The best sign of spring is when the Beechgrove Garden episode 1 2017 returns and Jim McColl, Carole Baxter, George Anderson, Chris Beardshaw and Brian Cunningham are all back in the garden dispensing sage advice to keep growing.
At this time of the year, we are normally bemoaning winter storms – so what do we have to talk about after one of the mildest winters on record? Jim and team look at the signs of spring and see if it really has come early this year. Jim also takes a look at the progress of the overwintered veg, while George has already set himself a challenge to produce a weekly salad.
Carole has been in search of early signs of spring as she takes an up close and personal look at the tiny world of snowdrops. She also visits Helen Rushton in Rothienorman to discover why these tiny beauties excite such passions.
In Beechgrove Garden episode 1 2017:
Overwintering veg and planning ahead
Twenty two weeks ago, Jim planted a range of overwintering vegetables both under the cover of a polytunnel and outside under a fleece covering. They were looking fantastic this week. With the recent terrible weather in the Mediterranean causing shortages of courgettes, Calabrese and lettuce in UK shops, growing your own is something that Jim and George advocate. In this way it is possible to grow your own veg for year round eating. Jim and George looked through the crops. The cavalo nero, sometimes called Black Kale was looking good and kale was doing well generally and there was a nice bit of broccoli.
Spring Pruning
In mid March Carole was at Beechgrove spring pruning and cutting back. She started by cutting back he old foliage on flowering Hellebores. This is also a job which can be done with evergreen ferns such as Asplenium and evergreen Epimedium and allows us to clean up the plant and to appreciate this year’s flowers better. A nice tip that we picked up from Lady Anne Fraser at Shepherd House, Inveresk, was to put a small mirror under the Hellebore flowers so that they can be viewed without having to lift the heads
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