August can be both cruel and beautiful, meagre or bountiful. The pest pressure in this year's hot, dry weather has been stronger than usual, especially the flea beetles. I show the damage and sticky traps are from Gardening Naturally.
In these conditions, whether growth is successful or not depends a lot on applying enough water. I'm doing everything with one hose, on half an acre, economical with water because it's all applied by hand, exactly where it's most needed. No dig definitely helps with moisture conservation.
The result is vegetable sales at the moment of £1,400 each week.
Filmed in Somerset UK, 12th August 2026, by Nicola Smith.
Gardening Naturally Sticky Traps - https://gardening-naturally.com/products/yellow-sticky-insect-traps-for-whitefly-control?_pos=1&_psq=sticky+traps&_psid=8927e7048&_ss=e
You can join this channel by paying a monthly fee, to support our work with helping gardeners grow better, and to receive monthly videos made only for members: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB1J6siDdmhwah7q0O2WJBg/join
#nodig #nodiggardening #vegetablegardening #gardentour #august
In these conditions, whether growth is successful or not depends a lot on applying enough water. I'm doing everything with one hose, on half an acre, economical with water because it's all applied by hand, exactly where it's most needed. No dig definitely helps with moisture conservation.
The result is vegetable sales at the moment of £1,400 each week.
Filmed in Somerset UK, 12th August 2026, by Nicola Smith.
Gardening Naturally Sticky Traps - https://gardening-naturally.com/products/yellow-sticky-insect-traps-for-whitefly-control?_pos=1&_psq=sticky+traps&_psid=8927e7048&_ss=e
You can join this channel by paying a monthly fee, to support our work with helping gardeners grow better, and to receive monthly videos made only for members: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB1J6siDdmhwah7q0O2WJBg/join
#nodig #nodiggardening #vegetablegardening #gardentour #august
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Just look at these gorgeous raspberries,
00:04Joan J variety, autumn raspberries,
00:07cropping now through August and September.
00:11And we've had to water a lot to achieve that.
00:14And in fact, when you don't water raspberries,
00:16like these ones are on the edge a bit, you can see,
00:20I'll even pick that one off,
00:22because it's already, how they're much smaller
00:25and darker red, still very nice, really tasty.
00:27But watering is a big theme of this video.
00:30I'm doing everything with just one tap and a hose.
00:34I have permission as a commercial market gardener,
00:37even if there was a hose pipe ban, thank goodness.
00:40But it takes quite a bit of time.
00:42But with no dig, you definitely get
00:44much stronger moisture conservation.
00:46It's a miracle actually,
00:48how plants have been growing through hot weather.
00:51It's gonna be 33 degrees today, 91 Fahrenheit,
00:5434 tomorrow with 30 yesterday.
00:56Then the heat's subsiding a bit,
00:58but it's caused problems as well.
00:59And we'll look at those in the video too.
01:02The fruit though, summer fruit, are loving it,
01:05when we can water enough.
01:07So these beautiful Alpine strawberries,
01:11which I actually grew from seed.
01:13So I sowed them in February in the greenhouse,
01:15planted them here in April under fleece.
01:18And they're nice, take a long time to pick.
01:20These are a bit more practical.
01:22The Mara de Bois is a fantastic old variety for flavor.
01:27The flavor of these ever bearing strawberries is phenomenal.
01:31I'm really impressed.
01:33And I planted them not much more than a year ago,
01:35late July last year.
01:37They just established in the autumn.
01:40It gave a first flush in June, but main crop now.
01:44The courgettes are cropping really well and they're strong.
01:49I'm picking them small and we sell that.
01:51I sell the flowers as well.
01:53The restaurant, I love that.
01:54And we'll see in a minute,
01:55the effect of tree roots on courgettes.
01:58These, this garden, fortunately it's nice and open
02:01and there aren't those problems.
02:03And here there's a nice plant, which is buckler leaf sorrel.
02:08It had a fantastic flush of growth in the spring.
02:11These little sorrel leaves are absolutely delicious.
02:17And I put them in my salad,
02:19make for a little extra flavor.
02:21Then add and mow them to the ground
02:23because they're all flowering.
02:25And this is the second growth after we've watered.
02:29And the squashes, I'm being very selective in watering.
02:32So in this bed here, for example, the,
02:35you see the plants in the middle,
02:36the leaves are dying off.
02:38And that's because we haven't been watering them
02:39because it's an early variety,
02:41but cheeky curry, the red ones.
02:43You can just see a few red squash there.
02:45I don't yet know how many,
02:46it's not going to be as many as it would have been
02:48if it had rained, but the button up here,
02:51I have been watering because they go on growing
02:55for much longer.
02:56In some years it can be quite a problem
02:59because they don't have time to ripen.
03:01But this year there's going to be a fantastic harvest
03:03of beautiful long storing squashes.
03:08Asparagus bed is 14 years old.
03:11And you can see how abundant it is.
03:14We were picking until solstice.
03:16So that's only about seven weeks ago.
03:19And so all that growth has happened in, in those seven weeks.
03:23And I put compost on the whole bed,
03:25not just around each clump.
03:26And the roots are spreading out a long way
03:30when they're mature like this,
03:31even into this bed of new lettuce,
03:34which I'll need to be a bit careful about giving extra water,
03:37maybe even on both sides.
03:40And this is cosletus this end that went in a week ago.
03:43And at the far end,
03:44we put in some very small plants of little gem,
03:48which you've established really well.
03:49I find that putting in small transplants actually often for lettuce
03:54and lettuce family works better.
03:56But we'll see in a moment for brassicas.
03:58This year it hasn't because of flea beetle, the dreaded.
04:01These runner beans, despite the conditions,
04:04are cropping really well.
04:05And I'm not picking them because these are for seed.
04:09They're SAR, C-Z-A-R,
04:11the variety which makes beautiful white beans
04:15that tastes like butter beans, like lima beans,
04:17but they are Faziolus runner beans.
04:20So it's a really, really good variety to grow,
04:22I find, in our climate.
04:23And just looking at them there along the row,
04:26I can see how they're dry.
04:29You can see the leaves slightly curling up
04:32and going the other way around.
04:34And that's the way the plants have us protecting themselves
04:37if they're not got enough moisture,
04:40but there'll be enough moisture to get a crop at least.
04:42We're giving them a bit of water,
04:44but I'm not prioritizing them.
04:46Most of the water we're giving to salads and new plants.
04:51And this little bit over here, I have been watering.
04:56Every day I give a little bit.
04:58So it's little and often because this bed is full of tree roots,
05:02which is why the courgettes are so much smaller
05:04than the other ones, but they are still cropping.
05:07And the tree roots are from that apple tree there,
05:10and also the elder tree over there.
05:13And they're just continually sucking moisture and goodness.
05:16And you can see they're not that close.
05:19So it's a factor if your garden has got quite large trees
05:25or even medium sized trees quite close or a tall hedge,
05:28it's not easy in the summer.
05:30That bed actually grows fantastic winter sallow
05:33because the elder and apple both lose their leaves.
05:37So if it's deciduous trees, you at least do have that option.
05:40And with this weather, you know,
05:43it's like we're almost subtropical this year
05:45and winter's becoming an interesting season to grow in.
05:49Although we don't know what the winter will be to be fair.
05:52This is, the composting has been going at a good lick,
05:57but we're lacking grass.
05:59We haven't mown the grass for about a month.
06:01We've actually had nine millimeters of rain
06:03in the last 50 days, five zero.
06:06So that's quite a drought considering which we're doing well.
06:10And most of the ingredients here are crop residues
06:13like tomato leaves and cucumber leaves
06:16from the polytunnel where I'm pruning them.
06:18And sweet corn that has finished and chopped in there.
06:21And this heap is only four days old.
06:24So the temperature has not yet got going.
06:27That's pretty much ambient temperature.
06:29That's four days of clearing,
06:31including marigolds and things.
06:33Whereas this heap, you can see the dates up there
06:36that it went from started 29th of June,
06:38finished on the 7th of August.
06:41So just under six weeks.
06:45And the temperature is a good 50 degrees centigrade,
06:49which is hot enough to kill weed seeds.
06:52You don't need temperature to kill weed roots.
06:54And if I just delve down there a bit,
06:57it's a bit of a mixture of dry and wet,
06:59which is why we, you can see the steam.
07:01And it's, it's pretty warm, but that's looking good for,
07:07to stay there for about six to eight weeks.
07:11Like that one is still maturing.
07:13And then there was a heap here, which again,
07:17from the dates, it was started 6th of April,
07:19finished on the 1st of June.
07:21So average date is May.
07:25Turned here from there to there on the 5th of August.
07:28You can see that on my Instagram profile, actually,
07:30that turning speeded up.
07:32And so this heap is not much more than three months old,
07:36say three and a half months old.
07:38And especially after turning it,
07:40mixes it all up a bit.
07:42If I can get out of my shadow.
07:44You can see some really lovely compost there.
07:47That you could use compost at this stage,
07:50if you, if you really needed it
07:51and you had no, none other.
07:53But we don't need it at the moment.
07:55Generally, I reckon to use it when it's between six
07:59and eight months old on average.
08:01But it's a very open, open question.
08:07There's bare spaces happening all the time
08:09as cropping finishes.
08:10So this was sweet corn.
08:12And normally sweet corn harvest would be a full flow now,
08:16early to mid August.
08:17But this year it's finished.
08:18These are finished already.
08:19And they will go on a compost heap, which is great.
08:21And we're going to plant broccoli for winter.
08:24And I'll show you the plants in a minute.
08:26I've been raising them as big plants
08:28because of flea beetle.
08:34And this is just such a beautiful comparison.
08:38Interesting, always between no dig,
08:40which is closest to camera.
08:42So that bed, undisturbed soil compost on the surface,
08:47two to three centimeters, about an inch or more.
08:50And that's usually in December.
08:52And at the same time as spreading the compost there,
08:55this bed is dug and the compost goes in the trench.
08:58So the soil surface is very different.
09:00This has soil on top, that has compost on top.
09:02And we find when watering that this bed soaks up the water
09:05much more easily and readily.
09:08Whereas on the dig bed,
09:09it tends to smear the soil and run off the surface.
09:14And looking at the crops here,
09:16you can see maybe not much difference
09:18between the beans and the beetroot.
09:21Although we had many more kohlrabi on the no dig bed.
09:23These are all second plantings.
09:25So like this celeriac was planted between spinach late April.
09:30And you can see quite a strong difference
09:32between celeriac on no dig and on dig.
09:35And same story for these chicory for radicchioes,
09:38which went in two and a half weeks ago,
09:42established pretty well here and not so well there.
09:46And I think that's to do with moisture retention.
09:50Having said that, the kale, at least on the dig bed,
09:54they look slightly larger than the no dig.
09:58But it's all disfigured at the moment.
10:00All the brassicas by the flea beetle.
10:02And that's what's sticking to these traps.
10:04All of those, that's all flea beetle there,
10:07which have got caught here.
10:09And that's just this time yesterday,
10:11we put that trap there.
10:13It's like, oh, there are so many this year.
10:16And I know from feedback,
10:18which I'm always happy to receive from many of you,
10:21same problem.
10:22What do we do?
10:23I'm not too sure.
10:24It's not gone on in August like this before.
10:27Well, here we have, you can see the leaks again.
10:30I think this is again, moisture related,
10:32stronger on no dig.
10:34Parsnips, stronger on no dig.
10:36And cucumber, the cucumber plants look,
10:39look a bit smaller here,
10:40but that's because they survived.
10:43I planted two cucumbers in each bed
10:45between beetroot in late May.
10:47We had lovely weather then,
10:49but it then got cold in early June
10:52and the cucumbers in the dig bed died.
10:56And so I replanted in solstice time
10:59with two plants I had left over in the greenhouse.
11:02And they thrive much better.
11:04These kind of struggled.
11:06I just want to show you the harvest.
11:08The La Diva cucumber, look at that.
11:11So really tasty outdoor rich cucumber they're called.
11:16And regular harvest through warm weather.
11:20And not only that,
11:21this is the second planting here after beetroot.
11:25We've had like three kilos of beetroot there already.
11:27And look what's going in here.
11:30Two weeks ago, we transplanted fennel.
11:33So this is bulb fennel variety Rondo for October harvest.
11:38And I found that this can establish very nicely
11:40while the cucumber is still growing around it.
11:43So that principle of overlapping plants is,
11:47I explain in my book Grow Together.
11:50If you're interested, do check it out
11:51because it really expands the cropping season.
11:54It gives you many more possibilities
11:56for growing more in a small space.
11:59This was celery here.
12:01And I thought we would succeed
12:03with these brassica transplants
12:04that were from pots, slightly bigger than the module.
12:07And no, they're getting hammered as well.
12:10And despite having a cover,
12:15huh, I have some spare pots.
12:18So I'm just hoping that enough survive
12:20and we'll replace the ones that are really clobbered.
12:24This is what I've been using actually.
12:26The, that's just a vacuum.
12:31Heidi, who was here had the idea.
12:32She'd seen it on Instagram to hoover up the flea beetles.
12:36We tried it yesterday and we caught a lot,
12:38but they're still there.
12:42These are the, the pots, which we,
12:45we were planting cabbages of this size, you know,
12:48this should have worked, you know,
12:50really strong root system.
12:52That's golden acre there, for example.
12:55And, but you see, there's a bit of flea beetle in here.
12:57I've got another trap there.
12:59And these, I'm finding this is working,
13:03much more mature, stronger plants.
13:07Again, really good root system.
13:09I think these are a bit too wet, actually.
13:11I'm using that bottom tray just to keep them really moist.
13:15But brassicas are tough plants and they won't hurt
13:18for sitting there for another 10 days, even,
13:21going a bit purple even.
13:24And my experience from before is like, yeah, that works.
13:28So they can go into that sweet corn bed soon.
13:32And actually just while we're here,
13:33I could mention the Padron peppers,
13:35which are beyond them, because I love Padron
13:39for its variability.
13:42Famously, you know, you, you eat a Padron pepper
13:45and mostly they're sweet pepper,
13:46and then you get a really hot one.
13:49And we've not had a hot one this year.
13:51I don't know what's going on.
13:52I mean, I wonder if you have, if you're growing them.
13:56I got those from plants from Sam's father
13:58and he grows about 40, he loves them.
14:00And he said he hasn't had any hot ones either.
14:03So I don't know if it was the seed he sowed.
14:05Oh yeah, watermelons.
14:07Just look at these beauties here.
14:09So that's from two plants of watermelon,
14:14whose names I can't remember,
14:15but I'll put them in the description.
14:17We're starting to see suddenly they grow a lot
14:20and you think nothing's happening.
14:21Then suddenly you see all these fruits
14:23and there's a real monster there.
14:26And also here we have melons
14:29and they are growing as laterals or side shoots
14:32from this one plant here has sent off melons
14:36in all directions.
14:38There's quite a few and it's Ogun.
14:40It's an open pollinated melon,
14:42which I'm actually loving
14:43because it ripens at different stages.
14:45And we've had two quite big ones off this.
14:48These are even bigger now than the first ones.
14:51And just up here,
14:52here you can see a nice combination effect.
14:56Watermelon with melon.
14:58And that Ogun melon is ripe.
15:02There's no rush to harvest it,
15:03but actually I'm going to cut it tomorrow.
15:06You can see a slight cracking there
15:08and the incredible colour change from green to yellow.
15:12And those are just amazing at the moment.
15:18Whereas tomatoes, you're not seeing many right ones here
15:20because we're picking them at breaking stage mostly,
15:22which means like that.
15:24That could even have been picked yesterday.
15:27And with the, that's orange Wellington.
15:30With these plants, I'm still side-sheeting.
15:34I like, oh, I just saw one that we missed actually.
15:37Look at that.
15:38That's a side-sheet.
15:40And the leader above it has another little side-sheet there.
15:45And what I'm going to do in probably in a week's time is pinch out the top,
15:50which is that, looks like a side-sheet, but it's the main leading point.
15:53And if you take that out, the plant then stops growing upwards anymore.
15:57It increases a bit, but then it will make more side-sheets.
16:01You have to keep removing them.
16:02But what it means is that the fruits that are on the plant get all the energy of the plant
16:07to finish growing and ripen before October.
16:11And it's like, ah, October, that seems miles away.
16:14We're in the middle of summer, but actually October is not that far away now from the middle
16:18of August.
16:19And as we go through September, I've always noticed how the growing and ripen
16:23opening of tomatoes really slows down every day.
16:27So it's something to think about, depending where you are climate-wise, I've already stocked
16:33my outdoor tomatoes, for example.
16:36I want to quickly show you the polytunnel because the cucumbers in there have been actually better
16:43than I would have hoped for.
16:44And this weather is not easy for cucumbers.
16:46I had real trouble in June with the tops burning off in the incredible heat, but regular
16:52watering has kept them growing mostly.
16:53You can see the amazing long stems and just continual fruiting.
16:58I pinch out every second fruit.
17:00And the tomatoes beyond, you're seeing mostly, ah, name's gone out of my head, sakura.
17:08The cherry tomatoes and also some golds.
17:11And there's a lot of beef tomatoes there, which again, we're picking quite immature.
17:16And here also, a polytunnel is good for seed saving.
17:21And I wonder how many of you recognize that plant?
17:25It's frizzy endive variety Wallone, which is fantastic in winter.
17:32And this, I left two plants there to go to seed and the seeds are in here.
17:38I wouldn't actually go into it in too much desire.
17:40This could be another little short video actually to get the seeds out of there.
17:43It's not obvious actually, but we'll easily get enough seeds for what we need for winter.
17:52And there's another self-seeded plant here, which is amaranth.
17:57I didn't sow these amaranth, not consciously.
17:59They suddenly popped up.
18:01There's two along the tunnel.
18:03They're just wonderful, enormous color in the garden.
18:08And likewise, the lettuce actually, I find lettuce is so decorative.
18:12That's classio there, the slightly pointy leaves.
18:17And we're picking the outer leaves.
18:19As you can see, the plants on the right near the house are a bit smaller.
18:23That's because we picked them yesterday.
18:26And these also got picked yesterday.
18:28That's Saragossa.
18:29And I'm finding they are a brilliant summer lettuce for withstanding heat and continuing
18:39to grow without bolting.
18:41So those have been in the ground since 20th of June, actually, nearly two months.
18:49And we're watering every two days, at least.
18:56French beans also, I'm watering a lot now.
18:59I didn't water them until they were flowering.
19:04Because they can get going there and get their roots down.
19:06But now that they're cropping, this one's nice, it's Q blue.
19:12Ah, yeah, now they're cropping, they need every bit of moisture to keep growing.
19:18I want them to keep going, have more flowers, more fruit for a decent length of time.
19:23And this, these have been wonderful.
19:25This is Kentucky Wonder.
19:27It's actually probably the best variety this year.
19:29You can see how lush the leaves are.
19:33And like yesterday morning, Sam was picking these and he, I said to him,
19:37just put the hose running at the bottom of each teepee while you're picking it.
19:41It's a way of saving time.
19:43So we're looking to do all things like that with the watering.
19:45But just, we have to keep the water coming.
19:48Otherwise, these plants are not going to grow anymore.
19:51But so these were picked just yesterday.
19:53We don't pick them too small.
19:54But we're going to pick them again tomorrow, actually.
19:58Oh no, they were picked on Monday.
19:59Sorry, two days ago.
20:00But yeah, loads of fruit ongoing.
20:02Fantastic.
20:05And then we have a dramatic event over here, which is the flea beetle.
20:13Ah, yeah.
20:15This was a sticky trap I put up about five days ago, which is completely covered, as you can see.
20:21So we put new ones up yesterday.
20:24Again, that's just since yesterday.
20:27And looking at these plants, there's actually not so many as there have been.
20:32If I just touch that, I don't know if you saw that, but they hop off.
20:35The little black shiny things like there.
20:39And we vacuumed here yesterday, got a lot and put them in boiling water.
20:46But I'm going to try vacuuming them again.
20:48I just want to help these plants get through.
20:50When you can see that the center or heart leaves are mostly green and not too eaten,
20:56the plants are still hanging in there with a chance.
20:59We're watering these about every three days.
21:03And I feel they're going to make it.
21:05They're a good enough size.
21:07It should be in normal years.
21:09The flea beetles stop eating in early August this year.
21:11They haven't.
21:12The weather's continued like this.
21:13We'll see.
21:14It's all new ground for me.
21:17The outdoor tomatoes, because of the weather, have been fantastic.
21:21Normally, we're struggling a bit in this climate.
21:23We're 51 north here.
21:24It's, you know, it's not subtropical normally.
21:28And I've already pinched out the tops like you can see there.
21:31So there's no more growing point, but there is a side shoot.
21:33So that just needs to come out.
21:35These are really good little clips, by the way.
21:37I was sent them from Turkey.
21:39I'll put a link in the video description.
21:41And just keeping up with growth and keeping it pruned.
21:44These are all crush varieties of different types.
21:48Blight resistant, but this year that doesn't really count.
21:53Sunflowers have been wonderful.
21:56They're all slightly different in appearance and growth.
21:58But almost all of them, except the crims, the orange ones,
22:03are from the same seed stock.
22:04And they're home safe seed, which I've had cross pollinated,
22:09because I grow a few varieties.
22:10So I just keep one plant each year for seed.
22:13But I know that it will have cross pollinated.
22:18Nicola's signing me that way.
22:20I'm trying to remember.
22:21Oh, yeah.
22:22Thanks, Nicola.
22:23She spotted this going around.
22:25Look at that beautiful fruit.
22:29It's a golden gauge or golden plum.
22:33She does, just to be precise.
22:36Golden transparent is the name.
22:38And I've never eaten one of these.
22:42Oh, this is first one.
22:43That's two year old fruit tree.
22:54Yeah, I know I'm not meant to eat on camera,
22:56but just sometimes I make exceptions.
22:59It's delicious.
23:01So two years growth for one plum.
23:04And actually the apples.
23:06I mean, look at this.
23:09They're either rotting on the tree.
23:12Oh, there's another one as well.
23:13Brown rot.
23:14Or they're not growing much.
23:16Or they have codling moth, which is that.
23:19Even though I've got a trap over there for codling moth.
23:22It's not going to be a vintage year for apples.
23:26So I have been watering these.
23:28That one, not much.
23:30The one I've been favoring is this cox tree,
23:33which actually always does really well.
23:35And you can see it's got some nice fruit.
23:37It needs some more water though for these fruit to swell a bit.
23:43And on that water theme,
23:44there's a really interesting thing happening here,
23:47which is if you look along this charred bed,
23:50you can see the left hand row nearest to the pathway
23:54is quite a bit bigger than the charred in the middle.
23:59And what I'm seeing is the lettuce and end eve in the bed next to the charred
24:05on the left are much smaller.
24:08The ones closer to the charred
24:11are being robbed of water.
24:13Well, not robbed, but they,
24:14the charred is grabbing the water more than they can.
24:18So it just shows how far plant roots can travel
24:24when everything's at stake and they need moisture.
24:27And you might see this effect in your garden sometimes.
24:30Charred is quite a greedy plant.
24:32And the other thing actually that's happening here is these
24:35radicchio's are quite a bit smaller just there.
24:38compared to a little further along.
24:39And that's from the tree behind us,
24:42this wild cherry,
24:45which I noticed yesterday actually is starting to look autumnal.
24:49And we're finding that now with quite a few trees,
24:52not the oaks or the ash,
24:54but more specimen trees like that.
24:57They're just running out of water.
25:04In the tunnels, I'm watering certainly more than outside
25:08every two days at the moment.
25:10And often in here, I'll bring a hose in.
25:13I don't have any sprinkler system,
25:15but I'll bring the hose in while tending the plants,
25:18doing this sort of thing, looking for,
25:21oh, that even needs a knife.
25:24Side shoots, which escape, you know.
25:28I searched this in here two days ago and just missed that one.
25:32So they've been good.
25:33That's sun gold there.
25:33And actually one other thing I do is remove with my knife,
25:39any trusses that are finishing.
25:41So that one's just two fruit.
25:43I'll pick them later.
25:45And that keeps the stem tidy,
25:47so you can drop it on the ground more easily.
25:50While the aubergines there,
25:51that's a variety called long purple,
25:53which has been surprisingly prolific,
25:56considering it never looks that abundant.
25:58But I keep harvesting when they're a little bit larger than that.
26:02Just medium sized, lovely long aubergines.
26:06Weather's been great for them.
26:11Personally, I've loved this weather, actually.
26:13You know, I'd much rather warm or hot sunshine
26:16than the gray cloud and rain that we can get.
26:19And it's only a little bit tricky for those plants along there.
26:24This bed was wild rocket, which left the soil really dry.
26:28We had to water a lot before planting even,
26:30and then put in these little transplants of chicory for radicchio,
26:34which I'm hoping will crop quite late,
26:36even into November.
26:38Fantastic salad plant at that point.
26:42And all the lettuce family, chicory and eve lettuce,
26:45are so much easier at the moment than brassicas,
26:48because they don't get flea beetle.
26:53Yeah, rhubarb.
26:55This has surprised me because rhubarb loves moisture.
26:59And look how it's growing, still really strong.
27:01So that's not being picked at all until the autumn.
27:04It'll, by October or end of October, that'll just be nothing there.
27:08They rot back in, and then it springs to life in January even, actually.
27:15These brassicas, you can see, they're surviving.
27:19I would say they're surviving, not thriving, especially this bed.
27:21It's autumn cauliflower navona romanesco,
27:25which went in only 10 days ago as large plants from the nine centimeter pots.
27:30And we've watered every two, three days just to keep them going, really.
27:35But it's looking all right.
27:36And those are actually thriving more, and that's white sprouting.
27:41There's Burbank and white eye.
27:43And they make beautiful sprouts, all being well, February, March, mainly.
27:49And look at this.
27:52I couldn't believe it.
27:53I was up here yesterday evening and, oh my word, that's badger.
27:57So finally, you know, I count my blessings actually, because I've harvested a lot of corn from here already.
28:04But look how they, they really trash the plants when they're looking for food.
28:10And you can see, these cobs actually were looking, they had quite a bit more yellow on yesterday evening than
28:17they do this morning.
28:18So he's been again to have another go.
28:22Because yesterday evening, just before sunset, I harvested everything that was there.
28:27So it's in the shed safe.
28:29It's a super sweet variety.
28:30So they, they maintain sweetness after picking, luckily.
28:34And I need to tidy up now.
28:35And actually, this will all go on the compost.
28:37There's valuable composting material.
28:39I can't stop the badger coming in.
28:41You know, they're huge animals.
28:43You just have to hope.
28:46And this year, mostly I've been lucky.
28:50There's even plants under here, believe it or not.
28:54And that's fennel, again.
28:56You can see how they look a bit squashed by the fleece.
28:58But actually, apart from unless the badger trod on it, they'll be fine.
29:03And we need to just keep them going with a little water and there's chicory at the far end.
29:07And this also has been superb combination of leeks and celeriac.
29:11And we just started harvesting the leeks.
29:13They'll all be gone within about two weeks.
29:16And then the celeriac has more space to finish its amazing growth,
29:23which it happens a lot in September and October with celeriac.
29:27So if your celeriac still looks small, don't worry.
29:29It's got a lot of time to really develop.
29:34There's two types of squash here.
29:37I call them squash.
29:38Some people call them pumpkin, but technically speaking like the butternut and courier squash.
29:42But one might say this is a pumpkin and it's maybe not great for eating,
29:47but it's a variety that's been bred to have naked pumpkin seeds.
29:51So green seeds that you can eat without shelling.
29:54They came from Sweden, Marpa Arsene.
29:56I'll put her link in the description as well.
29:59And the butternut have been amazing.
30:01And because they're still growing, I've stopped watering the seed ones,
30:05but I'm keeping going watering on the butternut.
30:08And I'm not watering the crown prince.
30:12So you can see how the leaves are starting to die off.
30:15You can start to see the fruits.
30:17I think there's only two per plant.
30:19If that actually, well, we'll see when I'll add it up.
30:23There's about 30, 35 plants there of squash altogether.
30:31And here we have a flea beetle disaster again.
30:36Just look at these, despite the cover.
30:40That's kohlrabi, which I thought would work,
30:44you know, because of the time of year.
30:46We put them in about eight days ago,
30:50hammered by flea beetle and hardly any green leaf there,
30:53even though we've been watering.
30:54So I think no kohlrabi this autumn,
30:57but I'm going to plant some lettuce instead.
31:01There's always possibilities like you still got spinach.
31:05Spinach and turnips can still happen this autumn.
31:08These were planted only a little before the big ones,
31:13the little ones rather.
31:14And you can see how they're surviving again, but not thriving.
31:18That's red broccoli for the spring.
31:26And the cabbage here,
31:29they went in two and a half months ago as small plants.
31:32And there wasn't so much flea beetle pressure at that point.
31:35And you can see how they, they're looking all right.
31:38I'm going to harvest them very soon.
31:40It's stone head just for a nice heart.
31:43Most of the damage is on the outer leaves.
31:46And here I wanted to show you what can happen with chicory.
31:53It shouldn't, doesn't normally happen so much.
31:56But this plant I can see won't make a chicory because it's starting to flower.
32:02It's bolting basically.
32:04So there's a seed head in there.
32:06Yeah, there you go.
32:08That is just the incipient stage of a flower stem with a flower that would come.
32:15If you see that, it's game over for if you're waiting for radicchio.
32:20You could eat that.
32:22But I was hoping for big radicchio and I think most of them will still be okay.
32:27And we are watering these twice a week roughly.
32:32And also the endiva brilliant, which I don't see is just watering me.
32:36You can see how we're just using a hose to put on the water there.
32:41A real thicket of leaves.
32:42Fantastic.
32:44And the slightly, or much smaller ones slightly further up is because we picked them yesterday morning.
32:49Taking off all the leaves, outer leaves and using the, the nicer ones, discarding quite a lot of the lowest
32:55leaves.
32:56And they're not, they're a little bit bitter.
32:58They're not as sweet as lettuce, but the reason I grow a lot of endive at this time of year
33:02is this.
33:05These cos lettuce here, look what's happened to the ones in the middle, all dying and finished basically.
33:13That is caused by lettuce root aphid, which actually we get a lot here in August.
33:19So I'm not surprised to see it, but it's dramatic this year because of the weather.
33:23Meaning it's often eating lettuce roots in August and you may not notice if it's always raining.
33:28This year we are.
33:31Having said that, some of the lettuce are surviving and particularly the Batavian type, like you can see there.
33:37Maravilla de Verona this end and Saragossa far end, both Batavian type, beautiful bronzed round leaves.
33:45And they keep cropping.
33:46And in my experience so far anyway, they're not affected so much by the root aphid.
33:52But we just need to keep watering.
33:54And I'm even watering, or in this case, these flowers are benefiting from the water given to the endive.
34:01That's Benaris giant purple zinnia, which I sowed in the middle of April.
34:06And it's just loving these conditions, as long as it's got some water to the roots.
34:11And it's such a great flower for the vegetable garden.
34:16It's got a bit of height, strong colour, rather like the sunflowers actually.
34:20Yeah, I love plants with a bit more height.
34:23But what hasn't been working quite so well is these dahlias.
34:27This was an experiment.
34:28I grew some from seed.
34:30So these are all from home safe seed.
34:32And you can see they're not that striking flowers, but they're much appreciated by the insects.
34:37So there's a bonus for them.
34:40But they're taking quite a bit of water for not so much effect.
34:47And finally, I want to show you the pyramid.
34:49And several of you have said, can we have a video about the pyramid?
34:54And I'll do more of a dedicated one in the autumn.
34:57But I can just show you now how things are growing in here.
35:03I'm starting to get quite impressed.
35:05At first, the growth was slow.
35:06And that's because this ground is no dig.
35:10And it was weedy pasture until April.
35:15And then Adam put thick cardboard here, two layers actually.
35:19And we'd run out of a lot of good compost.
35:22We had to use quite a bit of PAS 100, the green waste, hot compost.
35:28And it's still decomposing a bit.
35:30And I think that's one reason the plants have taken time to get going.
35:33But you can see they are going now.
35:35Even though I'm running out of space at the top, I'm going to pinch them out soon.
35:41And I'm using copper wire here, for example.
35:43So this pyramid, you can't have any metal to get the pyramid effect, whatever that is.
35:49Yeah, it's quite well documented.
35:50Actually, you can find a lot of interesting things on the internet about pyramids.
35:54And wonderful results for medical as well as not many people, I think, are using them as a greenhouse.
36:00So that's what intrigued me.
36:01See what difference it might be in how plants grow.
36:05And it took a long time to make this pyramid.
36:07How was it straightforward?
36:08And you see, Thomas the Joyner did a great job like with these windows.
36:12He's puzzling.
36:13How do I make a window catch?
36:15And it's all wood with one copper nail holding that piece of wood there.
36:20And the ventilation has been good, actually.
36:22Two side windows and the main door.
36:25It's not huge.
36:26It's five meters square.
36:27It doesn't get too hot in here.
36:29And the tomatoes, well, they're loving it.
36:31So, you know, I'm optimistic.
36:33We'll come back in late September, early October and have another look.
36:38And do come to my open day if it's convenient for you.
36:41That's on the 6th of September.
36:43And remember, no dig day on the 3rd of November.
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