Episode 6 – Friday 11th April 2014

Monty is at Longmeadow and shows us how to create soil blocks using a soil blocker. This saves the need for lots of plastic seedling trays and is actually better as the roots do not get restricted by the container that they are in.  He uses a mixture of compost and coir. The coir can be bought in blocks and can then be wetted and broken down to serve as the binding agent for your soil blocks.  The mixture of compost and coir is  wetted so that it can be squeezed with water dripping out. He then employs the soil blocker to produce soil blocks.

Carol visits Abbotsbury Gardens in Dorset to look at their fantastic camellia collection. We also meet a lady who specialises in auriculas. These need a lot of care but their is a tremendous diversity of flower that they produce. She places her auriculas in pots and under cover away from direct rainfall as they are such fragile flowers.

Jobs to get on with now for allotmenteers and gardeners

• Plant shallots – Now is the best time to plant out shallot sets. Fork over the soil and mix in some fresh compost. Then plant them. half way in the soil in a grid  6 to 9 inches apart. Then water and keep weeded and they should produce a bunch of new shallots ready for harvesting in summer.
• Tomato seedlings that were planted a month ago are now ready to be moved on to soil with more space for root systems to develop.

Here’s the link on BBC IPlayer if you have time to watch the Gardeners World episode 6 >>