- 2 hari yang lalu
Kategori
🛠️
Gaya hidupTranskrip
00:06Welcome to Grow, Cook, Eat.
00:09Each week we're growing one star vegetable and we'll show you how easy it is to get from pot to
00:15plate.
00:17No matter how much time, space or experience you have, it's amazing what you can grow with just a little
00:23effort.
00:24You'll learn all the tips and tricks to growing glorious greens in the garden.
00:30So what are we waiting for?
00:31Let's get growing.
00:37This week is all about tomatoes.
00:40We're going to take it from planting on a frosty February morning right through to harvest.
00:45We'll also be talking about the importance of soil fertility and I'll be checking out a local producer who's taken
00:52tomato growing to a whole new level.
00:54There's nothing like harvesting your own veg and Jack Kerwin from Sprout & Co. is going to show us a
01:00trio of things you can do with those tasty homegrown tomatoes.
01:08These smell and look absolutely delicious.
01:12Don't they do?
01:13And I know you're a big fan of growing tomatoes.
01:15I think you have something like 70 tomato plants growing at home.
01:1875 actually.
01:1975 to be specific.
01:20I want you to taste one of these.
01:21So these are the little cherry tomatoes that we grow.
01:23If this tastes anywhere near as good as it smells, honestly, it's going to be.
01:28Yeah.
01:29Yeah.
01:29So it's like a little sweet.
01:31And that's what they should be like.
01:32All of that intense sugars inside it that just give it that amazing flavor.
01:35And the total varieties.
01:37Like look, there's massive ones.
01:38There's different colorty ones around the place.
01:40Yeah, exactly.
01:41So you get to experience all the different sizes, shapes, colors, tastes, all that.
01:46It's just, it's an amazing diversity.
01:48So where does one start?
01:49Journey to this lusciousness started all the way back in a wintry February.
01:54So check this out.
01:56We're going to be planting a few varieties over the next few weeks.
02:00But today we're focusing on my favorite, sun gold.
02:04And before we can get them into the greenhouse,
02:07Micah's going to run me through the basics of good seed sowing.
02:10So the key with starting these off, right, is just overfilling the tray.
02:15Okay.
02:15So if you want to get stuck in there, Karen.
02:17Yeah, to the other side.
02:18Completely overfill, right, like we've got twice as much as we need, basically.
02:22Kind of work it into all the corners.
02:24And then what I generally do is give it a bang on the table like that.
02:28To settle it down?
02:29You can see how it settles down in there.
02:31So that means you don't have any big air pockets in there,
02:33which is a little tiny tomato seed fall down in between it.
02:37And gone.
02:37And it's not going to germinate you.
02:38Okay.
02:39So we've got that done.
02:40This is my most valued piece of equipment in the garden.
02:45A little bit of a stick, right?
02:47And what we use that for is just to sort of saw off the excess like that.
02:52And you get a nice kind of flat surface across the top then, yeah?
02:55Okay.
02:56So that's ready to go.
02:57Good, good, good.
02:58What we do is we make a little indentation in each of the modules with your fingers.
03:02We all have this little groove in our hands here.
03:05Yeah.
03:06And then what I do is I use that to sort of get them all in a row.
03:11And there we go.
03:12So we just drop it off the edge.
03:13Just one per module.
03:15One per module.
03:17Right.
03:18Now this is the little trick.
03:19So because we've done them down into the indentation,
03:22what we do is just come along, overfill it again,
03:25and then use our little stick to kind of chop it off the second time.
03:30Don't forget to keep your tray moist and in a warm, sunny spot.
03:34With a bit of luck, you should see the seeds germinate in about 10 days.
03:39It's seven weeks later,
03:41and while we've seen lots of change with our tomatoes,
03:44the weather outside hasn't changed at all.
03:47Okay.
03:48What have we got here?
03:49You look really cold.
03:50I'm freezing.
03:51Hurry up.
03:52So we've got our tomato plants that we sowed back in February.
03:56And they're looking in pretty good nick.
03:58With tomato plants,
04:00you're often kind of just moving them on into bigger pots
04:03to kind of hold them there for another couple of weeks and grow on, right?
04:07Is this so that we're really protective and mindful of the roots and the stem?
04:12Yeah.
04:12Well, the tomato plants themselves, the seedlings are very tender.
04:16So if you plant them out too early into a polytunnel or a greenhouse or a glass house,
04:22they're just going to die off.
04:23Oh, yeah.
04:23So what we're going to do...
04:25Yeah, we don't want that.
04:25So what we're going to do is just plant them into the pots,
04:28leave them in the pots for another four to six weeks to grow on,
04:31and then they'll be big and hardy, ready to go out into the ground.
04:34Okay.
04:35So again, just as deep as the plug that's there?
04:38So just exactly that and then just firm it in.
04:41It's a really simple thing.
04:43With tomatoes, you don't need to be worried about sowing them or planting them too deep
04:47because the roots will actually form along this stem here,
04:50wherever it's underneath the soil, basically.
04:53Okay.
04:53And so we give them a little watering when we're finished
04:55and then we'll be keeping them inside nice and toasty for another four to six weeks.
05:00Perfect.
05:00Can we go inside and get nice and toasty?
05:02Yeah, we should.
05:09It's planting day and I've had lots of time to get the Grow Cook Eat Greenhouse ready
05:13for its first lot of plants.
05:16Oh, whew, toasty.
05:17It's nice and warm in here, isn't it?
05:19Oh, it's lovely.
05:20And that's the thing about growing any of these tomatoes, peppers, aubergines and stuff,
05:24they need this heat, like Mediterranean climate.
05:27So that's what this glass house is all about,
05:30creating a little kind of microclimate of Sardinia right here.
05:34Oh, I wish.
05:35But really important with tomato plants that you get them good and deep.
05:38So they go like deep roots down to that kind of a deck.
05:41When the plant is kind of laden down with fruit,
05:43they tend to fall over and get too heavy and stuff.
05:45So this is an ideal thing.
05:46It's just a simple garden twine hanging down
05:49and we've got a bit of wire going across from side to side
05:52that this is attached to them, yeah?
05:54We're doing three things at once.
05:56We're planting the plant, we're putting the support in place
05:59and then we're going to use this pot for watering in to it.
06:03Make the hole wide enough so that we can also get our pot in here.
06:08Okay, so make the one hole for the pot and the plant.
06:11Exactly.
06:12Okay.
06:13So I use the pot to kind of hold down the twine like that
06:17and then we get our plant and we put that in
06:19and firm this in.
06:21It's probably a two-person job actually in tint.
06:26Help, please, please, Karen.
06:27Give it a good lean on it, yeah?
06:29You want to get it really nice and tight.
06:31So you can see the way then the wire is going there.
06:35It's going to grow up and it will be able to attach it to that.
06:38And then our watering is going to be into this pot.
06:41So we need to be about 50 centimetres apart,
06:44so a little bit further over.
06:45We're going to be taking, hopefully, tomatoes out of this plant
06:48from July until possibly even as late as November.
06:51Okay, good.
06:53Labels in.
06:53Labels in.
06:54Do we need to water these now?
06:55So they will need about 10 litres of water a week each.
06:58Wow, okay, that's a lot of watering.
07:00But we've created a really good way of watering them here
07:03as opposed to spraying the plant.
07:04Fill that up with water and you're getting water right down to the roots,
07:07which is great.
07:08So this is fantastic, but I am going to give another variety a go.
07:12They're called tumbling toms and you can grow them in hanging baskets.
07:19I'm all about being able to grow in containers
07:21because we don't all have space for this.
07:24Instead of them growing up like a vine tomato,
07:26they're going to tumble beautifully out over their hanging baskets.
07:30So this little plant will produce 250 little cherry tomatoes,
07:35so it's really prolific.
07:37It's going to be like this because it's easier.
07:37As long as it's healthy.
07:39You're not allowed to do that.
07:40Yes, I am.
07:42So you don't need to fill it right up to the top.
07:44Oh, okay, you can have that one then.
07:46Potting compost is what you need,
07:48something that's got a bit of food in it,
07:49particularly tomatoes, really hungry, really thirsty plant.
07:53So you can see lovely root system on this,
07:55so these are really healthy little plants.
07:58And also don't just pull it out of the pot, just ease it out.
08:01Ease it out of the pot.
08:02The thing to watch with anything growing in a container,
08:06but particularly tomatoes, as I said, they're going to need lots of water.
08:09Once they start producing fruit,
08:11you're going to need to feed them with a tomato feed every couple of weeks as well,
08:14so you get the most out of it.
08:16They're going to get lots of lovely sunshine here.
08:19You need to keep an eye on them to make sure that they stay nice and hydrated.
08:22And in a matter of weeks, we'll have lovely tumbling toms cascading down over the basket,
08:28ready to harvest.
08:31Talking to other growers is a great way to pick up tips and tricks.
08:36With that in mind, I'm paying a visit to a grower just down the road
08:39who's growing tomatoes on a whole other scale.
08:43This place is just unbelievable.
08:46Like, what sort of scale are we looking at here?
08:49So what we have is one hectare of modern glass, and we have 47,000 tomato plants.
08:55Oh my God.
08:56Six different varieties ranging from like these big tomatoes down to very small little mini plums.
09:02Yeah.
09:02So we're trying to cover all aspects of the market and keep everybody happy.
09:08Why are they growing from side to side as opposed to up here?
09:11What's going on there?
09:12So the plant, our plant comes in in January, and it's about a foot tall.
09:15And so every week after that, it begins to grow up to a foot a week.
09:19Yeah.
09:20So obviously, when you look at the glass house we have, it's only,
09:22we have about four meters of space for the plant to grow.
09:25You don't, it doesn't take long to fill that four meters.
09:27So what we do is we, what they call is layering the, layering the crop.
09:31So it actually moves forward along the row.
09:34And you can see that's benefit of the, of the stem moving in parallel to the floor.
09:39Okay.
09:40And that's just the easy way of training the crop.
09:43And it keeps the head of the plant up in the sunlight.
09:46And that's the most important part because we, we need direct sunlight onto the crop
09:50in the young part of the plant.
09:51Okay.
09:52What are the key things for people growing a few tomato plants at home?
09:55Well, I suppose, you know, a tomato plant doesn't like to get cold.
09:59So don't plant them or sow them too early in the year.
10:02Yeah.
10:02You know, wait till it kind of miles up a little bit.
10:04And then when you, when you do plant your plants, it's the best trick to do is to,
10:08is to feed them all the time.
10:09Yeah.
10:10Don't give them plain water.
10:11And you know, that'll, you know, make sure that the nutrient balance is good all the time.
10:16Okay.
10:16And you'll get maximum growth.
10:20So David, we're standing here in front of what looks to me like a compost bin full of
10:26very edible tomatoes.
10:27Yeah.
10:27What's going on here?
10:28Well, this is the downside of, you know, like that we're all looking for a perfect
10:32fruit, perfect production, you know, but a fruit like that is, you know, it's, it's perfectly edible,
10:37but it doesn't conform to specifications.
10:39So it's, uh, okay.
10:40So it's condemned, you know, just let's take a minute to consider that.
10:43Like all of these beautiful tomatoes here, because they're a little bit knobbly and a bit,
10:47you know, a bit interested, lucky, will not get into the supermarkets.
10:51Exactly.
10:52Yeah.
10:52Yeah.
10:52Which is shocking.
10:53Like they're perfectly good, amazing taste, I'm sure.
10:57But the good, good news is all of this stuff will get composted.
11:00Yeah, yeah, for sure.
11:01Everything, all the plant material, you see that this is, these, these are the side shoots
11:04from the plant and all the leaf material, we take it away, it's composted and it's returned
11:08to the land.
11:09So it's, uh, it's sustainable.
11:10So like as consumers, I think this is the really important part.
11:13Like we, we have a, we have a role to play here.
11:16We can go into a supermarket and we have a choice between an Irish tomato.
11:20That's, you know, a brilliant product, really fresh, as you say, it's on the shelves
11:24within what 48 hours, 48 hours.
11:27Yeah, yeah, yeah.
11:27Very little food miles.
11:28Yeah, exactly.
11:29Very sustainably grown.
11:30Yeah.
11:31Incredible focus on sweetness and diversity and varieties and all that good stuff.
11:35Exactly.
11:36And, and also supporting local jobs.
11:51It's the start of summer and it's time to check back in with our tomatoes.
11:55Our two tomato plants that we've put in here are doing absolutely fantastically well.
12:00And there's a little thing that we need to get stuck into now, which is called side shooting,
12:04another one of those lovely little horticultural terms.
12:07So a side shoot is basically, grows in the angle between this is your main stem
12:13and this is your leaf stem where the leaves are.
12:15And you get little side shoots coming out here at a kind of a 45 degree angle.
12:19And basically if you leave them on, they're going to turn into another tomato plant.
12:23They kind of divert the energy of the plant away from growing lots of tomatoes,
12:28which is what you want.
12:29So you literally just sort of pinch them out and particularly when they're small,
12:33very, very easy to do.
12:35You just sort of pinch them out like that.
12:37If they're a little bit bigger, you can kind of bend them over and bend them back and stuff
12:41and they'll come off very easy.
12:42So you just kind of go through your plants.
12:44You need to do it every, every week or so with tomato plants because they sort of regrow
12:48and you're just pulling them out there, each individual one like that until they're all gone.
12:53And what that means is that you get, you get a really neat plant for one thing,
12:58and you get a very focused plant that's going to produce loads and loads and loads of lovely tomatoes.
13:03And the best way of making sure you get those lovely tomatoes is by making sure you've got healthy soil.
13:09In my experience, when it comes to growing, soil fertility is the most important thing to think about.
13:15When I started growing my own food, I was all about the plants.
13:18I was like, if I get plants, get them growing, happy days.
13:22I wasn't really thinking about the soil in which the plants were growing at all and the importance of that.
13:28And over the years, one of the things I've learned is it's all about the healthier soil.
13:33The way to think about it is if you grow, if you grow vegetable plants in soil,
13:37they're taking the nutrition they need from that soil.
13:40And ultimately that nutrition ends up in your body, right?
13:43Which is all good. Via the veg.
13:44Via the veg.
13:45Those nutrients that the plant has taken from the soil while it's growing, you have to replace that.
13:50So there's three ways that you can do that organically, right?
13:54One of these three things you can pile onto the soil, right?
13:57And I know you're looking at me handling this.
13:58I am. That's commitment, dude.
14:00Seriously.
14:01So this is horse manure in this case.
14:04It's well-rotted horse manure and you can cover your beds down with this.
14:07Okay, in wintertime then?
14:09In the wintertime, yeah.
14:10When the beds are empty, pile a load of this on top and it'll rot down over the winter months.
14:15Option two is seaweed.
14:17Okay.
14:17Seaweed, fantastic resource.
14:19And if you pile this onto your beds in the winter months, it disappears into almost nothing.
14:24So it's broken down.
14:26Worms have done the job of bringing all the nutrition back to the soil.
14:29And like literally, that is exactly as I picked it.
14:31Like salt and sand and all.
14:34And the last one is compost.
14:36Now, this is homemade compost that I've made in compost bays at home.
14:40So it's just like rotting plant matter, you know, garden trimmings, everything in there.
14:47And over about four to five months, it breaks down into this lovely compost.
14:52So this, unlike the stuff you're sowing your seeds in, absolutely bursting with life.
14:56All three things do the same thing.
14:58If you can get this onto your soil in the winter, onto your raised beds or whatever,
15:02you're going to be in good shape, you know, one way or another.
15:05Oftentimes though, you need to sort of do a bit of a supplementary feed along the way, right?
15:09And we've got a couple of different options here.
15:11So this lovely stuff is poultry manure.
15:13So it's basically chicken manure that's turned into pellets.
15:17And this is a fantastic for, you can sprinkle this on your beds during the year.
15:21You can sprinkle it around individual plants and stuff.
15:24And it gives an absolutely massive boost, full of nitrogen.
15:27And it's really, really good.
15:28Okay.
15:28So these are nettles.
15:29Nettles are a fantastic natural fertilizer.
15:32You can make a liquid feed for your plants from, from nettles.
15:35And these are, you know, abundant, all probably in your garden, in the hedgerows,
15:40in ditches and stuff.
15:41Really easy to get.
15:42This one is a little harder to get.
15:44This is called comfrey, which is a herb.
15:46So what you can do is literally get like big clumps of these,
15:50shove them in a bucket, fill it up with water and leave it for about four weeks.
15:53And you make a fantastic liquid feed as good as anything you'd buy.
15:56Okay.
15:56It's going to stink.
15:58It's going to absolutely stink.
15:59But it's going to be full of nutrients.
16:00Yeah.
16:00Nettles are more around the kind of leafy plants.
16:03So brilliant for your brassicas, things that are producing lots of leaves.
16:07Good.
16:08This is more for fruiting things like tomatoes, pumpkins, courgettes, all that kind of stuff.
16:12Everything you see on the, on the table here is all about improving the quality of your soil,
16:17improving the fertility of your soil.
16:18And as we said at the start, it's all about that connection between the health of your soil
16:22and your own health.
16:23Yeah.
16:25Okay, Mick, it's time to practice what we preach.
16:29Along with regular watering, tomatoes should get an additional feed about every two weeks.
16:34We've made up some stinky comfrey tea that will give the plant lots of extra nutrients to help them grow.
16:42Unlike potatoes, tomatoes do need constant TLC.
16:46And once again, Mick has dropped the ball.
16:50Unfortunately, what happened here, we weren't on top of things enough,
16:53which is that this side shoot, which started off as one of these tiny things in, in that angle,
16:59has now grown into a whole big start of a whole new tomato plant.
17:03And if you leave that grow, basically, it's going to take loads of energy from the plant,
17:07and you're going to end up with less tomatoes.
17:10Because this one is so, so much bigger, if I try to take that off by hand,
17:15it's going to basically tear at the plant.
17:16So what I'm going to do is cut that off with a secateurs, with a nice clean cut.
17:21The main thing for now is just to keep all those side shoots out,
17:26train that up so that it sort of is growing in the right direction.
17:30And once you've got your plant nice and clean, it's focusing all its energy
17:34on producing lots of lovely tomatoes.
17:43So this is fantastic, a very, very proud moment.
17:46It is.
17:47We have our first tomatoes.
17:49I know, isn't that deadly?
17:50That is really lovely.
17:51So these are the fruit trusses, and that's where the, where the fruit starts.
17:54So you'll notice there's no, there's no leaves on these ones.
17:57These are solely dedicated to producing fruit.
18:00The fruit, yeah, like these are heroes here.
18:02They start off as little yellow flowers. The tomato comes underneath there.
18:06Yeah, only a couple of weeks before they're ready to harvest.
18:09Yeah, I mean, they'll start gradually and the fruit trusses grow up the plant.
18:12So as the plant grows, gets more fruit trusses, more tomatoes.
18:16But these ones that have come already will be going red now in a couple of weeks time,
18:20will be ready to go.
18:21Yum, and they already smell delicious.
18:23Doesn't it?
18:30It's been 24 weeks since we planted those tiny seeds.
18:34And today we get to harvest.
18:36Look, isn't that just glorious?
18:39They look so good.
18:41And it's just the beginning.
18:43If we're lucky and if we, if we mind these plants,
18:46could be still harvesting by the end of October into November.
18:48Oh really?
18:48Yeah.
18:49What we're doing is harvesting the, the really red ones.
18:52They're obviously ripe.
18:54And then the, the green ones that you can see here are being left to, to ripen.
18:58We can see the still side shoots here that need to be dealt with as well,
19:02which, so you need to keep the kind of, keep the plant clean as you're going.
19:07And let's not forget my tumbling toms, which have produced their first tomatoes.
19:13This is the joy of it, getting these beautiful things.
19:16The smell is just amazing.
19:17Never ever refrigerate them either.
19:18That's the other thing.
19:19You do not refrigerate tomatoes.
19:21You want to taste them when they're nice and room temperature,
19:23and you get the full, the full effect of the flavour.
19:26Yum.
19:26Yeah?
19:30To do these juicy beauties justice,
19:33Jack Kerman from Sprout and Co. has popped into the Grow Cookie Cafe
19:37to rustle up a trio of tomato tasties.
19:41So, first up anyway, we're going to just take the tomatoes
19:43that have just come directly from the garden.
19:45I'm going to chop them up to nice sizes here.
19:48That way they don't sort of break down as you mix them.
19:51And there's going to be great colour as well,
19:52coming through the whole bowl once you're finished.
19:54Then I've got these dried tomatoes that we left in the oven overnight at 50 degrees.
19:58And I'm going to add these in as well, so use about half the mix.
20:02Kalamata olives here.
20:03They also have a real saltiness to it, so they add that to it.
20:06And then some fresh basil as well,
20:08which gives it a real pop of green and a really good flavour.
20:12This is all sort of summery flavours that are great and go really well with tomatoes.
20:15And now we're going to add some olive oil to it.
20:19So we'll mix it all around.
20:20Also, this needs quite a bit of salt as well.
20:24So I'm going to do some sliced onion and red chilli in here as well to give it a bit
20:28of kick.
20:32If you can do it nice and thin.
20:37As you can see, you've got lots of colour here.
20:38There's a huge amount of flavour in this.
20:41I'm going to set that aside now.
20:42We're going to move on to the pesto.
20:44So I've got some charred red pepper here.
20:47So we're basically just throwing them onto a griddle pan and into the oven at 180 degrees
20:51for about 25 minutes.
20:52Got some sun-dried tomatoes here as well.
20:57Some parmesan as well.
21:00And then I've got some capers.
21:04So basically a drizzle of white wine vinegar.
21:06You might need to add a little bit more throughout the recipe.
21:08And then add in a little bit of maple syrup as well to give it a tiny bit of sweetness.
21:15The parmesan is quite salty already, so you don't need too much in that.
21:18And then some pepper.
21:21And then I'm just going to add some fresh basil in here as well.
21:24It's going to give it a bit more flavour and some more colour.
21:26Throw that in.
21:27One garlic clove or so.
21:30Finally, just some olive oil into the mix.
21:40That looks like it's nicely blitzed.
21:43So you want to get good colour through and then give it a little quick taste
21:45just before you take it out.
21:47If it needs anything else, you can add it in.
21:50Tastes perfect to me.
21:52Set this aside as well.
21:55Okay, so this is our third way of using tomatoes.
21:58This focaccia that we made earlier on today.
22:01I'm going to slice it up into portions.
22:04And then this is going to be used to sort of scoop up all the different tomato-y flavours.
22:08All right, so this is tomato and rosemary.
22:10I'm going to throw it just on the pan here.
22:12Like so.
22:15A little glug of oil as well.
22:21And I'll just throw it straight into the oven.
22:26Next up, we've got the garden greens.
22:29That's really just simple to add a bit of greenery to the dish.
22:31Mixed with some garden peas here.
22:34More summery ingredients.
22:37Okay, so just give them a quick mix.
22:39Very simple.
22:40The focaccia really only needs about a minute or two to kind of crisp up.
22:43So I'm going to take that out.
22:48Okay, so now I've got the salsa.
22:49I've got the pesto.
22:50I've got the focaccia.
22:51I've got the green leaves.
22:52I've got everything now to come together.
22:54So I'm going to plate it all up.
23:00I've got the pesto here, which is nice and crispy and warm.
23:05Pesto here, which is a great colour.
23:09And then finally for an extra bit of sweetness on top of the whole thing.
23:12We've got some balsamic reduction here, which we're just going to drizzle on top of the whole thing.
23:16A nice colour on top.
23:19Tomato three ways using Mick and Karen's tomatoes from the garden.
23:23Absolutely delicious.
23:30This is the joy of growing tomatoes.
23:32All the different varieties, sizes, shapes, colours.
23:35It's just, this is what it's all about.
23:37Because you get such a great harvest from them.
23:40They're a little bit more high maintenance, but totally worth it.
23:42And look, Jack has shown us three ways.
23:45Yeah.
23:45Focaccia, pesto and yummy salsa.
23:48I love this pesto in particular because it means like this will keep in the fridge for ages.
23:53You can freeze it.
23:53This is just really clever and really delicious ways to savour them and store them.
23:59Mmm.
23:59No matter what the weather is outside, this is summer and a plate is.
24:03Yeah.
24:04I absolutely love this plate of food.
24:07Yep.
24:07Well done, Jack.
24:09For more information about growing tomatoes and lots, lots more, head over to growcookie.ie.
24:16We'll see you next time when we'll be celebrating another amazing vegetable.
24:31We'll see you next time.
24:45Bye.
24:46Bye.
24:47Bye.
24:48Bye.
24:49Bye.
24:49Everybody.
24:50Bye.
Komentar