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Hello, and welcome to Gardening with
Ben. You'll go to a podcast for

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all things green and growing. I'm
Ben, your allotment guide and here to

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help you cultivate your garden and your
passion for plants. Whether you're a seasoned

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gardener or just starting out, this
podcast is for you. Each episode will

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dig into tips, tricks, and
techniques to make your garden and allotment thrive

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from planting, sewing, and growing. We will share all the tips and

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add advice. We will also have
regular episodes talking about what we have been

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up to on the a lotment.
So sit back, grab a brew and

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enjoy today's episode. Hey everyone,
and welcome to today's episode on Sunday.

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So, yeah, we're back at
work now, but I've pre recorded an

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episode for you to listen to today. As they are going down the storm,

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I'm trying to push them out and
get more people listening. The figures

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are going up, but we won't
be millionaires yet, but yeah one day,

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you never know. You never know. We just need one to go

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viral. But today, what we're
going to talk about is looking after the

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wildlife in your garden. Now,
wildlife are important to your garden. You

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may not think so, or you
may not do your bit to looking after

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them, but there's always ways of
methods in helping them and giving them a

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little helping hand in the garden.
And the last few weeks have purchased quite

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a few bits and extras to my
allotment. I've not shown any photos of

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all these yet, as it's quite
a surprise for you. You are the

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first people to find out. And
obviously I talked about the bird baths which

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I purchased the other week, which
the birds seem to be loving this.

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I've seen them splashing around, enjoying
the water, enjoying the splashing in it,

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drinking the water. But yeah,
I've added two bird baths to the

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allotment and it was well worth the
investment. So next up, we have

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also purchased something that I've always wanted
and that's a hedgehog house. Yes,

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I've got a hedgehog house. I've
not took a photo of it yet so

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you can't see what it looks like. But we purchased that because obviously we

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get a lot of slugs on the
allotment and encouraging the hedgehogs to your allotment

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and to your garden is one of
the best pets you could have down there

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living on your allotment as obviously the
hedgehogs will come out at night and they'll

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go around eating up all the slugs
what are in your garden. So if

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you can encourage hedgehogs into your garden, that is one of the best things

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that you can do. And I
purchased mine from B and M's. I

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purchased my hedgehog house from So yeah, it's not fantastic quality, I would

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say, so, I don't know
how long it will actually last, but

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we'll see. We'll see how well
it does, and hopefully we get a

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hedgehog living on my allotment and maybe
some babies. We have had a hedgehog

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once on my allotment. I've seen
it in my polytonnel hibernating once before.

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Obviously it stays warm in there,
so they've stayed in and hibernated in my

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polyton on before. So what else
have we got, Well, obviously we've

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got our pond to encourage the froggies. You can't beat having froggies again as

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well as the hedgehog. Having a
pond will encourage the frogs to come and

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they will eat as well all the
slugs up, so hedgehogs and frogs in

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your garden are a must if possible. Obviously, not everywhere you can have

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ponds, but if you can have
just like a small little plate or little

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box with some watering so that the
folks can get in there. Encourage as

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much wildlife as possible into your garden, and we always try and get some

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fogs born to put in our pond
each year to get them fogs come into

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the allotment and hopefully enjoying being down
there. We've also purchased some lady lady

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bird towers. Now I've never had
one of these before, and basically it's

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a wooden log with lots of little
holes in it, and that encourages the

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ladybirds to go in there and hibernate
and nest and find somewhere to live.

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Now, obviously ladybirds are good for
the allotment as well because they eat all

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the green flies and stuff like that, So having ladybirds down there will definitely

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be successful. And I don't know
if you like me, but I've noticed

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so many ladybirds this year in my
garden. I don't know what's going off,

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whether there's a sudden urge of ladybirds. I have no idea, but

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we've got all the varieties of ladybirds
down at my allotment. We've got the

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red ones with the black dots.
We've got the black ones with the red

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dots, which I believe are very
good ones. Please tell me if I'm

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wrong. But I don't know.
If those are in a nasty version of

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ladybirds, I don't know, but
we've got lots of ladybirds. And my

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gooseberries are covered in it, My
plum trees are covered in it. My

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sunflowers i've seen with ladybirds on it. But yeah, they're everywhere at the

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moment this year. So we've got
plenty of ladybirds down there. And what

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else have we got? We also
purchased a butterfly feeder. Now I've not

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seen one of these before. This
is something new to me. And basically,

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you feel you make your own nectar
by using sugar, hot water and

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a pinch of salt I think it
is, and you fill it up and

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the butterflies come and feed on it, and it feeds the butterflies basically,

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so you're doing your bit to looking
after the butterflies. Obviously, butterflies aren't

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necessarily good things anyway, because they'll
lay their eggs and the caterpillars will eat

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all your cauliflowers and stuff like that. But I do love to see the

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butterflies. They're absolutely gorgeous. I
don't know if you like me. I'm

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another one like I'll see squirrels in
my allotments and I don't mind. Yes

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they do disturbed stuff. Yes they
pull up the bulbs and eat all the

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bulbs and stuff like that. But
we've got hopefully lots of wildlife going off

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down with my allotment. Every morning, I can hear peacocks around, and

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you can because near where my allotments
are, someone looks has a couple of

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peacocks and you can hear them in
the background and stuff like that. Now,

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obviously I could have chickens on my
plot if I wanted to, but

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I haven't got the time to do
it. And if you've got chickens on

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your plot, you can let them
loose and they'll go around eating all the

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bugs and all the slugs as well. So chickens are a good thing to

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have on the altment. And obviously
I look after the birds as well on

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my allotment. We've got lots of
bird feeders down there and I'm regularly keeping

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them full, and we obviously look
after the blue tants. We've got blue

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ted boxers, so we've got blue
tis boxers down there as well. I've

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also got a book station as well
which I need to put up. That

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reminds me, and that's for the
butterflies to hide in, for bees to

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go into, for little QP.
Crawle Is to go and hiding. But

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yeah, we've got a book station
as well, so I need to get

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that up as well, and hopefully, maybe possibly soon I'll get some robbing

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houses well, because we have plenty
of robbins down there, so I'd like

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to encourage the robbins to nest on
my allotment, which had been absolutely fantastic

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seeing baby robbins down there. I've
never seen a baby robin. All I've

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seen are robins just dancing around around, but I know they're quite singular.

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They go around on their own,
so I'm told. But yeah, we'll

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have to have a look to see
if you can get a robin house down

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there. But yeah, I do
love to look after the wildlife down on

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my allotment and it's good to see
and it's good to be around. So

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probably maybe later this year I'll invest
in some stuff for bees for the Solidarity

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Bees because you can get bees that
live on the road, and possibly the

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Robbins, so they'll probably be on
my list next to look after down at

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the allotment and let me know.
Please send me a message via Instagram if

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you're listening to this How you look
after the wildlife in your on what you

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do to encourage the wildlife into your
garden as obviously there's loads of different methods

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and different ways of looking after them. Like I watch videos online of people

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feeding foxes, feeding badgers and stuff
like that. I've never seen a badger

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or fox down at my allotment,
but obviously I'm never down there late at

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night, so i don't see any
of them. But I'm tempted to have

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like a wildlife camera set up,
but then i'd be watching it all the

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time and figuring why are you going
near my plot? I'd be seeing everything

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everywhere. And we've gotten a two
allotment cats as well down on our site,

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so they're good to go around.
They go around obviously catching the mice

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and the rats and stuff like that. So if you've got any cats down

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at your allotment, that is perfect, literally perfect. Sorry a little dad

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joke, but yeah, absolutely bursting
my wildlife my allotment and it's fantastic to

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see. I love seeing it all. Yeah, some stuff can damage crops

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and stuff like that, but again, like I always say, I'm not

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there to grow loads of roads of
vegetables and stuff. I'm there for my

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mental health mainly and to shed it
tips and advice for you all. So

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I hope you've enjoyed today's episode.
If you can do one little thing in

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your garden to encourage some wildlife and
to look after it, please do so.

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Have a look in shops like B
and M's a range that have plenty

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of stuff in there will curse which
is inside the range. Have a look

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and see if you can do your
little bit in looking after the wildlife and

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encouraging it into your garden, because
you never know, some wildlife does help

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you out as well. So until
next time's episode, remember keep smiling,

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keep shining, and keep gardening with
bet. Everyone. Thank you for joining

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me on this episode of Gardening with
Then. I hope you have found some

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useful tips and the instgiration for your
own gardening and a lotment journey. If

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you have enjoyed today's episode, please
make sure to follow and subscribe to the

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podcast so you'll never miss a new
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I'd love for you to leave a
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gardening putasts. Your support helps us
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content. You can also follow us
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Gardening with Ben for daily gardening tips
and days. Happy gardening, and until

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next time, remember keep smiling,
keep shining, and keep gardening with Ben