Welcome to Gardening with Ben, the podcast where we dig into the soil of
our gardens and the depths of our green funds. I'm your host, Ben,
here to guide you through the joys of gardening, from sowing seeds to
reaping bountiful harvests. Each episode will explore tips, tricks, and tales from
the garden and allotment, sharing insights from ourself and stories from our own back
garden adventures. Whether you're a seasoned gardener or just getting your hands dirty for
the first time, there's something here for everyone, So grab your brew and
gardening gloves and let's get growing with Gardening with Ben. Good evening, and
welcome to our latest podcast, January Roundup. Well, it's been a while
since my last podcast, and I do apologize because I did get into a
good swing of doing all the podcasts, but there has been a bit of
a break and the reason for that is because I've not been very well.
I've been absolutely wiped out. I had that flute out thing what we're going
around, where I just couldn't get up. I had hot on cold shimmers
our earl. They were absolutely awful. But thankfully we are back to full
strength now. And I'm hopefully going to start looking after myself a bit more
better because I don't really look after myself, but I think that's given me
the wake up call to get myself back in shape and back healthy again and
start looking after myself a bit more. So I'm not going out drinking as
much as I used to, and I'm trying to turn things down a bit,
so hopefully we should see an improvement in myself and my mental health and
everything along those lines as well. So, yeah, I do apologize for
no podcasts for the last week or so, but I hope you've managed to
catch up on all of the podcasts what we've been broadcasting. Now. A
few people have been asking how they can support me, and I've now added
an Amazon wish list to the description, so if anybody does feel like they
want to help in any way, I've popped a few items in there.
For the time being, I will be adding some more lay to some what
I could think of really some funny gnomes and stuff like that for the allotment.
But yeah, like I say, it's not you have to do it,
But some people have asked how they can help me, so I've popped
an Amazon wish list in there, so thank you to those that do want
to support me. So this is the last episode of January? Is it
me? Or does January seem to be like one hundred days long? I
think it's whether it's because you get paid early in December before Christmas and it
just seems to last forever January. But we have finally got through it.
We've had so many storms in January. Wow, every time I fix my
shed, some more plastic has blurren off it. But yeah, let's see
if the weather improves. Now, that's what we need. We need the
weather to improve and start looking towards spring really and hopefully we can get the
weather a lot better. And spring has started to sprung. Spring has sprung
at my allotment and the bulbs are starting to open up. I shed a
photo the other day on my Instagram account gardening with Ben of the crocuses.
What are opening on the plot? There were a couple of yellow ones,
but the purple ones are also popping through now, so I can't wait.
And trust me, when these bulbs start to open, you'll be inundated with
pictures all over Instagram or the bulbs coming out and I pay so much for
these bulbs, but I do love to see them. It looks absolutely fantastic
and the smell is awesome as well, So stay tuned for springtime. We'll
start sharing lots and lots of flower photos on there. So what have we
been up to in January, what have we achieved at the allotment? And
where are we going to in February. Obviously, tomorrow's episode will be talking
about all the things that you can start to sew in February because we're getting
closer to when we can start planting stuff again. And then the episode after
that will be what jobs need doing in February. So if you're a new
listener to this, make sure you click that follow button or subscribe button and
then you'll be able to stay up to date with all these podcasts and you'll
be able to tune in and yeah, what have we been up to in
January? Well, we've got this podcast backup and money last year were absolutely
atrocious. We hardly did any episodes. I think did about five episodes in
the year, but people stuck by mate and they've come back to the podcast
and it's doing absolutely fantastic. So hopefully we'll start to get the listeners back
in and it will start to pay off. And I hope you all enjoy
these podcasts and that we've got them all backup of money. So we've got
this podcast backup of money. We've got us Instagram going again. We've got
lots of posts coming on there. I've not been going live on Facebook yet,
so stay tuned for that. We'll hopefully fetch the lives back on Facebook.
But honestly, there's not much to show you at the moment. It's
just me messing around building beds and getting all them sorts of So hopefully we'll
get the Facebook lives back again soon. But I have achieved so much on
my allotment in January and people think, well it's absolutely awful. Whether there's
not to do down at the allotment, there's nothing to be doing over the
winter, Well there is. It's the most crucial time of the year,
the winter period at the allotment, because it's the time when you get all
you a lotment ready for the year ahead. It's time to build. Do
your building, so your beds out, tidy up, get burned stuff,
clear stuff away, invest in areas what you want to improve on and get
planning for the year ahead, and trust me, I am putting so much
time and effort into my plot this year. This has been the biggest turnover
of my plot in years of having it. It's going to look the best
that it's ever looked out of all the years of having the plot. I've
got all my shed rebuilt. Until the plastic keeps coming off with the wind,
We've got all that rebuilt. We've built all the shelving inside it.
All the shelving is ready. It does need a pain on the inside,
but that's not crucial. That can wait. I want to get all my
plots sorted first. But yeah, my shed is all ready for growing this
year, and come March it will be absolutely full to busting with growing seeds
in there, growing planting there, taking all my cuttings, doing all my
transplanting. I'll be doing all my filming and my videos in there so that
i can share with you all what I'm getting up to, because I want
to bring back the video blogs as well, but it's one step at a
time. I don't want to push myself too hard in the stuff what I'm
doing, so yeah, make sure you stay tuned for the video blogs coming
back as well on YouTube. If you're not following me on YouTube, do
give me a followup because I'm going to get my YouTube channel back up and
running as well and get that cracking because a lot of people do enjoy my
YouTube videos and showing you around the plot and sharing what I've been getting up
to down at the plot. So yeah, we've got that to fetch back.
Then we have obviously done my shad I've talked about that, I've sorted
out round my fruit trees. I've pruned them all, got them all pruned,
all looking very tidy and healthy and shaped and they look absolutely fantastic.
I still need to give them a winter wash and you can get that off
Amazon winter wash for trees. You just spray them down and it stops like
all the moths hibernating in and what can eat all your fruit and stuff like
that. So I've got that to put on, and I need to put
some new tape around the bottom to stop creepy crawling from climbing up the trees,
because that's what they do. If you put this tape around, it's
a special fruit tree tape and it protects them from things crawling up and to
start eating them as well, so that's a good thing to get. I've
shaped them up and I've also wood chipped all the area and wow, it
looks so posh now, it's unbelievable. Yeah, it costs me a lot
of money and wood chip, and obviously it will rot down eventually and I'll
have to keep filling it up. But it does look absolutely fantastic. It
looks so nice and professional, and I'm just happy with how it's all turned
out. And because I've got my rubib plants there as well, and I've
put the wood chet round it, it's warming the rhubarb up and it's mulching
it and giving it food and energy. And the rhubarbars started growing. The
cold spell did kill it off and it withered away, but it is going
back again. It will probably get killed off again if we do get some
more frost or snow, but it will be all ready for growing come March
time. It shouldn't be growing yet anyway. March time it will start and
it will come up and you'll probably be picking your first harvest towards the end
of April beginning of May for your rhubarb. And trust me, I do
love a lot of rhubarb crumble. So we've got all that area prepared almost
surely. By the area is prepared, I'm hoping that they'll grow back because
it seemed to have withered down a bit too much. Hopefully they'll start shooting
and sending out some news shoots soon and start growing for this year. So
we've got all that done. We've got all the top of my plot.
Last year, at the top of my plot, I cleared an area which
had not touched in the eighteen years of having my allotment. It was just
like a junk area, and I cleared it all and I've trimmed it all.
Last year, I built some new beds out of bricks and made it
a bit of a herb garden type area. Because it's quite shaded, it
doesn't get a lot of sunlight, so we made that nice and it had
all black membrane down for the paths and everything like that. And again I've
wood chipped all that area and again it looks absolutely fantastic the top half of
my plot now, so we've got that sorted. I'm possibly going to have
to get a few more herbs to stick in because I've ended up digging some
of them out. When I were clearing all the beds out, I couldn't
tell the weeds from the herbs, and I've ended up digging some of them
out. So we need to get some more herb plants to stick in the
top. But we'll not be planting those two about April time March April time
outside when it's a bit warmer. So we've got all that to do,
but then I'm focusing on my main allotment growing area at the moment. This
is an area probably that I've not improved for last five or six years.
I've just left it as it is. And every time that people have said,
oh, you want some paving slabs and stuff like that, I've been
and took them and I've just continued laying them down. But are all my
paths are wide enough for some paving slabs, Like if people give me paving
slabs to can't just slot them down into the past because they're not wide enough
and stuff like that. So I've been sorting out all my beds, all
my paths so that they're wide enough that if people say I've got some paving
slabs for you, they'll just fit in straight in there. But we're going
to sort out a couple of main paths and all the other paths. I'm
going to get some wood chip, and I'm going to wood chip all the
paths so that they all look nice and professional and fantastic and look nice and
asked. I know it's an allotment at the end of the day, but
I've not got a garden, so i don't mind spending money on my allotment.
A lot of people obviously don't want to spend money on the allotment.
They just try and recycle a lot of stuff and use what they can to
do with the allotment, because that's what allotment should before. It shouldn't be
about spending money on it. It should be about getting stuff done cheap and
growing it nice and everything like that. So we've got that to do,
and I'm gonna have all the path nicely we're chipped, and then I'm gonna
paint all of the beds up. I absolutely hate doing the painting part,
but I'm not gonna be painting them yet because we're still getting the bad weather
and it'll just wash it off. Even though you can put like a few
layers of this paint staying on it and stuff like that. It will wash
off eventually. It only lasts probably about a year and a half, so
I end up doing it every year. So I'm leaving that probably till about
March time before paying more. But at the moment, I'm sorting out on
my beds and rebuilding them all because some of the woods rotted and stuff like
that, and they've come unscrewed, and some of the posts had put in
for the beds they weren't level with the wood, so when I were going
around with the host pipe, they were all catching on the posts what we're
in for the beds and stuff like that. So I'm making it all level
and just making it all look really nice. To be honest, it's a
big job, a very big job. But I'm possibly about halfway through doing
and main plot area now. I want to get it all completed by the
end of February and get it all looking good, and then come March time,
I'll get it all painted and sorted out like that. And then obviously
after sorting all my beds out, i want sort all the edging out and
sort all the fencing down the sides of the plot because that could do with
improving, but again that's not as important job as making sure that my plot's
all done. So yeah, we have had a very busy January down at
my allotment and I'm so pleased that it's all coming along really well. And
like I said, I'm looking so forward seeing all the bulbs coming out in
my plot because that's going to look absolutely fantastic. I don't think they'll be
as good as last year, but we'll see what they were. Like,
I will be taking lots of photos so that I can see the areas where
I need more bulbs in, and there's still certain parts of my plot that
haven't got spring bulbs in. I want all my boarders to have spring bulbs
in. I want all down the sides of my path start spring bulbs in
so that it looks fantastic come March time. And obviously help with the bees
as well, which I always going about. Oh and another thing is is
that obviously I've got my bird feeders back up and we've started feeding the birds
again, because I'd stopped doing that for a while, but I've started feeding
the birds again. I'm going to make sure that I take some bird food
down every single week to fill up my bird feeders and make sure they've got
some food now. And the time when I saw that the bird feed go
down the most was when we had the cold weather for the other week,
when it was absolutely frozen. They could not obviously get the worms and stuff,
so the bird feed did help the birds out a lot. So yeah,
it's all coming along extremely well. I'm really pleased with how my plot's
coming on, and this is the year that I'm going to have the best
year down on my plot, and so many nice sunflowers, nice vegetables down
there. It's going to be a tranquil place, and I'm looking forward to
sharing it all with you again this year. And I'm so glad that I
got back into this podcasting because I do enjoy it. I do enjoy the
comments and the messages I get from people listening to this podcast, So thank
you for your support. Make sure you do carry on sharing it with people.
Obviously, the more people that we can get listening the better, really,
So yeah, we are going to be absolutely smashing it this year,
and I'm looking forward to doing it all with you again. Obviously, the
Amazon wish listed is in my profile description, so you can see that and
obviously. Yeah, thank you for the support everyone. Remember, keep smiling,
keep shining, and keep gardening with Ben. Everyone. I love you
all. And that wraps up another episode of Gardening with Ben. Thank you
for joining me in this journey. Remember, every seed planted is a step
towards a greener world, and every day is a chance to grow something beautiful.
Keep nurturing your gardens and your souls. Until next time, I'm gardening
with Ben, reminding you to let your garden be your sanctuary. Happy gardening,
and see you in the next episode. Remember keep smiling, keep shining,
and keep gardening with Fine