- Hello and a very warm welcome
to the late April garden tour
of this permaculture no dig kitchen garden.
(instrumental music)
The garden always starts in this area
where we start off all the seedlings.
For the last month or two,
it's been a constant production
of all sorts coming through.
One thing I'm excited about
is this Chinese garlic chives,
which I got from real seeds.
Apparently they create a tuber
and grow back every year.
I'm excited to see those.
One of the other things that we've just planted
is mangel beets or mangelwurzel,
because of Steph Hafferty,
and seeing how amazing that looks
and apparently it makes a good wine.
We thought let's try it this year,
but yeah, as always, constant production line,
a lot of things growing on.
This looks like a daisy and it's related.
It's in the same family.
It's actually chop suey greens,
which is beautiful flowers.
I think it's absolutely stunning.
And there's a lot of bee activity
happening here in the solar tunnel
with everything else that's flowering
but this,
you can actually eat
the beautiful flower petals,
which I had no idea.
But honestly grow some chop suey greens
and let them flower,
'cause this is stunning.
I'm gonna do something I've been wanting to do
ever since I've seen one of James Prigioni's
recent videos where he harvested
his asparagus
and ate it raw.
And I've never actually done this before.
It's actually the first season
it's gonna come through to eat.
So I'm gonna try raw asparagus for the first time.
(asparagus crunches)
Oh!
That tastes like peas actually.
It's amazing.
(Huw laughs)
And Charlie's giggling in the background
'cause of my reaction.
That just tastes like asparagus
and peas had a baby.
(Huw laughs)
It is delicious.
This bed that I'm sat on,
the front of it is
where we're doing a seedling bed of leeks.
We've got five different varieties all sown.
So that's gonna be a big part of this year's garden
but I want to draw your attention to this.
This is using the recent flop phenomenon
which we've discovered that brassicas like to do.
If they seem to flop over,
they seem to send up a lot more flower shoots.
This is actually red cabbage
that has then kind of gone to seed.
And this stem of a flower stem,
(stem crunches)
is honestly, it is one
of the most delicious things
that I've tasted
from a brassica family.
So if you got some red cabbage
and it does the cabbage flop
or the brassica flop phenomenon,
try some of the stem.
It's really good.
Sam was thinking perhaps a kimchi.
In front of me
we've got the first strawberry flowers appearing
which is always a lovely sight.
And this bed last year was actually
the brassica seed bed.
As you know, I like to start them off
and then transplant them out into their final positions.
I'm actually gonna be using it
for a brassica seed bed again this year.
However, at the top end I've planted
or transplanted, some rat's tail radish.
It's a variety I got from Baker Creek Seeds.
It looks really fascinating
and basically,
it's really long, thin purple seed pods.
And I can't wait to see how that turns out.
And I'm also really excited
for some more globe artichokes,
'cause these were so delicious last year.
This is one of my favorite parts of the garden
'cause it's a nice border
for flowers and herbs and some spare seedlings.
I've got calendula, coriander,
lilies coming through, elephant garlic, a bit of comfrey.
And actually yesterday,
I was filming a bit for Gardena and,
where we're working together this year
and really trying to focus on water conservation
because it's something that a lot
of us gardeners are struggling with this year.
Not much rain at all in the last two months.
It's crazy.
So this soaker hose that I've put in
and used to use them back in the day,
saves water by up to about 70%.
So,
it's nice to have this installed,
really easy to attach to a pipe,
but I'm also gonna use, I think,
a soaker hose system for all
of the tomatoes in the polycrub this year.
'Cause last year there was a lot
of watering with cans
and this year I'm gonna put down soaker hoses,
a bit of mulch,
and it's gonna be a lot more hands off.
And so that's, in essence, is gonna increase the value
of the tomatoes.
This in front of me brings me a lot of happiness
because it is a forest of garlic.
And actually it's almost,
it's about a week or two away,
although you could get away with it now,
at the stage of green garlic.
I'll be doing a video about that
in the next week or so,
but yeah, it's looking fantastic.
We've got another garlic patch as well
that is coming through really nice.
I can't wait for all of these bulbs.
These broad beans, a couple of weeks back
I felt a little sorry for,
'cause I put them out
and then we got five, minus five degree celsius frosts
that unfortunately killed off I'd say about six of them,
which we've replanted with crimson flowered broad beans,
but the rest are Ratio and Eleanor,
and what I've also done is
I've put a very light centimeter thick mulch
of grass clippings to help retain the moisture
and also to bring some more fertility into the soil,
putting, you know,
with all the nitrogen and everything.
But it's just a really easy way
of reducing the weeds
but also reducing the amount of water
that these plants need.
This is my little outdoor patch of elephant garlic
that's coming on really well.
I've interplanted it with radish.
So that's producing already.
And then this here is actually,
I think in the last tour I called it cumin.
I actually believe it's caraway and the first
of the flowers are starting to come through.
So if I could get some homegrown dried caraway seeds
to use in the kitchen
that would be something I've never managed to do before.
And also just behind me
which has been mulched with wood chip,
I'm actually gonna be putting another bed there
just to help further expand the amount
of food that we can grow in this garden.
This is a bed that I've mulched
with RocketGro compost
and we've got some peas growing through.
These also got hit by that serious frost
and they were looking very unhappy
but they've found their feet again.
And it can kind of show
that the resilience that nature has,
which is pretty cool.
We got some spinach that's coming through
and then you can see
that I've got a lot of brassicas that are flowering.
These are kale around me.
And I love it
because they add so much heighten
and structure to the garden.
When usually at this time of year,
it can be very bare and empty
and I'm letting them flower because, you know,
just getting those nice pops of yellow is,
it looks lovely.
It's great for the bees.
And also I can still harvest the leaves,
I can harvest the flower stems.
I enjoy it as a food.
But that is something I'll probably chop and drop
in around three weeks.
On the theme of chop and drop.
I've actually been chopping and dropping some
of this swede
which I'm also letting flower,
just like the kale.
And this is something
that I'm trying out this year
based on reading up a lot about JADAM.
So the idea of JADAM
is kind of a take on Korean natural farming
and it's about ultra low cost food production.
They talk a lot about
how crop rotation is something you don't find in nature.
And actually, using crop residue is the best kind
of fertility and fertilizer
for the same crop.
So I'm actually, not only have I chop and dropped
the swede stalks and stems
where I'm gonna be planting swede again,
this upcoming growing season.
I've also used the roots to create
a JADAM liquid fertilizer.
This is a main amendment area for the garden
which is quickly expanding.
I've actually found what I think potentially
is a free alternative to buying tubs like this,
that almost anyone can source.
So stay tuned for that.
It's part of Project LEACS
which I introduced two videos ago.
But this here is a swede JLF JADAM liquid fertilizer
which is basically a lot of plant matter,
top it up with some water
and then a handful of either leaf mold
or really good broken down compost
to help inoculate it with biology,
leave it for a few weeks,
and then you dilute it and apply it to your plants.
And this is something
that I'll be showing a lot more
coming up in the channel.
And I think it's something really fascinating
for us to help reduce dependence on compost
but to also get better
and tastier harvests using free resources.
It almost always feels like it's summer here
in the polycrub
and everything is just,
is going nuts as it usually does.
We've got all of that kind of first
and second early potatoes starting to come through.
This is a second round of them.
The main round is probably just a few weeks away
from being harvested.
And then all of this is just growing absolute bonkers.
This will all be replaced.
We've got garlic that is gonna be effectively green garlic
but all this will be replaced
by cucumbers and tomatoes etc.
A lot more chop and drop happening.
But it's just starting to turn into even more life
and even more food.
I think the craziest thing about the polycrub is
that it hasn't seemed to be hit by frost at all over winter.
This is physalis and it's coming through
and it's doing a second flush.
I thought it's an annual.
It's kind of growing like a perennial,
lots of green lantern shapes appearing.
So much better than any kind of physalis
that you get chopped on some random desserts in a pub.
But,
the other thing that I want to draw attention to
is this chervil here and this dill.
We've also got a lot of tomato plants just coming up.
These are all self sown.
So you know how much I love to grow herbs
and then let them flower,
where you get all these free plants coming through.
Another example is,
one of the areas actually in the main garden,
we have a ton of dill and coriander coming through
like a little micro forest.
I didn't have to sow those seeds.
They've self sown and I can transplant
and move them about.
So the kind of plants, including tomatoes,
you plant them once,
let them drop some of the fruits
or the seeds and they'll come back every year.
And I think that's so magical.
One of the heroes in recent videos
has been this purple sprouting broccoli patch.
This is, I believe Claret F1,
but I lost the seed label,
but I'm pretty confident it is.
It's been so productive.
It's kind of coming to the end now.
So I'm gonna do one big final harvest.
Maybe let a few of them flower
and potentially save a little bit of seed,
but really pleased with how well this has done.
Now at the other end
of this bed is actually some fennel
that's grown from last year.
I'm gonna let this flower
because fennel flowers are beautiful.
And when you have the tiny green seeds
they taste that little sweet bombs of aniseed.
It's something everyone's gotta try.
And then inside,
I've also got some peas growing.
I've got some Oskar dwarf peas,
which are really early peas,
and some cima di rapa,
which I've mentioned in a recent video,
that's actually getting quite close to harvesting.
It's basically a sprat
of turnip top and it looks really cool.
And I've been amazed at how quick it's growing.
This bed here is more of a perennial focused bed.
Behind me is, kind of splayed and gone crazy,
is a perennial kale,
which I believe you can actually take cuttings off.
It's a short lived perennial.
I'm gonna take cuttings off and see what happens.
I've also got a little bit more asparagus coming through
and then towards the back end of the bed,
I've got things like hostas, which are edible,
especially if you have the shoots
that grow through before the leaves uncurl.
you can actually eat those and pan fry those.
And then some herbs like chives, and a lot mint,
because I love fresh mint tea
and I need a lot of it.
And yes, I'm growing it in a raised bed
because I want lots of mint.
If it ends up taking over the whole bed,
well maybe apart from the asparagus,
I wouldn't care.
To the right of me I've got Oregon sugar snap peas
which are just starting to get underway.
Looking nice.
This bed has been a bit of a challenge.
The soil has been so hard,
but we've actually been treating this
with some JMS, JADAM microbial solution
which you basically make
with sea salt, potatoes, water, and leaf mold.
And we'll share that in another video.
We've been applying it and the soil quality now is,
I mean, it's anecdotal
but it feels to me
that it's starting to loosen up
and look a lot richer.
So I'm really pleased about that.
'Cause last year
when we were trying to grow the squashes in here,
it was basically like trying to get through brick.
And also what's really nice is that all
of the flowers of the soft fruits,
such as the red currents and the gooseberries,
are starting to come out.
They don't look anything special,
but the bees do like them.
And I just really like the effect
of having soft fruit surrounding most of the garden.
There's something so nice about that kind
of perennial living hedge,
that's also edible structure
to kind of enclose everything.
And yeah, I'm excited for gooseberries.
I'm oddly obsessed with them.
And also, so are squirrels.
And I don't get that.
These leeks here, are leeks
that I've actually transplanted
for the purpose of them flowering.
You know how obsessed I am with leek flowers.
And so I've actually sacrificed some
of the crops to actually let them grow
for the flowers, for the pollinators.
But you can also use them in a variety
of ways in cooking.
I've also got a couple of rows of shallots
There's a lot more on the way
that I'm gonna be transplanting.
And then we've also got some chard
that I'm gonna treat more as baby leaf
and some dill starting to come through.
So in this small area here
there's so many different flavors
and so much food
that's gonna come out from this little strip
of this whole bed.
And it can kind of show
how much food you can get from a garden.
I've been utilizing this cold frame
a lot more this spring.
Mainly because there's so many seedlings
that are starting.
When they get nice and big,
or if they're hardy,
they can just come out and stay here.
This is Asturian tree cabbage, for example.
These are the baby versions of these.
And I think everyone needs to grow it.
I've mentioned it a few times in videos,
but I try and mention it as much as possible
'cause I really do believe
that every gardener needs to give
Asturian tree cabbage a grow.
That was terrible.
(Huw laughs)
You may have noticed
that I've put up a lot of my vertical structures.
I haven't finished yet
but the reason why I like to do this,
even a month or two
before I plant out any of the beans,
the sweet peas are out though,
is because, I know, there's,
I just like coming into the garden and seeing them
and knowing that these are gonna be filled up.
And I think visually as well,
just putting in those structures
whenever you have the time,
it adds more interest to the garden.
A little bit more vertical structure.
When there isn't much at this time of year.
On this channel,
I'm gonna make sure that every month
I do a garden tour just to share what's happening,
give you some ideas and thoughts
and some considerations.
I know a lot of you are new to growing
and are very keen to start enjoying harvests.
So this video here is gonna show you 10 crops
that you can harvest in under two months from today.