Beechgrove is back!!

[johnstephen29]

Yes they do Maggie if the auriculas in this weeks programme is anything to go by. Does Graeme have a website for his nursery and does he do mail order?

[Maggi Young]

http://rumblingbridgenursery.co.uk/   is the website and yes, they do mail-order .

Ian will be using plants that Beechgrove have got from Graeme to plant new troughs ( made by Ian Y) on the programme in a few weeks' time.

[johnstephen29]

Cheers Maggi I'll take a look and see what goodies he has for sale.

[Maggi Young]

Beechgrove Garden

On the programme on the 11th June...
"Carole has Alpine expert, Ian Young with her in Beechgrove’s Alpine garden. How’s this for a weekend project for any size of garden space? Ian is also a master of recycling and he shows Carole how to take some pretty uninspiring materials; old polystyrene fish boxes, chips of old breeze block and some discarded pieces of cement and in an alpine ‘ta dah’ moment Ian transforms these into a convincingly old looking stone trough with a rocky mini mountain alpine landscape full of tough alpine beauties."

BBC2 Scotland Thursday  11th   7.30 pm
or on Sky channel 971  for the rest of the UK to watch BBC2 Scotland  if they have Sky TV.

BBC2 Sunday 14th June  9.10 am

[johnstephen29]

Hi Maggi I really liked the fish box Ian and Carole planted up in yesterday's programme. Where can you get these fish boxes from?

[Maggi Young]

Find a good fishmonger  or else chat up the fish counter assistant in one of the big supermarkets. That size is the type they commonly use for salmon.
Failing that, search your local yellow pages for a supplier of packing boxes for food stuffs ..... they are all over the place and often have slightly battered ones that they will only be throwing out - they're usually happy to let you have them free and for the purpose of making a trough it need not be perfect anyway.

Just going to check to see what these packing box folks  are listed as in the phone book......

[johnstephen29]

Cheers Maggi

[Maggi Young]

The food grade of expanded polystyrene boxes are probably the best - the fruit and veg dept. of supermarkets or shops often have good deep boxes that come full of melon etc.
 
The place we get from, if there are none available from local fishmerchants in Aberdeen, is this  firm 
http://www.styropack.co.uk/fishboxes/

They, or perhaps the likes of this place http://www.jbpackaging.co.uk/polystyrene-boxes.html  will probably be able to tell you where they supply local to you.

Very unlikely you'll have to actually buy one - they are around for those who search 'em out!

[johnstephen29]

Thanks Maggi

[John85]

Those boxes are not always easy to get because in some areas people have to recycle them by law but you can build boxes the size you like with sheets of polystyrene and special glue.
I remember some gardeners from the VRV did it .
May be Maggi can find the link;

[Maggi Young]

I cannot find those troughs, John -  there is a lot about Ian's Methods, though, and some fine examples made by Jan Tholhuisjen in this long thread http://www.vrvforum.be/forum/index.php?topic=184.0

[Peter Maguire]

I've found that the fish boxes can be a little large if you want to move them around when full. For deep boxes I've used boxes that broccoli is supplied in to a local greengrocer.
They're about 40cm by 30cm and I cut away about the upper third of the box before sculpting and finishing. Full of compost they are still easy to move around, being not too heavy and of a reasonable size for carrying.
If you want shallow boxes (less than 10cms deep), then leeks are sometimes supplied to greengrocers in shallow boxes about 50cm by 40cm.
Both options have one big advantage - they don't smell of fish.