MILLIE: You know, I reckon that gardeners are a pretty complex bunch,
but sometimes I think we can be guilty of overthinking things
and looking for really complex solutions to common problems.
And sometimes simple is best.
Of course, it is a fantastic time to plant brassicas.
The milder weather - well, it means they establish really, really well
before the cold weather hits, which is when you can start eating them.
But that mild weather is also perfect for their worst enemy -
the cabbage white butterfly.
Now, you can spray for the pest,
you can pick them off with your fingers
and you can also plant trap crops to try and deter them.
But I've got an even simpler solution.
It does start at planting.
You need to check for eggs as you put them in the ground.
Just have a look. You can see some damage there.
I'll just rub it with my finger.
Of course, they are a really hungry plant,
so a little bit of organic fertiliser on top of the compost and manure
should get them off to a good start.
And then, of course, cover it with a bit of mulch.
Now they're planted it's time to protect them.
G'day, Squid. Can I have that?
Come on, hop up. Hop up. Good girl.
Off you hop. Go on. Off you hop.
Good girl. Thank you.
To protect the new plants, I'm just making a simple structure -
some steel pegs banged in the ground
with some hoops of old irrigation pipe.
Cover that with a fine mesh net.
The great thing about just physically excluding a pest
is you don't need to do anything more.
I do keep an eye on them through the first couple of weeks
in case any eggs have snuck in on those new seedlings,
but after that it really is set and forget.
And, of course, with any net,
you keep it nice and taut and a fine mesh that no-one can get caught in.
It's the simplest and best solution I found.
It is always time for me to plant lettuce,
and while we are moving into
hopefully some cooler and moister weather,
many, many gardeners can still expect
to have a belt of hot weather.
And the soil is really dry in the garden,
so one solution that I think is the simplest of all
is to put crops like this into a container.
In this case, it's not even a pot.
It's an old broken-down trug that has a hole in the bottom,
which makes it perfect for growing all sorts of things in.
In summer we tend to eat
those loose-leaf varieties,
but coming into the cooler months,
it's actually the perfect time
to start planting those beautiful
hearty varieties like cos.
Now, the one thing about them is they still can dry out,
so I've got one more trick by using another pot.
I'm gonna pop one inside the other
and then packing the edges
with something that insulates,
in this case straw.
You could use coconut fibre.
To follow up with the seedlings,
I'm also gonna sow a little bit of seed,
which means once I harvest that crop,
there's room for this second one.
And I'm gonna sow a couple
of different lettuce varieties.
And I've got a little tip if you're sowing mixed seed.
A gardener's instinct is to always thin to the strongest seedlings.
It's what we're taught.
But when you're sowing mixed varieties,
you've got different little plants,
and they will germinate at different times
and they will actually have different vigour.
So if you thin to the strongest plant,
often you're thinning to a single variety.
So my tip is to thin selectively.
Choose some different types of little seedlings
and then hopefully you'll get a good representation of your mixed seed.
Now, one of the very best things about being a gardener
is there is always more to do.
There's more plants to learn, there's more techniques to master
and, of course, there's problems to solve.
But, really, sometimes I think the best solution is the simplest.