right variety.

They are not difficult to grow.

Feed and water them

and they will reward you with lots of scented blossom and tasty fruit.

And after that, here's some planting tips with Monty Don.

Just come in the dry, gently lower the stand so I don't break the pot.

Even the citrus plant that is ailing a bit is still a wonderful thing.

That combination of brilliant green leaves,

the fruit - either bright orange or bright lemon,

a terracotta pot and preferably blue sky is as lovely as anything.

This has lived all winter indoors.

It needs winter protection because it is not frost-hardy.

When you keep it indoors, it tends to get a bit tired.

When you put it outside in the spring, the whole plant perks up.

You get lovely new green growth.

You get the flowers coming out and the smell is fantastic.

The fruit forms and you get fruit and flowers at the same time.

The whole thing is a joy.

To get a full measure of joy from this plant,

I want to give it a boost.

Every five years, it is a good idea to re-pot them.

That's what I'm going to do now.

I don't know quite what to expect because... It's not too bad.

Look at that. The roots are growing round the edge of the pot.

They have run out of space. It is heavy.

Best time of year to do this is early June.

Your normal topping up and light pruning,

you want to do it about March or April.

Leave this until growth is really getting going.

Tease off the old compost without damaging the roots.

I have mixed up a compost mix for it.

It is a combination of proprietary organic peat-free potting compost,

a bucket of grit and a generous bucket of well-made home garden compost.

That combination gives it the right amount of nutrients.

They need sustenance,

but they also need drainage and that is what the grit's for.

They must have quite quick drainage.

When you water them,

you want to see the water coming out of the bottom of the pot.

Let's put a layer underneath the plant.

There we go. This is where I know I have got to trim the roots or not.

Yeah, I think I am.

Just going to trim those back.

I don't want them touching the side of the pot

so I'm going to snip them off a little bit.

I have not done this for six years. That is probably enough.

If you did this every year to your citrus, they would not be happy.

If in doubt, don't prune the roots.

The main reason I am pruning them is to fit them into this pot.

I must stress that root pruning is not something you do every year.

Just do it every five years and you just need to add a mulch

for compost and then pinch out the growing tip so you keep the shape.

This has lost its shape.

I'm going to prune slightly more radically

because I've taken roots off

and now I'm going to take a bit of the top off.

That's a goner.

Here...there.

That's looking much better.

Next stage will be to give it a good soak, bit of a feed,

top up the mulch and find the right spot for it.

It has reminded me I've got in my pocket here a letter from June Lucas.

If you're watching, June, it says,

"I have a couple of citrus trees which I think are grapefruit which

"I grew from pips about 10 years ago and they are very green and healthy.

"Trouble is, they have never flowered and I'm wondering why."

That's an easy one. They're are ten years old.

Grapefruit, grown from seed, don't flower for about 20 years.

You are halfway there, June. Hang on.

Thanks, Monty. Remember Joe Swift and his friend Charlie?

They were trying to grow carrots to compete at the RHS Show.

And harvest day has arrived.

-Charlie!

-Hello, Joe. Pleased to meet you again.

-We've got the lucky dip today. See what's about.

-Come in.

-I'll show you my veg.

-Very good.

I'm just not sure if they are thick enough.

-I don't know what's going on underneath.

-Get the water, Joe.

OK, I'll get the water.

-Look at that. Beautiful top on it.

-Yes, it is. Hang on a minute. God.

What's that? Is that good?

-Say something.

-It looks like a long carrot, not a stump.

-I know.

Ideally, you want them to be nice and stumpy all the way down.

About down to there. Then coming in very abruptly. Like that, Joe.

This is good. Look how clean it is, man. Don't drop it, Joe.

I'm not going to drop it. There's only two more.

You have to be very careful. Look at the difference, Joe.

Oh, my God, now then,

-keep your fingers crossed.

-Come on, then.

-I'm praying you get them.

Look out, Joe. He's massive.

You're going to Westminster with a dish of stumpies. Away we go.

Are we going to put number one in?

-You're going to put that in for a start.

-Number one is in.

We'll move this one in because you have a stump. There you are, Joe.

Although it's not as good as that carrot, you've got the uniformity.

-What about him?

-You've got a good eye, Joe.

You can move them a bit like the runner beans.

Joe, I think this is it.

-Joe, when you are staging, that one goes in the middle.

-Nice! Like it.

-Joe, I've done it for years.

-Clever.

Look, Joe. That is not going to disgrace you for first time.

That's all we're looking for.

Here we go.

-Yup, this is it, Joe.

-After you, Charlie.

-All right.

It's a bit scary this, Charlie.

It is a bit scary.

There you go. That's me. I'm definitely in.

-Let's see the carrots, then.

-The carrots, round here.

Shall I put them straight out or get a plate?

I would get a plate. What about a plate?

-Do you want me to get it for you?

-I don't think there's one big enough.

THEY LAUGH

They look so skinny compared to everyone else's.

You've got your three best ones. That one's got a hole in there.

He hasn't got perfection. It's hard to get it.

Yours are clean. That's not going to disgrace you at a first time.

-Look at the colour.

-They're a nice colour.

-We'll get the biggie on.

-Put that one on there now.

I'm going to go for these two.

Have you got the right two to go with that one?

-I'm not sure. What do you think about that?

-I don't like that.

-I love that one.

-You don't like that with the dodgy end on that one.

I don't like that one.

-It's got more bulk, though.

-I don't like it. Put it away.

I think you've got to go for those.

-Yeah?

-You can't have everything on a first go.

-You've got the colour.

-They're orange.

-You've got the finesse.

Just a little bit more weight needed.

-Sweet candle, yeah?

-That's it.

TANNOY: 'This is a reminder to all fruit

'and vegetable competitors that judging will start at 9.30.'

'Please, would all competitors leave the hall while judging takes place?'

That's it. There's no more I can do. I've done my best.

The results and destiny of my veg is in the lap of the gods - the judges.

While they make their decisions and drool over my efforts,

all I can do is wait nervously with Charlie.

After two very long hours, it's time to see if I've won a card.

-Well...

-Oh, there...

-Nah, doesn't surprise me.

-No, look how many entries there are.

I mean, there's a lot of entries, and the standard's really high.

-Didn't get anything.

-There's 14.

-Eight months of work.

-Yeah, yeah.

-But, you know...

-Put it by there.

-That's the first prize.

-Oh, my God, Joe!

You've got a little bit of catching up to do!

I know, I feel mildly inadequate next to that one!

-But same length, Joe.

-But that's got the weight, hasn't it?

-Yeah, well...

-OK, right!

It's your first try on showing exhibition vegetables,

and it's a different aspect altogether

than growing to eat on your allotment.

I know. Listen, it's been an amazing year.

I've learned so much about growing veg, about the presentation,

about the dedication that all these guys have.

-You've dedicated your whole life to it!

-My whole life to it.

I've won so much, Joe, but I enjoy now

helping new gardeners to succeed like I've succeeded.

Well, you've helped me tons, and we're friends now, Charlie.

-For life!

-For life! And we've had some fun along the way?

-Of course we have!

-Course we have!

-Thank you.

What a journey! Shame about not getting a prize,

but I'm sure the carrots were delicious!

And that's it for today.

We've packed in a lot, haven't we?

Chillies, clematis, citrus, cherries and chrysanths.

I'm off for a rest!

But make sure you join me next time

for more top tips on The A To Z Of TV Gardening.

Goodbye.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd