Gardeners World episode 7 2012: If you have a shady spot in your garden that is bereft of flowers, then Monty Don has some great suggestions of stalwarts which not only thrive in those tricky conditions but return year after year.
On the veg plot, he also shares his tips on putting up a runner bean support. Carol Klein discovers our native lungwort, the pulmonaria, growing prolifically in the woodlands and verges of the New Forest, and meets a woman who has been growing them in her Hampshire garden for over 15 years.
Joe Swift travels to an allotment site in West Yorkshire to visit a vegetable grower who, using the power of manure, is already harvesting an astonishingly early bounty of potatoes. And we meet a gardener whose Essex garden is full of summer colour, all down to his passion for lilies.
Gardeners World episode 7 2012
How to build a hotbed
Harvesting new potatoes in March may seem like a tall order, but not for Jack First in West Yorkshire. With the help of some fresh horse manure, he’s able to grow all sorts of crops in double quick time, as Joe Swift discovered when he went along to see him.
Putting up a bean support
Climbing beans, whether they be runners or French, require a support to clamber up. Regardless of whether you use bamboo canes or rustic beanpoles, this framework needs to be sturdy if it is to remain intact all summer long. Monty Don offers some first-hand advice on how to go about it.
Runner beans
Quintessentially British, runner beans are one of the easiest of all vegetables to grow. To many people, summer is incomplete without them. From the classic wigwam of red-flowered, green-podded beans, to dwarf cultivars and white or bi-coloured flowers, ‘runners’ can add an ornamental as well as productive dimension to the garden.
Sow runner beans indoors, ideally in a greenhouse, from mid-April and plant out from late May. This is a good idea if you are keen to harvest early crops, you are gardening in northern areas or you garden on heavy soils.
When the soil has reached 12°C (54°F), usually by mid-May in the south, and two weeks later in the north, seeds can be sown in their permanent positions until the end of July. Sowing in July as well as in April/May prolongs the harvest, allowing you to gather beans until the first frosts.
