The Beechgrove Garden 2022 episode 25: Brian and Carole offer lots of great advice for gardeners of all kinds and review this summer’s output. The pair revisit the area between the alpine and heather borders that they worked on earlier in the year, and they check on the range of planting that was put in place to replace a diseased conifer that was removed earlier in the series.
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George reviews his summer from his garden and allotment in Joppa, offering some great advice on what to do with used tomato growbags. There is also a visit to a Glasgow garden which is part of a UK-wide programme to create outdoor spaces to support patients at NHS spinal injury centres. And it’s the last visit to the Beechgrove’s Beechgrowers, gardeners from across Scotland who have been giving regular updates through the summer.
Celebrating the great Scottish garden. Tips and advice to get the most out of your garden, with inspirational ideas from Scotland’s most beautiful green spaces. The Beechgrove Garden has been on air since 1978 and remains a firm favourite with audiences in Scotland. It consistently outperforms what is being screened by BBC Network in the same slot. At the heart of the series is a 2.5 acre home garden, situated on a cold, inhospitable slope west of Aberdeen, deliberately chosen to reflect Scotland’s harsher climate.
Horticultural advice in gardening magazines and on UK network gardening programmes is rarely suitable for most of the UK outside the South East of England. Beechgrove shares with its viewers the weekly challenge to work with the Scottish conditions to produce maximum yield of as many varieties as possible of fruit, flowers and vegetables.
The Beechgrove Garden 2022 episode 25
Tomatoes – Growing your own
Growing your own tomatoes is simple and just a couple of plants will reward you with plenty of delicious tomatoes through the summer. They’re ideal for growing in containers, either outdoors in a sunny spot or in a greenhouse, and there’s a whole array to try, from tiny sweet cherry tomatoes to full-flavoured giant beefsteaks.
Water tomato plants regularly to keep the soil or compost evenly moist. Fluctuating moisture levels can cause problems with the fruit, such as splitting or blossom end rot (see Problem solving, below). Plants in containers dry out quickly, so they may need watering daily in hot weather. To boost fruiting, especially with plants in containers, feed every 10–14 days with a high potassium liquid fertiliser once the first fruits start to swell.
When growing tomatoes in a greenhouse, open the vents regularly to give pollinating insects access to the flowers. You can also lightly tap or shake the flowers when fully open to aid pollen transfer within the flower. Misting flowers with water may also help.