Gardening: Monty Don's washing up water tip in dry weather
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On the latest episode of Gardeners’ World, lead host Monty Don shared how to water plants using grey water and how to sow autumn salad leaves. The 67-year-old also revealed how to prune cordon gooseberries. Monty said the plants were now due for their “annual prune”.
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He explained: “Gooseberries produce their fruit, rather like apples and pears, on spurs and they take a few years to form.
“This new growth won’t bear any fruit next year and maybe not the year after that because it needs to develop spurs like fruit.
“You can see the old shoots that you have there, that’s where the fruit comes from, clustered along the stem of the plant.
“By the time this has developed fruiting wood, it’ll be right out here and you’ve lost the shape of your cordon completely.”
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The gardening expert said gardeners need cut back stems just above the old wood.
He said the “only time” to leave new growth is if gardeners wanted to train the plant.
For example, if there is a shoot growing outwards that gardeners want to grow upwards, they would allow it to grow longer.
Then, as it grew, they would tie it into the supports.
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Monty said his plants have all the growth they need and he is planning to keep them small.
He said cordon plants like pears, apples and tomatoes, produce a “mass of fruit in a very small space”.
He added: “I’ve got 12 gooseberry plants along here. It’s a very efficient way of producing fruit and they were good this year too.”
Gooseberries are relatively easy to grow and are a soft fruit which can either be eaten raw or cooked with.
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The plants love the sun and can be trained against a wall or fence.
Gooseberries can also be grown in containers, which is perfect for those with smaller gardens, balconies or courtyards.
Gooseberry plants should be planted from January to March and October to December.
They will then produce fruit from June to August.
The plants hardly need watering except in very dry spells.
They will generally need watering once every 14 days if they’re planted in the ground.
Container gooseberries will dry out more quickly so should be monitored.
Gardeners’ World is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.
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