In Beechgrove Garden episode 15 2017, life is a way more than a bowl of cherries at Beechgrove this week as Jim and Carole harvest bucketfuls of ripe cherries in the fruit house.
Carole visits two passionate showers and growers who are entering the Dundee Flower Show. Alistair Gray in Brechin is a show vegetable grower and winner of the 2016 World Potato Championship, while Bruce McLeod in Meigle grows champion chrysanthemums.
Jim visits Philip and Marianne Santer at Langley Park near Montrose. With little previous gardening experience, they have reclaimed the long-neglected garden to create a haven of colour. To their amazement and delight, the garden has been attracting visitors to what they call their little piece of paradise.
More in Beechgrove Garden episode 15 2017:
 1. Begonia Propagation
In Carole’s 6×8 greenhouse, the Coleus were looking much smaller than Bruce’s in Meigle, however they were grown from seed. The variety is ‘Chocolate Covered Cherry’ and the foliage was beautiful. A fortnight ago the flower head of the Eucomis was down in the centre of the crown, but this week the flower stalk has expanded however, the flower had yet to open.
This time of year is a good time to take some leaf cuttings from Begonia ‘Escargot’.
 2. Main Vegetable Plot Update
Jim was on the Main Vegetable Plot where he was playing catch up. The bad news was that a couple of the potato plants ‘Maris Bard’ were suffering from blackleg. This is a bacterial disease which will affect both the plant and the crop. It is one f the earliest diseases to appear on potatoes thriving in warm humid conditions and sadly there is no chemical control of this disease.
The most important thing to do is to lift affected plants (and their crop) and destroy them by burning. This is normally a disease which is rogued out of seed potato crops and got rid of. At home rotation is really important as the bacterium can survive in soils overwinter. The good news was that some of the early potatoes were ready to harvest.
