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00:14Hello and welcome to Beechgrove Garden. Coming up, gardening for wildlife and a kitchen.
00:22On the programme, I start a plot to feed for all summer.
00:27Brian sowing wildflowers in the garden for wildlife.
00:32Sweet peas get going on an allotment in Perth.
00:35And a container's worth of gardening that will keep you happy all season.
00:47But first, a lawn is a great thing. It can trap rainwater, it's a brilliant environment for
00:53wildlife, a soft plate area for kids and it's also good for hanging out your washing column.
00:58Brian, we're just outside Aberdeen, so this lawn has had a really harsh winter and frost,
01:04snow and rain, so we're going to have to give it a bit of TLC, a bit of attention,
01:07so it can help recover it.
01:09I know. They take some amount of abuse, don't they, their lawns? I mean, they're the most used
01:12part of the garden. The first thing you want to do at this time of year is come and give
01:16it a wee
01:16assessment. And we're in here with the springtime rates already because we've noticed there's a
01:21bit of moss in here. And that's the one thing I think fares most people, doesn't it? They don't
01:26like moss. They don't and although we're going to take the moss out the lawn, we are going to use
01:30it elsewhere in the garden. We could keep it and use it in our hanging baskets in May or we're
01:36going
01:36to put it in the compost heap. Brilliant. But we need to notice, if we've got moss in our lawns,
01:41then that's generally because there's a problem. The moss is actually the symptoms.
01:45And the two main symptoms are your lawn area is compacted or it's damp. So we can throw as much
01:51money as we want with moss killers. We can come in here and tire ourselves out with the rakes here.
01:56Of course, we've also got a machine. We could save ourselves a wee bit of energy. You could hire a
02:00machine in here. See, it's just got the wee tines. Exactly. That would save us a wee bit of time.
02:04But we need to get to the root of the problem. Getting in here, I think compaction, freeing up the
02:09ground just that wee bit. Again, we could get a machine, but save ourselves a wee bit of cash.
02:14We're just going to use a fork, Brian. It's only a wee bit lawn we've got. And all we want
02:17to do is go
02:18around all over the lawn, but especially compacted areas. We're just going to loosen it up. That's going
02:23to allow more air in for roots and also better drainage with the water. I know. You can actually
02:27hear it. I mean, that's a thump you're putting in the lawn. It just shows how compacted this lawn
02:31round about the Conservatory actually is. But there's also plenty of weeds in here, Brian. And right now is
02:37the perfect time to be getting the weeds out because they're just starting to grow. If you wait till they're
02:42flowering, the seeds can scatter, then you'll have more weeds to take out. So we've got plenty tools
02:47here. But I've just got the fork here, Brian. And I'm just going to go in and loosen the soil
02:53a bit
02:53and take out these weeds. But then by taking this out, Brian, as we see, if we just leave that,
03:01then
03:01that's going to be perfect environment for moss to grow or weeds again. So I want to fill this in.
03:07So I'm
03:10putting in some soil just to make sure it's level. Then I'm just going to take a wee pinching of
03:17grass
03:17seed and put that over the top. Now, I don't really just like to leave it like that. What I
03:21like to do
03:22is a mixture of soil and some seed and then just give it a really good start to life by
03:29mixing that in.
03:30There we go. And then I'm just going to take my mixture, spread that over the top,
03:35and I'll take the boot, give it a good pat down. And then the key where this is, we don't
03:42want to
03:43let that dry out. So we'll then just give it a good water. We don't want it soaking wet, but
03:49we want
03:50it moist. And right now is the perfect time to be sowing grass seed because there's plenty of moisture,
03:55but also there's heat. So it's going to germinate quite fast. Going to kick on it. But I think with
03:59the
04:00amount of moss that we're going to take out of here, I've got a feeling we're going to be overseeding
04:03the
04:04whole grass here. Yes. And then we've got the height of cut during the growing season,
04:08Carl. Gosh, walking around the streets where I live just now and you see the amount of lawns that are
04:12scalped already. You know, they're cut short. The grass is actually looking yellow. There's actually
04:17a perfect height of cut for cutting your grass, isn't there? Yeah, so we've got the lawnmower here,
04:21Brian. You know, the blades, this is probably more of a summer setting down on the second lowest setting,
04:25but at this time of year, I'd be getting up to the second highest setting. And you know what,
04:29if you cut it and maybe it's still a wee bit too long, you can maybe drop it down one
04:33because you
04:34could always cut again. You can't add it back. It's a gradual process. So spring and autumn,
04:38your height of cut should be around about one and a quarter inch old money, about three centimetres.
04:43Bring it down to summer to about two and a half centimetres or one inch. And during maybe dry spells
04:49of that, you might want to raise it up as well. We'll just try to put as less stress on
04:52the lawn as possible.
04:53OK, one final job, I reckon, is good for the weekend. The edge in iron, the half moon. So this
04:59is brilliant just for tidying up your edges. If you have a lovely crisp edge, then that just stops
05:04the grass creeping into your borders. Yes. But I tell you what, see, once we're finished here,
05:08Brian, it is going to look a wee bit messy, but come back in six weeks' time, this is going
05:12to start
05:12looking lush. But we better get on with it. A lawn is great, but if you've only got a balcony
05:25or a doorstep,
05:26there's plenty growing you could still be doing. So this year, I'm going to see how much produce,
05:31variety and colour I could get from just two pots. One is going to give us plenty produce,
05:36the other one's hopefully going to look great all season long. So the one that's going to give us
05:40the produce, we're going to start with some winter mix salad leaves. The variety is the good life.
05:46I've decided to grow this one just because I like the variety name. I've got the seed here,
05:50and I'm just going to scatter it quite thickly, but spread out over the top of the pot,
05:56making sure I cover all the areas.
06:00There we go. And then I'll just get some compost lightly between my hands,
06:07and then just scatter it till we've covered all the seed. Then we'll give it a bit of a water
06:13in.
06:15And then if you've not got a polytunnel or a greenhouse, don't worry. A great way to use
06:21as a wee propagator, just to give it a little bit of extra heat to give it a good start
06:25in life,
06:26is take some cling film. Oh, got to work with the wind here. And then just cover the top of
06:34the pot,
06:35and then that's just going to help these germinate maybe a couple of days earlier.
06:40Every few days though, I would come out, flip the cling film over just to prevent condensation,
06:46and then once you see germination, I would take the cling film off. And then we'll hopefully get
06:51harvest when six weeks time, and then we'll get another bit of produce in this pot. Now, over the
06:57one that's going to give us colour, if we thought about it, we could have had some polyanthus in here,
07:01so that would have been one use for the pot already. But we're going to plant some ranunculas in here.
07:06But before we fill any pot, we'll put a good bit of drainage in the bottom. We're just using some
07:12grit.
07:12You could use some broken up pots, just as crocs. There we go. Then again, we'll just fill
07:21with our Beechgrove made compost. Now, I'm not going to fill this right to the top just yet,
07:29because ranunculas like well-drained soil. They don't like drying out, but they don't like
07:34having their feet sitting in water. So we've got about the pot half filled. I've then raised the pot with
07:40feet to allow the water to drain well out the bottom. And then just for my mixture, the leftover grit,
07:48we'll just add that in. I'm going to use my hands and mix it in, so we get a good
07:52bit of drainage.
08:02There we go. Now, we've bought these plants in, but you can start them as corns in October,
08:10but I've tried that before and I've found it quite hard. But these ones, because they're flowering
08:15right now, these will flower up till about May and then we'll get another usage of this pot.
08:21We'll get that one in. Now, they're going to spread to about 45 centimetres tall,
08:26so they're going to be great for cut flower. So you'll get, brighten up your doorstep,
08:30but also brighten up the house. I think we'll add the yellow one in to soften the plant in a
08:35wee bit.
08:38Personally, I wouldn't be cut off these flowers now and get them into a vase,
08:41just so that all the energy is going to produce a really good plant. But they don't like to be
08:48in a
08:48sort of exposed area, so make sure they're in a sheltered spot. And in Scotland, they're not quite
08:53hard there, so keep an eye on the temperature. And if it is going to get a wee bit cold
08:57at night,
08:57like freezing, come out with your bit fleece, cover the pot. Hopefully those will survive the night.
09:04Then you come out in the morning, you take them off and you get to enjoy these beautiful blooms.
09:19This is the patio area of the Beechgrove Garden. And do you know what? A sheltered little spot,
09:24it's just a cracking little place to sit out and relax in. We even had a fire pit on here
09:29a couple
09:29of winters ago, and it's just perfect if you're looking to get outside and do a bit of socialising
09:34with some friends. But like all parts of your garden, every now and again they're in need of
09:39a wee bit of refresh, and I think it's time to get into here. One thing that tickles me about
09:43this area
09:44is it's a series of terraces. And that's a little trick that we use if we've ever got to deal
09:49with
09:49a steep bank or a slope. Now when you're coming in to do a refresh, what you want to do
09:54is assess
09:55the area. We don't necessarily want to get rid of every single plant that's here. But when you're
10:00down at the bottom and you're looking up, you get a whole different perspective of a terrace border.
10:05And right now, all I can see is this big ugly fence. So although I can see we've got some
10:11herbaceous
10:11coming up, I think a nice shrub in here. Over the winter months they'll just plug in that gap.
10:17We've got a buddleia. Don't want to get rid of a buddleia. I look forward to sitting out here
10:21later on in the year and this is absolutely covered in butterflies. They can put on a lot of growth
10:27in the one year, get up to my height and beyond. As you can see back in early winter, the
10:32gardens
10:32team have come in and they've reduced these stems by about half and that's just reduced that wind rock.
10:38But this is the time of year where you want to get down to your old joins. Let's go for
10:42this one.
10:43You go one, two, count up a couple of buds and then just remove them. And you're going to do
10:49that
10:49with the whole plant and what that'll do is just make that lovely, strong, squat, sturdy plant.
10:56We've got a lovely bit of water here. I think every garden should have a wee bit of water. It
11:00just
11:00adds something different. I can see we've already got an iris in there. Maybe a nice wee water lily will
11:06make a nice little talking point when you're sitting round in the evening with a glass of wine with all
11:10your friends. And acers, the Japanese maples, they always look great next to water. I love the reflection
11:17of the foliage on the smooth surface. But as you can see, it's getting a wee bit of overgrown here.
11:22We've got an ivy which has taken over, but we've got a cracking little prostrate growing juniper.
11:29Now I like these, but I think you've got to think about the maintenance of them. So if we come
11:34round
11:34here, we can see how it's grown into the acer and we want to stop that. We want to show
11:40the acer off fully.
11:42If I use this one here as an example, if I was just to get my secateurs and just do
11:47a strim,
11:48I'm just going to get a flat bank. And again, down at that level where this is at eye level,
11:53eventually I'm just going to see a whole load of dead material in here. So what you want to do
11:58is peel this one back and this time follow it all the way in and then take it out there.
12:06And what that
12:07will allow all these other layers to do is just to naturally fall over and take its place. So I'm
12:13going to do that all the way round this plant and there's even fallen onto the path as well. I'll
12:17tidy
12:17that up. I think that's Spionea. It's not really doing very well. I'm sure I can come up with
12:22something better. And the last plant that we've got here is Cotoneaster. This one's Salosifolia
12:28reapins. And I do like Cotoneaster. It's lovely little white flowers and you'll get berries on
12:32them at the end of the year. This is all one year's growth. So I'm going to just go round,
12:37give it a wee haircut like we all need every now and again.
12:40I do like the way it just follows the natural curve of the stonework. It just softens it all
12:45a wee bitty. But if we don't keep on top of it, I've got cracking little stairs here. It'll come
12:50on top of that and it'll maybe make things a wee bitty dangerous. So let's just keep on top of
12:54that
12:55plant as well. So there you go. We don't have to get rid of everything. We're doing a wee assessment,
13:00but join me in a couple of weeks time and we'll see what other plants we can be popping in
13:04the gaps.
13:05Time now to meet a gardener who we first met last year.
13:10Jenna McDonald made a career change and she's now a head gardener on an estate near Perth.
13:16But she also has an allotment and that's where we're going to find her now.
13:27Welcome back to my allotment. There's been lots of changes since we were last here
13:31with the introduction of new structures and these are to grow lots of sweet peas. The reason being this
13:38year is really special because we're getting married and being a keen gardener I want to grow
13:42as many of my own flowers as possible. I absolutely love sweet peas. So we've got these two by two
13:48stakes
13:49and we've popped them into the ground about a foot. Prior to doing that we actually gave the bed a
13:55good feeding with some well rotted manure and some sand because sweet peas don't like soggy soil so we've put
14:01lots of sand in and then we've put the well rotted manure. So the mesh, we've got these cup hooks
14:08so that the mesh can easily be hooked on to each cup hook nice and secure. And one of the
14:16varieties of
14:18sweet peas or sweet pea group that I've purchased is the Spencer group. And the reason being they will
14:24give a lovely long stem they produce lots of vibrant colours so your rich magentas, your purples and your
14:30creams and your whites and they have a lovely scent as well. We do want to gently remove these so
14:35I gave
14:36them a good soaking in a bucket last night so that the roots come away nice and easily. Now that's
14:43a bit
14:43condensed I don't want to plant that in that shape so I'm going to gently open that out so it's
14:50more of a
14:52line and I might even just separate that completely just gently pulling these roots away so that I've
14:58got a collection of two to three sweet peas and without disturbing the root system too much I'm going
15:06to dig that down. I've dug a bit far so I'm going to put some of that back there and
15:11I'm going to firm
15:12those in and a gentle little squeeze. Now what I will do maybe next week I'll see how they're looking
15:22and I'll pinch out the growing top and what that'll do is that'll help create a much bushier plant a
15:30much
15:30healthier plant and I'll just nip that out with my thumb and my first finger and that'll put on lots
15:36of
15:36side shoots. Now because I've got these shop bought ones I did want to grow some from seed just to
15:43double up on success rates just in case we get another frost because you never know it is Scotland
15:48and I've created these seed snails and what I've done here is I've used my soil bags from the manure
15:56that I put down and I cut about 14 inches and I dampened some soil down and I flattened that
16:03onto the
16:03roll and I've rolled it up using some elastic bands sort of like a swiss roll and I've popped the
16:10sweet
16:10pea seeds in so in a few weeks time hopefully the top of this will look like the top of
16:18that
16:18but what this will allow me to do once I take the bands off I'll be able to unroll that
16:24hopefully the
16:25seeds will have a nice long healthy root system and I'll be able to put them in a nice long
16:30line
16:30without disturbing the roots so much so it's the first time I've done this I'm quite excited to see
16:36how it works but it's good to reuse the plastic I've got them sitting in a nice tall pot on
16:41a hot
16:41sunny windowsill well a warm sunny windowsill at this time of year and we'll see if these can germinate
16:47soon well I best get the rest of these sweet peas in the ground if I do want any wedding
16:51flowers
16:52so without further ado I'll get that done
17:07last time we were here in this area of my allotment I was whining about the weeds to overcome those
17:12weeds
17:13we've planted a lot more perennials which will space out and give a lot more ground cover and one of
17:18the
17:18things that has been a success has been this saxifrage however you will notice has not been
17:23a success on this side of the path and that is because of this giant thug which is a comfrey
17:29that becomes such a big plant what happened was the leaves fell over and it shaded out the saxifrage
17:36and it killed it off we could move the comfrey but instead we're going to keep harvesting that to
17:42make the comfrey tea which will turn into a fertilizer to feed all our veggies and our sweet peas
17:47and in the meantime we'll plant a little bit more saxifrage so that these two sides are more
17:53balanced so we've got the white on this side as I say a little bit of white on that side
17:58but what I
17:59found a couple of days ago were these little pink ones and they were in a local shop absolutely dying
18:07of death of thirst so I've given them a good soak and they've sprung back to life today and I
18:13think
18:13they're just really really pretty and an excellent ground cover which helps suppress the weeds so to
18:19balance up some of the white I'm actually just going to cut into the saxifrage looks a bit roofless
18:26it is a little now there's not a huge amount of root system on that but when I get my
18:32tool in
18:32and I'm going to try and lift right under that plant get that in the side there so I've got
18:38a nice big clump
18:39like that so hopefully I'm not interfering with the roots at all and I've already dug a little space
18:47here and in between these heisens I'm going to put more of the white in there and then over the
18:56summer
18:56the saxifrage will hopefully spread out and cover that soil and to balance up some of the colors
19:04I'm going to use several of the pink ones and dot them around so it's really pretty so I'm going
19:10to
19:10take that out the pot it's got quite a good root system in there and I'm going to set the
19:16pink in
19:17here and what my theory is is that we'll have a lovely mix of the white and pink flowers and
19:25that'll
19:25just be really pretty we'll firm it and we'll give it a little water and hopefully it'll mingle
19:32into that and I'll let it spread so when we're coming in to have our coffee in our seating area
19:39we're met by these lovely pink and white sides of the saxifrage
19:54Jenna's lucky to have her own allotment and I've got mine and leaving but you don't need an allotment
19:58to make your grown productive we're going to take this smallest space this year just like a normal
20:04garden and grow it for a family of four and really get the whole family involved you know the kids
20:09and
20:10grandkids and one of the best ways to get kids involved and this is how I got into horticulture
20:15as a wee lad is growing sunflower seeds because they really are mesmerizing to look at and also
20:20they're fast growing so I've got three varieties here little dorrit solar flash and velvet queen
20:27and the key with these is is they're a meter and under we've chose that quite tactfully because this
20:32is quite a windy site so I don't want them to break and we've got nine centimeter pots
20:38we've filled it with 50 50 percent compost 50 percent perlite so we got a good bit of drainage
20:43and the important thing is when sowing sunflower seeds make a wee hole about a centimeter and a half deep
20:50and then put the seed on its side by putting the seed on its side any water that comes it's
20:56just going
20:56to drip off it so it's not going to rot and then we'll just start the flow of water at
21:00the side
21:02give it a wee water then if you've not got a polytunnel don't worry a sunny windowsill's great
21:08if you can't get them in the polytunnel brilliant or we've just got this affordable cloche here
21:13and they'll sit in there and they'll germinate quite the thing
21:18now as I say this is all about growing for a family of four and see how much we could
21:22produce
21:23from these four small beds maybe you let somebody take charge of each bed and that's their bed that
21:29they look after we've got one bed that's slightly deeper than the rest because that's where we're
21:33going to be growing the root crops carrots and parsnips this bed is a bit of a miscellaneous one
21:39this one's where we're going to be growing squash pumpkins and then this one here is where we're going
21:45to be putting our legumes our beans and our peas now it's a wee bit early to be direct sowing
21:51so we've
21:52laid out some black polythene this is just compost bags turned inside out weighed down with some
21:56bricks and that's going to warm up the soil it's only going to warm it up by a degree or
22:00two but
22:01when we go to sow seed in there directly it's going to start them off the best possible way
22:08now for our beans i'm trying to make this as affordable as possible they like a nice sort of good
22:15soil so what we're going to do is something called trench composting so i've dug out this big hole
22:2045 centimeters deep the reason it's 45 centimeters deep is so it's deep enough so it doesn't attract
22:26animals to be digging it up and we've got in here some of our moss that we were scarifying we've
22:32got
22:33plenty greens we've got some fruit some skin in there but some tea bags here we're just going to pour
22:38that
22:39in then we've also got our brown so you want 50 greens 50 browns we've just got these dried stems
22:46that
22:46we're going to throw in and we've also got some cardboard that's just going to stop it going slimy
22:51then we're just going to backfill with the soil
22:58and again as i say the hole was 45 centimeters deep that's so it doesn't attract animals but also
23:05i want to make sure that there's plenty soil for the roots to grow in before it hits
23:10the area decomposing now we can't get planting in here and this bed for another two months
23:16we want it to decompose it's also too cold but if you're like me a bit impatient and you want
23:22to get
23:22on with some jobs well get the canes out build your teepee for the rudder beans to grow up so
23:28as soon as
23:29plants are ready to plant out there's one less job you could be getting on with
23:44here we are in the garden for wildlife which we specifically dedicate to supporting the birds
23:50the bees the butterflies small mammals which in return go on to help us garden more sustainably
23:57now there's three key ingredients if you want to support or encourage the wildlife into your garden
24:02that's food water and shelter so with the food you get that from the pollen and the nectar from all
24:09the
24:09plants that are in flower like this wonderful heather here your hedges and shrubs like portentilla
24:15they help provide shelter for birds to nest in the mammals can even be hiding underneath
24:20and another example of a shelter a couple of years ago carol built this eco pile so at this time
24:27of
24:27year your garden might be full of branches from storm damage or your prunings so she's created this little
24:33home here she's lined it with stones leaves barks branches perfect hibernating spot for hedgehogs
24:40and as all that decays you've got a wee home for the woodlice the beetles and the ants
24:45and then finally you've got your water so that makes sure everything gets a drink during those warm
24:50summer months it also encourages a different kind of wildlife to your garden newts frogs toads and other
24:56aquatic insects today's task we're going to sew a wee wildflower meadow now since the 1930s we've lost 97
25:07of our wildflower meadows so even in this little bear patch in the corner of our garden here
25:12sowing this up is going to make a dramatic effect now we're going to do it in two different ways
25:17the first we're going to sew a packet of seeds so we've prepared the ground i've made sure it's weed
25:22free and i've gone over it with my rake just to make sure there's no stones so it's nice and
25:27even
25:28now it's a wee bit windy today
25:32but we've measured out the required seed that we need and then you very carefully
25:39oh i'm not going to do too much as you can see with that wind they're blowing all over the
25:42place
25:42but we want to make sure we get a nice even spread so just to make sure the seed's going
25:47to cover the whole area i'll do it once and then i'll go back over it a second time
25:52after all the seeds in place i'm just going to grab a rake and then you very lightly rake the
25:58seed in
25:58just so it has contact with the soil now as you can see we've also got a fabric here
26:06and this is a wildflower mat if you look closely you can see all the wildflower seeds have been
26:12pressed into this map now it's quite expensive costs about 20 pound and it only covers about
26:17five meters squared so there's no doubt a packet of seeds going to cover a bit more area you'll get
26:22more bang for your buck and there's actually a few variables that can go wrong with the seed
26:25as you can see in a day like today it's windy i may be mean for it to go there
26:29and it's blown
26:29to another part of the garden or i've sown it too thick the birds might come in and pick away
26:34all the
26:34seeds and have a feed before they've got a chance to germinate so i might not get that sort of
26:38even
26:38consistent look that i will get with this wildflower mat so it'll be nice to do a traditional beach
26:44grove comparison so all you do prepare your soil again lay the mat on the ground and then after that
26:50following the instructions we've just got to cover this mat with about five centimeters of soil so
26:58very carefully do that once that's done i'm going to give everything a wee drink and then fingers
27:06crossed we're going to have lots of wildflowers for us and all the birds the bees everything else to
27:12enjoy over the summer months
27:29well callum that's pretty much all we've got time for today but we're in the competition area this
27:34year's competition is all about senses you jammy sword how did you manage to get smell that's the best
27:39i know i must admit brian when i found out i got smell i was over the moon this is
27:44the one i wanted
27:45and i don't want to reveal too much at this stage for my fellow competitors but what i will tell
27:51you
27:51is i'm going to try and get every aspect of horticulture with smell the good and the bad into
27:57this wee plot and something else i'll say for me to win it two years in a row it's going
28:01to have to be
28:04sensational well for you to defend your title hope your designs better than your jokes but good luck to
28:08you thank you well next week george and roos here and george is going to be back in the fruit
28:14cage with
28:14some new planting and roos going back up to our vertical garden and that's a great way of growing
28:19if you've not got a lot of space and remember look out for us on social media where you can
28:23get loads of
28:24weekly tips and you can watch as many episodes as you like of the beechgrove garden on the iplayer
28:29but from the two of us bye for now
28:54you
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