Roots & kingfishers

It's mid-autumn and Tom Pattinson’s making the most of the seasonal changes and preparing for Nature’s planting time. 

Tom Cadwallender’s spotted a fabulous kingfisher and he's enjoying the incoming Vs of honking geese 

 Big Butterfly Conservation are here with an update on one of our most important nature counts… 

Plus some top tips for the garden from Tom P.

Transcript

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Intro

Carl Stiansen 0:14

Hello and welcome to the Nature Garden Podcast with me, Carl Stiansen, and the Weekending Show team from Lionheart Radio. Thanks for joining us on a canny-wee wander down the garden path and country lane with the birds and the bees and the flowers and trees in this episode. It's mid-autumn and Tom Pattinson's making the most of the seasonal changes and preparing for nature's planting time. Tom Cadwallender's spotted a fabulous Kingfisher, and he's enjoying the incoming V's of honking Geese. Big Butterfly Conservation are here with an update on one of our most important nature counts, plus some top tips for the garden from Tom P, all coming up on the Nature Garden Podcast.

Nature's planting time #1

Carl Stiansen 1:36 Carl Stiansen 1:36

It can be a great time to plant new things. And here's Tom Pattinson to tell us more.

Tom Pattinson 1:46

Hello. I wanted to mention this week nature's planting time on bare-rooted planting and what an opportunity it is for us in the garden to get out there and introduce new items to our borders. Vegetables, fruit, and ornamentals, most especially woody, hardy, perennial plants with no soil and the roots at all. Sounds like something shouldn't be done in the garden, certainly not in the middle of summer. But nature's planting time allows us to take these advantages of the plants that have gone to sleep. What are we going to put in? Well, good question. What's your choice? There's two ways of looking at it for me. Number one is I can order something new. I can pick up the catalogues, get a mail order, or better still, I can go to the local garden center, take a look around. I know for a fact there'll be some apple trees and possibly some roses. And they may well be in pots. But that doesn't necessarily mean they've been grown in pots. If they've been grown in pots, we'll say apple trees, they will tell you they're pots grown. And for a typical young apple tree, you might pay something like somewhere between 35 to 50 pounds. Straightforward. Because it's been grown in that pot, it will have a ball of root. You can buy them much cheaper if you buy a bare-rooted apple tree. Now it too will be presented in a pot, perhaps. This is quite normal. Don't assume it's going to have a ball of roots. If it's much cheaper, and they can be bought anything from about £20 to £30 locally, I've bought them. And this is the way I prefer to plant my apples, coming bare-rooted. Similarly at this time of year, with roses, rose bushes. When you receive them, quite a shock to the system. You open the package, say it's roses, maybe two or three roses in one packet, large pack, and shock upon shock. The roots, you can see them, no soil on them. They're sometimes possibly even dry. Goodness knows how long they've been travelling. Hopefully they come directly to you. First job, get them into a bucket of water and leave them for several hours overnight if possible, and get them fully charged with water before you plant them. Similarly, the fruit trees. Do the same with them. When you're going to plant them, and there's various roots to success here, but this is the way I do it and it works for me. When you're going to plant them, dig the hole first. Prepare the hole. And dig a hole that's twice the depth and twice the width of the root system that you see in front of you on the plant you received. Put your organic material in. Composted material, some compost from a bag even you've bought, or well-rotted animal manure. Get that in. Then water it. Don't water afterwards necessarily. The water needs to be around the roots of the plant. So water the compost before you put the plant in. Now the plant will not have been lying out on the soil waiting to be planted because the air, wind, it will dry out the roots again, which defeats the purpose of soaking them in the first place. The stay in the bucket or the tub with the water until the point of planting. Then you get them in, then you backfill the soil, making it firm as you go until the whole thing is planted. Then you can water the surface as well if you wish. It'll have to work its way down to the roots, but it'll keep it moist. And then I would like to put down now a mulch on the surface. It will keep the moisture in. It retains a certain amount of warmth during the winter period, which will come, and you've got the flying start with your apple tree or your rose for the next year.

Kingfishers

Carl Stiansen 6:14

Waterways can be wonderful places for wildlife, and Tom Cardwallender's been along the owl nestuary to bring us some tales from the river banks.

Tom Cadwallender 6:32

The other morning I bumped into my good old pal Tom Pat, the demon gardener of Lesbury, and colleague on the podcaster, he's a good old lad. Anyway, we bumped into each other on um in Lesbury, and Tom had his fishing rod with him. And uh I didn't I'd forgotten Tom was a fisherman. But anyway, we got chatting about um various things, and he said he just he really enjoys going down to the river and just well, basically standing still. And there's a lot to be said for standing still. And Tom is usually a very active person in his garden, and as you well very well know, he's uh he's an amazing gardener, he's so much knowledge, but he's he's really quite industrious in his garden. So actually, he it's it's quite a good therapy therapy for him, I think, to go fishing and actually just stand by a riverside with his fishing rod and just watch the world go by. And he might catch a fish or two, but anyway, that's that's kind of uh sidetracking the story. Um when we got chatting and he and he was telling me that um he'd just seen a family party of otters just up by the 18 arches on the River Aln up from Lesbury. And yeah, that uh that is the case. I've I've seen them up there before, and I've seen one or two other single animals further downriver. But also we got chatting about kingfishers, and that was quite interesting that conversation, because yeah, the the standing still on the riverside is means that a kingfisher would just sit and watch you and watch the river at the same time, uh, and you really get some fabulous views just by sitting still anywhere, really, any bit any bit of habitat. If you just settle down for a little while and just think and just watch what's going on there without many any making any kind of serious movements, anything like that. Just just take your time and just sort of look around what's going on there, and you'll gradually just blend into your your surroundings and the animals and birds and insects, if it's the right time of year, of course, will actually come around and have a look at you and just think it's quite natural. But it's it's amazing, actually, really, just sitting still. You don't have to be kind of um rushing around everywhere, which I tend to do, um, but yeah, just to take your time and and watch what's going on then you'll see all sorts of things. But back to the kingfisher. Kingfishers are just incredible birds. It's a m huge family of birds, actually, kingfishers. There's all manner of birds of kingfish around the world. Um, but in in Britain and in Europe largely, there's only one species, and that's known as the common kingfisher. But they all have the same sort of kind of uh tendencies or or kind of um characteristics, if you like, around the world. They've all got them. They're all brightly coloured, and they're all amazingly coloured. And the common kingfisher, or the European kingfisher, as it's called, wrongly, because the kingfisher that we have uh is found right across through Europe, into Africa, and even into Asia. So they're found right across there. But they have this electric blue, um, black uh back plumage, but they've got this orange underneath, and they tend to be sort of in the uh in the in the breeding season, they'll they'll be up river a little way and they'll find a a nice sort of quiet spot just tucked away, and they'll they'll dig a hole in the in the nest in the uh the river river bank, bit of exposed bank, and they'll d dig a hole perhaps about um I don't know, forty-five centimetres deep, and they'll they'll lay their their eggs in that that hole, uh and they'll eventually they'll hatch, and uh the young will come and sit at the edge of the um edge of the uh of the hole. Uh it's amazing to see. And it's if you see a kingfisher, and if it's carrying a fish with its head, with the fish's head facing out of its mouth, it's destined to be fed to the young ones. But if it's actually carrying a fish the other way around, it's going to be for itself, it'll swallow it. It's easier to swallow head headfirst straight down. But if it's going to feed the young one, uh a young one, it will go straight, uh it will be headfirst, so it'll go straight down the the um the young bird's uh throat. Uh so yes, it's quite fascinating. But up but uh but when it comes to the autumn and early winter, we tend to see these kingfishes kind of come downstream and they'll be in the estuaries. I I where I like to sit, um in the uh on the island estuary, I regularly see kingfishers in the most strange places, right on the on the estuary mouth, um just kind of feeding on all sorts of small fish coming up and down the and up and down the estuary. And really when the uh the weather gets a little bit harder further into the winter, we see them on rock pools. So you fairly regularly see in in December and January, you'll see um uh kingfishers feeding in rock pools. Uh and that bright, bright blue flash as it goes past is incredible. But actually, I've got my ear tuned to the noise of them as well, and they'll make quite an explosive chk as they as they go. It's not very good at impersonation. Again, as you know, I'm not very good at making bird sounds, but it makes this this quite distinctive noise as they fly upstream. But I've seen a large number of kingfishers around the world, and there are kingfishers which specialise in uh being in woodland. You think, wow, that's not a kingfisher, surely? But actually, yes, it is. And there's some really brightly coloured ones, particularly out in Asia, uh, where I was in the in the spring, I was out in Malaysia, and we were watching woodland kingfishers, and they were all kind of hues of green and purple and blue and orange, and incredible. And when they're in woodland, they're not necessarily feeding on um on fish, but they are feeding on uh on other invertebrates, quite large invertebrates. They'll feed on frogs, they'll feed on feed on uh on on tadpoles and and and one or two other things. But they're they're much more omnivorous than than the kingfishers that we have in this part of the world, uh, or the the kingfisher that we have in this part of the world. But it's a great thing, and and they're uh can be quite a big size. And there are one or two exceptions to this brightly coloured idea. There are things like the pied kingfisher, which really hovers. You go into Africa, North Africa particularly, uh you'll see these pied kingfisher, and the uh and they'll they'll hover, but it's it's kind of really black and white, uh, and and it's quite distinctive. But one of the the kind of craziest things I I've ever seen, uh I was in India earlier this uh last month, but that was my second trip. My first trip to India was in 1981, and I have amazing memories from that time. And I remember watching a Smyrna kingfisher as they were known. Now they're called white-throated kingfishers, and they're really quite omnivorous, and they're a bit more sort of um dryland specialists. And this bird, I was sitting still quite uh one one day, and this bird was and it caught something and it was bashing. It was bushing, it hadn't in its bill, and it was bushing this this thing on a branch, and it was kept sort of bashing, bashing, bashing, and I couldn't figure out what it was. I got my binoculars and I start I was watching it quite intently, and then I realised what it was. It was a lesser white throat. This was a kind of a uh a bush warbler type bird, which and we get them in the northern hemisphere, but actually the winter down in and through India and into into Africa. But this kick this smurno, this white-throated kingfisher, had caught this bird and it was bashing it and bashing it and breaking its its kind of its bones, and then eventually it was small enough so and flexible enough so it could swallow the um this this bird whole and it just gulped it down. Incredible! I never really knew that was the case, that these birds could actually eat or would eat small birds, but they do, they'll eat anything. So that was a lesson, a salutary lesson to me. So this conversation with the demon gardener of Lesbury, Tom Patt, brought back fabulous memories of of India in 90, you know, almost 45 years ago. Incredible, really, isn't it? But I may have more tales of India coming uh during the course of this uh this winter in the podcasts. But anyway, that's enough of me. I'll speak to you at some point in the near future. Thanks very much, folks. Bye.

Nature's planting time #2

Carl Stiansen 15:05

Tom Pattinson's making the most of the autumn calm and looking to well maybe move a few things around the garden. And he's got some great techniques to share on how to do this.

Tom Pattinson 15:21

One of the things that appeals to me most about nature's planting time is the length of time it extends. It begins now, now that they're bare-rooted, can be lifted bare rooted, the plants. Uh evergreens as well, of course, can be can be lifted with the best ball of root you can find on them and transplanted. The point is it extends way through the winter months up to the point of spring. So in the absence of frost, severe frost outside, it has to be um a calm day, and if the soil is not frosted, you can plant it anytime or transplant at any time. That's the good thing about plants being dormant and you acting while they're asleep for the winter. If you're going to move something, which this is the part I do love, I love to go into the garden with my spade and double check now which ones did I say which plants or which shrubs or which apple tree or which rose was taking up too much space. And quite aggressive can be the inner nature aggression of some plants in terms of growth and colonizing ground. You can prune them, of course, but they'll fight back from the pruning, they put on new growth. Sometimes pruning um has the opposite effect, they send up double the strength of growth in response to the pruning. That's fine if you're rejuvenating a plant, a perennial plant. But sometimes the main answer is moving that plant. So if I say it's a shrub uh or a young apple tree, I've done this several times before. Uh move the apple tree. How old is it? How tall is it? How big is it? How large is the system of roots going to be? Generally with a tree, a massive tree, we say that the area of the canopy is mirrored below ground by the roots. So think about that. You can't go lifting, say, a um a pear tree that's three meters tall, digging it out and um transplanting it. Or can you? This is something I've done before. So, say it's an apple tree or a bear tree, and it's probably two meters tall, maybe even three. If it's about f anywhere up to five or six years old, it might just be doable. So, I prepare the hole I'm going to plant it in first and foremost, to move to another part of the um the border or another part of the garden, and then I start digging well away from the main trunk. So I'm going out first of all to assume there's going to be quite a good root system. Dig down, and then I dig underneath, horizontally way down below where the roots will be. And once I got it loose in the hole, it's clearly going to be too heavy to move or to carry anyway for one person, even two. So what I do is, and this is quite feasible, I lever the root ball out of the hole onto the side, and there I have waiting for me some fabric, a large sheet of fabric that will slide across the soil or the or the lawn to the new planting hole. So I ease it onto that and I slide it across as if it was on a sledge. That's the way I transferred a pear tree. And I've done it with apples as well. And they recover. Watering well off a sport with a couple of crisscross stakes, support posts at the base, until it gets that root system going again with new roots and anchors itself. That is possible. Similarly with herbaceous perennials. I love at this time of year, the aggressive ones, digging them up. The heart of the plant is not what I go for. I dig the whole plant up, put it on some fabric on the on the lawn at the side, and then I chop it into sections. It's the outer sections which I go for because they're the vigorous ones, pieces with root and stem ready to come, uh only the stems are dormant, little shoots there, and you get a whole range of new plants from that single plant. And then if it's been very aggressive, you just plant maybe one of them or three of them back and start afresh with that. This is propagation, and it's based most basic. And this opportunity is provided by plants going into dormancy and the fact that we can move them with bare roots, no soil on them at all. Best part is they haven't a clue they've been moved.

Big Butterfly Count update

Carl Stiansen 20:28

In the warm days of summer, you may remember the invitation to take part in the big butterfly count. Well, here to give us an update on the results is Richard Austin, recording schemes officer at Butterfly Conservation. Hello, Richard.

Richard Austin, Recording Schemes Officer, Butterfly Conservation 20:47

Hello, Carl. The results of Butterfly Conservation's Big Butterfly Count 2025 have been published. This year, over 125,000 people took part and submitted over 160,000 counts. These are record numbers, and it is fantastic to see more people engage with recording butterflies. Over 1.7 million butterflies and moths were recorded, with the top five species being large white, small white, gatekeeper, red admiral, and meadow brown. Overall, participants spotted 10.3 butterflies on average per 15-minute count. This does compare favorably with the data from last year, when just seven butterflies were spotted per 15-minute count. However, it is broadly average when compared to the data across the past 15 years and has done little to reverse longer-term declines. When looking at the data, we can see that there are some positive results for certain species. The large white and small white both recorded their best ever big butterfly count result. On the other hand, the small tortoiseshell, which had its worst big butterfly count result in 2024, showed some improvement but still recorded a below average year and has declined by 60% since 2011. The Jersey tiger moth had a record year. The species was recorded more widely and in higher numbers than ever before, with over 11,000 moths counted. By contrast, Holly Blue had its second worst big butterfly count result on record. Common blue had its third worst, and Meadow Brown had its fourth worst count result. Last year, butterflies and moths struggled with the weather conditions. A wet spring and cold summer hampered their activity to fly, find mates, and lay eggs. By contrast, in 2025, the UK recorded its sunnier spring and warmer summer, which is much more favorable for butterflies as they are cold-blooded insects and need warmth and sunshine to thrive. The 15-year big butterfly count trends show that more than twice as many widespread species have declined significantly than have increased. And while most species had a better than average summer, one third of species fared poorly even in the generally beneficial weather. So, how can we help butterflies and moths? A major impact to butterfly and moth populations is down to habitat loss. But we can all do our part to create a wild space for nature. Wild spaces can be on balconies, patios, in gardens, and community spaces such as allotments, public parks, or in school grounds. You can create a wild space by planting nectarics, flowers, or wild herbs in pots and planters, leaving a wilder area of leaves and sticks in your garden, or planting native trees or shrubs. Have a look at the wildspaces.co.uk website for more information. Another major driver of butterfly population trends is land management, and pesticide use is having a considerable effect on butterflies. Butterfly conservation is asking people to sign its open letter to retailers calling for the removal of toxic synthetic pesticides from sale for domestic use. There is no monitoring of the amount used, where they used, or the impact that they have on the wider ecosystem. We need retailers to join our rescue mission and lead the way in switching to natural gardening methods by removing the synthetic pesticides from sale. We are in a nature crisis. People want to help, and which are providing them with the tools to do so, not the means for destruction. Please visit Butterfly Conservation's website to add your name to the letter. A huge thank you to everyone who took part in this year's Big Butterfly Count. Next year's Big Butterfly Count will take place between the 17th of July and the 9th of August.

Skeins across the skies

Carl Stiansen 25:13

Tom Cadwallander's scanning the skies for skeins of Pinkfeet. Over to you, Tom Cadwallander.

Tom Cadwallender 25:27

Autumn winter. Just you love it. It's great. It's the time when the Pinkfeet, the pink footed goose, is heading down through east coast of England from Iceland and Greenland. I don't know if you can hear them. There's skeins of them just going over me now. I'm doing a bird survey up near seahouses. And it's I'm quite close to the coast. But the fields are kind of stubbly and grazed by cattle, and there's curlews in the fields, and there's kind of some skylarks around and one or two other things. But the underlying noise that is going on around me of pink feet, oh man, isn't it absolutely magical? I don't know if you can hear them, but they're just amazing. There's skeins of, I don't know, several hundred here. And there's three or four of them. And you know how they fly? They're flying around and they're flying in sort of loose, loose V's. And the typical, you know, the classic occupypal kind of uh goose migration or goose goose flock basically, and they'll they'll take turns in leading this gang, you know. They'll they'll kind of just um take their turns in one go front and and say, I know where the I know where the nearest bait field is, lads, come on, come with me. And then, oh we're tired now, so someone else will take over and away they go. But it's amazing actually. They they're the it's it's the change actually in in say say 15 years in Northumberland, it's it's fantastic. You know, they they used to travel over, yes, we used to see them, we've seen them for for donkeys, they've traveled they've passed Northumberland um eons, during eons, and normally, uh traditionally, they would have been heading down into the North Norfolk coast where they winter in really big numbers, and uh the so they've just passed through. But in the last sort of 15 odd years, there's been a change in behaviour. The um what we're seeing now is that some of these birds are are overwintering in our part of the world, so it's a quite significant change there. And there must be sort of 15, 20,000 pink feet kind of wintering in uh in Northumberland, and they're kind of the they will follow the stubble fields around, but they're largely around sort of the uh southeast corner Druidge Bay, up towards Lindersfawn, and I think the ones I'm hearing now are the are the Lindersfawn gang, but also they they will winter in land near uh Millfield and the Middlefield Plain. It's kind of nice and being flat and quite open and the it's it's it's quite secure. Um but the uh they will kind of just move around those those flocks, but uh th those fields, those areas. But what we're seeing actually is when they see, particularly at this time of year, when they've they're really just recently in, because they've only been coming in this last two and a half weeks, and uh they're finding stubble fields and they're moving around those quite uh quite readily, and they're kind of just moving around. But you just as a as a guy just going away from me quite high, they'll they'll be going up the lintest farm, possibly. It's quite exciting. Those of you who know me will know I haven't got very much hair, but actually, the bit I've got it stands up on end whenever I hear these pink feet going over, and I get I'm and I'm I'm getting on a bit these days, and generally what happens when you get on a bit, your hearing goes. And uh, but actually I've got quite this yeah, I've got quite good hearing for a man of my age, and actually I can hear pink feet from quite a long way. Um and don't get these pink feet mixed with the mixed up with these other geese. They are grey geese, and the two common grey geese that we see are these pinks and the grey lags. But the grey lags have got big orange bills, and these pink feet have got really quite dainty bills, dark with a little bit of flesh coloured uh tip to the bill, but also they have got pink legs, so which which makes them stand out a bit as well, hence the name pink feet, of course. But don't get them confused with the um with the uh the grey lags, or indeed the raucous Canada geese, they're black geese, and they're the ones which uh are kind of black and white and they're quite big and they're they're feral basically. Um but we do have two other species of geese which are hanging around, um, a dental foam, basically, and we've got brand geese there, and there's a light bellied foam, and they're they're really quite a dainty goose. Um they're they're dark apart from a light belly, uh as the name suggests, but there's a dark bellied foam as well, which adds a little bit of confusion. But they've got a little white fleck on their necks, um, and they're quite. Quite small, not much bigger than a Malamond. And the and they're coming down from Svalbard, Spitzbergen, and they breed up there. And Lindesfahren is the only place in the UK, and there's one other place in Europe, in Denmark, but sometimes the the two um European gangs join together at Lindersfawn. And Lindersfawn is the only place in the in the entire world at that point where these brunt geese will gather. There's not a huge population of them. There's only about 10,000 or so. But any but really makes Lindersfawn exceptionally important for these for that species. But the other change we're seeing, and it's again with a black goose, and it's the barnacle goose. And these birds again are coming down from Spitzbergen, and they're coming down. But what they used to do is to cross the from a long way north, they would follow down the Norwegian coast, hit the east coast, across the North Sea, hit the east coast of Britain and mainly Scotland, and follow the coast down until they got to the Tyne Gap, the river Tyne, and they'll cross over then to winter on the Sulway, and that's where there's tens of thousands of them wintering then, and that's their traditional wintering place. But what we're seeing now is that there's about 10,000 of these bundle geese wintering now at Lindersfawn. So they're not actually making that journey, they're making their way down to Lindersfawn, but they're not making the journey across the um across the country. And you know, the if the the tiny to call um across the the through the tiny gap. And that that little bit of of the of England is really quite numbrow. Um and um well it's actually England, Scotland, but it's quite number there. It's only been 80 months, so it's quite easy to cross. In fact, if they're coming in high enough on the east coast, they could probably see the west coast. But no, they're making the decision to stay on the east at Lindisfarne. And again, it's another kind of jewel in the crown of this wonderful national nature reserve of Lindisfarne. It's absolutely brilliant. Um, but also the the uh barnacle goose is uh is one of my favourites, it's really quite a pretty goose, and it's it's one of the black ones, but it's got a white face, and it really is quite quite distinctive when you see them, and they're feeding and feels and things, and it's uh and it's really quite nice to see them that way. Um but the it's quite charming in a sense. But we're seeing this change, this this kind of behavioural change of um probably driven by climate change, you know. Um but anyway, we're benefiting from that. But Northumberland is just one of those magical places uh that you could find all these birds just hanging around and just anytime you go out. Uh and it's really quite magical. I feel quite quite privileged that I'm in that sort of situation, you know. Uh anyway, that's me, that's that's my buzz back into podcasting and back into uh birding. Well, in fact, I'm never out of birding, I'm birding every day. But anyway, folks, I hope you're okay, and uh we'll catch you next time. Bye.

Jobs for the week with Tom P

Carl Stiansen 33:07

And so to the sound of Wor Blackbird, here's Tom with some things to be getting on with in the garden.

Tom Pattinson 33:16

So it's jobs for the week time, and I have lawn on my mind at the moment. I removed a shrub which had outstate its welcome, and uh I need to patch that area by extending the lawn. I've got two choices, either from seed or from turf. Uh the seed will take a while, of course. It's uh generally grass seed if it's sown September, October. It will take, will germinate, and uh a few months' time uh it'll be by springtime, it'll be showing itself in turning into an extension of the lawn. Whereas the turf is instant, much more expensive, of course, by the square square meter, square yard, or whatever, uh comes in a roll, and it's uh instant lawn, really. Um I'll make my mind which of it is. The third area using grass at this time or extending or repairing the lawn is worth considering. If uh the edge of a lawn has been trampled on, someone's taken a shortcut or a car's going over the edge and spoiled it, it's a fairly simple matter of cutting out a turf, uh say uh 60 centimetres by 60 centimetres, something of that nature, and uh removing it and twisting it round so that the straight edge, which came from the inside of the lawn, is on the outside now. So you just have uh something inside the lawn to repair. Get some compost into that compost or fresh soil and uh sprinkle a little bit of grass seed on, and away you go. A simple repair job for the edge of a lawn. Beyond the lawn, I'm looking at the apples big crop this year. We have um some to store discovery first early, it doesn't last very long. The the early one, it was ready by August. Um, it's it will store till about November, then it starts to uh go off. Uh we have James Greeve following it, and then uh uh the Brayburn is coming up uh shortly. Brayburn will be ready. That's the dessert apples we have, and uh there's also the Bramley seedling, uh which is a cooker, of course, and uh it's um to store. Uh these apples are um coming off, not all at the same time, of course, some ripen before the others, but we've got a stack of trays in this over tower uh situation, and because we have so many apples, uh we don't wrap them individually, that's far too far too time consuming. So just open on the tray, not touching, but um in the trays in the garage where it's cool, not frosty though, and they'll be fine in there. So we're starting to store those apples. Grapes on the two grapevines, Madeline Angevin and uh Black Hamburg, they're both ripe now. Uh a lot of them, big crop again this year, every year there is. Where some of them for dessert, um squeezing some of them for the juice, which is brilliant as well. Of course, the other obvious option is to make some wine, but uh no time for that. The juice is fine, uh and they'll last for a while those grapes. I'm looking at the brassicas outside, the winter brassicas, Brussels sprouts, lovely, tall um Brussels sprouts at the moment. They're plumping up well uh first frost, apparently. Um, it's best to taste them out from the first frost. I taste them anytime, but uh they're doing well, and so are the um cabbages. The problem is we have pigeons, everybody has pigeons, so we've got a bit of a netting over to stop the pigeons um landing on the top, picking away at the tops and leaving uh you know what all over the foliage. Um, we're also looking at general salvage operations outside. It's really approaching time to bring some of the um half-hardy items from outside, be the uh uh citrus trees and shrubs or something of that nature, bring them in for a bit of cover. I have various things in the unheated greenhouse, like streptocarpus, some uh coffee plants, coffee arabica, a few of those in pots. I'll let find place from inside. Generally uh looking after things, anything outside that you think might not stand up to the frost, um, put some straw over it, keep some soil over that if it's a herbaceous type, say, for example. Um I'm also looking at uh hardwood cuttings of shrubs, general run-of shrubs, uh hardwood stem cuttings, and of course the black currant, red currant, and gooseberry. Just putting pieces of stem up to thirty centimetres long, pushing them into the soil, burying them by about three quarters the depth, just a little quarter sticking up, leave them and they'll root where they are. There's so many jobs. Who said this wasn't a busy time of year? Of course it is. Whatever you're doing, enjoy your gardening.

Outro

Carl Stiansen 38:36

You've been listening to Gardener Tom Pattinson, Birder Tom Cadwallander from the British Trust for Ornithology, and Richard Austin, recording schemes officer at Butterfly Conservation. Don't forget you can listen back to all our previous programmes via the Nature Garden Podcast. That's the Nature Garden Podcast. I'm Carl Stiansen. Thanks for listening, and enjoy your gardening and time outdoors with nature. Bye for now.