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
i'd 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. Hey everyone, and welcome back to Gardening with Ben. When
is the summer coming? Well, somebody please tell me sorry if that came
over aloud and wanting summer to come. It's Sunday and it's in July,
and yeah, the summer still hasn't come yet. It came briefly for one
week the other week, but yeah, we seem to have lost it again.
I went to the allotment this morning. It was nice and warm when
I left the house and guess what, it absolutely chucked it down while I
was at the allotment, so when it chucks it down, it's a case
of doing jobs inside the ament polytunnel and in my shed usually. And one
of the daily tips I shared today on my Instagram and Facebook was to make
sure you're tying up all your climbing plants, et cetera. Make sure you
keep on top of that. As the do start to grow fast when it
is warm and with the rain, they'll start to shoot and sometimes get out
of control, so you need to make sure that you keep them well ted.
And that is one thing that we did today. I've sorted out my
cucumbers. I've fastened all them up, fasten them to the netting. You
have to watch cucumbers if you're growing them up netting because I use the small
square netting and sometimes like the leaves will get stuck in the netting and sometimes
they get all caught up, so you have to pull them out gently and
tidy them back up and tie them all back up gently. But make sure
when you're tying your cucumbers up, don't pull the wires too tight because just
in case the stems get a bit fatter or stuff like that, you can
actually damage them. So just fasten them loosely around the plant as you fasten
them onto the netting. So I've tied it all them up and I've even
posted a photo on Instagram today of my cucumbers growing, and yeah, I've
got a decent size one growing, and I did notice quite a lot growing
on the plant. Now I'm only growing think four or five plants in my
polytunnel. A lot. They didn't grow very well, so we started some
more off and we planted all them ones outdoors. So obviously they're running a
bit slower than the ones in the polytunnel. And the reason why I plant
them outdoors is because I'd got a new well an old border what I'd filled
with compost to fill it back up, and I thought, why go out
and buy loads compost to fill my buckets up when I can just plant them
outside. So this is the first time that I'm growing my cucumbers outside.
I don't know how well they'll get on whether we'll get any cucumbers on them.
They're growing very slowly at the moment. The slugs haven't eaten them yet,
so that's one main thing sorted. But yeah, we're growing them outside.
I keep feeding them with some chicken palets every week and for some blood
and fish oil, bone meal down and yeah, they are taking they are
growing a bit. So hopefully once we get some warm more weather they'll start
to shoot up. Because once you do start growing cucumber plants, the douce
who seem to start shooting up and expanding, and before you know it,
you've got cucumbers all over the planet. And they often hide to say how
big cucumbers are. They often hide and you'll find one that's been growing massive
and you'll suddenly realize you've got a huge cucumber that needs eating. So we've
been tying all them up and sorting all them out. And we've also been
sorting out my climbing rose as I've got climbing rose in my entrance to my
plot. It's been in a few years now, it's getting taller and I've
got an archway over the entrance on my plot. It's not very sturdy,
to be honest with you. I would prefer a nice wooden one or something
like that. May be on my to douelist to get a nice wooden arch
well my entrance to my plot, but it's a metal one for the time
being. And they are quite flimsy. I don't know if anybody else has
had one, but I find them quite flimsy. So we've been fascinating all
up to the archway and sorting all that out, tidying it up. And
yeah, as i've been tidying it up, i've been beheading it all as
that's one thing that you've got to make sure you do with roses. Make
sure you keep your heading them so then they'll keep flowering, because if you
don't dehead them, they'll think that they're going to seed and they'll stop flowering.
So you need to make sure you keep your head in your roses,
even if it's just going around once a day round your allotment or round your
garden, just snipping off the dead heads, and yeah, it'll encourage mark
growth on the roses. So I've tided them all up and they look a
lot better now. And obviously I've got spike to death while I were doing
it, as I did in my gloves I never usually do. And we've
also took some cuttings from it because there were some scraggly bits that weren't growing
in the right places and stuff like that, so I trimmed them off and
I've posted them up good Honestly taking cuttings I learned by my mistakes and stuff
like that, same with anyone now. Often people had obviously put them in
a jar from to root, but I thought I'll just plant them straight into
the soil in some compost in my polytunnel, and yeah, water were men.
I have potted up about twenty cuttings, so we'll see if if they
come. Even if we just get three or four, I'll be happy with
it. It's trial by error, and obviously I can take loads more cuttings
if I want to, so figures crossed. If they all take then my
allotment will be a massive red roses all over the place. But we'll see
how we get on. Hopefully we get some nice roses growing. But it's
nothing to lose, and now is the time to be taking cuttings and stuff
like that. So if you've got a favorite plan or a favorite flower,
go around taking some cuttings off them, because you're not wasting any money.
However, and I'm tempted to go and get some cuttings off my lavender plant,
as I do want more lavender bushes on my allotment. I'm sorted with
all my futures. I could take loads of cuttings off my futures, but
I've got loads of future planting and I'm really happy with how they've all come
on. So eventually we might get some more futures growing, but there's still
quite small plants, so I don't want to disturb them and take any cuttings
off my futures at the moment. And yeah, i want to get some
lavender plants growing, so I'm going to try and take some cuttings and some
lavender this this week, hopefully get some flowering and get them started ready for
planting out next year on my allotment. So you'll have to stay tuned for
that, but I'll keep you all updated on how well the rose cuttings are
doing. Like I always say, I'm an honest gardener. I tell you
how it is, if it's worked, if it's failed, if I'm rubbish
it. It's better to be honest with people. Like one year you can
do absolutely brilliant and have fantastic and stuff like that, and then the next
year you could have a total failure, and you're not wanting to hide stuff
from people. You want to be honest with people, I don't know everything.
I've always said that I'm always learning. I've been on my allotment now
for twenty years, and every day I'm learning new things. And I see
tips online and stuff. A lot of times you don't know if it's real
or if it's fake just to get a clickbait. But like I've seen my
people start roses off in potatoes as well, just shove them in potatoes because
it's meant to feed them and help make them root. But I don't know
how true that is, whether it's true or not, let me know if
you've tried it. I always like to hear back from people listening to the
podcast, and I also want to give a shout out to one of my
listeners that they've recently found my podcasts and this put a nice comment on my
Instagram saying like how they're enjoying it and how many tips they've learned from the
podcast. And a lot of the time I'm just waffling on. I don't
have a set podcast recorded, I don't type it all up beforehand. I'd
just like to talk about a little topic, maybe what I've been up to
on the allotment or what you need to do here and there and at this
time. So I do just love to chat about what I've been up to.
I think a lot of people seem to enjoy that. Like obviously I
could spend hours writing the podcast episode, also getting people on to do a
podcast with, which is time and effort, and then editing it all and
sorting it all out. But this is just a raw podcast. I don't
do no editing. It's straight from it. I don't cut out all the
years from a podcast. I just like to talk and get it out there
for you to listen to. And I think a lot of people enjoy that.
How it's just straight to the point and from the heart. And whether
I do things right, whether I do things wrong, it's just good fun
and that's what I enjoy in the gardening world. If it fails, I
don't give them monkeys. I'm just happy that I've been out in my garden,
that I've been enjoying it, and that is good for the mental health.
And everything seems to be coming together well at the moment. I'm really
pushing out the content to you all, sharing the daily tips on Instagram and
Facebook, and a lot of people seem to be liking them. They seem
to be picking up on a daily basis, more and more people are seeing
them and liking them. If you ever do see a post of mine on
Instagram, please just give it a like and feel free to leave a comment,
as I do love to see how people react to my posts, and
obviously the more people that like it, the more they get pushed out as
well. The same goes for this podcast. Feel free to just leave a
comment if you can, and give it a like wherever you see any of
my content, as it really does help me and it doesn't cost you anything
and that can push it out to thousands of people just giving it a like
and a comment. And yeah, I don't always reply to him, which
I should do, but if I've applied to everybody's comment, it'd probably take
me all day. But yeah, and hopefully I'm going to be back down
at the allotment tomorrow. Hopefully it doesn't rain tomorrow because I want to spend
some time outside. I might even get them havingder cuttings tomorrow, so we'll
have to stay tune for that and see how well we'll get on. And
what else are we planning to do tomorrow? I might go out and get
some more seeds and start some seeds off for July, so make sure you
stay tuned for that. If you've not listened to my podcast talking about what
to plant in July, go go back and have a look and listen to
that episode. You can still plan plenty of stuff at this time. You
can plany your spring onions, you can plan autumn carrots, you can plant
beet root, you can plant some peas, you can even plant runner beans.
There's still plenty to your stuff out there that you can plan at this
time a year, so make sure you go and listen to that and let
me know what everybody's planting. I do love to hear back from everybody that's
listening, So if you have enjoyed this podcast, please do give it a
like. Feel free to share it onto your Instagram stories if you've got Instagram,
and the more people that do listen to it, the more people it
will get pushed out to. So thanks for listening. As always, 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 instigration for your own gardening and a lot more
journey. If you have enjoyed today's episode, please make sure to follow and
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