Hello and welcome to Gardening with Ben. You'll go to a podcast for all
things green and growing. I'm Ben, your allotment guide and here to help
you cultivate your garden and your passion for plants. Whether you're a seasoned gardener
or just starting out, this podcast is for you. Each episode will dig
into tips, tricks, and techniques to make your garden and allotment thrive from
planting, sewing and growing. We will share all the tips and add advice.
We will also have regular episodes talking about what we have been up to
on the Allotment. So sit back, grab a brew and enjoy today's episode.
Hello and welcome to Gardening with Ben for another new episode today, and
wow, the weather has changed. Well, it's been an absolutely atrocious day.
It's absolutely chucked it down, as we would say here in Yorkshire.
It's been an awful, wet, wet day. So basically I've not managed
to do any jobs out in the garden today. As I went to the
supermarket to get some compost I didn't know it was going to be but I
went to get some composts because I'd bought a lot of seeds the other day.
As I mentioned in my podcast and I thought, oh, I'll try
and get these done today. So obviously the weather made me sew all my
seeds today, so I've been stuck in my shed sowing my seeds. Some
of them I'll probably think that it's possible that it might be a bit too
late from but we'll give them a shot and give them a try. There's
no harm in trying. Obviously you're losing money by paying for the seeds and
the compost. But I'm one of these guys. I'll just experiment and give
it a go. So what have we been sewing today. Well, we've
sown some more lettuce, some more beetroot. We've sown some more climbing beans
because hopefully then these ones will produce a bit later than the ones that I've
got in the ground at the moment, because the ones in the ground are
growing fast. We've also planted some more cucumbers because I've not got as many
cucumber plants as I'd hoped, so we've planted some more cucumbers. We've also
planted some sweet con again possibly too late. It does sell on the packet
up to May to plant them, so we're giving it a try. We're
giving it a shot. Is no harms lost if we don't get any sweet
core from them, but we want to give it a try. Some more
sweet corn we grow the better and hopefully get some fantastic produce. But we
are getting at a time when I'm going to be starting to harvest all my
lettuce now, so we need some more lettuce growing for when that's ready so
that we keep the continuous crop growing. And again the same with the beetroot.
I planted that a few weeks ago outside, so hopefully it will get
a continuous crop rather than it just all being ready at the same time.
So then I've got some all through the summer, which is what I want
really, because that's the thing about growing in allotments. Sometimes you just plant
all the same stuff at the same time rather than a continuous crop, so
once you've picked it, it's finished with. So if you want to continuous
crops on your allotment and in your garden, you need to keep that flow
of sowing the seeds and certain stuff you can do that with, like you
spring onions, your lettuce, your carrots, your beetroot, your radish.
These are the things that will continue to keep cropping right up until end of
September beginning of October. And I've also heard the forecast today we are in
fought and expected fifty days worth of rain. Who believes that? Let me
know, let me know if you believe that. But we'll believe it when
we see it. But so far we have high a lot of rain in
the UK, and every time when I'm posting stuff on my Instagram and my
Facebook, everybody's commenting saying, we just want the rain to stop. We
just want them to stop so that we can do some growing. But we
have had a few sunny days here at Sheffield, so I am glad it's
actually rained today. Then I didn't have to water outside because I don't like
watering. That's the worst job that I absolutely hate doing, is water in
my allotment. So that saved me a job there. So hopefully tomorrow I'm
going to start preparing some more areas for planting stuff out because like I said,
I've bought some sweet some spring onions. I'm going to sell them directly
into the soil and yeah, hopefully get some spring onions growing and possibly plant
some radish out. So hopefully we'll get some radish growing as well and keep
them growing. But we'll see how we get on. And I want to
plant some more flowers outside, some more summer bedding. I want to keep
the bees happy, keep them coming around my allotment. So we need to
go and get some summer bedding to fill the gaps where all my spring flowers
were. And yeah, I've done something what you shouldn't actually do. I've
trimmed back all my spring bulbs because I do hate it. Once I've died
back and I just see all the leaves and you're not meant to trim them
back. You're meant to let them all die back naturally. But I've just
trimmed them back. So if I lose them, I lose them, and
we'll see if they grow next year. Fingers crossed. They still do grow
next year. But hopefully I've not lost the bulbs from doing that. I've
done it a few times and I still keep getting bulbs popping up, so
hopefully I won't have ruined my spring displays. But if not, we're going
to be planting a load more bulbs come November. I'll probably be still planting
a load of bulbs anyway. There's some areas that I do need to plant
some spring bulbs in for next year, but that's later on in the year.
But apart from that, everything else seems to be growing really well.
We've lost a lot of the my Brassicus because I didn't net them up at
the time and the pigeons of ate them and destroy them, but the other
stuff seems to be taking well. The runner beans are growing well, the
pumpkin plants have taken, the cottag jet plants have taken, the peas are
growing well, and the lettuce is doing absolutely fantastic. So we're getting some
great crops down at the plot, and I'm definitely looking forward to what my
fruit this year. The strawberries are starting to grow and obviously all this rain
will help them swell and get growing bigger, so hopefully we'll get some good
crops off strawberries. But again the same with strawberries, you need to start
netting them up soon because when they start going mark, that's when the birds
will come down and peck at them and eat them all. So make sure
you net them over to stop any birds from coming and pinching them. So
hopefully we'll be back down at the allotment tomorrow I'm writing my little list of
jobs that I need to do because I'm back on night shift on Thursday,
so hopefully we can get on and crack on and get some work done.
And obviously I'm going to keep you updated and hopefully we're going to have a
few more podcasts coming up soon. Soon. We'll be doing our podcast for
What to Plant in June, so stay tuned for that. I didn't post
my May episode of What to Plant in May this month, so I do
apologize, but we'll be back with our What to Plant in June episodes,
so make sure you stay tuned for that. If you're not following us,
do give us a follow and then you'll get to stay up to date with
it all. I hope you're enjoying that the podcasts are back, and like
I said, I've got this new equipment now, so it is sounding a
lot better on the phone to listen to or wherever you listen to it to.
So yeah, remember, keep smiling, keep shining, and keep gardening
with bet. Everyone. Thank you for joining me on this episode of Gardening
with Ben. I hope you have found some useful tips and integration for your
own gardening and a lotment Journey. If you have enjoyed today's episode, please
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tips and on days, happy gardening, and until next time, remember keep
smiling, keep shining, and keep gardening with Ben