Topic: Anyone see How to Be A Gardener -24th Oct?

[rdak]

Whilst I normally find Alan T. a bit smug, last night's programme was all about growing veg, so I thought I'd watch.
He showed how to sow lettuce,runner and broad beans, onion sets, potatoes. Probably nothing too much on the show to enlighten the seasoned gardeners here, but interesting for the beginner like me.
Most useful for me was the advice that you shouldn't sow seed directly into the ground if the ground is still wet and cloddy in March- so sow them in the greenhouse instead and plant them out. He used toilet rolls for planting broad beans and wetted thoroughly when planting out to help it rot down.

His tip for squashes when planting out, was for each young plant, to dump a load of fresh manure, make a bowl shaped depression in it, plant in the depression and then when watering, the water won't run off but will collect around the plant.

For me, it raised a question about watering. Despite having plenty of organic matter in the soil, Mr T's advice was to water,water,water (half an hour a day with the sprinkler in dry weather!!) This goes against the advice of people here and others I have talked to on my allotment that (unless the summer is like the one we've just had) watering is something only to be done max once per week; and then make it a really good drenching; as this makes the plants grow deep, strong roots.

[Ceri]

Gorgeous veggie beds he had - I wish!  And really how many of us would buy in top soil??  I too found the advice about water water water a little concerning, when so many other programmes focus on less watering - esp in the south, esp this year!  I don't think many lottie assoc.s allow sprinkers, many don't allow hosepipes.  Although I have read on here about those who never water and manage, I intend to get lots of compost and w-rotted manure into the soil this autumn/winter to hold the winter rains etc., and just water those veggies that really need it when they need it - yes my crop per plant may be smaller - but we've probably got more land on our lotties to grow more plants, so swings and roundabouts I guess.

[legless]

what a programme, those veg beds were so beautiful and got me all excited about growing stuff!!

i definitely wont be watering that much, will have to hope my plants are tougher than that!! its my first year so its all experimental so i'll see what goes and what doesn't!

[ina]

Just by lucky chance I saw it too, great! It was nice to see many things I do confirmed by the specialist but I do agree with the raised eyebrows here about the watering every day. When we heard Alan say that we looked at each other and said "huh?". If I would have been just thinking about getting an allotment I may have decided against it because watering every day is out of the question, on the other hand I probably would have talked to seasoned allotmenteers first and find out it can be done differently. This year my courgettes will go on a patch of manure, thanks Alan. -Ina

[Mrs Ava]

Yup- watched it too just because of the veggie aspect.  Buying in top soil!  Pah, could you imagine doing that on the allotment!  And watering that often, would probably be the death of me as we have to collect our water from a small stream running down the side of the site.  Plenty of organic matter and mulches I think will be the rule for us.  I have tried growing broad beans in loo paper tubes before and didn't get on with them.  Firstly, they often fell to bits and were hard to handle, secondly, I found they didn't all rot down - guess it depends on the quality of your loo paper(!) and finally, I found if you left a piece of the tube above the ground, that dried out and seemed to draw the moisture away from the roots at the top of plant and the plant struggled!  But, what do I know compared to Mr T!  Mind you, watching everything growing, didn't it look great!  Roll on spring!  And I agree with you Ina, good to see some of the things I do, Mr T doing too.   ;D

[Palustris]

On the frequency of watering, as our water is metered it would be cheaper to go and buy all our veg from the Supermarket. The 'pottager' method of growing always looks good, but since the whole point of veg is to eat them you would rather too often have big holes where something had finished and a new plant had not yet grown.
We tried the cardboard tube and rolled newspaper years ago, they never worked satisfactorily for us either.  We now use some very special plant pots about the size and length of the one sold as root trainers, but a lot longer lasting. Sadly the pots seem to be only available in Australia. When we bought 1p each + 7p package,posting and VAT. Silly? Mind we have got about 2500 of them.
Rather enjoyed the G.W that followed, especially as we have 2 of the fruit trees they planted. Catshead is a fabulous apple as is Court doodah. We got ours from The National Trust property at Erddig in N. Wales for half the price of any mail order company.

[Hugh_Jones]

Oh dear! Have all the adoring subjects suddenly started to notice that the Emperor`s new clothes are not all that they should be?

[ina]

C'mon Hugh, what are your thoughts about watering every day? -Ina

[Hugh_Jones]

It`s what you do you`re making a TV programme showing your miraculous veg at various stages, and money`s no object (viz. buying in topsoil just for the seedbeds) and it just has to be perfect for 3 takes during the season or else you lose your reputation and your adoring fan club.

If ALL veg. growers had used sprinklers for half an hour every day during the last summer there would have been widespread hosepipe bans by mid-August and standpipes and waterbowsers on every street corner by mid-September.

For all those of us who don`t need to impress an audience it`s far better to let the plant roots go down looking for their own moisture unless things become really desperate - once you start watering then you are committed to keeping on watering, with constantly increasing quantities as it continues.

What I would have preferred to know is how many `helpers` were involved in presenting such an immaculately prepared plot for each take, with not a weed to be seen and every crumb of soil in perfect alignment with its neighbours. Don`t tell me AT did it all - I just don`t believe it!

[merv]

Hiya  :)

Gotta go with Hugh here. AT is mildly entertaining and sometimes has some good tips, but watering? NO NO NO.

Water in seedlings to help them get established, the same with bare sown beans,peas etc. Water salad especially radish that need to be grown fast to get the best flavour. But never, never with a sprinkler or a spray on the end of a hose.  Always water where it's needed, right at the base. As for general watering that tkes the form of waving a hosepipe about...that's criminal.  I wonder why he hasn't been taken to task for it?

OH, forget toilet inner tubes and newspaper cones.  Get a reasonable wooden tray, even those slattish ones from the greengrocer; don't need to be wood as long as the cardboard is thick enough like what the Spanish fruit comes in. (supermarket/greengrocer's produce).  Put soil in to reasonable depth and plant beans in it and put in warmth (un-heated greenhouse?). When 4-5" high put outside for a bit to harden and then transplant to your bean row.

Umm, well, that's what I do.  :-/