Episode 17 The Beechgrove Garden

We're back in a cage, George.

Best place for us, maybe.

Hello there and welcome to Beechgrove.

We were in the fruit cage last week when we left you.

We're back in it again, because I've a job for this man to do.

Now, look at this poor old plum tree, this has not wintered too well.

-No, this is your coat hanger plant, isn't it?

-This is the coat hanger!

-Right, we go right down to the bottom, and the lumpy bit is where it was grafted.

-That's right.

Most people will notice that on plants which have been grafted,

the bit below it is the root stock, the bit above it is the variety,

so, any shoots coming above are what we want.

So, if we take this bit out and leave these two, we can reshape the tree.

We could.

Where, there? That's it, done now.

Plums, stone fruits, prune them at this time, they heal much, much quicker.

But we're going to have to stake those, Jim, because they're really, really wobbly.

-Well, they could break out, couldn't they?

-Yeah.

I know the answer to this, but I'm going to ask you anyway.

-Would you cover that up?

-Yes, just with that, though, a bit of soil.

-You wouldn't use a heal-and-seal?

-No.

-It certainly looks better.

It's well camouflaged.

-Red currants next.

-What's the problem here?

Well, we moved these redcurrants into this position,

and they're not doing awful well.

I mean, they are cropping, as single cordon, but we've an answer to that...

Well, it's shooting from the base, and what I'm going to do is again, a bit of lopping.

The thing is,

-you can take that away, and you can pick them at your leisure.

-Well, this is your trick.

-It was mentioned last week, if it comes on rain, you can pick them in the shed.

-That's right.

These will be tied in, and we'll make a double cordon out of it.

Yes, we'll pick the best two, and they will be sort of parallel.

-Well, that's the hope. We'll do the same here.

-Yeah.

Now, what about this extra growth?

There's always a discussion about the growth on say the redcurrants or gooseberries.

What I would do with these is, I would take these back, Jim,

not hard back, just take some of the soft tips off.

The point being, if you cut it back to there, which is the proper bit for summer pruning,

the new shoots come out in the autumn when it's muggy and wet and they sometimes get mildew.

-And they get it bad. And it goes back into the main stem.

-But that would just be a double job.

-Yes, that's all.

-But you retired guys have got plenty of time on your hands!

-Allegedly!

-Now, Victoria plum.

-OK.

Now, this is really, really heavily cropped.

Look at that, that's awful, Jim.

-Too many fruit.

-I think this is a case of do as we say, not as we do.

-Aye.

-Because there's an awful lot of crop on there.

We should have taken half of them off, you know.

But lift them up, train it out, tie it into the structure again -

big problem, isn't it?

There is, because we often say these stone fruits are better pruned in the summer

because they're prone to things like silverleaf.

-But you don't get a proper view of the shape of the plant when the leaves are on it.

-That's right.

So that is our one excuse time when you would wait till the leaves are off

and then fan it out because we want it to be a fan tree.

But the other plant over here is so obvious,

how it's been trained, and what it looks like.

This is an espalier pear, and we've trained it along the wires,

and it's just... That is a wonderful piece of architecture.

What we want to be doing now is to take all these off,

and the end one, bend it over...

And just tie that down.

So there's a wee bit of tying and pruning to be going on with here.

-Have you got your secateurs?

-I have.

And in the rest of the programme...

I'm in deepest Aberdeenshire, and I'm going to help turn

this area in to a healing herb garden.

I tell you what, they'll be coming out of the woodwork

when I make the announcement, it's cherry picking time!

And I'm at the Botanic Garden in Auld Reekie,

and I'm about to find out about New Reekie.

The sweet peas behind me seem to have been enjoying the cold and wet,

by the way, but Carole, your sweetcorn hasn't - look at this!

Not happy at all - stunted sweetcorn, outside, a bit better under cover.

-But I think it is purely weather conditions.

-Are these all stunted?

Or are there dwarfs as well?

These two varieties are the baby corns, so they'll maybe not get quite so tall.

But the ones there, Lapwing, which is a new AGM variety - Award of Garden Merit -

-it should be about four times the height!

-That's the difference, isn't it?

-It is starting

to show the male flowers, or the tassels, you can see it better here.

But again,

I'm disappointed with the height.

-They're not very tall, but now the tassels are on, is it time to feed them?

-Definitely.

This is the time to start with a tomato fertiliser or a seaweed fertiliser about every seven days.

I like the seaweed one because it's got all of the liquid nutrients in it, it's very well balanced.

These are nice and green, fairly healthy, and I think they

are enjoying the protection of basically a giant cloche. Is that the same with your exhibition?

It is, do you want to come and see, Ms Baxter? Come and see.

Now, this is this pea that I was growing, this is a Show Perfection.

But it's a little bit twisted?

A bit wobbly, isn't it? It's not hanging as well as it should.

It should be much longer and much straighter.

But you know, this is so much bigger than the normal peas that we grow outside.

-There is the size of the pea pod from the ordinary pea outside.

-So that's quite short.

Yeah. Now that, if you're shelling peas at home, you would want to get six or eight out of those.

Out of these we can get anything up to 11, 12, 13.

If you hold it up to the light you can count the peas.

I'm not letting you do it because that's just too much information for you.

Are you going to feed those?

-I am, tomato fertiliser.

-Once a week?

Same as we did with the sweetcorn.

On to the carrots, and we're expecting long carrots, aren't we?

-Well, this is not a long one, but Ms Watson didn't thin these well enough...

-She's in trouble!

So I'm going to pull this one out, and you'll get a little preview of how good this is.

Look at the length.

You doubter! Look at that. That's just halfway through,

and that's this thing called Purple Haze.

And that's not really for exhibitions.

No, it's just to let you see what happens. That's a cracker.

-See my face smiling?

-I can't wait to see the others.

-Well, you're not getting to see them. That's it.

-You're such a meanie!

When we come onto this, this is Sweet Candle.

What's happened in this one is that the top of the carrot has got exposed.

It's looking a bit purple.

-It's looking like purple haze. So we'll have to put some sand on the top of that.

-To blanch it?

Yes, because that's imperfection,

-and I don't want imperfections in my carrots.

-I don't know if my arms are long enough.

-If that one was that kind of size...

-You're worse than me.

Fisherman, are you?

-Parsnips?

-They're the same. If we just disturb the top there...

The foliage looks really healthy - is that good news?

It is, because all the feeding in the foliage will be going down into the roots.

And the same with the beetroot, because they're cylindrical...

Yes, well, long tapered.

Remember, the cylindrical beetroot are the short ones.

-OK.

-But this one,

it's about that round at the top at the moment.

If we were to get it out, I think it would be going on and on for ever.

-Ready for a show in September.

-Well, perhaps, we'll wait and see.

Janice Loudon has been an aromatherapist for 10 years.

During this time she's had to buy in most of her ingredients.

She is now very keen to grow some of her own.

Janice, this is a beautiful setting.

And I really do find that this is the perfect spot I think for your healing herb garden.

Straightaway, it's by the house, so it's handy.

-You're south-facing.

-Mm-hmm.

And then you've also got the raised beds

and a lot of the herbs like good drainage.

But tell us why you want this garden?

I'm an aromatherapist,

and I would love to use the herbs and my own infusions and oils.

Now, you run a few courses, so it's going to be a good talking point as well.

Absolutely, people like to come out and sit with their tea

and it will be a lovely area for them to relax in.

I wish we could relax, we are going to be a bit busy.

I feel I'm going to give the gardening advice, but I'm hoping

-you're going to tell me a bit about the plants and how they're used.

-I hope so.

This Alchemilla mollis looks lovely just now, doesn't it?

You often associate it with herb gardens.

Now I'm sounding knowledgeable, but I've done a little bit of homework,

-and this particular one doesn't have any medicinal purposes.

-OK.

But you can get a little Alpine one, alpina, and that does.

-So I thought perhaps we should lift that out and put it at the front of the garden.

-OK.

-Definitely concentrate on plants that are used for medicinal purposes.

-OK, that's a good idea.

I'm going to be here till midnight, I think.

Hurray!

Carole mentioned that I could source some pots, and most of these came from donations from friends,

who are also local freeglers.

That's brilliant, you haven't spent a fortune,

but what are freeglers?

Freegle is an internet group, and the aim is to keep goods off landfill sites.

That's brilliant.

I probably won't use them all, but we'll definitely use some of them.

Right, we'll be quite busy taking out some of the soil from the raised beds.

And what we need to do is really freshen that up, Janice.

So we're adding John Innes compost, which is important, because it's soil-based,

it's got lots of nutrition, and that'll be good because that's all permanent planting there.

And we've got a variety of thymes, which again will be nice

-because they're going to go over the edge and soften the edges.

-Lovely.

You specifically asked for bay and rosemary,

so we're going to put those in containers, because your winters are pretty severe here.

They are indeed.

So either take them into a greenhouse or find a real sort of sheltered part,

maybe put them against the house wall, give them some protection,

cover them with fleece or you could even put them in a greenhouse.

Then, the earns, they're rather fitting here, aren't they?

-Lovely.

-This is just going to be temporary.

These are nasturtiums, they're annuals, so once September comes, you just throw them out.

OK.

And then finally in the corner there, a couple of those pots are going to be filled with heathers.

So that's ericaceous compost, because they like acid conditions.

OK.

As a gardener, I think every day is a school day, so I'm going to learn something from you now.

Maybe!

The calendula flower heads, calendulas are really good anti-inflammatories,

so you can make a nice macerated oil with that.

-So that's just picking the flowers.

-Picking the flower heads and using the petals.

It's almost like you're effectively dead-heading and encouraging more flowers, aren't you?

Yes. And the rosemary, it's good for muscle aches and pains,

so you can take a few sprigs of that and put it in the bath.

-Could do with that tonight!

-Yes. Just take a few sprigs and put them in the bath.

What else?

Thyme, again, you can put that in your bath with the rosemary, for the muscles,

or you can make a tea with that.

The camomile, you can dry the flower heads and also make a tea with that.

-So that's just the flowers, not the foliage?

-Yes.

Because when you brush the foliage, you get that lovely perfume, don't you?

Yes.

And the sage, it's a good antiseptic,

good for colds and sore throats, you can make a gargle with that.

One that we didn't mention is the foxglove.

That is a poisonous plant, but it does have medicinal uses,

so people need to know what they're doing.

Absolutely. If you're in doubt, you should contact a professional herbalist.

Now, I introduced you as an aromatherapist, so, any chance of a massage?

Yes, I think that's free massage all round.

-ALL: Hooray!

-Brilliant!

LAUGHTER

I hope they keep that in.

I hope so, too. >

Well, you can tell that the crew were really enthusiastic about that massage.

But on a slightly more serious note,

Janice is really keen to let you know that all those remedies

she's just using for the family and at home, and if you want to do anything like that,

do make sure you seek the right advice. So, cherries...

Hello, sweetheart.

-That is the name.

-I'm talking to the cherry tree.

-What a difference the feeding has made, though, Jim.

-Fantastic.

-What a crop.

We'll have to fight people off.

Aren't they wonderful?

They are gorgeous. So, will we leave George to it?

-Do you think you're safe?

-Maybe not.

-Now, you're warned.

I am. But I never heed warnings.

The cherry's been a success.

It really has, with the feeding and everything.

Can you remember what the fig was like last year,

or earlier this year when we saw it, rather?

It got a hammering with the cold over the winter, but, you know, the warmth in April made it

really grow, and of course we then pruned it back and we've trimmed it.

The pruning, there's what happened.

We've got the fig for this year,

which is in there, and that is starting to develop, and that's a good one.

There's the ones for next year already. But do you know what?

There's one that's ripe, and it's up here. Look at that. That is an absolute stotter.

There we are, look at that. Look.

Oh! Oh!

We'll just open that out.

Look at that. Get your gums round that.

That would be a cracker. But anyway, we've got to do other things.

Looking around at this side, we've now got to the stage where it's maybe too late to thin any more

of the peaches, which is a shame, because if I had been really hard on this,

I would have been able to get much larger individual fruits.

As it is, I can't, so we have to wait.

But next year, we'll thin them harder.

What we're going to do now is, I'm going to pull these shoots forward.

All this is the stuff that will produce the fruits for next year.

I'll pull that forward off the wires so that when it comes to pruning it later on, it's an easier job to do.

Meanwhile, I'm going to go and pick some more cherries.

So, from the fruit house, we've got the greenhouse annuals.

This is creating a bit of colour for the autumn time and the winter

and it's only cost us a few pounds because it's all been grown from seed.

At the moment, I'm just potting on the celosia,

and they can be used as a bedding plant as well, and they have these lovely feathery plumes on them.

Just potting them on by about an inch or so.

What else have we got? We've got browallias here, which have lovely blue flowers.

You can see they're starting to branch because we've nipped out the tops.

Schizanthus, or the Poor Man's Orchid.

This particular variety is called Star Parade, and this one is Angel's Wings.

What I want to do with this one, a bit like the browallia, is I want to nip out the tops.

Sometimes the taller varieties perhaps need a little bit of support.

I've also got cineraria in there.

Quite tiny, and I don't think we're going to get a lot of colour from that until the winter time.

The great thing about all of those plants is that they

don't mind the cool temperatures, round about 8 degrees centigrade.

Next door we have another 8x6 greenhouse,

and that's full of chillies and peppers.

George, I hope you're not eating all those cherries!

And over this side we've got the propagation house, and Jim's busy with the tomatoes.

But I'm going into the Keder house, and we're going to have a look at the ornamental gourds.

And I think this is a real success story.

Lovely names. This particular one is called Russian Dolls. There's a nice fruit there.

Next to that,

these are the ones that are called snakes, and look at the shape.

That's coming on. I really like this one, though.

This is the Speckled Swan.

Look at the shape of that and the long neck, so I suppose that's why it's got the name of Swan on it.

The plants have been extremely vigorous, and you've got to contain them a little bit.

Once they start to fruit, we maybe only want half-a-dozen fruits on it,

and so what you have to do is nip back the sort of sub-laterals back to about two or three leaves.

Just one other that I maybe would like to mention is at the back here,

and this one is Crown of Thorns, and I think that's a very interesting shape to it.

You can actually see the thorns forming.

And we've got a tomato here growing in the hanging basket, losetto,

and we're growing this one because it's meant to be one of the first blight-resistant tomato.

Looks like it's running out of steam in the hanging basket,

whereas behind, in the tubs, it's looking wonderful and healthy and green, and there's a tomato here.

I'm just going to have to try that, but maybe Jim's got some tomatoes that are ripe as well.

Well, it's time for a wee quick look round the glasshouse vegetables, and I have to say,

it's been a testing time over the season for them.

Some of them are doing well. Others are struggling.

The old peppers. This is Canadian Wonder. It's cropping quite nicely.

A new one here, jalapeno. I've never seen that before. Interesting.

A lot more crop to come perhaps.

Tomatoes. Good old favourite like Sun Gold.

It's interesting that it's the small tomatoes that are fruiting and ripening first.

The crop's getting up near the glass and still twisting them

in there and keeping them on the right path, so to speak.

But it's over the other side I wanted to just spend a couple of minutes here because

there's a huge amount of this leaf roll, which we've talked about.

The culprit has been the ventilation of this glasshouse.

These ventilators are supposed to be automatic.

They've not been working efficiently at all, so what's happening is we're

getting temperatures going way up into the 80s during the day and then at night it gets quite cold.

There's a huge gap between the night and day temperatures.

When I was growing them commercially, I was talking about 15 at night - that's 60.

That was the low temperature.

During the day, 70, 71, 72 - in other words, 21 centigrade.

It's the gap that's important, so if the day temperature goes up, you can allow the night temperature to go up

because the gap stays constant and they can cope with that.

It's when you've got up and down, you've got this huge

difference in temperature, you get this problem.

In the day, with them not working, there's plenty water about, we've then

got the conditions for botrytis and here we have botrytis on the stems

and on some of the leaves and you've got to keep picking it off.

Just one wee surprise at the finish.

I kind of belittled this crop when I first saw it

because the plant is an absolutely extraordinary-looking thing.

Cream Sausage it's called.

I wonder which it'll taste like, pork or beef?

I'm at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, and I have to say

the horticultural team are a little bit bamboozled by this plant.

Steve Scott, as a senior horticulturalist, tell us what's going on.

This is the Amorphophallus titanum, which is the titan arum, as named by David Attenborough.

It's a corm and it's from Sumatra.

We received it in a small orange-sized corm from Leiden.

-A corm, it's like a bulb, isn't it?

-Yes, it's like a big, knobbly bulb.

We've been growing it ever since then, since about 2002, and each year it's got bigger.

So at the moment this is a huge bulb.

It's about a metre across, about twice my weight, 160 kilos.

That's an incredible weight. It's broken world records.

This pot is too small for the plant as it is at the moment. It almost touches the side.

OK, now, what you're hoping is that this is going to flower.

Yes, hopefully. We've been waiting for ten years, cos it just keeps producing leaves every so often

and this storage organ gets bigger and bigger and eventually what will happen is, when it does flower,

hopefully this is it, it pushes that 160 kilos of energy and storage right into this flower and it goes up.

And trying to induce it a little bit by feeding it with a high potash fertiliser.

We normally feed it with a high potash tomato food so it produces

good storage, good fruit, or a good corm.

We've got to wait to see what happens, whether it'll flower or if it's going to be a leaf.

There's no way of knowing how to induce the flower.

Plants do what they want to do. They don't ever try and grow the way you want them.

Now, when it does flower, it gives off a horrible smell, doesn't it?

It does. It's a terrible smell. It's called the Corpse Flower because it smells like a dead corpse, basically.

If it was to be a world record, it would be about three metres tall,

so way above my head, and it would be probably

about this wide and it would smell of rotting flesh to attract carrion flies

and beetles to pollinate it over a two-day period or three-day period.

-OK, and once it's past flowering, does it die?

-It just dies down.

It's a monocarpic, which means it's just one single flower, so it pushes

all that energy, that 160 kilos, into the flower, and then it just dies.

I also understand, Steve, that this particular plant is under threat, too.

Yeah, it's just found on one or two mountain ranges, but you can find it

in all different growth habits, in leaf, in flower, in bud, in fruit or in dormant stages.

You can find it but apparently it's very difficult.

Having mentioned Sumatra, we see the conditions that we need, are very tropical.

It's very hot and humid in here, isn't it?

You can feel it. It's getting towards about 30 degrees

right now in here and it's about 82, maybe 83 humidity, and I'm beginning to melt and I'm sure you're the same.

This is what it's like in the wild. This is perfect conditions, although it would

be slightly hotter, like it was yesterday in here.

Obviously, partly I'm disappointed that I'm not seeing it in a flower,

but because it's such a smelly plant, maybe I'm quite pleased about that.

Yes. I'm quite looking forward to it.

The people in the offices in that corridor behind there are not

going to enjoy it very much cos it will stink very badly.

-But obviously you're going to let us know as soon as it flowers.

-As soon as it flowers.

And in the absence of it flowering, we do have a picture of what it might look like.

Now, one of the main remits of a botanical garden is the scientific study of plants,

and we've just had a look at that aspect, but another is education.

Ian Edwards, as one of the people involved in this project

right from the beginning, tell us a little bit about it.

This is a new initiative, the Edible Gardening Project,

and we're doing this in conjunction with the Scottish Allotments and Garden Society.

Now, you know we've been growing plants for a long time, actually 340 years,

but they're always pretty specialist plants from often very remote places, and the rarer the better, really.

But this is about growing common vegetables, and it's about

getting people started in growing vegetables for the first time.

We're very excited about the possibilities that this is,

to get people who've always wanted to grow vegetables but haven't had the confidence,

didn't know where to start, giving them demonstration, mentoring them, helping them get started.

What about the funding? Where's the money from?

In the first year, we've been given a very generous grant from the People's Postcode Lottery.

They're trying to encourage healthy eating, healthy exercise and green issues.

So all of these come together, really, in this project.

At the moment, we're really not looking at much, are we, because it's early days?

But you've got this wonderful backdrop and that's students plots.

Yeah, we're very lucky here that our students start at the beginning of the year.

They're each given a plot and by the middle of the year this is what it's looking like at the time when

the students are often going off to do other things, so we've actually inherited these plots from

the students, and we're able to use those as demonstrations of, you know, "this is one we've done earlier".

-It's a source of inspiration.

-Very much so.

-Who are the type of people that you want to volunteer?

The first lot of people we want are volunteers who are going to be

good communicators, so if they need some help with their horticultural skills, we've got experts on hand

who can provide the training, but we want people to be able

to enthuse about growing vegetables and also help to pass on their skills and experience to other people.

This is the first year of the project, but you're going to hope that this is going to continue,

so how are you going to measure success?

Well, in the first instance, at the end of the year, we should have a team of trained volunteers,

but also I think we've got to try and find out how many people

were actually inspired by what they saw and went out there and started up a garden themselves.

-Is that going to include yourself? Because you're not a horticulturist, are you?

-I admit I'm not, no.

I'm quite good at fund-raising and getting projects started, but my own garden does need a bit of help,

so, yes, I'm hoping to pick up a few tips myself.

-Jim, we've finally got the replacement hedge.

-Yes, indeed.

Castlewellan had to be removed. It just didn't come through the winter.

Now we've got Thuja plicata, the Western Red Cedar.

-And the variety?

-Coles variety. That's after the nursery Coles of Thurnby, just outside Leicester.

Now, in lovely big pots, but look at that - superb root balls.

-Tease it out a little bit.

-I'd tease that out when I plant it.

And another thing to remember is to plant it so that you've got

the branches running along the line of the hedge so that you get an instant hedge.

-About 18 inches apart.

-Yes. Soil in the barrow to sort it.

Wonderful harvest, and your strawberries are doing well.

Yes, and so far, Symphony has been the best. These are following on from the indoor ones.

There's a wee bit to go yet before we go back there. But a few cherries left.

Not many!

Now, if you want to find out any more about hedge planting

or the summer fruit pruning,

or indeed Carole's autumn annuals,

the best way is to look at the fact sheet and go online.

Next week, I'm off to Douneside estate

in Aberdeenshire, and I'm meeting head gardener Stephen McCallum.

He's a great friend of ours because he used to be head gardener here.

And I'm told he's making a lovely job at Douneside so I look forward to seeing that film.

And I'm going to the James Hutton Institute because, as we all know, the answer lies in the soil.

-Until then, goodbye.

-Goodbye.

-Goodbye.

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