(birds chirping)
- It's early spring at Homeacres.
Zone A climate, temporary oceanic
and today we certainly have an oceanic day with some rain.
The temperature is around eight or nine centigrade,
the high 40's Fahrenheit, but we're in early April,
which is a time of year when there's a lot of light,
(chuckles) normally, really though the days are long.
The light levels are in, where we are now,
are equivalent to late August, early September,
in terms of day length and sun height.
So if you think, and then look at the garden now
and compare it to what it's like late August,
and there'll be a lot more growing.
It indicates how there's light potential is there
to bring on a lot of growth, but not the warmth,
it's the warmth that we're lacking at the moment.
And here I've got some plantings covered with fleece,
and I want to show you how you can use fleece
to bring things on in the early spring,
and get a bit ahead because...
For example, here, these peas,
I'm growing them for shoots actually,
but it would be the same story
different spacing and everything.
If you were growing them for the pots to eat,
I then support them so they grew up,
this is a tall variety called Alderman,
and these shoots are actually ready to harvest now.
We pick them like that, and that's already a little harvest.
So these peas, I planted six weeks ago
in very late February, and they've just had
the fleece over them like this sitting on top,
and it's quite good to do this in the rain,
'cause you can see how that actually,
wet weather makes the fleece heavier.
So this is wearing a bit more, but then when it dries out,
it becomes very light and you can see
how they're pushing it up as they grow.
So that is one option, one way of using it.
If you were in a more frosty climate,
it probably would be worth having some hoops under,
and we'll see that in a minute.
It's just many ways of doing it.
For me here we're quite windy and having it without hoops,
so it's right on the ground means
it doesn't blow away so much, basically.
The wind sort of blows through it a little bit
and over the top, but what the fleece is doing
is keeping that quite cool wind off the leaves
and allowing the plant to grow more,
it warms up when the sun is out.
It doesn't keep all the frost out,
but it warms up by day to encourage growth.
And similar story here, just back under this sheet
is little beetroot, so this multi-sown beetroot.
I popped them in three weeks ago and they have grown a lot.
But what they've done is they've got their leaves green.
They are established, you can see by the colors
the leaves' quite green, I'm really happy with them.
And you know, they could be cropping as little beetroots
to eat in about six weeks, which is quite early
and wouldn't have happened without the fleece cover.
And same story here, except the harvest
will be even earlier.
These lettuce were planted at the same time as the beetroot,
all different varieties.
And yeah, they're looking really well.
This was beetroot in the winter then I spread compost.
So this is homemade compost on top
and I just make little hole in and through that a bit
and the plants go in.
And just to illustrate how we do,
we'll be picking off these outer leaves
as region one at the bottom, and then we start taking
the outer leaves us the harvest.
So that's already a lettuce leaf that you could eat
or I let the plants actually get a bit bigger first.
But just to give you an idea that it won't be long
before we're harvesting lettuce from this plot.
And it's probably the fleece has brought forward
the harvest by about two weeks I say.
The decision to make is how long to leave it on.
If you have fleece on too long
and when it's really getting hot
for those of you in lower latitudes
or closer to the equator, in here we're 51 North.
You would find that those could get a bit of heat stroke.
So if we, towards the end of April here,
it'll really warm up normally and I'll take this fleece off,
and then that's it, it's done its job for the year.
I'm really only using it in this climate,
late March and through April, particularly useful.
Similar sort of thing going on here, I'll quickly show you.
So for example, you'll also see more clearly
how plants can push the fleece up.
So we got plants at all different stages.
So the garlic was already growing when I put the fleece on
and then I went and planted some radish between.
Actually, the garlic's doing quite nice job,
just supporting the fleece while the radish are growing.
And as we come down here, then we're into sown radish direct
with some carrots just emerging.
So I'm using the fleece again,
just a little bit of extra warmth in the day.
It's not huge difference, but it makes a difference,
and you know, with early sowing,
you're always pushing the boundaries a bit.
Certainly, we are here and it's got these carrots coming up,
and a bit more strongly, I would say and healthy, you know,
things that are in, soil is a bit warmer,
they're more likely to resist parsnip,
just get away more healthily.
After this we'll now go
and have a quick look at some fleece.
I'm gonna take you on a little tour of the garden,
and see different beds using fleece
in slightly different ways
and also slightly different types of fleece.
This one is quite thin, it's also three years old, actually.
You can keep reusing it, and it's 25 grand square meter,
which means it's quite light.
And I'm going to show you next a quite heavy one.
(breathes heavily)
(footsteps stomping) (birds chirping)
This bed is all planted with lettuce.
This is a small market garden here,
we're selling salad bags,
that's why there's a lot in case you're wondering.
And the difference here to what we saw just now,
is that we have supported the fleece on hoops,
and for two reasons, one is it's heavier fleece,
30 grams per square meter, weighs more,
and that of itself is not the problem,
but we've had quite hot for us last week,
- 3/27 Fahrenheit for quite a long time.
And what I've noticed is when that happens,
when fleece is touching leaves, they get damaged.
Doesn't kill the plant, but if you're selling the leaves,
obviously, that's not good or want to eat them.
And I also just wanna say how we laid this out.
These covers, the sheets are all two meters wide,
that's about six and a half feet,
and that's easily enough to span...
These are roughly four, four and a bit,
1.25 meter wide.
But two meters is a really
nice standard width for these covers.
And to get it all nice and straight like that,
where you just roll it out unroll it,
and then we're using stones.
I find this so simple and quick and all you need
to just like you see, lift the stones up to get in the bed,
and you can see what's going on here.
And in fact, I'm very pleased with these.
It's 18 days since we planted them,
and they were 5-week-old lettuce at the time.
So they were sown mid-February.
And that's good steady growth for early spring.
One other thing I'm noticing, having pulled it back
is dryness, the rain has not yet gotten through the fleece.
And that always is a bit of a question.
Generally, I find that after a while it starts to drip down,
but quite a bit is actually running down the sides as well.
So that's one disadvantage of having it on hoops
compared to flat, you'll get better infiltration of rain
through the fleece.
We'll know, have a look at some P shoots
under fleece over there.
Again with hoops, I'll just show you the difference
in how upright they are.
(birds chirping) (footsteps stomping)
Here, it was only a week ago
that we actually put these hoops up.
Before that the fleece was sitting on the peas growing,
and that is possible, that can work.
The reason we put the hoops in was
because of the frost forecast,
and it was certainly a very good forecast
'cause it saved a lot of damage.
'Cause what it does when you have fleece
or row cover high up over the plants like this,
it mitigates the temperature difference.
So when, say you have a frost at night,
the cold air was falling down either side
and not able so easily to get onto the plants.
So I've got a few pea plants elsewhere in the garden,
which were hit quite hard by that frost,
and the leaves all went yellow,
which is not to say they're gonna die,
but it really set back and this prevented that happening.
So it was great having the hoop.
In case you're wondering about these hoops,
I was extremely fortunate and inherited them
from a farm I was running in France.
And I don't know what (chuckles) the wire is exactly,
but it's pretty thick.
They're just brilliant hoops that probably 40 years old,
and you just use them again and again.
They're only in the ground about six inches
or even less actually, 12 centimeter.
As you can see how they're spanning the bed, very nicely,
and look at these lovely peas,
and all standing up proud and ready again
for first harvest of pea shoots.
And this is again, 30 millimeter, 30 grams a square meter.
Fleece are quite heavy and it's starting
to get a little bit wet there.
I'm gonna be interested after this rain finishes,
I have a look actually and see.
I think on the whole fleece is fairly moisture neutral,
'cause it's in spring weather like we've been having,
you can have days of incredible wind
that really drives the soil out.
And so the fleece is helping on days like that
to keep moisture in,
whereas in rain like this week, we're losing a bit.
So I think that's fairly even.
But the main thing it's doing for me,
it's just keeping the cold at bay in the early spring.
So I don't use fleece here from May onwards.
I find it, makes it too hot of an afternoon,
plants then actually struggle a bit.
So you gotta work out according to your climate
where you are.
The bed that we're looking at here has brassicas,
radish, turnips, Rocket,
all very fast-growing early spring brassica plants.
And they're much more robust
and stronger leaved than say peas.
And for that reason, I actually,
I haven't got any hoop you can see.
And you see how they're pushing the fleece up.
We do occasionally loosen it a bit.
I like to get it on pretty firm, not skin tight,
but firm so that if you leave it too loose,
when you put it over plants without any supports, that is,
it flaps around in the wind and the clad sheet,
it damages the leaves more than having it fairly firm.
And then these leaves are stronger than we might think.
You can see how these radish here
pushing up the fleece and oh they do, right.
And also actually, this is interesting too,
'cause I'm seeing here how the compost mulch on the surface
is damp and the rain has been going through,
this is the 25 GSM, so it's slightly thinner.
The rain goes through a bit better
and 'cause it's more or less flat.
And I also brought along here this wire
'cause it's the next great done
from the one I just showed you, the very thick hoop.
And this is four millimeter high tensile wire.
So high tensile means that it's got a bit of spring in it
and sort of rigidity.
It's actually, this one's a bit too long.
If you buy a roll of this from like a store or hardware
and cut it to the length that you're happy with,
and then what we do is just push it in like that,
keep going a bit, 'cause that gives it firmness,
and then on the other side, you do exactly the same
and you've got your hoop.
You can see how this one's too long, basically.
Generally, I don't have it not too high.
So full millimeter high tensile, and just while we're here,
I'll also mention covering these plants, new seedlings,
for me, that's pretty much everything I plant
in the early spring, in our case from late February,
early March, right through April gets a cover on it
for a little while, just to help it getting going.
It's that time when plants are most fragile and sensitive,
I call it planting shock there, you know,
they've gone from one place to another
and this has nothing to do with hardening off
or anything like that, you know,
'cause it happens in summer and autumn as well.
It's just that stage of getting used
to a new surroundings and having
a bit of extra warmth and protection
makes all the difference.
And in contrast behind me, you can see, for example,
the spinach, which was actually sown last August
and has been growing fine
through all this very same weather.
And I'm not worried about covering that,
and I'm not covering the broad beans behind,
because they've got going and they're stronger plants,
they're well established.
So it is all those factors as well.
And I certainly, you know, I'm not wanting to encourage you
to think you have to use fleece all the time
for new plants if any or whatever it is.
It's just very specific,
but it does make so much difference at this time.
And we'll just go into this one on the way.
I now finally, I'm gonna show you the bed
that's covered in mesh.
(birds chirping)
What I'm showing you over this bed is mesh,
it's called, which is more durable, longer lasting,
tougher, stronger than fleece,
and it's been over this bed all winter.
(birds chirping)
And the reason I wouldn't put fleece over it all winter long
as we do get a load of wind here
and over say the five months that this is gonna be covering.
The fleece will almost certainly get torn
by wind at some point, and the mesh has not.
This mesh actually is six years old.
I've been using it quite a lot in that time,
and it has a life span of 12, 15 years in fact.
So it costs more, it's more durable,
but it's longer lived and stronger.
And I'm gonna just show you...
Again illustrating how it's not honorous to weight it down.
This has stood very nicely in some very high winds,
actually, that we had 65 mile an hour gust.
And part of the reason that it doesn't blow off
is that some of the wind does blow through.
So it's not like total warmth in there,
but it's just protecting the plants enough
to make a very worthwhile difference.
And it would also be very useful,
I've used this mesh like this,
it isn't an insect or a pest deterrent,
and we sometimes have badgers here
and rabbits and it keeps them off.
And the plants are actually were put in
last middle of October last year from September sowing.
We're now 8th of April, today, 9th of April.
So you can see they've been here a long time
and we've picked around seven kilos, actually,
15 pounds of salad from this bed over the winter.
So partly thanks to the mesh, that's up the figure a bit
and enabled us to have some nice harvest.
And the biggest producers actually being these lettuce,
which look quite small,
but that's 'cause we'd picked them yesterday.
We actually took over a kilo,
two and a half pounds off this bed yesterday afternoon,
just to give you an idea.
And it's little and often approach.
So mesh really good move for pass,
not for young seedlings so much.
Fleece for little seedlings, that just need
that little bit of extra warmth and wind protection
for the first month or so of their lives.
And I'd recommend any gardener
who's getting into all this to just keep a stock
over some of this in your shed, basically.
'Cause you're gonna just bring it out at any time.
One other thing about storing it is particularly the fleece,
in the shed where I store it,
I don't just leave a heap on the ground.
'Cause if you do that,
it'd look get full of mice in the winter,
they just love it and they'll make nests in there.
So I just got a Baton of wood sort of head height,
and we looped the rolls over that,
'cause we are then reusing them each year.
12, 15 years for the mesh, the fleece,
maybe three, four years depending on thickness.
The one you don't want to get,
to avoid at all costs is the thinnest kind,
which unfortunately it seems to be pretty much available,
a lot of people buy it and then they asked me,
"How come this is any good?"
It just falls apart almost as soon as you look at it,
and that's 'cause unfortunately,
without knowing they bought the finished grade,
which is 17 one seven grams per square meter.
So try not to buy that one, the 25 or 30 GSM.
And there are other options coming onto market now.
It's worth keeping an eye out for new products,
and there's one actually just right in front
of the camera there, which is called envirotect,
and that's a sort of a bit of a hybrid
between mesh and fleece, and I don't know yet,
I've only just started using it, how warm it's gonna be,
it certainly is more durable than fleece.
And the last thing I mentioned actually,
is that you might've noticed some of my fleece
is quite dirty, and I find mostly
the rain washes off the soil.
So when we're reusing year after year,
we never actually wash it or do anything like that.
Mostly the rain sorts that out,
so we just get it out of the shed and put it on,
and that lets enough light through.
Because what the fleece is all about
is converting spare light to warmth.
Warmth is what we're lucky at the moment,
we've got long days.
So have fun experimenting with it a bit.
(birds chirping) (wind whirring)