Conservation Countryfile Summer Diaries

All this week, we're bringing you the top countryside stories

that define our British summer.

The team has been travelling the length and breadth of the UK...

Wow! ..discovering the seasonal stories that affect you.

If I was in trouble,

I'm not sure anybody would be able to see me or spot me.

Wow! It's like a forest of triffids!

Perfect!

That's fantastic.

These British blooms are a sure sign summer is here.

This is Countryfile Summer Diaries

and here's what we've got for you on today's programme.

Margherita investigates the disappearance of Britain's wild flower meadows.

After losing so many of them,

how do we go about bringing them back?

Paul tries his hand at rearing quail.

I think the kids are going to love these.

And how can we Brits help save this, the lobster,

from our new-found appetite for a food

that's high in protein but low in fat?

But first...

the Gower Peninsula in South Wales is a huge draw for

tourists every summer.

They spend well over ?100 million here.

But the sheer number of visitors can put a strain on the natural

environment, especially when people and wildlife are competing

for the same space.

It's a familiar story across the UK,

as Keeley discovered when she joined climbers

in the Peak District National Park,

sharing a rock face with a rare breed of visiting bird.

Can both sides coexist?

I've come to one of the most iconic features of the park,

a four-mile-long gritstone escarpment

which stretches along its eastern side.

This is Stanage Edge.

A quarter of a million visitors are drawn to this special place

every year. But there's one that makes an epic journey to get here.

The rare ring ouzel, smaller than a blackbird,

winters in North Africa but travels thousands of miles to breed and nest

in Britain.

Its numbers have been in steady decline for 25 years,

with fewer than 8,000 pairs believed to be in summer residence -

some right under the fingers and toes of the climbing community.

The problem is, the birds AND the climbers want this rock.

It's ranger Bill Gordon's job to act as peacemaker in the battle

between climber and bird.

Nationally, they've declined by 58%, which is quite...

It's quite considerable, really, in overall terms.

Look, here's one now.

You can just see, see the male?

Oh, yeah. He's just up on that rock ledge there.

If you just take these, just have a look.

He's just up there.

Oh, yes, look at him!

And that's the male? That's the male.

It will be principally earthworms that he'll have.

He's got a mouthful of food!

And he's calling to the chicks.

OUZEL CALLS

How many nests have you had along this particular...?

So, here, we've got five nests.

We've had failures, three of which have been failed through

some form of disturbance, and we've had one predation.

The problem is that once they become extinct from an area,

you don't get them back.

So, there are areas of the country where they've gone completely.

Exmoor is a classic example.

Dartmoor, they're struggling, with their small population.

So here's a real stronghold.

And that's something Bill is working hard to maintain.

So how do you protect a rare bird at such a crucial time?

Well, instead of going head-to-head with the climbers,

Bill decided to get them on board.

So, this is all ready for me to start?

Kim is a climber and ecologist.

Coming up to join me? Going to try!

Bill has roped him into conducting bird surveys to help protect the ring ouzel.

He's agreed to show me what makes this place irresistible

for both climber and bird.

Glad I'm wearing the helmet!

You do want to keep your hands up.

So, you can see it from both sides, really, then -

do you think it's possible to have the climbers climbing

and the birds nesting at the same time?

Yeah, absolutely, it seems to work really well, the system we've got,

where quite often climbers will let us know where the birds are nesting,

cos climbers will see them first, and they'll e-mail us or get in touch

and let us know they've seen birds.

And then if we don't know about them, we can go and have a look,

and decide if we need to put signs up.

If a ring ouzel nest is found near a route,

then climbers are warned to keep well away.

This minimises disturbance to the birds and increases the chance that

the chicks will successfully fledge

and return to the Stanage Edge next year.

But what are the ring ouzels looking for when they're making their nests?

Generally they're looking for these horizontal breaks,

maybe a bit narrower than these.

They usually like a bit of heather, some sort of cover to hide in a bit.

And then they'll go deep in the breaks, and make their nest in there.

So right where the climbers want to be as well, really?

A lot of the time, yes. Cos, obviously, the breaks provide good holds, places to put your gear in.

Is it the climbers being around the nests,

or is it as literal as somebody putting their hand in the nest?

It's generally the climbers being around the nests.

So when there's people around, if the birds are off the nest,

they won't come back. Or they may get scared off the nest and then be

reluctant to come back. Also if they're feeding the chicks

and they try to bring food into the nest, if there's people nearby,

they won't necessarily come back.

Wow! Tell you what, now the sun has come out,

I can really understand what the attraction is.

Fantastic!

For Bill, protecting the ring ouzel is more than a 24/7 job -

it's a passion.

We need the communication,

we need the partnership with everybody that we can.

And the climbers, the BMC, the British Mountaineering Council,

are a fundamental part of that.

We're just pushing the word out that, as recreationalists,

we can live alongside nature.

And that's really the most important thing.

Of course, they're not here all year round -

do you miss them when they've gone?

Er, it's a difficult question.

I've not had a day off for three months.

I've been up every morning, I've been out every evening, looking,

and just checking on them. So, at the end of...

When they've finally finished their breeding,

I am relieved to some extent -

it means I can have a day off or I can go away on holiday, or something!

And you deserve it! But at the same time, you do love them,

because they're a quintessential part of the British uplands,

and a quintessential part of Stanage Edge.

And I think that the work that we do

is to try and perpetuate this species,

in this environment, for everybody to enjoy.

The migratory birds that make Britain their summer home

have seen this landscape change over the past few decades.

Wild flowers were once a common sight in the British Isles.

But now a fifth are on the verge of extinction.

Margherita travels to North Wales to investigate.

In less than a century, we've lost 97% of these,

our beautiful wild flower meadows.

Since the Second World War,

7.5 million acres of meadows have been ploughed into fields for crops.

It's a shocking number, when you consider that these tiny,

delicate little flowers pack a mighty punch in the natural world.

In fact, they underpin our entire food chain.

Meadows like these are home to bees and butterflies.

By pollinating plants,

they're responsible for every third mouthful we eat.

Without them, we'd simply struggle to feed ourselves.

And yet one in five of our wild plants are edging towards extinction,

threatening the life of the insects that rely on them.

But after losing so many of them, how do we go about bringing them back?

Botanist Dr Trevor Dines from Plantlife has been leading

a national campaign to reverse the catastrophic decline of meadows...

Great to see you, how are you? I'm very well, how are you?

..not just for their beauty,

but for the vital role they play as habitats for insects,

flora and small mammals.

This is sadly what we've lost so much of.

We've destroyed in the last couple of decades nearly 7.5 million acres

of this sort of habitat. And it's just astonishing to think that

that colour has disappeared from the countryside.

Trevor, why has this happened?

How come we've lost so much of this beautiful wild meadow?

Unfortunately, it's that pressure to produce food,

it's that agricultural intensification of the countryside.

So, in one afternoon, this could be ploughed up, reseeded,

and you can instantly lose all of these species.

The decline of British wild flower meadows has been generating headlines for the last few years.

There have been many campaigns to reverse it,

but it seems we've been going about it the wrong way.

Trevor has discovered that many meadows are planted with identikit packets of seeds,

creating what he calls "McMeadows".

We've almost got a double problem going on, if you like.

With the background of these meadows disappearing from our countryside,

we're almost rushing to replace them with sort of an identikit mixture,

a generic mixture of what we think wild flowers should look like.

So this would be sort of like a generic mix that people would use.

And this has been sourced from all over the UK.

Probably some of these things in here probably aren't even meadow plants at all.

So they're not genuine meadows.

And what we're asking is for people just to pause,

and how they can bring some of that local species back, that local identity.

And what SHOULD I be looking for?

Well, this idea of natural seeding is literally taking the seed

from one of these ancient wild flower meadows,

and taking it somewhere else to create a new meadow.

We've got buttercups, we've got crested dog's tail -

which wags like a dog's tail when you wag it!

THEY LAUGH

And all the seeds are in that hay, and then it's taken immediately,

straightaway, to the new site.

And in that way, you get

the correct picture of species, that local identity,

that sort of magic of this wild flower meadow, that is THIS wild flower meadow.

And Trevor is a man who leads by example,

establishing his own meadow right outside his front door.

Come on!

With a little help from his four-legged friends!

So, has the meadow led you to be a livestock owner as well?

We bought this place to have the meadow and start practising

some of what I've been preaching to people.

But then we actually went to the local village show and saw...

In fact, er, Caddie here was being shown.

I just fell in love with them.

We wanted cows, we needed cows to graze the meadow afterwards.

And cattle are nature's seed distributors,

fertilisers and mowing specialists.

Meadows make livestock and livestock makes meadows -

the two are intimately, intimately linked.

If I want to help you with your wild and local meadows,

I don't need to move in any animals,

I can just do the window box for now, to start with?

No - we recommend the average domestic lawn having one of these!

Trevor and his cows are doing their bit to encourage wild flowers,

so vital to the bees and insects that pollinate two thirds of our plants.

And later in the programme,

you can find out how you can do your bit to save endangered wild flowers.

The beauty of our countryside and coastline has a powerful appeal,

making many holiday-makers want to live the dream by buying a second home.

But are these weekend retreats helping or harming local communities?

Here's Charlotte.

An Englishman's home is his castle -

or so the saying goes.

And if you can afford it, splashing out on a second one

to use for holidays gives you the best of both worlds -

a permanent residence and a house in the country,

or bolthole by the sea, to use whenever you like.

Whether the appeal is quality of life, a second income, or both,

it's an idea that many Britons have bought into.

More than a million and a half of us now have a second home in the UK.

And the number one choice of where to have one?

You guessed it, Cornwall.

It's not surprising, is it?

Stunning coastline, picture postcard villages.

But now, in some of the most sought-after

of Cornish coastal resorts,

two in every five houses are second homes.

And while their owners have clearly fallen in love with Cornwall,

the feeling's not always mutual.

Patrick! Hello, I'm Charlotte.

Hi, Charlotte, come on in.

Patrick, his wife Becky and their three children live in the seaside town

of Padstow, on Cornwall's north coast.

Their families have lived here for hundreds of years,

but things are changing.

We've got a massive influx of second homes in Padstow,

and that second home, through no fault of their own,

is decimating the local communities within Cornwall.

Despite both having jobs in the area,

Patrick and Becky live in social housing,

because they can't afford to buy a house in Padstow.

It's the dark side of tourism.

People come to Padstow, they fall in love with the place,

they want to buy a house here at all costs,

and that's pushing the prices of houses up and up,

to the point where we've pretty much got absolutely no chance of

buying a house in Padstow ever, realistically.

What impact has it had on you, Becky?

I was made homeless about eight years ago.

I was always private rented and the house that I was renting, it got sold.

You used to be able to find private rent quite easy to come by,

but now because all the houses,

there's more money to be made, I think, in holiday letting,

that it's very hard to find a private let now in Padstow.

This isn't just about Cornwall.

In many rural and coastal communities,

from Yorkshire to the south coast,

from the Cotswolds to the Western Isles,

there are serious concerns about the impact of second homes.

Take Coniston in the Lake District,

where 35% of houses don't have permanent residents.

Here they face many of the same problems as Cornwall.

Villagers feel priced out,

and with many homes lying empty for large parts of the year,

the local primary school is now only half full.

But for some people, second homes play a vital role in supporting the rural economy.

What's their destiny?

They are going into the store to be salted down for lobster bait.

Johnny Murt's family have been making a living from fishing in Padstow for four generations.

How important are the tourists to this business?

Very important, and certainly more important than they've ever been in the past.

All the restaurants that we have in Padstow now and the surrounding area,

it's become a bit of a Mecca for foodies and they want fresh fish and shellfish.

So what about the tourists who then like it so much they

decide to buy here and they have second homes?

How much is that a concern for you?

It's not a huge concern for me, to be honest.

I know lots of people in town do get very upset about it.

But, whichever side you're on, we do need the tourists and we do,

you know, we need that money coming in to Padstow and keeping all the businesses alive.

It used to be a six-week season, but now it's almost year-round.

Everybody didn't used to have jobs in this town, and now there's a lot

higher employment than there ever was.

For some, second homes cast a shadow over some of the most beautiful parts of the UK.

Demand raises prices and many

who live and work there can't afford to stay.

But others say without the money that second homeowners bring,

these local economies wouldn't survive.

Edwina Hannaford is the Cornwall councillor responsible for environment, heritage and planning.

I'm meeting her in the coastal parish of Lanteglos-by-Fowey where,

in parts of some villages, half the houses are second homes.

Are there too many holiday homes here, do you think?

If you haven't got a home and you can't afford to buy one, then yes,

the answer is yes. But there is another side to this.

Those holiday homes, they employ an army of people, the plumbers,

the caretakers, the gardeners.

All those people rely on the business that comes their way.

Who wouldn't want to live here, even if only for part of the year?

For some locals, second homes are a bonus.

For others they're ruining the place.

The challenge for local councils and for government

is to find a way of keeping a balance.

Now, people on Gower will tell you that the perfect summer meal

should have lobster, local lobster from Oxwich Bay.

Now, lobster is no longer just a luxury food.

It's increasingly finding its way onto supermarket shelves.

So, given the rise in demand,

one enterprising charity is looking

into the potential of farmed lobster.

Jules reports.

Now, in the summer we tend to seek out super fresh food.

So how about one of these?

A tasty British lobster.

It seems that now Britons can't get enough of them.

Demand is soaring.

Once prized as a delicacy, lobster is making a move for the mainstream.

Dive into any number of restaurants and you'll see it on the menu.

In fact, you can snap up this crusty crustacean quite cheaply

at your local supermarket.

In the last year alone, sales of lobster in the UK rose by 90%.

Now, this surge in demand should be good news for the UK's lobster fishermen,

but there's a problem.

Put simply, our lobsters don't grow big enough fast enough.

It takes more than five years before a lobster is mature

and ready to hit our plates.

So we're having to fill the shortfall in supply by increasing our imports by 30%.

In total we're bringing in more than 2,600 tonnes of lobster a year.

But now a scheme here, pioneered by Brits,

could help to bolster and protect the industry.

A single lobster can lay up to 40,000 eggs a year.

But the number that survive to adulthood could be less than 1%.

To ensure a healthy supply of British lobster,

the National Lobster Hatchery here in Padstow

was set up to give them a helping hand.

Dominic Boothroyd is the man in charge of rearing several thousand baby lobsters.

These are actually around about two or three weeks old.

But in the wild they wouldn't be as far developed as this.

So you're actually giving them a helpful boost?

Yeah. The idea is that we take them through the vulnerable stages

in their life cycle, giving them a head start.

But given how vulnerable these young lobsters are,

where do you get your samples from?

So, our female lobsters, our hens,

they come from fishermen or from fish wholesalers.

We've got one behind here.

Does it occupy that entire box? There is a few in here.

There is a very large hen.

I had no idea female lobsters were called hens.

Yeah. I think that is brilliant.

So, she's a big old girl. How old is she?

Difficult to say.

Probably somewhere around 50, 60 years old, I'd imagine.

50 to 60 years old? They get very old.

They have a very slow growth rate.

So what stage would you release

these young lobsters back into the sea?

Well, the majority will be released at stage five,

which is the next stage on of development from these bigger ones.

So, not a lot bigger than that, though?

No, but the important thing is they're going from

a behaviour where they are very vulnerable,

floating up in the surface layers,

to a behaviour where they're living under the sediment and they're

protected from predators.

And there is a very good reason why Dom can't rear them in the lab for longer.

Lobsters have cannibalistic tendencies.

Keep them together, and they'll kill each other.

And keeping them separate in the hatchery is expensive.

The solution could be rearing them at sea,

where they can acclimatise in the wild over several years.

Today, hundreds of baby lobsters will join the pioneering trial and

Carly Daniels is responsible for this precious cargo.

So, how many more have you got to put in? Hundreds by the looks of it.

Yes, yeah, we are doing 672 today.

I've seen many things released into the wild before,

but never via a pipette of that size.

Many uses of turkey basters, yeah!

And then you're going to put them into these little baskets?

Yeah, into the little baskets here.

I don't know if you want to have a go. Let's have a go, yes.

Yes. Let's start to deploy a lobster.

It sounds like a very military term.

If you go for the tail end, if they stick their claws up,

obviously you can't pull them into the turkey baster.

There we are. There you go, just suck it up.

Right then. Let's pop him in there. There we are.

There you go. These tiny little boxes, they all fit together, presumably, into a bigger frame?

Yes, it's into a bigger frame. It's almost like

a Trivial Pursuit cheese, is the best way to describe it.

Yeah. So they just slot into a circular disc.

So that's already got lobsters in?

Yes. It's a kind of lobster high-rise, isn't it?

It is very much a lobster high-rise. Yes.

How long will you be keeping them in here for?

The ones that are going out today with the project we're running at

the moment is about two and a half years.

At the end of that time the lobsters will be released.

But for now, with these youngsters safely stowed in their new home,

there's just one last journey to make.

And after placing the pots about nine metres down,

Carly wants to check on some that were put out earlier in the trial.

Look at the growth on the pot, though.

Absolutely stunning. There we are.

So this one... Hello, fella.

..is one of our slightly younger ones. Three months.

Three months, so that's a three-month-old lobster.

Hello, mate. There you go.

Well, you are growing well in there.

And older pots reveal a slightly bigger specimen.

Very different to what we get in the hatchery.

A lot of it's to do with the food that they're feeding on in here.

They've got a diverse array of food.

We can't obviously give them this many creatures in a hatchery environment

so they get a very good food source, they're in a very dark environment

so that affects their colour as well.

So it's a demonstrable way of

reinvigorating lobster fisheries which

perhaps have struggled in the past.

Yeah. It's all about the stock enhancement, from the lobster hatchery perspective.

It's all about supporting those fisheries and being able to

release something like this back into the wild that we've nurtured and created.

Looking ahead, can you see a time when

commercially we could farm lobsters?

Yes, definitely. As you can see the animal itself is very, very

fit and healthy and it's certainly something that,

maybe in years to come, it could be on someone's dinner plate.

So there is potential for aquaculture,

and it may be that it's not this system,

it could be another system that's developed

that will take that forward into the future.

If it's successful, it will be good news for the lobster,

good news for the fishing industry, and, let's not forget,

good news for us.

Earlier, Margherita found out about one man's quest to revive

our long-lost wild flower meadows.

Now she's going to show you how to create a mini meadow for yourself.

These are the kind of meadows you always wanted to run through as a kid, aren't they?

Absolutely. I mean, look at this. We've got hills to roll down!

Trevor Dines has created this sprawling experimental meadow in just over a year.

It's stunning. I'm glad you reacted like that.

I'm constantly looking out for things of interest.

There's loads of little plants in here.

Like you say, it's when you get up close and personal that you can see

things that you really like.

And one of my favourite groups of plants are the little eyebrights.

And we've got some just down here.

Traditionally, many meadow plants had medicinal properties.

In the olden days they used to say

that if a plant looked like a part of the body

or an ailment, it would cure them.

So this is the eye with a little yellow bruise

in the middle of the eye.

Put that in your eye and it would make it bright again.

So that's eyebright.

So, how many different varieties, or species,

do you have now in this meadow?

I've counted about 80 different species of wild plant.

And when you consider that there was only

ten or 15 species in here before, that really is an amazing result.

Trevor's example is one we can all follow to help revive our wild flower meadows.

And you don't need acres of land to do it.

You can plant seeds in a sunny corner of your garden,

container or even a windowsill.

First cut the grass to the quick

before giving it a thorough raking ready to seed in spring or autumn.

Poor soil is perfect for wild flowers.

If you can't get seed or green hay from an existing wild flower meadow where you live,

contact your local wildlife trust or specialist seed supplier for

a local mix that suits the soil in your area.

It's likely your meadow will have varieties of the pea,

daisy and mint families.

In a couple of years you too could have a meadow like Trevor's.

Once you've got a thriving local wild meadow,

what differences do you start to see around you?

Already in this meadow I've seen all sorts of little bugs

and insects and beetles going round,

and, in fact, this little chap here,

this is birdsfoot trefoil, just starting to flower here.

And this plant is the food plant for more invertebrates

than any other food plant in Britain.

160 different bugs, beetles, butterflies, moths, live off this.

It's this mixture of plants that you want to support all of that wildlife

and ultimately also bring in the pollinators as well.

What would be the next step for a meadow like this?

We got the cows last year.

What I've always dreamed of doing is getting a hive of bees

and having our own hive of bees so that they can do that job of pollination

but also give us some honey at the end of the year.

That would be fantastic. Extra treats. Absolutely.

And today, Trevor's dream becomes reality.

Professor Pete Barrar,

director of the National Bee Keeping Centre Wales,

is winging his way towards us with a hive of bees for Trevor.

Wow. Look at that!

How many bees are in there, then? Only about 30,000.

30,000?!

You doing OK? Yes.

There is no guarantee of success.

Bee hives don't always settle easily elsewhere.

I'm nervous, but these are the bees arriving in the meadow.

HE LAUGHS So, it's just too exciting!

We should get an idea pretty quickly if they're going to take to their new home.

If they don't, all that potential pollinating power will be lost.

OK, let's just put this on the top now.

BUZZING Wow, that's a noise and a half.

Right, now you see they're facing the hive,

they're flying backwards and forwards,

they are trying to orientate where they are.

Their first priority is to learn where the hive is.

Exactly. OK. So much forage here and it's close to the hive.

And that's what they really like.

Although they can go a mile and a half to get what they want,

it's much better if it's on the doorstep.

We've done our best to provide them with a little bit of a larder. Yes.

The bees in turn will play their part in sustaining the wild flower meadow

through pollination, helping the spread of native seeds.

With three quarters of the plants favoured by bumblebees in decline

in the UK, the fates of insect life and wild flowers are closely connected.

And how important is it that we keep that local DNA, that real variety throughout the UK?

Well, it's essential and wild meadow honey,

what the French would call mille-fleur, is just wonderful.

And again, it will depend on what the bees are feeding on at that particular time.

So it's what the bees are feeding on throughout the year,

at any point in the year,

will change the flavour of the honey? Yes.

You can see that they are more relaxed now already.

There we are. Look at her. Wow! Welcome to your new home.

Trevor, how are you feeling about the new members of the family?

I'm just so excited just to watch them.

It's fantastic to know that they are doing that job of the pollination.

We will get lots more seed now from these wild flowers for next year,

so the meadow will just look better and better and better cos these guys are doing their job.

And, with a bit of luck, in just a couple of months

Trevor should be tasting his first jar of wild flower honey.

The swathe of colour is designed to attract the bees' attention,

and it certainly draws my eye, too.

These meadows are home to some of my favourite flowers,

the oxeye daisy and that vibrant yellow of the simple buttercup

that immediately takes me back to my childhood.

What I truly hadn't appreciated until today is just how important

these wild meadows are to our ecosystem.

Whether it's growing your own wild meadow or maybe just working on

a few feet of your back garden, a container tub on a patio,

or even a window box in your flat,

we can all make a difference to ensure

this green and pleasant land of ours stays as healthy as possible.

When it comes to growing summer foods for the mass market, the process can be

almost industrial in its quest for perfection,

as Matt discovered when he ventured into London's larder, looking for a lean, green picnic favourite.

The Lee Valley produces three quarters

of one of the UK's most popular fruits

and this site alone grows five million of them.

It's a fruit with a long and auspicious history.

Emperor Tiberius had them on his table every day.

Catherine of Aragon liked them sliced in salads.

And they've even been grown on the International Space Station.

I am, of course, talking about the humble cucumber.

And yes, it is a fruit, and they can be eaten just like one.

Cucumbers originally came from Asia.

The people who put them on the map here in the Lea Valley

came from foreign climes, too - Sicily.

Giovanni Abella was one of those. He came here in 1957.

After a stint in a concrete factory, he rented his first greenhouses.

By the late '60s he was on his way.

Since then, his business has grown from strength to strength.

UK Salads is now very much an Italian family affair.

Helping him are his three daughters, Jo, Leonora and Franca,

their husbands Vito, Pas and Giuseppe,

and now a grandson, Jake, is on the books, too.

John. Pleased to meet you. Very nice to meet you.

You must be very proud of your family.

Yes. And very proud of all of this. Yes, thank you.

Tell me, do you have a history of growing since you were a little boy?

Yes, I worked on the farm in Italy with my father there.

OK, and what were you growing? Corn. Oh, corn. Yes, in Italy. OK.

In the 1950s and '60s the Lea Valley market gardens were desperately

short of people like John with experience of working on the land.

One of our biggest problems, we are

very, very short of labour indeed and we have to rely on foreign labour.

With their first-hand experience of growing fresh produce back home,

the Sicilians were an obvious choice for the greenhouses.

It wasn't just fruit and vegetables that were grown here.

The biggest crop was flowers which were taken into London and sold at

Covent Garden - the capital's main fruit and vegetable market until the 1970s.

About 1969 I buy the glasshouses here.

OK. And I start my own business and I carry on like this.

So when you bought the glasshouses originally... 1969.

..were you growing cucumbers then? Straight away?

Cucumbers, yes, I start with cucumber.

It was roses here. Roses. I take the roses out and I put cucumber in.

And I carry on with cucumber all the time. And why cucumbers?

Because I understand the cucumber then!

OK. I don't understand about roses, you know?

THEY LAUGH

The cucumber business was hard work back then.

It was manual labour seven days a week.

Coal was used to fire boilers that provided the warmth the cucumbers needed to grow.

John often slept in his greenhouses to keep an eye on his plants.

Things are a lot different now.

He has son-in-law Vito to help.

Vito grew up in Sicily

but met wife Jo when he came to visit cousins,

also in the business, and he never went back.

Let's start at the bottom and work up, because you've got them in these

little grow bags here. What's inside there?

Inside there is coco peats. Coconut, then? Yes.

It's crushed coconuts.

You can see all the coconut hairs in there.

Years ago, seven or eight years ago,

we used to grow it in stuff called rock wool.

Which is loft insulation. That's right, correct.

And you've got these pipes and tubes coming in there, then.

Is that feed? That is to feed them, that's the irrigation computer.

So each one gets all the nutrients and water

and by the computer it adjusts, more fertiliser or less water.

It's all at the touch of a button these days. Yes.

In this mock Mediterranean climate, cucumbers grow really fast.

This was filmed over six hours, and they grew about an inch.

But even with this finely tuned system, the cucumbers are still susceptible

to the age-old adversaries.

Is your biggest challenge pests?

This little fella,

he will go in search for other little insects called thrips,

which cause a lot of trouble to the cues.

When... The little thrip, he can go in there.

Are they all little cucumbers in there?

Yeah, there is about seven cucumbers in there. OK.

What he will do is start to bite the cues

when they are very, very small, and then when

they start growing they grow curly... Right.

..which is no good to us. We can't sell to the supermarket.

Did I not hear right that the curly ones are actually the tastiest?

Yes, it is better, more sugar, more tasty.

So why are supermarkets selling us these long ones?

I think it's that people don't know the curly one is the better one.

Not after this. Seriously, everybody is going to be after curly cucumbers now. It's the best.

Well, Vito doesn't throw away any of the curly cucumbers.

The North London Greek and Turkish communities absolutely love them.

It's the old philosophy - waste not, want not.

And his commitment to environmentally friendly practices

is not just a lot of hot air.

As well as a biomass boiler, they also have one of these.

It's a massive engine which burns gas to heat the greenhouse and also

provide electricity for the National Grid.

As well as that, it produces CO2 which, of course, is a greenhouse gas,

and is used in the greenhouse.

But it's not contributing to global warming.

The carbon dioxide is fed through the pipes into the greenhouses

where plants absorb it. It's all controlled by the touch of a button.

But despite the gadgets and gizmos and computers,

there are still some jobs that are all about hard graft, like harvesting.

And that's because only a human can judge when a cucumber is big enough,

heavy enough, and, you've guessed it, straight enough.

JOHN CRAVEN: Whether you're growing crops or rearing livestock,

it takes time to learn the skills.

But more and more of us are trying our hand at putting

home-grown food on our plates.

If you started the day with an egg for breakfast you're in very good

company, because we as a nation eat 30 million eggs every day.

That's 11 billion a year.

And we are so fond of them that three quarters of a million households in the UK

now keep their own chickens.

Paul and his family have them on their Wiltshire smallholding,

and now they are going to show you how to take on a new challenge.

PAUL: We've kept chickens for nearly ten years now.

Charlotte, my wife, is a farmer's daughter

and grew up baking with the rich, fluffy yolks from their birds.

Scrambled eggs and omelettes are a Martin family favourite, and these

ladies are easy to keep.

and it's a rewarding way of making our little farm pay.

Commercially, it's thought there are around 35 million laying chickens

in the UK, and on average the farmer receives just 6p per egg.

So selling chicken eggs is only really profitable on a huge scale.

However, there is one other bird whose eggs are highly sought after by the restaurant trade.

Quails.

I've been testing the market with local restaurants

to see if there is a demand for quail eggs in the area.

But keeping quail is very different to keeping chickens,

so I'm hoping quail breeder Philippa Collins will have some much-needed advice.

This is our quail enclosure. I've got about 40 quail in total.

CHIRPING Oh, I love that sound. That's the male ones.

So, it's not like a cockerel?

No, they make a lot nicer sound than a cockerel.

They are so gorgeous, aren't they?

How different is it looking after quail and breeding them to chicken?

They don't like going up ramps like a chicken so you need to house them on the floor.

They like mealworms and lots of lettuce and cucumber.

We've got lots of lettuce. That's good. You'll need lots.

So this is one of my enclosures.

Look, those two are having a fight.

He's pecking. Hey!

This one is a female one as it's got a lighter, gingery breast with the spots.

This is the male so it's got a plain ginger breast.

Mind you, you've got to catch them first before you can look at the breast.

Right, let me have a go at catching them.

Is there a knack to it, or it's just... Just go for it.

There we go. And that's a female? Yes, definitely.

Brilliant, brilliant.

Obviously we're going to make a little aviary outside to start with because it's the summer.

Is that OK? Yeah, definitely. They'll like being outside.

So we've got to fox-proof. And can I start off with a low-ish one?

Yeah, that will be fine. And how much do quails cost?

This breed, they are about ?7 for a female and a male is ?2 or ?3.

Would it be OK if I took ten off you, then?

Yes, definitely. And one cock bird? Yep, no problem. Fantastic.

I'm ever so excited, I really am.

I think the kids are going to love these.

With 11 quail on order from Philippa, it's time to build their new enclosure.

Now, this is our quail's new home.

It's a rabbit hutch, but it has been modified

and it's perfect for quails.

It's a great starter kit for someone like me.

But there's one modification I need to do, and that's put some wire mesh

on the bottom to stop any predators digging underneath and getting in.

Quails and chickens cannot be kept together,

because chickens are carriers of diseases that harm quails.

So we'll need to place the new pen

a safe distance away from the hen coop.

If this works, and eventually we can breed and breed and breed,

and we'll have - who knows? We could have a quail farm.

What we don't want to do is to put too much down where we can't reach,

in case they lay some eggs underneath it.

Right, OK, let's go and get them. Come on.

With a few finishing touches,

straw for bedding and a dust bath to clean themselves,

our quail enclosure is ready for its first inhabitants.

OK, that's the lot.

If you can get local restaurants to buy your eggs,

they should fetch at least ?2 per dozen.

100 hens means 30,000 eggs per year.

That's ?5,000 profit.

More than enough to cover the cost of keeping these girls.

Tomorrow I'll be tasting our first batch of quail eggs,

trying them out on a top chef,

and finding out why these little eggs are four times healthier

than chicken eggs.

Well, that's all we've got time for today.

But please do try to join us again at the same time tomorrow

for more entries in our Countryfile Summer Diary.

Roy Taylor is on the hunt for a majestic but deadly alien invader.

Beautiful though it may be,

this is one of the most dangerous plants in Britain.

And Keeley joins the summer race to harvest the nation's peas.

Farmers have to get it from the field to the freezer in just 150 minutes.

So, until tomorrow, bye for now.