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Hello and welcome to the March edition of the Organic Gardening podcast. I'm Fiona Taylor and in a moment I'll be joined by my garden organic colleagues, Chris Collins and Dr. Anton Rosenfeld. The temperatures are rising and we're getting warmer days, a sign that spring is on its way. Time out in the garden feels more encouraging. We're starting to see flowers shoot up and we're seeing more and more wildlife every day. Later on, I'm joined by Dr. Richard Fox from Butterfly Conservation. We discussed the results of last year's big butterfly count, why moths are equally as important as butterflies, and how we can adapt our gardens to the butterfly life cycle. We'll be answering your questions on chitting potatoes, club root, and using up old coffee grounds. But now it's time to catch up with Chris in the potting shed. Hello Chris, how are you? I'm very good Fionn, how are you? Yeah, I'm very well thank you. I'm really sensing it, it's March which is an exciting month actually isn't it for us gardeners? Well you start to get the buzz, the adrenaline, the butterflies, whatever you want to call them, you just start to, I was just thinking you know, the crocuses are up and they're out on the balcony, they're out on my verge, days are starting to, you know, I can work till 5.05 now. Yes. And so you just start to get that feeling that season's gonna change and it's... said this a few times it's always like sort of bubbling into an old friend you know for a while. Get that sense of familiarity and excitement and I love it's an interesting month because you know that's coming but at the same time you've got to hold your horses a little bit you know. And it's all about observation isn't it? Yeah. It depends where you are. you know, you might be in a part of country where you're not feeling like that at all yet, you know, or you might be somewhere where you're thinking, goodness, I think that might be a bit of blossom. Yeah. And then you need to observe what's around you and respond to it. Sure, you certainly do. And it's been a difficult winter as well, because I'm about three weeks probably behind in terms of my prep for it all than I was last year, purely because it's been so wet, you know, it really has, I've been rained off a lot. and it's gone for it. not been small rain, it's been big rain. So the soil is very drenched, know, and when you go out, as I travel everywhere by train, you know, could slot the fields, the water tables hit, rivers burst their banks and so it's been really wet. And then there's another way to think, well, what we need actually is three or four days of blue skies and sun just to dry it all out. I'm kind of waiting for that in a way. Yeah. You always wonder about, I always wonder about those seeds in the soil that are just there anyway, because they've they landed there last year and they're just waiting for their moment and I'm just thinking, know, gosh, you know, all this wet, can't be doing them any good, know, especially if your drainage isn't much good. So I suppose it comes back again to making sure that you're looking after your soil. Yeah, does. Obviously your composting and your soil health treatment is absolutely fundamental really. If you're not doing that, you're going to get off to a dodgy start. Yeah. Sure. Actually the wild plants, what I call the free plants, it sort out the wheat from the straw I think in many ways. So the plants are adaptable for wet conditions or will crack on and the others won't. It's interesting, I was at Kew a week or so ago and it was a really wet day. I don't think Mrs Collins was too impressed that I tried to row around it. I was in the row of the Denbem Dell and the Bamboo Dell and you could see how it loved the moisture. It just looked so vibrant and great. And I was kind of looking at it thinking, well, somebody's enjoying it. So it's kind of like some plants thrive on it and others don't. But you're right to have that on it, especially food growing or ornamental gardening. You just want a decent, free-graining, nutrient-retaining soil. And that's done through composting and soil head care. And I guess if you just kind of chill out a bit about the weeds and you know, if you've got, as I've got a kind of one whole bed that is my food growing bed. I've just let the weeds get on with it. Well I've got so much cooch on my allotment and I could dig it out for a thousand years. I don't think it would change the situation. But I'd rather that grew there than bare soils to be honest with It's entirely a discussion with the chef at the kitchen gardener running. He was quite surprised it was a bit weedy in a few areas and I said well I'd rather that some of it was growing there than nothing at all. I'd obviously prefer to get at it before it starts setting seed but cooch is all wise home anyway as it spreads. So I'd rather, I've got the green manures on there in the form of mustard. But I have areas where I'll just let the coach go and protect it really. And as soon as it's dry enough, that'll all get taken out. So you're just, you just, when you're ready to use that part of the a Oh, I will then, I will then. prepare it. Yeah, then I'll cultivate. Yeah. But actually those, you know, those weeds are actually probably doing you a favor. Yeah. So I think it's probably good for wildlife and stuff, beetles and all that, you know, and you know, all that sort of a, all that wildlife, that sort of, sort of higher soil active. wildlife is probably benefiting from it and I think also it composted its own right because obviously stuff leaves dye and add to it and so you kind of let nature do it. I'd rather, the only thing I panic is when I see pet soil already. I love soil to pieces well then the earth and the world but I don't want see it. yeah, yeah. Need it covered as much as possible. The other thing to think about I suppose is if you're confronted with a very wet plot is uh compaction. Yeah, so that's why you should be walking on it really, especially if you're on heavier soils like clay, because it will cause problems. You'll destroy the structure of the soil and you'll just get pans underneath where the soil won't drain through. Just try and start. It's really not worth walking all over it if it's wet. Let it dry out. We're going to get three or four days sun sooner or later and that will dry it. Let nature do it. Yeah, it's important. If you are going to walk on it, use boards so you're spreading your weight and you're not damaging it that way. I prefer to stay off it really as much as possible. I mean of course the other thing about wet soil is it's much easier to weed isn't it? It is because there's no grip in it. It's a dream with a home you can go through it so there are benefits to it definitely. Also I try to allow my dandelions to get to a decent size because I love the leaves and I've started using the root as well I've kind of got into that. really interesting area of foraging and herbalism and things like that. the best thing to do is to harvest a greatly fat dandelion on a wet day. So I've got a few things I need to put your brains on Chris. A few weeks ago back in Feb I went to the Shropshire Organic Gardeners Potato Day. It was held in a good-sized village hall, absolutely rammed full of people getting their potatoes for the season. We had garden organic volunteers there talking about composting, which is really brilliant. You could also buy some fruit plants, and I ended up buying some bare root plants. So I bought a black currant bush, red currant bush, and a rhubarb, and... I've ordered a green gauge tree. Spending your pocket money on you. I was spending my pocket money but it felt like it was an investment. It's worst thing to spend your pocket money on. Yeah, exactly. I also bought an awful lot of potatoes on the tubers which have been a complete joy. So really looking forward to getting those in. my question really is more about bare root plants because I've got particularly the fruit bushes. I've got these absolutely stunning kind of there may be two or three stems covered in buds and then um just a sort of a wrapped root ball. And I got them back and I wasn't sure should I put them in water, should I not? I took the view that I put them outside, they're in the greenhouse so that they're a little bit protected. Yeah. And um I'm not sure when to put them in. Yeah, well I would say probably now, now that you've got all of them. So now the end of March, I think is probably the ideal time really. mean, over the winter, your bare root is traditionally the time to plant. So we're still in that bracket now. We still are, you know, we like to think it's spring, we're on the edge of it. That's where we are. And so I like bare root a lot for quite a lot of reasons. One is they tend to be locally grown. So they're already adapted to the situation, you know, you don't get tons of packaging with it, plastic and all this sort of stuff, you know. So you don't get all that panophanalia. They tend to be grown by plant enthusiasts, know, like I say, localization. And I just think, yeah, I think they make us, get stronger plant in many ways. I mean, a of the potty stuff is grown in nice, ideal conditions where there's, where they get fed by foliar feed, there's water, They've not come from the Buck Palace and then you bring them over and they're like, you know, they're not quite the same because you've got, they've got to adapt to your conditions. So I think you just get much more adaptable plant food bare. So yeah, would make sure you obviously don't put them in if there's a frost or if you've got waterlogged soil, but if the conditions look all right, I'd get those in. Yeah, let them take root and do their thing. I mean, it's not just in the veg patch actually. It's also thinking about that perhaps for other parts of the garden, know, for herbaceous perennials. Yeah, it's a good month, know, it's like you your rhubarb's in herbaceous perennials, good time to get that in. But if you want an ornamental. No, definitely the right time. I think that if you get them bare roots and they're really healthy, with these lots of thick buds, strong buds on them, it's a time to put a little pollinator boarder in if you wanted through, you know, basis perennials. It's a good time to be doing it. As soon as starting to warm, the plant will get away very thoroughly. And if you give it a nice top rev to mulch, that'll help as well. Yeah, okay. Okay. So, It can be a bit tricky to predict in March though, can't it? Well, I think a lot of gardeners make mistakes. This is the month most gardeners make mistakes because, I mean, you can see it, get overexcited, okay? And I think professional gardener, someone who was working, say, you know, in stadium, home or in a park or et cetera, will be very wary of getting too carried away this month. Because you just, you are, you're still in winter really. You know, you can still, it snows in March, you know? Yeah. If you were in Aberdeen, the last thing you're thinking about is spring probably, let alone... You might be thinking about it down south a little bit, but I think also you will get adverse weather. You'll get cold easterly winds in March and April. So I think it's a good idea to just don't get too carried away. Judge it. know, that's probably a good idea. You know, March, perhaps a month of mistakes. Are there any essential things that you must do in March? It's my preferable month of mulching. uh I look at my compost bin. Hopefully I've been successful and I've got that some black gold already to go. And I'm quite... through but we think you know that I'm quite a like to it but if I'm going to apply I do it this month. I go into it because basically the soil is warming up now it's starting to warm up and so that means the micro activity the worms they'll start to be active so I want them to pull that mulch into the soil so it doesn't leak or get wasted so yeah I think this is the best time for me to mulch I'm looking at where I want to put it like I'll do in the orchard I've got an orchard to look after that this is the month I'll mulch all my apples and my pears so yeah this is that's quite a crucial job for me. I don't like it sitting there over winter, think the rain washes through, it leeches and it gets damaged and also actually when I was at Kew when they were mulching the oatmeal it affected the pH because it just sat there and the pH got affected. So I think it's definitely my, I associate much with mulching in my own gardening technique. Okay, all right. So then, okay, so I'm trying to imagine it now with you've decided you've got an area of your allotment, you've made a plan, you're going to get your potatoes in, perhaps you're to do bit of inter planting of those potatoes. and so you've taken the weeds up, you've got that little area ready, you get everything in, are you going to mulch that area? Well it depends what I'm going to if I'm sowing drills into it I wouldn't mulch it. So I will tend to mulch the perennial stuff I've got like the orchids. might, you know, it might need to be food, I might decide to mulch my shrubbery or my shrubs, mulch trees that are younger trees are good to mulch this time of year. So stuff, younger stuff that you want to get away, it's quite a good time for mulching. but it's not, we're not mulching new sowings or this year's potatoes or anything like that. You're trying to give a boost to those things that you've already established. a wet and horrible winter. Give them a bit of a treat in the spring. Exactly, exactly. Hopefully my soil is lovely and I can drill sow without mulch anyway. OK, so OK, right. Well, we've got to get on to seeds then. Heritage Seed Library 50th anniversary. It's exciting. is exciting. Heritage Seed Library. It's the most brilliant initiative was set up in the 70s and it's all about conserving those vegetable varieties that people have grown in their own back gardens and have maybe protected and looked after and passed down through generations. And that's why it's called the Heritage. seed library and if we hadn't conserved those seeds then they would have just simply died out. If anybody's interested in finding out more it's a brilliant thing to join. Every year you get six packets of heritage seed, you can select those in the winter and then sow them for yourselves through the year and you're gonna really go for it this year I am, I am. I'm gonna sow on behalf of the 50th anniversary so a big portion of my allotment will go over to heritage seeds this year and so hopefully I'll record a bit of it. I'll do a bit of diary for garden organic so you can see how I get on. But yeah, I'm really excited about it. There's some amazing varieties with amazing backstories. So I'm looking forward to it very much. It's going to be a big part of my growing season this year. OK, well we will keep coming back to it. Yes. Yes. But are you going to sow any of those in March? I'll be sowing some. think the salad crops I'll be looking at definitely. And my tomatoes always go in in March. They're long season crops. They don't need a long run up. So they'll go in as well. I've got peppers I've just put in. So yeah, there'll be a lot happening. Okay. All right. Well, we'll make sure we talk about that on the podcast each month and find out a bit more. But in general, what seeds are you going to sow in March? Yeah, well, I'm a bit protective. So I will do drill sowing, some drill sowing. So I'll put a few carrots in. I'll definitely put some carcanging lettuce. I'll put radish in. Beets I'll put in probably as well. But I'll also probably sell sow or seed tray sow as well. So I've got stuff that's growing in greenhouse or polytunnel conditions that I can then place out as well, just in case I fall short and we get some adverse weather that affects. But it's usually all right. So yeah, some beets, root crops, salad crops will go in now and then protected in propagators and in polytunnels I'll go for the tomatoes and the more tender crops. I'll completely stay away from things like runner beans, squash, all that sort of stuff, I so much later because that won't take any kind of cold. No, absolutely. And that's the thing, you know, if you go too early and even if you plant indoors and things come up, you've got a lot of looking after to Yeah, I tend to judge it as as a day start to stretch out. eh If I see the grass growing in the park, which means the soil temperatures rising, I kind of then think, I can go for it now. So I am keeping an eye on those things. I think you can start to really well, I don't see the point of starting February unless you're doing under lights because you'll just sit there doing nothing. Yeah, you know, it's something to worry about, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. So I do as I think the season is changing and I'll try and do it alongside that. My tend to leave my brassicas a bit later. I'll probably do those next month just so I don't get overwhelmed. Making sure you don't have tons of stuff in there and that you can't handle it. You can't grow that amount anyway. It's quite important to. Having said that, the one tender one that I plan to start off is aubergine. Yes, smoke is already in. I started nice and early. Yeah. I've had brilliant aubergines. I think it's a South thing though. Right. Because I've had on my balcony and my allotment, and a kitchen garden, just I've had amazing aubergines and I really love aubergines. Yeah, I do So they like a long season, like the tomatoes. Yeah. So get them in now. They've got this month I think to make sure they go in. And then you've just got to grow them all and hard them off and plant them out after the last frost. okay. Okay, so it's not too late for aubergines, but don't waste any time. Tomatoes you can still wait I think. Yeah, you've got a month to do it. As late as early April you can get your tomies in. They'll soon catch up. They're pretty powerful plants when they get going. And also you always put some flowers in don't you this time of Yes so I'll always put the hardy annual bands in like I always will. A lot of that seed actually I've kept from the last few years so I'll recycle it. I've got a few, I'm going to grow a massive sunflower section this year. Oh okay. Yeah so I've got quite about six or seven different types of sunflower because there's an array of them on the market now. So I'm sort of wandering off the heritage a bit a little bit there but. I think they're so popular to be so I'm gonna have a big band of sunflower I think this year. That'd be quite exciting but yeah I like to mix it together I really do I think it looks it looks amazing and I just think it creates resilience in the pot and my veg always does well so yeah. Yeah I know I'm sure that's true you know as much as you can mix it up is surely what is better for the soil, it's better for pollinators. it's wild like everything yeah and it looks amazing to me there's nothing like veg and flour together I just think that. and just kinda ha-hazard and cottagey, I just love that-that-that sort of haughty culture I really do. And if you want to find out more about the kind of horticulture that Chris loves, I must tell you all about the Garden Organic Online Learning Certificate, led by Chris himself. If you're seeking to enhance your career prospects or refine your knowledge, our online learning certificate provides a solid foundation in sustainable horticulture. To learn more, visit www.gardenorganic.org.uk forward slash online certificate. Now, a short while ago, I visited Orly Common Nature Reserve with Dr Richard Fox, Head of Science at Butterfly Conservation. Richard is a professional ecologist and a long time butterfly and moth enthusiast. In his nearly 30 years at Butterfly Conservation, he's been developing their citizen science activity, including the big butterfly count. As we walked across the common, we spoke about the importance of butterflies and moths, how to look after them in every stage of their life cycle and what gardeners can do to welcome more of them into their growing spaces. I'm walking through a nature reserve with Dr. Richard Fox, who's the head of science at the Butterfly Conservation Trust. And we just started a wonderful walk across the hilltops, but perhaps you could explain a bit more closely where we actually are. Yeah, sure. So we're at a place called Orly Common, which is just outside the village of Ipplepen in South Devon. And we've just climbed up to the top of uh a small hill and we've now got these beautiful views of Dartmoor uh over it. It's a lovely sunny day. would just love to ask you, do you come up here a lot? mean, is this a good place particularly for butterflies and moths? It is, yes, absolutely. So what we're looking at here, we're in the open bit of the reserve. This is limestone grassland. So these bits of rock that are kind of sticking through here is limestone, very low in nutrients, the soil. The grassland here is wondrously rich in plants and lots and lots of different wildflowers. So if we were up here in the summer, this would be a wash with flowering marjoram, wild basil, all sorts of wonderful fragrant herbs and lots of colour. St. John's wort and all sorts of nice wildflowers. And because of that botanical richness, that plant richness, it's really rich for insects as well. and it's a warm place, it's a sunny place and so it's good for butterflies and moths. And there's lots of scrub as well, which is also really good, particularly for the moths, this kind of woodland fringe around the site. That's where a lot of the moths are going to be hanging out. It's interesting actually that you say that the sun makes a difference, that it's warm and sunny and a place that way for butterflies and moths to come and rest and come and breed, I imagine. I mean, just for context. This year seemed a much better year for butterflies and moths than previous years and we're recording this at the end of 2025. What were the results of the big butterfly count? What were they telling us? Yes, so it is a very fair observation but it's also a very polarised one. So yes, this year was much better for butterflies and for moths as well but the contrast to last year couldn't have been more stark because last year was utterly appalling. for butterflies and many other insects as well. The fact that we saw so many more butterflies this summer is great, but as I say, in our brains, we're comparing that to last year where we saw so few, which is also unusual. Many of the butterfly species increased, sightings were up on last year, but when we look in the longer run, when we look over the sort of 15 years that big butterfly count has been running, Actually, the numbers this year weren't that great. They were pretty average. And when you think about how good this, particularly the spring and summer was in terms of weather for our butterflies, our heat loving butterflies, we had the warmest spring and the sunniest springs on record, a really warm summer as well. They should have done absolutely fantastically. You know, they should have really thrived. And instead what we've seen is a sort of modest bounce back after a dreadful year. And it's certainly not the kind of bounce back that's going to address the long term declines that we've seen of our butterflies and moths in the UK. OK, just to wind back then a little bit on the big butterfly count. Is it just butterflies or is it also moths? It does include a few moths. So I think there are 20 species at the moment in big butterfly count, 17 butterflies, three day flying moths. It's really focused on species that people are likely to see. And it happens in the middle of summer. which is the peak in abundance for these species as well. So it's focused on these widespread common species. But of course, just because they're still widespread and common doesn't mean that they're doing well. They can still be declining. It's just they're declining from enormous numbers to, you know, still quite large, but significantly lower numbers. So, yeah, so it is both. Which brings me to a more basic question, perhaps, which is what is the difference between a butterfly and a moth? So that's a question I get asked a lot. I'm to pre warn you that people are often really disappointed with the answer or kind of, know, kind of, yeah, just really not not pleased. So I think the best the best description I've come up with is that butterflies are moths. OK, so butterflies and moths are in this big group of insects called the Lepidoptera and that's butterflies and moths. It's an enormous group. It's one of the most diverse groups of animals on the planet. There are two and a half thousand species of butterflies and moths in the UK alone, maybe as many as half a million species worldwide, although quite a lot of those are still to be discovered and properly catalogued. And if you draw, as scientists have, a family tree of the Lepidoptera using molecular analysis, you know, looking at their genetics, then you get all of these families of moths. you know, set out on a beautiful family tree and the butterflies come right in the middle. So they are not sort of a uh massively distinct offshoot. They are a group of families uh of moths that share certain characteristics that we as humans, particularly in Western Europe, have kind of put a whole different set of values on. So the fact that they're quite large, many of them They're quite colorful and they're predominantly day active. You know, we've kind of wrapped all that up as butterflies of this special thing. And because moths are, you many moths are nocturnal, although there are a lot more day flying moths than there are butterflies, for example, then we kind of wrap them up as a different thing. That's a nighttime thing. I think that's kind of the part of the sort of why we see them as being very different. But biologically, they're really not different at all. But if you see a butterfly land, then it tends to bring its wings together above its body. Whereas a moth tends to land and the wings seem to sort of lay out flat like an aeroplane. Yes. Yeah, there are kind of there are several things you can look for. That wing folding thing is a classic thing. So most of our butterflies here in the UK rest with their wings folded straight up above their backs or pressed together. vertically upwards and most moths don't do that. They either, as you say, hold their wings flat, level with the surface that they're sitting on, the ground or a leaf or whatever it is, or they swing their wings backwards so they kind of cover their body in a flat way rather than vertically upwards. You can look at the antennae. So almost all of our butterflies here in the UK have antennae that have a long straight shaft and then a sort of knobbly bit on the end. And most moths don't have that. So most moths will have antennae that taper to a fine point. They just get thinner and thinner and thinner to a fine point. And many moths also have feathery antennae, which is for picking up pheromones of other moths that they're interested in. There's the day night thing, but as I've already said, that's not very good because we have probably around 480 species of moths in Britain that fly in the daytime and we only have 60 species of butterflies. So there are many more moths that are primarily active in the day than there are butterflies. Let's just talk about from a slightly selfish human perspective, what is the kind of the role of both moths and butterflies in an ecosystem that we've been able to observe? Well, I think that's a really important question to talk about, especially when it comes to moths, because moths don't get a lot of love from the public, whereas everyone kind of just... well most people sort of intrinsically seem to love butterflies. I guess they have two sort of main ecological roles, they're pollinators of plants, so uh you know people are used to seeing butterflies visit flowers, many people will plant specific flowers in their gardens to attract butterflies in and of course they're transferring pollen between flowers and carrying out pollination when they visit. But lots of moths also visit flowers including our nocturnal moth. And their role as pollinators has been massively understudied over the past 100 years or so. And as a result, greatly underestimated and undervalued. And that's for the simple reason that it's very easy to sit by some flowers on a sunny day and count the bees and hoverflies and things that are coming and going to that flower and carrying out pollination. But it's much more difficult to do it in the dark. But nowadays we have the technology with cameras that we can train on. flowers at night, not using any light because using any light would then disrupt the behaviour, the natural behaviour of the moths. And so there have been a bunch of studies done in the last 10, 15 years that have shown that moths are really important pollinators of many wild flowers particularly. Gosh, but that pollination is taking place at night. And then the other key role they play, of course, is as food, as part of the food chain. So all of our butterflies and moths are caterpillars. uh earlier in their life cycle and the caterpillars are turning plant protein into animal protein in the form of their own bodies that's then vital food for many other larger creatures. So that includes lots of our common garden birds for example. We've estimated that blue-tipped chicks alone eat 35 billion moth caterpillars a year in Britain. And that's just blue tit chicks, never mind the great tits and the blackbirds and the robins and all the other insectivorous birds that are out there. So, m yeah, those are their kind of main roles, I think, in terms of ecology. But they also have a really important role as indicators, because we're very fortunate, particularly for butterflies, but also for moths here in the UK. Our butterflies are undoubtedly the best studied insects anywhere in the world. That's thanks to this long tradition that we have, a sort of natural history study and recording, what we nowadays call citizen science. So members of the public going out, taking part in studies, in surveys, in monitoring, submitting the sightings of what butterflies and moths they've seen, enabling us to track change in these populations over long periods of time, certainly many decades, 50 plus years. And that doesn't exist for other insects here. And it certainly doesn't exist for other insects in other parts of the world. So one of the most important reasons really, I think, understanding how our butterflies and moths are changing here in the UK is to give us an idea of how all the other insects are doing. Because there over 20,000 insect species in Britain. And most of them, we can't really tell how they're faring. We just don't have that data. So they've got that really important role as indicators as well. They're very sensitive as well. They're very sensitive because of their the nature of their ecology and their life cycles. They're very sensitive to subtle changes in climate, for example, but also in other elements of the environment, know, nutrients in the soil or pesticides in the environment, those kind of things. There's a wonderful story from the Second World War of observations made by people sort of on the northern coast of France, seeing a cloud coming towards them and concerned it was it was some kind of awful gas and it turned out to be migrating butterflies. It's just extraordinary to kind of visualize that. The migration of these creatures is staggering. I they're so fragile. I can't even imagine them flying over the channel, nevermind flying over other great expanses of water. Can you just talk a bit about migration of butterflies and I'm assuming moths also. Yeah, so it does seem amazing, doesn't it? And for a long time, people just didn't believe that butterflies and moths and other small insects were capable of long distance migration. But we now know that they are amongst the world's greatest migrant animals. So painted lady is the kind of classic example of a butterfly that you might see in your garden or out and about in the UK in the summertime. Painted lady goes through a migration each year that comes from Sub-Saharan Africa all the way up to the Arctic Circle and back in the course of a year. Now, no individual butterfly makes the whole journey. It's not like swallows or whales or things that are repeatedly doing the same cycle for many years. This is a relay race, if you like, within the one year. So one generation of butterflies will cross the Sahara. They'll stop. They'll breed in North Africa in the early part of the year when there's been some rain and there are some green plants growing for their caterpillars and then they will those butterflies will then die and the new generation of caterpillars will grow up, develop rapidly, turn into new painted lady butterflies that will then cross the Mediterranean and stop in southern France, Italy. So it's it's this kind of relay race of generations could be as many as 10 generations per year. And the the UK bit of it is mainly Painted ladies arriving from Southern Europe where they've just emerged. Fresh butterflies just emerged from their chrysalis and they immediately fly northwards. They arrive in the UK typically at the end of May, beginning of June. And then they stop here and they breed here and those butterflies then die off. But their caterpillars are feeding away on thistles and other plants and they emerge in summer. And then they head south on the next leg of the the journey. So yeah, the whole thing is absolutely phenomenal, especially when you think about some of the practicalities of it. So not only a butterfly is quite small, even compared to a swallow or a cuckoo, never mind compared to a sort of humpback whale or, you know, some of the other famous migratory animals. But also they've got no parents, there's no learning involved, they're not following their parents, their parents are all dead. So each butterfly is making that journey for the first and only time. And of course they've got tiny little brains, know their heads are minute, their brains are the sort of size of a pinhead and yet they're capable of making what they're actually quite complex decisions about which way to go. Really quite amazing. So in our own gardens what is it we can do for butterflies at all stages of their life cycle? Lots of people plant or grow flowers to attract butterflies in. And that's great. You you get to see more butterflies. But that, you know, what we've witnessed in Britain and it's been rigorously recorded and analyzed thanks to all of these millions of citizen science observations and lots and lots of data analysis and papers published and all the rest of it is a massive decline in our butterflies and our moths as well, actually. And so the reasons for that decline are not that butterflies can't find enough flowers to drink from. The reasons for the decline are that the habitats where those butterflies and moths breed, the places where their caterpillars live, have been destroyed or degraded or polluted. So that's the problem. The only way we're to address that is by creating places for butterflies to live, for them to breed, places for caterpillars to live in our gardens. And that doesn't mean that you're going to see mass destruction of all your prized plants or vegetables. But it's about tolerating a bit of messiness. It's about obviously not using pesticides and making a garden that's more wildlife friendly. It comes down to actually looking after the caterpillars rather than worrying too much about the butterflies. If you don't look after the caterpillars then you're not going to get the butterflies in the first place I suppose. I think that's very interesting the idea that we want to attract butterflies in, but we want to keep caterpillars out. Yeah, absolutely. Nature hates tidiness, not just in our gardens, road verges in our parks and cemeteries. know, nature and tidiness do not go together. so just embracing that bit of messiness, which doesn't have to be completely leaving your garden to go to rack and ruin. it can be much more thought through and can actually look really nice. Many of our caterpillars are fussy about what they'll eat, so they will only be able to breed in your garden if you have the right plants for them. But we have two and a half thousand species of butterflies and moths, mostly moths, and many of them will be visiting gardens. In fact, if you have any outdoor space, even if it's just like a yard or a patio or something, there will be moths visiting that at night. And the good thing about that is that anything you do to improve that space for them, to create opportunities for them, they will find it. so, know, wild plants are really the secret to this. Our native butterflies and moths, caterpillars feed on wild plants, can be anything from grass to oak trees. But having so having as much variety of wild plants in your garden is the way to encourage a large number of caterpillars. Let's talk a bit more about the life cycle because that's really what we need to be thinking about in terms of the conservation of the right habitats. Where are they going to lay their eggs, etc.? Just give us the kind of overview of the life cycle of, guess, a typical butterfly or moth and the time scales involved. Yeah, well, the life cycle is the same across all the species. So they all start off as an egg. egg hatches into a caterpillar. The caterpillar is all about eating and growing. That's the function of the caterpillar. And so it increases its size very rapidly and enormously. It then goes through the miraculous metamorphosis phase. So it goes into a pupa or chrysalis is another word for the same thing. And inside the pupa, the body, much of the body of the caterpillar is broken down and reassembled into the body of the adult butterfly or moth. which then crawls its way out of the pupil case and flies away. So earlier we talked a little bit about moths and how active they are at night and actually that they are pollinating at night, which is certainly something I've never really thought about before. Do we need to be as concerned about moths as we are about butterflies? Well, yeah, I think we need to be more concerned about moths because we have far more moth species than butterfly species. So if we're concerned about the wildlife of the UK, then the two and a half thousand moth species that we have, you you could argue are much more important than the 60 odd butterfly species that we have. And we also know that moths have declined as well. So nocturnal moths are very well studied by a scheme called the Rothamsted Insect Survey. And that has shown that the total abundance of moths flying around at night, so not not worrying about which species they are, but just total number of moths has declined by a third in the UK since the late 1960s. And the decline is even greater, it's close to 40 % in the southern half of the UK. So that's 40 % fewer moths out there at night pollinating plants, feeding our bats and obviously creating caterpillars which feed so much more of our familiar garden wildlife. Since moths are mostly active at night, what can we do to offer protection to moths or campaign for protection of moths? um The main reasons for the decline of moths in the UK are the same as for the butterfly. It's mostly about loss of habitat and damage to habitat. So in our gardens, you know, in the same way that we can think about creating habitats for butterfly caterpillars, we can also be thinking about habitats for moth caterpillars. But it's the same things. It's having wild plants, ideally having some wild species of trees and shrubs. They don't have to be enormous. You you can grow oak trees in containers and or grow them in the ground, but keep them clipped, keep them small. But they'll provide places for moth caterpillars to live. Let the grass grow long on some of your lawn. We've shown in a study that if you have some long grass in your garden, you will see more butterflies and a greater variety of butterflies on average than if you have no long grass at all. And that benefit to butterflies is magnified if you live in a suburban or urban area. So if your garden is surrounded by other gardens, then that is a disproportionate benefit for butterflies as well. And that will benefit moths too. But of course, the thing where Nocturnal moths do differ from butterflies, is that nocturnal environment. so outdoor lighting is an issue for our moths. We conducted a study in collaboration with some universities and showed that the number of moth caterpillars in hedgerows under streetlights was only 50 percent as big as in the adjacent bit of hedgerow that wasn't lit by the streetlight. So streetlights are having or lighting outdoor lighting at night is having an impact. Not only on individual moths that get lured to the to the light, as it were, and then may fall prey to to bats and other predators that learn to hunt around artificial light, but it's also depressing their overall population levels. So, yeah, think really hard about whether you have to have outdoor light. And that can be as simple as just getting into the habit of as soon as you turn the lights on in the house, draw the curtains, put the blinds down. Don't let light. still out of your house polluting the dark world outside and causing, having an impact, a negative impact on moths and other nocturnal wildlife. I'm just blown away by the thought that actually, and this never occurred to me to draw my curtains and that that would benefit moths. Yeah, that's a bug life campaign actually. Oh it? Really good idea. Yeah. Really good idea. Yeah. It's really easy to get despondent when we hear about these areas of real decline. in biodiversity in general and then most specifically in something so symbolic of joy and hope that butterflies and moths seem to represent. What is it that we can all do to help push this in the right direction to be part of the solution? So I think if you've got any outdoor space of your own then obviously that immediately gives you some options. So try to have as many native plants as you can, whether they are trees and shrubs or flowers or grasses. Let a bit of your grass grow long. We know that that works for butterflies and it will be benefiting lots of other insects as well. There's a we've got a uh fantastic pack on the Butterfly Conservation website called Moon Meadows, which has got loads of information about how you can specifically help moths in your own outdoor space. So go and get on to the Butterfly Conservation website and download that. That's got the stuff about lighting as well in there, you know, how to how to think about your outdoor lighting. But of course, everyone, even if you don't aren't fortunate enough to have a garden or an outdoor space that you control, everyone can take this message out there. know, everyone can talk to the people who manage your local park. Everyone can contact the council about the way they cut the road verges or the hedges and know, take that message forward. you know, authorities are increasingly willing to do these kind of things, often save some money as well as benefiting biodiversity. But, you know, they will respond to these calls from, uh you know, from their voters, from their populations. So now we should be having, we should be seeing areas of long grass and wildflowers in all our parks, you know, in bits of cemeteries that aren't sensitive. and so on, because urban areas are really poor for wildlife. And of course, that's where people live. So the whole thing is just compounding itself. People in urban areas don't get to see much wildlife. They don't feel as connected to wildlife because urban areas are bad for wildlife. And the whole thing is just a vicious cycle. So we need to find ways of getting more wildlife into our urban areas, as well as addressing these terrible nationwide declines. We get a lot of questions about cabbage whites. Yes, as you'd expect, being the kind of charity that we are. If you've got cabbage whites coming into your garden because presumably you're perhaps growing vegetables that really work for them to eat and to lay their eggs on, does that mean that we've then got an overabundance of cabbage whites because I think gardeners often feel that perhaps that's the only butterfly they ever really see in their gardens. I don't think the cabbage whites, which are two species, the large white and the small white, they're not going to be impacting on any of our other native butterflies or moths. So you might have more of them if you're growing brassicas because they're seeing that as food for their caterpillars. But that won't have any negative impacts on any other wildlife in the vicinity. There are other white butterflies, of course. So if you see white butterflies in your garden, doesn't necessarily mean that they're cabbage whites, that they're large white or small white. The most widespread white butterfly in Britain is a green veined white and its caterpillars don't eat brassicas at all. So they feed on a whole range of other wild plants, little cressies and mustards and things that are just growing out amongst the wild flowers. And then in the spring, of course, you also have orange tips and the male orange tip is very distinctive is a white busfly with bright orange wing tips but the females are all white. So in springtime you could see a white busfly in your garden it could be any of four common and widespread species pretty much anywhere in the UK. so if I'm growing my brassicas and I want to protect some of them then I will do that with some netting but are there other places that I could encourage those caterpillars to go or are there other plants that they will equally enjoy eating and the reason I ask is because it seems to me that it's actually just as important to protect the cabbage white as it is any other butterfly. Yeah, well think that I definitely wouldn't disagree with that and some of these some of the cabbage white butterflies have declined, they've definitely declined in recent years. So I think yes obviously you need to protect the brassicas, the cabbages, the sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, those kind of plants that will be food for cabbage white butterflies. And netting is a great way to do that because that stops the females from ever getting on there to lay their eggs. But as long as you remove, you you remove the caterpillars without using pesticides, then that's fine. That's going to save your crops and it's not going to make any massive difference to the the butterfly populations. But they do eat other things. And nasturtium, particularly both large white and small white, their caterpillars feed very happily on nasturtiums. So you could grow some nasturtiums. You could pick the butterfly caterpillars off your cabbages if some have got through your netting and put them on the nasturtiums. And then, know, the caterpillars are going to be OK. They're going to turn into butterflies and your your crops going to be all right as well. And you're feeding the birds too. Well, yeah, absolutely. Birds will come down and have them as well. you know, that's all of this stuff I've been talking about, about encouraging caterpillars, places for butterflies and moths to breed in your garden. Of course, will have benefits for lots of other wildlife as well. it's feeding that food chain for the other animals, the birds, but also hedgehogs. Moth caterpillar is a really important part of the hedgehog's diet, especially in late summer, early autumn, which is a critical time for hedgehogs when they're building up their fat reserves for hibernation. So, you know, all these things will benefit and you'll be providing places for other beneficial insects to live as well for predatory beetles, ladybirds, things that are also going to help you in the organic garden. now for your questions. I'm here with Dr Anton Rosenfeld and with Chris Collins. Hello to both. Hi Fiona. Hiya. So first question is all about potatoes, which is a great thing to be talking about this time of year. uh And this is a question I've also been asking, so I'm really interested. Judith has written in and said, can I put potatoes to chit in a cold greenhouse? There's really nowhere cool and light within my house. So, well first of all for the uninitiated Chris, when we talk about chitting our potatoes, what does it mean? Well, this is a very traditional gardening technique. I mean, this goes back decades, well actually centuries because the Victorians would have done this. Okay. And it's just giving your potatoes a head start really. So on your potato you'll have what we'll refer to as eyes, what they are is growing points, nodes if you like. So it's just getting them away before you plant them in the ground. they're basically you end up with higher yields, you get more potatoes as a result of doing it. So yes, very, very traditional. I've always done it without question to be honest with you. So one encourage you to shoot in a light, make sure it's not too hot, you might get elongation if it's too dark or too hot, you might get a big long lanky eyes producing that be no good, they'll snap off when you try to plant, you know, squat little growths basically. So yeah, somewhere I do my my office in a quite a light spot in my office is away from heat source. So I'm treating them like a plant really. I'm kicking them off before I then put them into the ground for my crop. Yeah. I mean, is it essential to do it? Well, you get away with not doing it. You know, some gardeners, I can think of a few that would say you don't need to bother, but I would disagree with that. think you just like I said, you'll get a better yield if you do it. get stronger start to the plant. It's not essential at all. If you forget to do it, don't worry. If you can and you've got the time, I would advise chitting. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a fascinating process. because you watch these mini plants develop out of a potato. it's just extraordinary. As you say, if you can get it right. Absolutely fascinating process to watch. And on this time of year, quite a lot people might have already got all their potatoes ready. Perhaps they've ordered them, had them sent. If that's the case, you might have three types of potatoes. You might have your first earlies, your second earlies and your main crop. What is the difference between those sorts of potatoes? And also, if you've got all of those potatoes in one go, should you start chitting all of them at the same time? If you've ordered your potatoes, I would say you would always want to put them in the ideal conditions for chitting because the worst thing you can do is just leave them in a bag because they will just generate loads of really long sprouts that are very brittle and they will just basically fall off or get... broken when you plant them. So they do need to always be in the light, your tubers, also under cooler conditions as well, I would say. In terms of your sort of first earlies and your second earlies and your main crops. So your first earlies are potatoes, which they don't put on so much leaf growth, but they tuberize much more quickly and then the top start to die down more quickly. OK. And if you chip the potatoes, you accelerate that process even more they become sort of even earlier. Traditionally, people would have more likely to have chitted their early varieties to get that early start. But generally, if you're a gardener, you don't really have much choice once you've bought those seeds, you need to be putting them in the ideal conditions. A commercial girl would have perhaps kept some of the potatoes under a cooler conditions to stop them chitting. Generally, we don't have that. luxury to be able to do that but yeah keeping them in the light is the most important thing. And so when you lay them out ready for chitting you want to make sure they're not touching don't you? that right? Yeah ideally because you get a bit of sort of condensation between them and that can encourage rots and things so that's the reason why we don't have them touching. She's asked about putting them in a greenhouse and that would be The only thing you'd want to be careful of is if it got really cold at night, if it's an unheated greenhouse, then you might get a frost. So if you think it's going to be a really cold night, I put some fleece on them overnight. Yeah, I've got to keep them frost free. I think for my money, it's a bit of a waste of greenhouse space, really. If you had an opportunity to put them somewhere else, you'd probably want to be keeping... We put them on a kitchen window, couldn't you? Yeah, put them on a window sill. Get your mustards and your stuff growing in the greenhouse. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Make the most of the greenhouse conditions for other things. All right. Judith has also sent us another question. This time, though, it's about club root. I'd like to grow cauliflowers and sprouting broccoli this year, but we have club root on our allotment site. Although I don't know if it's in my plot, I don't want to take my chances. Can you recommend any club root resistant varieties that I could try? Right, well, first of all, Chris, is this the death knell? If you see club root somewhere on your allotment, does that mean you've got it? That's not good, that's for sure. It can be pretty devastating. If I had it on my allotment in the spot, I probably wouldn't grow. It's brassicas it affects. So it's your cauliflowers, your cabbages, kale, broccoli, Brussels sprouts. Yeah, I would be inclined not to grow. brass was on that spot again if I had an infestation on it basically. um It's a slime mold, it's a soil borne but it needs moisture so it's particularly bad in wet conditions. the spores on it move through the soil in water basically. so you'll know as you've got it because you'll just see weakened yellowish growth on your plants. It's quite apparent I'm saying when you've got it. The plants just struggle and if you dug them up you'd get these gulps on the roots, so round swellings. If you had it really badly, it would like a bunch of grapes on the roots really. That's quite a good way to describe it. So if you did, then you'd be in trouble. You'd have to pull it all out. So I think really it's preventative measures you really want to take, I think. OK. So Anton, then, what preventative measures would you start to take if you were in Jewish shoes? So there's quite a few preventative measures you can take. The most important one really is sort good hygiene and slenderness. So it's actually carried around in the soil a lot. So people bring it in on their boots. They can bring it in on dirty tools. And also, you just have to be quite careful about accepting plants if they've got sort of soil around them and come from somewhere else. This plot, if they are brassica, then I would actually be quite wary of. accepting them because you could be introducing club root onto your plant. That is a good thought actually. People trying to do things with good intentions and trying to share their... It's another argument for growing everything from seed on your own. Yes, at least you know exactly where you're up to. I think people don't realize how many plants are brassicas as well. mean, obviously things like cabbages and cauliflowers are, but things like wallflowers and brassicas as well. And then some of the common weeds and things like charlots. are also brassicas and they will harbour the disease as well. there are so many brassicas. It's a big family. Although the club root disease can stick in the soil for a long time once you've got it, the rotating and making sure you don't grow brassicas more than one in four years will sort of prevent it from taking hold. It reduces the risk of it. So the other thing that people often do is liming their soil because the clubroot really thrives under sort of damp acidic conditions. So if you apply some lime to the soil, you can basically reduce the chances of it sort of becoming a problem. And how would you apply lime to the soil? Where would you get hold of it? What form does it take? You can get it in lots of garden centres. There are organic sort of sources of it, which has been mined naturally as well. It's good to follow the instructions. I mean, I tend to to put it on in the early spring and give it some time to work its way in. if you're if you're actually just starting now and thinking about, know, your food growing through the year and you haven't had any sign of club root, would it be wise, given the wet winters we're having and and how much water there is around, would it be wise to just line the patch where you're going to grow your bruscus this year anyway. So people often do do that but I would perhaps probably do a soil pH test first. If your soil is already alkaline and then you make it more alkaline you can then start causing problems. People start to lock up nutrients and your plants will suffer so don't lime unnecessarily. Often organic growers don't need to limes much as people applying chemical fertilizers because it's a chemical fertilizers which cause the soil to gradually become more acidic. if you're using more sort of natural organic sources that doesn't tend to happen so much. Yeah, that's a good point as well. You can buy yourself a little electronic pH kit, can't it? A little tester where you just put a literally like a thermometer, you put it in the soil and it will show you pH readings. It's probably worth investing sort of seven, eight quid in one of those. Yeah, know your soil. Absolutely. And we'll do this. finished off with asking what varieties of cauliflower sprouting broccoli would we recommend, you know, that might be resistant? And of course, we all know there are varieties out there that are sold as resistant to clubroot. Is it just as simple as growing resistant varieties though? So that's a bit of a tricky one because there are lots of modern varieties of brassicas which have got some club root resistance, in fact, very good club root resistance, but they are mostly F1 hybrids. So for example, there's a cauliflower called Clapton, which has got good resistance. It's like a sort of autumn cauliflower. In of purple sprouting broccoli, there's a variety called Sante as well, available as organic seed. My advice for growing those is that although they've got good resistance, if you just rely on that alone and don't take any of the other measures, the club root disease then mutates and manages to overcome the resistance that these varieties have. We see that happen a lot. We see it with other diseases. You've got this amazing disease resistance and then suddenly the disease learns the trick to get around it. So it's not a very sustainable long-term thing to do just to grow these resistant varieties alone. You need to take the other measures. Also, are some of the types of brassicas are less susceptible to club root than others. So the cauliflowers and cabbages are the worst, but you'll find things like kale and some of the sort of Asian greens and things um aren't trouble so badly. OK, I mean, it is a really serious issue, isn't it, for people growing food? And if you've got club root, then you really can't use that soil for your brassicas. And as we've established, it's a really big family. So. You know, you're going to have to come up with some other solutions, maybe growing in pots, I guess, if you've only got the one space. On to a question now about coffee grounds from Laurie in London. I'm working on a TV production in London and we're looking for ways to donate our used coffee grounds. We'd love to find a sustainable solution, but we don't have the facilities to dry the grounds. What would you suggest? Well, first of all, great that you're trying to find sustainable solutions, that's terrific. This is a question we get asked a lot actually because I think a lot of us have spare coffee grounds because there's quite a national coffee habit isn't there. So first of all Anton, just give us a science, what do coffee grounds contain that is useful in the garden? So coffee grounds are a really good source of nitrogen, they can supply the plants with a considerable amount. that's probably one of the main benefits. In terms of what else is in coffee grounds, they do have caffeine in them, which, surprisingly, that's actually something that can inhibit plant growth. They use it as a sort of biological warfare to stop other plants growing. So if you put too much on the soil, you can find it actually inhibits your plants. I always think that coffee grounds are better composted because it helps to break down that caffeine and It just provides a better balance when it's mixed with other things as well. Okay, Chris, do you use coffee grounds? Have you ever put them on the soil? I do use coffee grounds. I had quite a lot donated to me, funnily enough, by a local coffee shop, the kitchen garden I've helped look after. And I don't directly put them to the soil. No, there's two reasons for that really. One is they were hailed as a big slug and snail repellent at one point. Yes, they were. And I never found that to work. No, I just didn't. didn't. Maybe other people have more luck than me, but I didn't as a barrier. I didn't think it worked. The other thing you got watch for them is they bond together quite well. So you can end up having a cap, which is like a sealed surface so that can cause problems with with irrigation and water runoff. So for those two reasons, I'm with Anton. I add it to my compost bin. I use it as a green, even though it's brown. I use it as a nitrogen. So I mix it with my browns, my carbons and I add it. Not too much of it gradually to the compost bin and it does a good job that way. Yeah. OK. So really our suggestions to Laurie are well either maybe start your own compost bin. If you've got the facilities to do that, why not have a compost bin at the office? Make sure you mix up your greens and your browns and we've got plenty of information on the garden organic website all about how to make compost. Or donate it to somewhere where they're going to be able to find a use in their own compost. So whether you've got a community garden nearby. or a kitchen garden then do it that way or you can just quite simply process them with your food waste if you've got food waste collection so those are the options I think. There's no reason to waste it is there really you can it can be put to use. absolutely absolutely. All right thanks very much. Cheers. Thanks so much to Anton and Chris for joining me on the Organic Gardening podcast. If you've enjoyed listening, please recommend us to a friend or leave us a review on your preferred podcast app. Do come back again next month and don't forget to look up our new online learning certificate if you want to know more about sustainable gardening. All that's left for me to do is thank Kevin McLeod for the music and we'll see you next time.