(soft gentle music)
- Here's my answers to common questions
about propagation, raising plants at home,
when plants are ready, how you know,
and putting them in or do you pot them on and so on.
So I've got lots of examples here,
this is 20th of April today.
It's a nice time for propagation
'cause the wind outside's still cold
and you can see there's plenty going on in here
but also we have planted out a lot already,
the garden's two thirds planted out
and that's from the methods I'm showing you now,
for example, beetroot.
So you could do this lovely thing also called multisowing,
some of you'll know about that.
I get great feedback on that.
And so that's a tray of beetroot,
which we sowed 29th of March, that's 22 days ago.
And for me, these are ready to go in the ground.
At that stage of root development
and size of leaf, don't delay.
There's no need to wait any longer than that,
and they'll do better for going in when they're smaller.
We put them in deep as well, but you can always bury
the stems, that's no problem at all.
And these were sown on the same day, 29th of March.
We did quite a bit actually with this video in mind,
and so again, 22 days, and this is multisown spring onions.
So a lot of spring onions in that little tray,
it's just 15 module cells.
And again, if I pop one out,
you can see, very nice development of the root.
There's still space in the compost for more root to grow,
but that can go in the ground and it's better for it.
Plants that go in the ground small,
I find do better than ones that you wait
until maybe they're fully grown in the module tray,
by which time they're starting to run low on nutrients,
you can tell that by the bottom leaf going a bit yellow.
For example, we put some lettuce in, 22nd of March,
so that's 29 days ago, it's just about a month
and they went in very small.
Certainly March, you know, is not warm,
fleece over and they're now almost ready
to pick the first pick of outer leaves.
And that was from putting in these little plants,
and for multisowing, I'll just show you one more tray here
where I'm doing a little compost trial,
actually that's a whole nother story.
Oh gee, this is slightly distorted
'cause it's rooted into the compost.
It's better with these trays to have them
like on a pallet surface like wood, for example.
And that way they don't do this,
if you've got compost underneath,
you can see the difference there.
And these are growing nicely, there's no problem there,
but it means that when you come to plant them out,
you're gonna damage the root system.
Whereas these ones, and even though it's a root vegetable
you know, you can pop them out very nicely.
These need to go in the ground and they would've,
except I am doing a trial on this compost,
which in fact is a green waste compost.
I'll quickly mention compost, 'cause that's all part
of this story, but I'm more talking about plant size.
This is the green waste compost I was just,
that the radish are growing in, and it's quite dry.
And it's important when you sow your trays,
just to make sure the compost is fully moist.
And we do that by lifting.
So water, water, water, until it's really saturated
and then lift it up and you feel it really heavy.
And then you know where you are, going forwards,
you don't need to water very much then
for the first few days, and then keep them moist
but not too wet.
This is the compost I use normally,
that's called Moorland Gold, it's from a company
in Yorkshire, and it's a very nutritious blend
that they make, it's organic approved,
but you can see, for example, like, you know,
a Marigold plant like that growing in a pot
and I don't feed these plants at all,
zero feeding, that all fits
in with saving time basically,
it's one less job.
And then look at these, on that note,
because I'm often asked, you know,
can you sow big seeds in these quite small module trays?
This is a Seedy 15, one of my design.
And even I'm surprised by these actually.
It's partly a testament to the compost,
but if we look at the broad bean plant
that's coming out there, that's definitely ready to go in
but I've kept it here for the video.
And I know that people worry about broad beans
and the tap route, you know, has to go down
is the common version, it's not true, actually.
They can circle round like that
and then when you put them in the ground,
they carry on growing and going down.
And peas likewise, so you can also grow peas
in these quite small trays, you can see the module,
the amount of compost is not huge.
And there you go, that's a very nice pea plant
ready to go in.
Again, I would put it deep, I'd put it to that level
if I'm potting it in the ground,
partly also 'cause it's spring now and it's drying up
and that keeps the roots closer to moisture deeper down.
And here by contrast is some plants which are not ready.
And that's celeriac.
So they were sown actually earlier than all of these,
they were sown around the 12th of, no 14th of March,
and in a little seed tray, then we pricked them out.
And while you could plant these out now
there's actually no need to, you can see the roots
are still quite loose in the module,
the plant's not enormous, but also,
it's just quite early for putting out celeriac,
so I sow these knowing that they're gonna be really slow
to start, they're tiny seeds, they just do not grow quickly.
And that for me, there's another two weeks of growing
in there, before they go in the ground,
which will be early May, early to middle of May.
Here we have some larger plants which need potting on.
So this is another stage like, well,
why wouldn't you plant these in the ground?
Now that's tomatoes and aubergines at that end.
And the answer is, it's just not warm enough.
So again, it's about matching your sowing dates
to your eventual outcome that you want.
With tomatoes, for example, so these pull out
and in terms of potting on, you've got two options,
well, I use two options, mud trays, pots of different size,
that's a seven centimetre pot
and that's a nine centimetre pot.
And for a tomato, which is fast growing,
I would actually favour the nine centimetre,
you just put it in there, fill that with compost,
your potting compost, pop that in, job done.
Or if you are growing the slower, aubergines take longer
I find, probably so I can't give them
quite enough warmth, to grow really fast.
So, and also I want to keep them on my hotbed.
And so I'll put them in a smaller pot,
and that way I can fit more in a given space.
So if you keep your, that's one reason for sowing
in the small cells to begin with.
And that's another question I'm frequently asked
is you know, like, well, say with the aubergines,
you know, okay, so you're gonna pot it on into here,
why don't you just sow it in there in the first place?
And the reason is because this aubergine's over a month old,
it would've needed so much more space on the hot bed
or wherever you've got the warmth,
to get them to this point and actually,
they don't do quite so well in my experience.
So little seedlings, growing in these small cells,
are happier to have a small amount of compost at random.
They don't get water logged.
Also, they're quite close to all their friends
when they're seedlings.
I mean just look at all these beetroot and you know,
I would say they're not crowded yet, but they soon will be.
But again, there's say, 50 beetroot in there.
And raised in a very small amount of space.
It's just really economical.
And then you pot them in the ground
and before you know it,
they're racing away and growing fast.
So lastly, let me just mention cucumbers,
because that's a particularly warmth loving plant.
These were sown exactly six days ago.
It was the date I recommended last week
when we were just two days before full moon.
And you got very strong waxing energy at that point
and it does help seeds to come up more quickly.
And it's fine though, to sow on a waning moon,
I'm not saying for one minute that that's the only date
I would choose, because for one thing,
full moon only comes around about every 29 days,
you'd have a long wait if you miss one.
But it's a good time now, late April to sow cucumbers,
specifically for growing undercover
and then sow them a little bit later
if you're gonna grow them outside
'cause it's such a warmth loving plant.
So these have been on my hotbed
and they're, this one particularly in the corner
is the biggest of all, that's getting ready for potting on.
So because these are fast growing, like all cucumbers
and squash and courgettes, you don't wanna leave them
too long, in the little module cells
but they start very nicely in there.
Cucumber roots are really prone to being waterlogged.
Be very careful of that.
I've lost so many over the years from over watering
and in here it's almost impossible
because of this lovely tapering shape to the cell,
that's why I made it like that,
it's not fat at the bottom, I'm not trying
to get maximum compost in there.
I want the most favourable conditions
for that early root growth to happen.
And I'll mention one last thing is hardening off,
'cause again, this is question I'm asked a lot
and it takes time to harden plants off.
Take them out, bring them in,
to get them used to cooler conditions outside
bit of wind, whatever.
I don't do it.
Again, it's a time saver.
But in the spring, early spring,
we're planting with fleece over,
fleece or row cover that's spun polypropylene,
I'm afraid I don't know at the moment any alternative,
I've looked at cotton and wool and they're not practical,
but whatever, we give them a cover.
And that means that plants taken straight out
of the greenhouse, even sometimes off the hotbed,
the roots system still warm, in the ground,
cold, not preheated, fleece over, they all grow.
I can just tell you that based
on the evidence I see every year.
So it's just a job you save, but if perhaps
you were raising plants in more cloistered conditions
than here, like indoor in a house with grow lights
and then they're coming out
into a very different environment
then I would harden off maybe for two or three days
but from here, which is, this is an unheated greenhouse,
but it warms up very nicely in weather like today, sunny,
but at night it can get quite cold.
Like last week we had a night when it was one centigrade
34 Fahrenheit in here, for example.
And all of these plants were fine.
But if there's frost susceptible plants,
I'll put a fleece over them,
if I know there's gonna be frost,
but plants are used to therefore being quite cold in here
at night and they transplant very nicely outside
without any other hardening off.
And I hope you've enjoyed this
and I hope these answered a few of those questions
you have about raising plants, it's a fantastic skill
to get good at, it'll increase the results
in harvest that you get in your garden.
(soft gentle music)