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GreatBritish1
  • 6/12/2025
The Beechgrove Garden 2025 episode 11
Transcript
00:00Music
00:14Well hello and welcome to Beechgrove Garden.
00:17Now these are the tatties that we planted back in April,
00:20but it's really important as the tattieshaws grow that you earth them up.
00:24Yeah, now if you're in the south of England you've possibly earth up your potatoes already,
00:29but up here in the north-east of Scotland, well we're that bit later.
00:33And in the fields some of the potatoes are just starting to push through the soil,
00:37so it's important in case we get frost, it's a bit unlikely now,
00:41but you earth them up to protect the shores from frost,
00:44but also to give the new tubers a space to grow in where they're not going to be hit by sunlight,
00:50which turns them green.
00:52Now the first early potatoes that are down the front here,
00:55we're hopefully going to get a harvest through them in about three weeks' time,
00:58but here's what's coming up in the rest of the programme.
01:04Coming up, how to give your fruit an early summer prune,
01:10what you should be doing with your French beans and squash right now,
01:16some tips to keep the slugs and snails off your hostas,
01:20and to Airdrie to go see a garden that's full of colour.
01:25My garden is my safe space. It is the place where I get to switch off.
01:31I put my audio book on and I am out here for hours.
01:39Right Carl, another wee job up here. Well, I say a wee job, I think it's going to be bigger than that.
01:43So, just put the spade in there. Here we are.
01:47Right, this is a lilac, of course, and round about this time of year,
01:51once they've finished flowering, you would think about deadheading.
01:54Yes. Aye. I think this one needs a wee bit more than just deadheading.
01:58I'd expect nothing less from yourself, George.
02:01Normally, we would head them about this height and that's it,
02:05but this one, we'd have a crick in their neck if we left them to flower
02:08and it's really flowering as well as it should.
02:11Anyway, have you got your sloppers? Yes.
02:13Ah, good. See, could you take that one off there?
02:15Just back to where the chutes are. Aye, that's it. There we go.
02:19Good lad. Now, you see, because that's it.
02:22I hate things hanging over the path. That's sort of that.
02:25Now, the other thing is that when we're... Right, what do we do when we're pruning?
02:29Dead, diseased, damaged, dying or crushing wood, if you see any of that, get it out.
02:34I'm glad you said that. I couldn't say that.
02:36Right, but the thing is that we've got some, right?
02:38And in this one here, see this branch here, that one there?
02:42Look at that. Look at all the stuff that's on that that's useless.
02:45Could you take that off there? Yes.
02:47Right. And by doing this, this is going to help with the weight.
02:51Well, it does well, because I'm going to give this a sawing treatment.
02:54Can you get it? Yep. Watch your fingers.
02:56There we go. There we are.
02:58That's that one. And I think that should be maybe enough.
03:01I'll take that off here, Cameron, if you hold that there.
03:03I'll hold that now. Right.
03:08Look at that. You've done that before.
03:10I think I've done this before. Now, that's opened that up.
03:12I mean, look at the difference that you've got there already.
03:14But there's two or three others. You see that in there?
03:16Yes.
03:17There's a dead branch right through to the other side.
03:19Okay. And that'll need to come off.
03:21Yep. And then I noticed there's two branches rubbing together.
03:25Right. You know what to do with that?
03:27Yes. Right?
03:28Know what to do with that.
03:29Now, when we're finished, what are you going to do?
03:31I think, George, we should give it a good mulch that's going to feed it, but also give it plenty of water.
03:37That's right. I mean, this is going to be like a human having a very serious operation.
03:41Oh, yeah.
03:42Once you've finished with it, right?
03:44So what you do is mulch it, feed it, water it, and look after it so that it doesn't go and suffer.
03:50So that's it. And then next year, there'll be more flour and there'll be a height which will not give us a stiff neck.
03:56And we can enjoy them more.
03:58Right. Anyway, I'll leave you because you know what you're doing then, I think.
04:00Yes, I'll crack on.
04:01Right. I'm going that way.
04:08I've come into the fruit cage because I want to do a little bit of summer pruning in here.
04:12Now, summer pruning is where you shorten back the young shoots that have developed on plants in order to form the pruning.
04:19to form the proper structure.
04:21Now, we were treating this gooseberry here as a cordon.
04:24Now, that's a single straight stem with side shoots on it.
04:28And if you look at what happens as the plant grows, you get lots of side shoots.
04:33See these side shoots there?
04:34Now, we've got two different sorts of side shoot.
04:36See that one?
04:37That one there has very little thorn growth on it at all.
04:42But look at this down here.
04:43Look at that.
04:44I mean, look at that one.
04:46Look at all the thorns that are on that.
04:48That's because this one is right at the base.
04:50It's getting a lot of nutrient.
04:52It's got all the vigor and it's growing like fury.
04:55And I don't want that.
04:56That has got to come off.
04:57But if I just cut this off, what will happen is that it will regrow from the base and it will be just as bad in another year's time.
05:04So what happens with these is that you take this and you pull it downwards.
05:09See if I just pull that downwards like that.
05:11Here we go.
05:13It comes off at the base.
05:15See?
05:16And all that bit there is the bit that has lots of little buds in it.
05:20And that would regrow if I left it on the plant.
05:23You know, just but if I had in fact just cut it off there, it would have been, well, a waste of time.
05:29So anyway, I've saved myself some work for later on.
05:31So these shoots at the bottom, I just pull off like that there in order to get this clean, upright growth on the plant.
05:40And I'll go over the whole thing doing that.
05:42And with these other shoots, what I'm going to do with those is take them back to maybe one or two leaves.
05:50And I'll do that all over the plant.
05:53And what that does is it allows the light into the fruit.
05:58That helps it to ripen.
06:00Gooseberries have a notorious habit of being bitter when you eat them.
06:04But if you cut them back like that, it lets the sunshine into the fruit and it ripens them much better.
06:11So that's what we're going to do all the way over with these.
06:15Okay?
06:16It'll take some time to do that.
06:19So I'll come back and finish that a bit later.
06:21Meanwhile, I'm going off to the Josterberry because it needs a haircut as well.
06:25This is one of these hybrid berries.
06:30And we've been training it as a fan plant.
06:33So it's been tied into wires.
06:35It's nice and flat.
06:36But what happens is, you see, it has all this forward growth.
06:39And that is, again, a symptom of vigour in the plant.
06:43But what we want to do with this is just, again, trim them back.
06:46So we're going to take these shoots back.
06:48It's just the same as we did with the gooseberry, really.
06:50So rather than repeating myself, I'm just going to show you exactly what I would do.
06:55Just like that.
06:56Taking off these shoots that are coming out from the main plant.
07:00Like that.
07:02And always hold them in your hand.
07:04Don't just drop them on the ground.
07:05Especially with gooseberry.
07:06But this doesn't have thorns, so we're okay.
07:08I'm just going to put these down in a pile now so that they're easier to lift up later on.
07:12I'm going over to the apple because there's another job they've done over there.
07:16I've come around to this apple tree because we're now at the stage where we've got fruits setting.
07:25We've got some which look well developed and others which don't look so well developed.
07:30And what we get at this time of the year, because we're well into the month of June now,
07:33is we get a phenomenon known as June drop.
07:36This is when the apple tree sheds the fruits that are not going to develop into mature fruits later on.
07:43Because what we get in apples is when the blossom comes out, we get pollination.
07:48That's when the insects visit the flower and they transfer the pollen to the next flower.
07:53Then we get fertilisation.
07:55And that's when the pollen grain germinates and then fertilises the ovaries in the seed pod.
08:01And what happens then is that those seeds will develop.
08:05Now, if you don't get fertilisation, the seeds don't develop.
08:09And there's what happens.
08:10You get small fruit which are not going to make it into the full shilling later on.
08:16And we have the other fruits which are obviously going to develop to fully mature fruits.
08:22So what we do, small pair of scissors or little secateurs like that,
08:26and we're just going to take off these small fruits there,
08:30so that we leave one fruit per cluster.
08:34Now you have to be quite brutal with this,
08:36because if you leave lots and lots of apples on here, they will all be small.
08:40So we're taking off all the small fruits that we can.
08:43And sometimes even, if you just touch them with your finger, they fall off.
08:47See, you just bend them like that and they can come right off.
08:51And that's when we get this June drop, as we talk about.
08:54So that's what we're doing with this.
08:56Now, I'd go over the whole plant, take a long time, but make sure you're quite brutal,
09:00because otherwise you'll end up with an awful lot of small apples.
09:03Now, I'll put these little secateurs away, and I'm going to bring out the big fellas,
09:07because we've got a problem here.
09:10This is a piece of the apple which has died, and this is apple canker.
09:15Now, we can see that there are shoots here coming away,
09:19which would suggest that that is healthy down there.
09:22And if I cut that just above that, we'll see what it's like.
09:25Right? Now, look at that stem.
09:27There is a little bit of marking on there.
09:30There's a little bit of brown in there.
09:32And I would, just to be on the safe side, I would cut further back.
09:37So I'm going to go back into this, and I'm going to take it down to that space there.
09:43OK? So we're going to take it right back.
09:45And that's the idea, because I want to cut back to healthy growth,
09:49so that that canker never gets into the main stem.
09:52Because if it gets into the main stem, well, that's the end of the top of the plant.
09:57Don't want that, do you? Right, off somewhere else.
10:02So, from apples to plums.
10:04And it's the same job here.
10:06If you want to have larger fruits, the idea is that you trim off the small fruits
10:12and just leave the larger ones.
10:14And thin them out so that you have only maybe about one or two plums on each cluster.
10:21Now that the evening temperatures have warmed up,
10:26it's perfect time to get your squashes, courgettes, pumpkins, marrows out into the plot.
10:32What you want to do first is, is mound up the earth.
10:35That's going to do two things.
10:36The first thing it's going to do is, is squashes don't like sitting in water.
10:41So it's going to create a well-drained soil.
10:43But also, as soon as the sun hits this, the mound will warm up quicker.
10:48But, by doing that, it could dry out quick.
10:51So that's why I've made one big mound instead of making two wee ones.
10:54Because I don't want it to dry out completely.
10:57The variety I've got here is Sunburst.
10:59This is a summer squash.
11:01Hopefully start cropping at the start of August.
11:04We're just going to knock this out of the pot.
11:06And I don't want to plant it any deeper in the ground than it is in the pot.
11:11Now if I was just to water the base of the plant, there's a chance it's rotten.
11:15So what we do is, we take our pot, we come away slightly from the plant,
11:20and we submerge the pot into the ground.
11:23And that's going to be where we water.
11:26That's going to keep the water away, so it's not going to rot.
11:30Now, these are bush varieties that we're growing here.
11:33But if you've grown a trailing variety, sometimes the way it sprawls out all over the plot,
11:38you might not remember where the roots are.
11:41So what you do when you're planting is you take a cane,
11:43and you make sure to put a topper on it to protect your eyes.
11:46If you put the cane by the base of the plant,
11:49then you know exactly where your pot is, where the roots are,
11:52so you know where to water.
11:54The final thing to do is take some manure and just spread that round the top as a mulch.
12:03And by doing this, it's going to give the plant a good feed,
12:06because these are greedy plants.
12:08Now, you may remember a few weeks ago I was planting out some runner beans
12:12because they're getting a bit too big for their pots,
12:14and we're giving them a bit extra protection with some fleece.
12:18But now it's time to do the exact same with the French beans.
12:22Hi, Colin.
12:24Right, we've got two different varieties here now.
12:26And these are the ones that look very much like, you know,
12:28the fine beans you get in the supermarket?
12:30Yes.
12:31Which come all the way from Kenya and these, you know, hot places.
12:34But we can grow them here very quickly.
12:36These were sown in the glass house about three weeks ago,
12:39and they're ready to plant out.
12:41So we've got two varieties.
12:42We've got one called Safari,
12:43which you would imagine would be nice and African and nice and sweet,
12:46and then one called Mascot.
12:48And they are the ones that produce a good crop on the plant.
12:52You can leave them until all the beans are ready to pick,
12:55and then you just harvest the whole plant,
12:57and then you can put something else in their space.
12:59Now, what's interesting about this is that, what, ten weeks?
13:03Yep.
13:04From sowing through to cropping.
13:05George, I must admit,
13:06these are my preferred way of growing French beans these days,
13:08is the dwarf varieties,
13:09because, as you say, you get a crop in ten weeks,
13:11and they're less fuss.
13:12Yeah, not as bad as runner beans.
13:14No, no, stringy as well.
13:15But we do grow them too.
13:16So anyway, they're there.
13:17Right, plant them in.
13:18But we're just planting them about, what, a child's width apart?
13:21Aye, but somewhere about six inches.
13:22Just to fill the space that we've got, Colin, that's it.
13:25Now, you know, with dwarf French beans,
13:27you don't need to support them.
13:29If you are on a bit of a windy site,
13:31maybe just some twigs in there just to give them a wee bit extra support.
13:34That's right.
13:35And maybe, you know, if you're worried about them,
13:37I'd put a bit of fleece over them and a hoop in some fleece,
13:40just to get them established.
13:42Yes.
13:43Give them a good water, get them established.
13:44Oh, they'll be away.
13:45You'll be cropping these again, August.
13:47No bother.
13:48Can't wait.
13:49Time now to head off to Airdrie
13:51to go see a garden that Stacey Ridley has created,
13:53which is full of colour.
13:55And it's also home to a frog called Pip.
14:04So I started getting into gardening
14:06when we moved into this house,
14:08and the garden was a complete and utter riot.
14:12There was...
14:13You couldn't see any paths.
14:14It was all overgrowing.
14:15I found it really, really exciting.
14:21We are in the shady bit of the garden
14:23where it's quite a problem area because of the path.
14:26Everybody keeps walking past it, squishing all the plants.
14:29And a way to overcome that is I have got this old wheelbarrow
14:34that I found lying about.
14:36And I thought we could use this as a plant pot.
14:39So we're going to fill it up and put some shady, loving plants.
14:43This year I have decided that I love horses.
14:47So we're going to put them in the wheelbarrow.
14:49So all you need is a wheelbarrow.
14:51You can either find somebody might have one chucking it out.
14:54You just need a drill and a wee metal bit
14:57and you're just going to drill some holes in it for drainage.
15:01Going to go down and up.
15:04And up.
15:16And then we are to put that down.
15:21For the drainage holes we're going to put some bits of a slab
15:26that I had lying about.
15:34And once we've done that all you need to get is some peat-free
15:38multi-purpose compost.
15:40And you're just going to fill up your bucket.
15:44And if there's any large clumps like this you just need to break it down
16:06by rubbing your hands together to make it nice and smooth.
16:10So I have found some hostas that I'm really loving this year.
16:16So this one here is called Fire Nice.
16:19And we're just going to give the pot a gentle squeeze.
16:23And then we're just going to place it in and cover over again.
16:30This one here is a really small hosta
16:35and supposedly it's got lovely flowers, little tiny flowers.
16:39So we're going to put that at the front so you can see it.
16:46Making sure you're firmly patting it down.
16:54And this one here is a bigger variety so we have to put this one in the back
16:58so we can see the smaller ones.
17:00And this one is called Purple Haze.
17:02Gently squeezing out the tub.
17:03There we go.
17:04And one more.
17:05It's another small variety and we can put it at the front here as you're walking past.
17:09you can see it at this side.
17:10You can see it at this side.
17:11Making sure everything is firmly packed in.
17:16It's really important to give your plants a really good soak.
17:17And hopefully,
17:18and hopefully,
17:19this will bloom really, really much.
17:20and we'll get some pretty nice and we'll take the ball out as I will put it on the back.
17:22We have the other small variety and we can put it at the front here as you're walking
17:23past.
17:24And this one here,
17:25you can see it at this side.
17:27Making sure everything is firmly packed in. It's really important to give your plants
17:39a really good soak. And hopefully this will bloom really really nice and we'll get some
17:50lovely flowers but it's also another good idea to be growing horses in containers because
17:55I get a lot of slugs in my garden and when they're in the ground they get eaten so hopefully
18:01this will deter the slugs and I can move it about and put it in other parts of my garden
18:07if I ever need to.
18:16This is another upcycled project that I have started in my garden. So we got this big pot
18:24from our local church who were giving it away. So we brought it home and I thought this would
18:29be a good pond. So it was totally free apart from the pond plants which I just added these
18:37irises in last year just to give a wee pop of colour. But the reason why I love this area
18:43so much is because my little boy is obsessed with it. Last year we got tagpoles for the
18:49first time and then we got some frogs. And this year we were excited to find out that
18:55one of the frogs came back and my little boy was ecstatic. He has been out here nearly every
19:00morning trying to look for his little frog called Pip. And that is why I love this area.
19:10And over here my husband built me, we had spare chicken wire that the church was giving away.
19:17So we took some and he had spare wood from the fence and he built me some climbing frames.
19:24And I've just attached them with some clips, cable ties and we have some mons too and they'll
19:32be growing up this side and this side is just your snap peas for the kids to nibble on.
19:40So we are in the greenhouse just now and this is one of my favourite places to be in the garden
19:47when it comes to about February. So I've had lots of help from friends that I've met online.
19:53I've got a group of girls, there's about five of us, we're the North Lanarkshire crew we call
19:59ourselves and we all live within 30 minutes with each other and we all met online and
20:05we are now really, really good friends. We swap seeds, we go to garden centres, we'll
20:13go for coffee, we'll help each other out in the garden and that's been one of the, probably
20:19the biggest blessings of having a garden is these group of girls.
20:23Thank you, I don't know how you do it, I can't grow this in the garden.
20:28Neither can I feed but I can self-seed it everywhere.
20:31Right, I've got you these seeds that you wanted.
20:33Thank you very much.
20:34Everything's light and grey.
20:35What do you think?
20:36These are really, really healthy.
20:37Isn't it?
20:38I've got quite a lot of, do you want some Cosmos?
20:40Maybe.
20:41I've also got these, Status I think they're called, is it?
20:44Oh nice.
20:45Sunburst.
20:46My garden is my safe space. It is the place where I get to switch off. I put my audio book
20:58on and I am out here for hours. This is the place where I become me and I get to, it's
21:04like for your mental health. I like to come out here and have an hour, if it's during nap
21:09time, I'll come out here for two hours or an hour and it just resets me from the day.
21:14And then at the end of it you get to look around and be like, I created that. Like that
21:18was me. It just brings me so much joy. And I've had people saying to me in the last few
21:25years, like, your spirits are so much higher, you seem more happier. Because I think when
21:30you become a mum, you kind of lose yourself a wee bit. And I think gardening has really helped
21:35really finding myself again and knowing who I am and having that time for yourself is
21:42so important.
21:43No, she's not filming it, but she's not there.
21:54I was so glad there to see Stacey planting some hostas, because a lot of people might say
21:58they're quite boring, they don't add much to the garden, but I think they do. And just
22:02look out of these four plants that we've got here, we've got different kinds of shapes
22:06and sizes, and I think we've got quite a lot of variety that's going to add interest into
22:11the garden. This one here is Hosta T-Rex. Now this, if we were to plant this in the ground,
22:17this could grow to about a metre tall and two metres wide, and we're going to get massive
22:21leaves from it of matte green foliage with a nice white flower. This one here, this is Hosta
22:28lemon snaps. I must admit, I think out of the four, this is my favourite. I like the rhubarb
22:34stems with this lime green foliage. This is a medium Hosta. We've got another medium Hosta here.
22:41And just look at this variegated one. We've got a nice green centre with a creamy margin.
22:47And this, as it grows older, will be quite consistent and get a nice shape from it.
22:52And then, just so we don't leave this one out, we've got a nice small one. This is Hosta blue mouse ears.
22:59And just look, no need to say why it's called that. And what's lovely about this is, is we'll put that in this pot
23:06and it will fill that whole pot. Now, we're growing them in pots, so we need to make sure we've got well drained.
23:15So we've got a crock at the bottom of the pot. And then the mixture we're using is 50% compost, 50% topsoil.
23:23And we've added some grit in there, so it's well drained. We want them moist, but we do want a bit of drainage in there.
23:28And also a slow release fertiliser. So as the plant grows, it's going to get the nutrients it needs slowly over the growing season.
23:36Now, all we're going to do is knock lemon snaps out of its pot. We'll just put that back there the now.
23:46And then I'm going to plant the pot. So I'll just take some of the soil out of this.
23:51And all I'm doing is backfilling our medium round the pot.
24:10There we go. Then what we'll do is, we'll just give that a good press down.
24:15Then we'll take the pot out. Then we've got the perfect size planting hole for the hosta.
24:25Now, I know another reason why people might say that they don't like growing hostas,
24:30and that's because they're seen as breakfast, lunch and dinner for slugs and snails.
24:35So we're going to try growing them in pots to hopefully overcome the slugs and snails.
24:41Other ways we're going to try and make sure they don't eat our lovely hostas is,
24:45you can maybe put some grit round the top of the plants.
24:49You can get some raw sheep's wool, put that over the top so that when the slugs and snails go over it,
24:55they don't like the texture of it and they'll come away.
24:57But what we're going to do is we're going to add some petroleum jelly round the lip of each pot.
25:04Then as they come up the side of the pot, hopefully when they reach the petroleum jelly,
25:08they'll slide back down and then they won't affect our hostas.
25:12They do like a bit of shade though, so we will take them out of here and put them in a nice shady corner.
25:18So time for some handy hints and I've brought you over to the small space garden.
25:28Remember, this was the little space outside the kitchen window or the back door
25:32where we put down some slabs, we've got a little bit of the soil that's exposed
25:36and we sow seeds into that and that's what we did here.
25:39So that was done two months ago and we're now back, it's time to harvest.
25:44When I spoke about this the last time, I talked about these lettuce
25:48and said that I was going to leave them until they were a reasonable size
25:52and then start harvesting individual plants like that.
25:57So there we are, I've harvested these, these go into the basket
26:01and what we do is we leave these ones so that they will develop into proper lettuce
26:07and be a bigger plant for later on, so we've got succession.
26:10I've harvested some of the turnips, I've harvested some of the radish,
26:15I'm going to harvest some of the spinach in a minute
26:18but there we have some pak choi which is multicoloured.
26:21Can you imagine that in a salad? You know, that's going to look marvellous in a salad.
26:25So there we are. Right, with the spinach which is now, this is two months old.
26:30Normally the stuff you buy in the supermarket will just have tiny wee leaves
26:33and not very much bulk but it's still good and there we're going to just take that off like that.
26:40Harvesting it, quite hard on it really I suppose.
26:43Only take as much as you want and that's it, there we are.
26:47Now look at that, look at the amount of growth that's in that.
26:50That is going to really wilt down and be absolutely delicious later on.
26:55Now, having done that, remember we've got successional sowing.
27:01We can keep sowing in the spaces where we've taken crops out.
27:04That's not bad, you know, for two months.
27:08I'm back at the lilac and I've given it a really good haircut.
27:11I tell you what, I think I've spent too much time with George.
27:13But there's also a sucker up here.
27:15Now to improve again the overall health of the plant
27:18and we're only wanting the one lilac up here, I'm going to dig this out.
27:21And it's important to dig it out rather than just cut it down
27:24because if you just cut it, it'll regenerate and come away again.
27:32Well Callum, that's just about it.
27:34But before we go George, I really just want to pick out this lovely lupin, isn't it a cracker?
27:38That's an absolute stutter. I love the symmetry of these lupin heads.
27:41But you know, it's got this purple and it's got the red in it.
27:44That's just a great combination, isn't it?
27:46But see that peony at the front, that's nip on beauty.
27:48And I tell you what, I hope we don't get a gust of wind
27:50because that will look beautiful, won't they, bud?
27:52It'll split with the wind. But nonetheless, we've got pink or red there.
27:55We've got red and purple here.
27:57And look at that at the back.
27:58See that rose?
27:59Now that's Rosa Pimpinella folia, which is the Scottish burnet rose.
28:02And that's the variety William III.
28:04And you know what?
28:05I might have to get my cheque book out and order one
28:07because that's an absolute cracker of a plant.
28:09Well next week, Brian and Ruth's here
28:11and Ruth's going to be in the strawberry bed that Carol planted last year, checking her on it.
28:14And, Carol is off on her travels again.
28:17She's going over to a great Scottish garden
28:19and this time it's at Ellyn Castle in Aberdeenshire.
28:23Meanwhile, from the pair of us, bye for now.
28:27Bye for now.
28:28Bye for now.
28:29Bye for now.
28:40Bye for now.