(birds chirping)
(soft music)
- This is the fourth video
in a series about
perceived problems,
potential problems,
things that might go wrong,
maybe they're not going so wrong
as you thought they were going wrong,
and how to react if things don't look right.
So,
for example,
we have here a new planting of Kohlrabi,
under mesh.
And at first, I didn't cover it with mesh,
I thought that's quite unlike me.
But it's just a small block.
This is my small garden here.
And I thought,
"Well, let's just see if I can get away with it."
I wasn't aware of any pests
that might maybe going to eat it.
There's one thing, though,
is the butterflies laying eggs on the leaves
and then caterpillars.
That could be a disaster for seedlings.
And in fact, there had been some
on them before they went in
and I'd had sprayed the bacillus thuringiensis
on the little seedlings.
So I was confident they weren't going to get devoured
by caterpillars.
So they were not meshed.
And I was wrong not to cover them, it turned out
because then two days ago, I was like, you know,
"Oh my goodness, what's going on?" (chuckles)
There were four of them
had just been pulled out the ground.
I'm still not sure what did that.
But something had pulled them out and left them there.
And, ah, maybe it was a bird looking for a worm
under the little module of compost or something.
Whatever it was, though, I'd lost the seedlings.
Luckily I had some spares.
So, we pot them in.
Edward gave me a hand, who's filming now,
and then we covered with mesh.
And while I was about it,
I also covered the carrots with mesh
since they're next to each other.
That makes perfect sense because it's this time of year,
thinking ahead,
when the carrot root flies start to come in
and potentially damaging the carrots
in September and October.
So, with regard to pests,
a lot of it is about
just having enough knowledge,
thinking ahead,
not making too many mistakes like I did.
And all the time you're you're sort of
just keeping your eyes open
and reacting as you need to
if things need adjusting.
You know, happen unexpectedly.
And there's a nice result of getting it right,
in this sense,
protecting from day one,
say, against insects with the swedes
or rutabaga over there,
where we planted them,
29th of June,
right at the end of June,
four-week-old seedlings.
They were looking really nice.
Clearly, no pests on them.
It was before too many of the summer pests had arrived.
That's one advantage for getting brassicas
in the ground in good time.
And then the mesh went on straight after planting,
and the leaves have been really clean right the way through,
and it's now, it's still only early August,
5th of August today,
and (clears throat)
I can see the swedes.
They're developing already.
So all's looking good for a nice harvest there.
At that stage of growth,
the plants are much more able to resist problems.
They're not gonna get dug up by something.
Well not in our area, anyway.
But I am still doing an occasional spray
of the bacillus thuringiensis
just to keep the caterpillars at bay.
Possibly I could manage without that.
I wanna keep them growing maximum though.
And those caterpillars don't eat the swedes
but they will eat the leaves.
And then just, well here,
I'll mention these plants not looking quite so nice here.
These are soybeans actually,
which we're growing for the edamame,
that you can see here,
the little pods with the soybeans in.
And if you saw these and you didn't know the history,
you might look at these plants and think,
oh my God, you know,
these don't look very well or healthy
or they need some food or something,
the leaves going yellow,
all it is is the stage of growth of the plant.
So the plant is now getting older.
It's done most of its growing.
The pods are mostly ripening, actually, now.
Still a bit of growing going on.
So, you know,
the production of leaves and new healthy leaves
are not needed by the plants anymore.
And that the leaves are just getting older
and the yellow part
of the senescence of the plant, if you like.
So just leave them and not worry
and take a harvest.
What we're going to look at next, though,
is an example of where one does need to worry.
It's yellow leaves that I've got
up in another part of the garden.
You'll see.
(soft music)
There's some very interesting things going on here.
This is very different soil treatment
to what I normally do.
Another chance to learn.
So basically this ground has not had any compost,
but it's got wood chip mulch.
And the history of it is
it's made-up ground from,
this was very, very weedy.
It was like what's growing
in the hedge up there beyond.
Two years ago,
really big brambles,
blackberries,
loads of nettles,
bindweed galore,
this whole area.
We started clearing it partly
with building this cabin, here.
And then some of the soil from that,
we put on top of the weeds.
And, it's--
we dug out the brambles, actually,
because they need removing.
Anyway, so it was basically a bit of soil on top of soil,
but with no compost.
And then last spring
we had an idea to grow some mushrooms here.
This looked like a good plan.
I bought some spawn, fresh wood chips,
the wood chips were fresh last April,
and the guy who was actually staying here at the time,
then he left unexpectedly
and I didn't have time to look after it
and we didn't get any mushrooms. (chuckles)
So last year this was not growing anything.
Originally, it was on black polythene,
and then we took the polythene off,
and it's just been sitting here as wood chip on the compost.
And then this May,
three months ago, we planted these squash.
And there we are, three months. (chuckles)
For me, that's saying a bit of a shortage of lots of things.
Partly, though, it's not only the lack of compost.
The wood chips are not mixed into the soil.
So of themselves, they're not depleting the soil.
They're just not adding much.
But you can see that the two courgette,
or zucchini plants, here,
they're doing all right.
But they're further away from chief culprit,
I would say is, in this case, this elder tree.
Its roots will be there.
They were there already.
I haven't dug them out or anything.
There's just soil on top of them
and they'll have been coming up.
So, yeah, this can be a major source
of difficulty, if you're growing vegetables.
You just can't afford to be too close
to tall hedges and trees because, you know,
if you look at the height of that,
and we've cut quite a bit off it, actually,
the roots of this elder, in this case,
will be going--
they're probably under the cabin, now.
You know, in the soil under the building.
And they go out pretty much as far as
the height of whatever it is growing.
So one way to restrict it is to cut them back.
And that's what we have been doing
to see if we can grow something here.
And I'm pretty much thinking,
this won't be vegetables anymore.
We'll grow something,
some flowers, maybe,
or shrubs, or whatever it might be
because vegetables need the most.
You know, we can still grow, like,
nice sedums and sunflowers and things, maybe,
but not moisture- and fertility-demanding vegetables.
And another edge of the lawn--
edging is a whole area of potential problems,
if you're not on top of it.
You need to keep your edges tidy.
And here I had,
just two days ago
there were some nettles almost going to seed,
and you know that can be a big issue,
dropping loads of seeds onto the growing area.
And so I cut them down.
I actually used a sharp spade,
just zooming along the ground,
just above ground level,
cutting through the stems.
And that's the nettles and some brambles, actually,
also just lying there on the ground.
I wanted that for compost.
This fence is in the way.
It's a bit annoying.
We're going to take this out this winter,
and then it will be possible to use the lawnmower
just to keep that bit of ground tidy.
So, one thing, good thing here though,
is there are not too many weeds
and that's a function of no dig.
You know, the soil hasn't been disturbed.
It just hasn't had a lot of goodness on it.
And it's getting a lot of competition from an edge.
So edges maintain.
And if things like bindweed,
there is, or was, still is in places,
quite a lot of bindweed here.
And I'll go along the edge, even,
thistles too, removing them,
because if you let it all grow up on the edge,
things like bindweed, say,
or some of these spreading in grasses
like couch grass that we have here,
or Johnson grass and Bermuda grass,
all of those,
they will spread in.
So you've got to keep your edge tidy,
mown or short,
because that weakens the vigor of the roots.
And now let's go and have a look at tomatoes.
There's so many potential problems tomatoes,
as well as the nice fruits.
Let's have a look.
(soft music)
(birds chirping)
These tomatoes are a nice illustration
of some problems,
or maybe not-so-bad problems. (chuckles)
Just comparing,
growing in the same soil, same watering pattern,
same temperatures, obviously,
different varieties.
And if you had only one variety
and you've got nothing to compare it with,
it's much harder to say, you know,
what the problem might be.
But here, for example,
this one growing pretty nicely, really.
It's a cooking tomato, like a plum tomato.
It's from seed I was given, actually,
by (mumbles) farmers in Luxembourg organic market garden,
and it's their homesaved seed.
And I just wonder if some of the vigor and quality
is partly from that seed
saved from plants growing in healthy soil.
And generally in here,
all my beef tomatoes,
all the larger tomato plants are growing pretty nicely.
There is a bit of leaf roll on the bottom.
Bottom leaves, mostly.
And that's not an indication of soil being dry or anything.
It's it's related to temperature variations night and day.
It gets a bit hot in here.
This is not perfect for tomatoes.
This tunnel is better for winter salads.
That's my main need for having this polytunnel.
Keeping the rain off in a damp climate
is really useful polytunnel.
And that's where, you know,
you don't get blight,
but if we just look at this leaf here,
or I see, maybe more this one, at the back,
because I know this causes
a lot of concern and,
you know, that looks a bit like blight,
but it's actually not, I don't reckon.
Because if it was, it's arrested blight
because it's very dry,
blight would be when the leaves go limp and translucent
you can pretty much look through them.
And that's something to worry about,
if it happens with us.
If you keep your leaves dry
you should be not having that problem.
But there is a bit of an issue here with,
on cherry tomatoes,
like these ones here and that one there,
with leaves at about this height.
And I think it might be going back
to when we had a hot spell of weather.
And that put the plants under a bit of stress
and then they've grown out of it since then,
the weather's been a bit cooler.
So, there's those kinds of things going on all the time,
different variations in temperature.
Tomatoes don't like it too hot.
And by comparison my outdoor tomatoes,
this summer,
generally look healthier leaves
although they're not so forward
and they haven't been cropping so much yet.
And they might get blight still. (chuckles)
So with tomatoes,
you've got all those different possibilities
to weigh up as to what's most worthwhile for you to do.
And there's an even worse problem,
which I fortunately haven't got in here,
and that's the pyralid weedkiller,
which I'll just mention
because I have got an example of it
in some tomatoes growing in pots
from some compost I was given to try.
Now, I never imagined that that would have the weedkiller
and the people that gave it to me didn't either.
And that's been a bit of a shock.
And you can see how that affects the--
it stops the growth.
It's the curling inwards of new leaves.
So if you shoot that,
that is a problem,
and it can be in bought compost.
You know, even big brands.
So, be aware of that,
and even suspect it if something's not looking right.
But the main problem will be in the new leaves,
not in the older leaves.
So, this kind of leaf roll is not
a weedkiller problem.
But if the new leaves were--
for example, there's some new leaves there,
cause there's a little side shoot
growing out of the leaf itself.
And they're all fine.
You can see they're not curling or anything like that.
But if you saw this kind of curling in the new leaves
of a grown plant,
and that could be not only tomato,
it could be chili, for example.
I've had cases of that.
And people send me photographs.
I've been quite shocked
to see how much of it there is around, actually.
Potatoes is another one.
So solanums and beans and peas
are the categories of plants
that are most susceptible to this weed killer.
So if you see curling of new leaves,
I'll put an email address
on the description of this video
that you can report the problem to,
because the authorities need to know.
Otherwise, they imagine everything's okay.
And then they can do something about enforcing
the legalities of what's going on.
And
I think I've said everything
I want to mention about tomatoes.
Yeah. So I hope you've enjoyed this video,
sort of highlighting potential problems
and understanding what may have caused them,
and it helps you to react, or not.
Quite often, you don't need to react,
but you just need to know what's happening.