(gentle upbeat music)
- So in the polytunnel compared to the top bed we saw,
growth is much more advanced.
And I can show you some aphids here on the tomato,
for example, on this leaf I'm seeing quite a few,
but I'm not worried about them because overall,
you look at these plants they're strong and healthy.
The color is good.
Ah yeah that's not an issue.
And also looking up at the growing points.
I'm not noticing any particular aphids in there
that can be an issue more.
We could see that in the greenhouse in a minute
on some aubergines actually are not
I'll show you the difference there again.
One thing you can do with aphids so is to wash them off.
If you have a problem,
there's more than this is not an infestation really.
It's just a few which is great actually,
'cause it means there'll be a few lady birds,
probably in this summer just
they got a nice balance.
Strong healthy growth generally speaking
you get less, fewer aphids.
So if you've got a lot you need to be looking,
is my soil good enough have I mulched it enough?
No dig really helps.
I had a very interesting email yesterday from a guy
on an allotment site near here.
And he said of the 20 allotments on his site,
and all the other guys are cultivating and digging,
rotavating he's no dig.
His broad beans are the only ones that don't have black fly,
the only ones of the 20 sites.
And he said that much stronger healthier looking
and tasting fabulous.
So really good recommendation for no dig
in a comment like that.
And this is all no dig.
I think you know that.
It really helps soil health, plant health.
One other thing happening here
though is not related to soil I think it's temperature,
again and that's its leaf roll.
Not all varieties do it.
You can see this one is Sungold which
is more tolerant or cool conditions.
And generally rolls its leaves rather less than
this one afraid I can't remember its name
It's lost its label in the polytunnel move.
But basically this is not a terrible problem.
If you see this it's really common
tomatoes rolling their leaves,
it's not a shortage of water.
These have all had the same amount of water
you know that, this one is not rolling
right next to that one which is
it's a variety trait again.
Some varieties do it more than others
and it's to do with night and day temperature differences.
So I got a thermometer there, is very interesting,
actually gets pretty cool in here at night.
Lately it's been getting colder in here than outside
colder in the polytunnel than outside.
Just repeating that 'cause it sounds so odd
at night because there's movement of air,
and how you get cold at nights frost and everything
when the air is still and not warmer air
from above is not getting mixed with cold air below.
So that's going on a bit particularly
in a polythene doesn't really hold heat.
It warms up rapidly when the sun's hot,
it holds in some of the infrared warmth,
but at night that's not happening anymore.
So heat just goes out.
Whereas my greenhouse is very interesting comparison
that's roughly three centigrade, seven Fahrenheit,
five Fahrenheit warmer, in the greenhouse and we can see
the difference in there with no leaf roll
or very little and the aubergines too.
(soft music)
I'm always learning a lot in my garden
'cause I'm growing a lot of plants,
of the same plants in different conditions.
So for example, these aubergines they are the same planting,
sowing date and planting time as the ones outside.
Oh sorry they were planted a little bit earlier,
but basically they look very similar
and the timing is not much different.
Yet you see how much bigger they are
compared to the outdoor ones from being
in this greenhouse where it's quite a bit warmer.
And on that note also the tomatoes
are not showing much leaf roll
because the nights in here particularly
are about three centigrade warmer than in the polytunnel.
The glass and the wood just hold a bit more warmth.
So one is learning all the time from these small differences
and also it's fascinating and slightly worrying
to see how many aphids there are on the aubergines
because yeah they really aren't quite covered
in place isn't yet.
I'm not as worried as maybe I might be because actually
I'm looking at these aubergines
and they look really strong and healthy.
And that matters.
If they were all yellow and withering
or whatever it might be,
that'd be more cause for concern.
And I know that the aphid predators are at this time of year
are getting more and more numerous and will,
I'm sure, from past experience
sort that out soon and get more of a balance.
And it's not say there won't ever be no aphids
'cause there's gotta be some,
or otherwise your predators also disappear.
So just at the moment we've got a preponderance of aphids
and I'm gonna water them again later
to scatter some of these aphids just on the ground.
And just put a bit of a slow them down a bit basically.
And we'll finish this talking about pests
by looking at some leaf miner and sparrows
on beetroot leaves.
(soft music)
Beetroot have really suffered this spring,
particularly from leaf miner.
And it's a pest that insect that lays its eggs
in between the two skins of a leaf and hollows them out,
and the leaves end up looking really revolting.
And maybe this one here is a good demonstration of it.
You get that yellowing and browning of a whole patch.
And sometimes you can sort of take this apart
and find the little crawling maggoty thing in there.
I'm not seeing one this time,
but they're clearly here a lot
because so many of these leaves are affected,
and yet there are so many good leaves.
And this is a nice illustration of how
even in a year when sometimes you get a bad pest attack
or whatever it might be.
If your basic soil is good and healthy and strong
and you've planted some in at the right time.
So these beetroot were sown in late February
in the greenhouse planted here late March fleece over
and look at that lovely clump
of four strong beetroots to harvest.
So that's despite some pest attack,
and it's one part of the whole thing that pests
they're always gonna be with us.
If we can get our plants growing strongly that really helps
and just knowing what it is,
and whether you need to react it up.
I would say on the whole with leaf miner,
certainly on this level of damage I'm seeing here
corresponding growth though, of the beetroot.
I haven't worried about it.
I'd rather not say it,
but it's not taking away from the harvest.
What's also going on here and which can take away
from the harvest when the beetroot is the small is,
sparrows pecking on the leaves.
There's some of them up there just watching us
as we're filming.
And it's just a small bird problem
but not major.
It's not as bad as pigeon sometimes in the winter.
But if I'd sown the beetroot head
and they were coming up for seedlings,
the sparrows just packing on leaf margins like this.
Where they they chip away around the edge,
sometimes take out a hole in the middle.
And when the seedling is small that can wipe them out.
And that's a reason for transplanting beetroot
and even using a bit of mash of leaves
just to get help them get going.
Once they're bigger they can put up with
this amount of damage.
And sparrows will do this here also to chard
which is a bit more problem for certainly for me,
if I want to sell it 'cause it doesn't look very nice.
So in that case we'd put a bird netting over
that is an option always to stop birds, eating your plants.
And finally in this Catalog of Horace,
we'll look at one or two diseases
starting with potatoes.
So here we have some lovely Charlotte,
second early potatoes.
Popped in the ground seed potato second week of April.
It's actually also trial bed in many ways.
It's fifth year in a row of potatoes growing here
in the same place.
And until now they've all been fine.
Suddenly just last week I noticed this going on,
which is blackleg.
And from what I've managed to find out,
it's actually something that comes in on a seed potato.
So it's a useful thing I think for you to know about,
because if you get it maybe complain to your seed supplier
or at least let them know.
I don't think it has come from the soil,
even though as it happens,
I haven't been doing rotation here,
but what I won't do is grow potatoes here next year.
There won't be a sixth year
because this bacteria that's
causing this blackening of the stem,
it's one of the few bacterial diseases as opposed to fungal.
And it persists in this all for quite a little while,
like years.
So just to see what's going on,
I thought it'd be interesting I'm gonna harvest these.
There might be some edible potatoes here
mainly by pulling on you a little bit of leave
'cause the stems have got weakened by the bacteria.
And yeah, you can see that there is a harvest.
These will be good to eat by the way.
But I'm disposing off this slot
without spreading the infected leaves too much
and everything because apparently it is pretty infectious.
I don't think that's just old age
I think on these ones.
I'm not seeing any of that black on any of the other stems
but it is mostly the stems that get it.
And I'd rather got rid of that a bit too fast.
Maybe to show you but the.... really is black actually.
That kind of blackness of a stem.
If you see anything like that on your potatoes
is very pronounced, this is not just going yellow
in a normal old age.
And it's quite sudden as well.
The plant look healthy and then suddenly it's not.
But having said all of that,
at least it's not total disaster.
There is a harvest of Charlotte second early potatoes here.
This is no dig so they're growing,
the actual tubers are growing mostly in the compost
on the surface and you can see how I mostly pulled them out.
I didn't need to,
I just lift it a bit with the trowel.
What caught my eye just there actually
was the old seed potatoes.
What I would like to do is not leave too much residue
here of anything affected by these bacteria.
Probably I'm gonna keep it on these neighboring plants.
Normally we'd harvest these not for another two weeks or so,
but if I see it spreading,
we'll probably harvest the whole bed
just to be on the safe side.
'Cause I don't want it to build up in the soil here.
The other thing of course that affects potatoes
some years at this time of year, this is late June
and it's suddenly warming up.
And if we get rain like a couple of days of rain
and continual damp and high humidity,
with the temperatures now which are consistently
over 10 centigrade, 50 Fahrenheit,
that's when you can get blight.
We've had that level of humidity, dampness and rain
last week and the week before.
But it wasn't warm enough.
The nighttime temperatures have been quite low often
between five and eight centigrade,
the forties Fahrenheit.
So we've been okay for blight so far,
but it won't be long.
I haven't got any blight to show you here.
And I know people worry about it.
I think too much really is, this is not blight.
That's just old age, yellowing of leaves.
For example, spots on leaves.
That's a common one, yeah here we go.
That is not blight.
No worries I don't know exactly what causes
odd spots like that or a little hole.
A blight is much more dramatic.
What you see as a suddenly rapidly enlarging,
almost translucent browning of the leaves.
They go limp and then before long,
the whole plant looks miserable, leaves die.
If the weather stays favorable to it, humid and warm,
within a week the whole lot here could go brown.
Sometimes it starts and then the weather dries up
and it stops and you can take off some leaves
and you might then be okay.
But often it's a bit terminal when you get blight,
but I'm not emphatically not seeing any of it here.
So I'll put up a photo to go with this video of blight
that you'll see and that will help you to recognize it.
It is really worth doing a bit of research
on some of these possible problems,
so that you know what for sure what you're looking for,
not just guessing.
And we'll finish with it a little look at some onions
and one or two things that are going on with them.
Because they also can be a problem.
This, by the way, I'm not going to compost.
It's one of the few things that I'm going to
send to recycling, which will be fine.
'Cause they get the heat was so hot, like 80 centigrade.
They kill everything absolutely.
This blight wouldn't survive that.
So it at least turned into organic matter.
(soft music)
So there's some different plantings of onions here
for different purposes, partly.
And it's interesting to see how they're growing
and what we can learn from them.
For example these are White Lisbon
that's the variety of onion,
which I sowed in modules last September,
early September and planted here last October,
early October and overwintering are small plants.
And then they produce spring onions,
which basically a salad, immature onions if you like.
And you harvest them when they're still
not bolt and look so green.
But if you leave them even "spring onion"
turn into "onions" it's like they're all onions in the end.
But one or two of them here at doing things like bolting
and that's from them being... so in really quite
early in terms of what the onion is thinking
of to do and make seeds.
And it's been through the winter,
but there's not many of them bolting here,
but they will bolt if they're sown too early,
if you you'll get bolting happened with
onions from seed or particularly from sets,
if you serve them too early,
if you plant too early,
if you plant sets before are always wrecking here
about the middle of March.
And there's more likelihood to be bolting of onions
and then with the bolting,
but here's one that's bolting that took out the head,
but it's there amazing things on this
on how it's sort of divided.
And it's making now a separate onion in there.
So that's the bolting head,
which has got pretty tough and hollow in.
You wouldn't really want to eat that,
but there is actually still some onion here
that you can eat.
And lets start your life as a spring onion, if you like,
they're turning into quite nice bulb onions,
but some of them are sort of doing this slightly
rotting thing that they do.
And I'm not too sure what it is actually.
I mean this is still a nice onion
but it's the leaves are starting to go yellow quite a bit.
But having said that once you've trim them off,
it doesn't always, it's not like the black leg
we just saw on the potatoes where it's a disaster.
Well actually having said that
this one is rotting right through,
but this is not white rot.
If this was white rot, which is a horrible fungal disease,
fungal, not bacterial of onions,
it would not have healthy roots like that.
When you get white rot,
you see the leaves all going bright, yellow quite quickly.
And then the plant just falls over 'cause if you pull it,
there's, it's kind of got any roots anymore.
It's a fungus that eats the roots basically.
So you don't want that.
If you get that in your soil,
often from onion sets it must be sad.
And which is again another reason why I prefer
growing onions from seed.
If you do get white rot then
go no dig.
'Cause that means you don't spread it around
in any kind of cultivation.
So it helps and people who've got it have been saying,
and I've had it once.
Usually within four years just so I can be clear of it.
So it's not the end of the world,
but you don't grow onions leeks or garlic
for around four years.
It can come in also on garlic seed I'm afraid,
just occasionally.
So it's something to be aware of.
You can keep your own garlic to grow again,
if you want to.
I'll just finish by mentioning a lovely,
healthy crop here which is onions sown early March this year
multi-sown in modules planted early April.
These are red onions or they will be, bulb onions.
I mean these again you could pull
for spring onions like that.
Onions are all quite similar,
but these ones have been bred to make nice bulbs as well.
So I'm aiming for four or five in a clump.
Sometimes if I see them thicker than that,
I will pull out the little ones to use as spring onions.
But that's generally healthy and that's telling me the soil
is good and I'm not needing to worry too much.
This incident here of little bit of rotting as
we've already picked from this patch
nearly a hundred spring onions.
So they've done really well.
This has been a mostly good story.
And I hope that this video hasn't worried you too much.
What I've been showing is helping to help you
identify some of the problems.
And I wish you happy gardening and general health
and wellbeing.
But there are always some issues
so just bear them in mind and react if you need to.
But often you don't need to,
you just need to know a bit and deal with the problem
when you see it very quickly.
(soft music)