(birds chirping)
- Side shoots are growing really
fast at the moment.
Here actually, we just had Glastonbury
music festival near by,
it's three miles up the road,
and so there is still a lot of noise,
which I apologize for, helicopters and things.
But it's an indication of the time of year,
it's full on summer, and these tomatoes and
cucumbers here, all growing together,
in the polly tunnel, these were planted
in middle of May, so actually only
six weeks ago and we just had a hot week,
so they have really grown fast.
I actually side shooted these,
five days ago, and yet already because it's
warm and light, look at these,
this one is actually doubling up,
and this is an example of,
what is a side shoot, and why do we do it?
If you don't side shoot,
you can get this sort of thing happening,
where, here we got almost two stems,
not quite the same but,
that one is pretty strong.
That is actually a side shoot, that's what
happens to side shoots if you don't
take them out, they become new stems, even with
there own side shoots, which will double up
on the amount of foliage and growth and
attempted fruit formation in here,
and okay you might think "Okay, doubling up
what's wrong with that?".
The problem is, it gets crowded
and you can end up lots of little fruit,
which take a long time to pick.
You can also get leaves all crowding
in on each other, then there is a tendency
for moisture to accumulate and blight spores
to be able to breed. Blight spores can only
live on wet leaves, so keeping a bit of air
around each plant is good, and that's
on major reasoning for side shooting.
And this big one I'm just going
to snap out of here.
You hear that clank.
I could almost have cut that, but it's
still just about within range of snapping off,
And it's got it's own little side shoots already,
this is what they are, they are growing
out of every little axle, where the steam
meets a new leaf and not that I'm really
bothering with that cause it's going
into the compost bucket, but on the main
plant which is still here, there is for example
another side shoot there, which again
just push it over so it snaps off,
and then if we look further up,
you can see this plant, it's a vigorous beef
tomato called Vintage Wine, and its continually
trying to make new stems, so this could be
in a few days time, this could be another
big fat stem, so I'm going to again
take that one out and just what you always
want to make sure is, "How do I know
when to stop and not pinch out the
main growing point"?.
As long as you can see a truss,
that's called a truss, where the flowers
haven't yet opened and when they open
they will turn into fruits.
And above that truss, the last one I can see
there is still little baby leaves,
and that is what's called the growing point
of the plant, which is going to carry on
generating new growth at the top,
which is where we want it, and I'll
continue allowing this in here,
until the 10th of August, which for me
is the cut off point, where I'll take
out this top, that's the final side shoot,
if you like, and because that stops
new leaves developing and fruits
which won't have time to ripen,
But for now, it's all go and new growth
can be allowed, and I'm just twisting
this one around a string to keep it all tidy,
and then I just checking as well,
to see for example here, this is a typical
thing that beef tomatoes do, where at the
end of the truss, they make new stems,
and if I didn't take this one off,
that would make another new stem,
which really would be crazy. I don't need that,
so I'm taking that one off as well.
In fact, there's one here.
So, side shooting is not all about
what's happening at the top, you need to
cast your eye down the plant, and then
there sometimes you see side
shoots you've missed. No we don't. (giggling)
Fortunately I've not seen any there,
but you need to keep your eyes open,
and then very similar for cucumbers,
This plant, I think that's possibly
sun damage on the leaf, which I'm not
worried about, its not mildew or
anything major problem, but you can see
there are some nice little cucumbers here,
and this is a [Inaudible 00:04:28].
She's called a Syrian Cucumber,
I was given it by a friend,
and because its not a F-one hybrid,
as well as side shoots, it makes
little male flowers.
So you have female fruits,
here's one I'll take out
just to show you. You can see the difference,
that's a potential cucumber and that's
the male flower. In other words it's
a flower with no fruit behind it,
and the pollination is not literally
that but insects doing that,
and with cucumbers, there is a risk
when pollination happens, you get bitter fruit,
so if ever I see male fruits,
I take them off for compost
to have a sweeter cucumber.
And then the side shooting of cucumbers,
it's very similar to tomatoes.
They're growing in the axle between
the leaf and the main stem, and they
are potentially new cucumber stems,
that would make a very difficult
to manage plant basically.
And I think you can see from the way
this cucumber is growing, that there's
plenty of fruit there, just on the one stem,
and in fact, really as many fruit, nice fruit,
as a plant can manage to produce.
You know plants are not miracle workers,
they can only do some much from the
amount of root and nutrients
and moisture they have.
So, this whole side shooting business,
is about training them in such a way,
that you get a nice steady harvest
of decent size of fruit.
Little and often, rather than
maybe feast and famine.
And you can also do this with, aubergines,
so we'll have a look at them next,
they are growing in my green house
where it's a little bit warmer
then the polly tunnel.
(birds chirping)
(footsteps)
Aubergines, also make side shoots,
which, it's a bit of a debate actually,
I've not met a strong consensus either way
what you do with them, but this is
a method I discovered last summer through
Felix, a German student who was working here,
And he showed me what they had done at
the nursery he worked at in Germany,
where you allow two stems on each aubergines
plant, and then side shoot,
and it actually worked really well.
Before that with out doing any
side shooting or training of aubergines,
they will become quite monstrous plants.
I saw some the other day that were given
four foot spacing and that's one point 2 meters,
inside a greenhouse, and I really like that far,
so, you know that's giving you an idea
of how big they can become.
But, this way enables you to grow
nice quality aubergines in less space,
I've given mine around two feet between each
plant, 60 centimeters, and that enables enough
moisture and nutrients to get some good fruit.
So, the side shooting I'm doing is
here there's a side shoot for example.
The main growing point is right up here,
those little leaves at the top of this stem,
and that's the same on the other stem.
So I'm taking out that potential growing point,
it's exactly the same principle as
cucumbers and tomatoes, it would make
a new stem if I didn't take it out,
there's a little baby one that
I can take out as well,
and there's the little baby one there
is the actual growing point that's
fueling the new growth.
And, just while we are here, I can also
show you how these aubergines
[Inaudible 00:08:11] it's really amazing.
You start of with a little flower bud,
and that pedals open, and you get a little
purple flower, and then they die, and then
as they die as long as they have been
pollinated, which happens in here without
me doing anything, pedals are dying.
And then you see can see aubergine.
Quite quickly growing at this point,
and these little fruits were just
pedal buds four or five days ago.
In warm weather they grow very quickly.
So we got two stems here now and I've
got these strings that are buried
in the ground and so I just twist
them around each string [Inaudible 00:08:51]
they go so if you would like two aubergine
plants on one root, and this is a radical
black pearl on a grafted root stock,
so it has got extra vigor,
its does grow really well,
and I'm very happy with it.
And we've already picked one or two aubergines,
and this is late June from a planting
six weeks ago.
(snapping of stems)
(birds chirping)