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 a lotment. So sit back, grab a brew and
enjoy today's episode. Hey everyone, and welcome to today's episode on Sunday.
So, yeah, we're back at work now, but I've pre recorded an
episode for you to listen to today. As they are going down the storm,
I'm trying to push them out and get more people listening. The figures
are going up, but we won't be millionaires yet, but yeah one day,
you never know. You never know. We just need one to go
viral. But today, what we're going to talk about is looking after the
wildlife in your garden. Now, wildlife are important to your garden. You
may not think so, or you may not do your bit to looking after
them, but there's always ways of methods in helping them and giving them a
little helping hand in the garden. And the last few weeks have purchased quite
a few bits and extras to my allotment. I've not shown any photos of
all these yet, as it's quite a surprise for you. You are the
first people to find out. And obviously I talked about the bird baths which
I purchased the other week, which the birds seem to be loving this.
I've seen them splashing around, enjoying the water, enjoying the splashing in it,
drinking the water. But yeah, I've added two bird baths to the
allotment and it was well worth the investment. So next up, we have
also purchased something that I've always wanted and that's a hedgehog house. Yes,
I've got a hedgehog house. I've not took a photo of it yet so
you can't see what it looks like. But we purchased that because obviously we
get a lot of slugs on the allotment and encouraging the hedgehogs to your allotment
and to your garden is one of the best pets you could have down there
living on your allotment as obviously the hedgehogs will come out at night and they'll
go around eating up all the slugs what are in your garden. So if
you can encourage hedgehogs into your garden, that is one of the best things
that you can do. And I purchased mine from B and M's. I
purchased my hedgehog house from So yeah, it's not fantastic quality, I would
say, so, I don't know how long it will actually last, but
we'll see. We'll see how well it does, and hopefully we get a
hedgehog living on my allotment and maybe some babies. We have had a hedgehog
once on my allotment. I've seen it in my polytonnel hibernating once before.
Obviously it stays warm in there, so they've stayed in and hibernated in my
polyton on before. So what else have we got, Well, obviously we've
got our pond to encourage the froggies. You can't beat having froggies again as
well as the hedgehog. Having a pond will encourage the frogs to come and
they will eat as well all the slugs up, so hedgehogs and frogs in
your garden are a must if possible. Obviously, not everywhere you can have
ponds, but if you can have just like a small little plate or little
box with some watering so that the folks can get in there. Encourage as
much wildlife as possible into your garden, and we always try and get some
fogs born to put in our pond each year to get them fogs come into
the allotment and hopefully enjoying being down there. We've also purchased some lady lady
bird towers. Now I've never had one of these before, and basically it's
a wooden log with lots of little holes in it, and that encourages the
ladybirds to go in there and hibernate and nest and find somewhere to live.
Now, obviously ladybirds are good for the allotment as well because they eat all
the green flies and stuff like that, So having ladybirds down there will definitely
be successful. And I don't know if you like me, but I've noticed
so many ladybirds this year in my garden. I don't know what's going off,
whether there's a sudden urge of ladybirds. I have no idea, but
we've got all the varieties of ladybirds down at my allotment. We've got the
red ones with the black dots. We've got the black ones with the red
dots, which I believe are very good ones. Please tell me if I'm
wrong. But I don't know. If those are in a nasty version of
ladybirds, I don't know, but we've got lots of ladybirds. And my
gooseberries are covered in it, My plum trees are covered in it. My
sunflowers i've seen with ladybirds on it. But yeah, they're everywhere at the
moment this year. So we've got plenty of ladybirds down there. And what
else have we got? We also purchased a butterfly feeder. Now I've not
seen one of these before. This is something new to me. And basically,
you feel you make your own nectar by using sugar, hot water and
a pinch of salt I think it is, and you fill it up and
the butterflies come and feed on it, and it feeds the butterflies basically,
so you're doing your bit to looking after the butterflies. Obviously, butterflies aren't
necessarily good things anyway, because they'll lay their eggs and the caterpillars will eat
all your cauliflowers and stuff like that. But I do love to see the
butterflies. They're absolutely gorgeous. I don't know if you like me. I'm
another one like I'll see squirrels in my allotments and I don't mind. Yes
they do disturbed stuff. Yes they pull up the bulbs and eat all the
bulbs and stuff like that. But we've got hopefully lots of wildlife going off
down with my allotment. Every morning, I can hear peacocks around, and
you can because near where my allotments are, someone looks has a couple of
peacocks and you can hear them in the background and stuff like that. Now,
obviously I could have chickens on my plot if I wanted to, but
I haven't got the time to do it. And if you've got chickens on
your plot, you can let them loose and they'll go around eating all the
bugs and all the slugs as well. So chickens are a good thing to
have on the altment. And obviously I look after the birds as well on
my allotment. We've got lots of bird feeders down there and I'm regularly keeping
them full, and we obviously look after the blue tants. We've got blue
ted boxers, so we've got blue tis boxers down there as well. I've
also got a book station as well which I need to put up. That
reminds me, and that's for the butterflies to hide in, for bees to
go into, for little QP. Crawle Is to go and hiding. But
yeah, we've got a book station as well, so I need to get
that up as well, and hopefully, maybe possibly soon I'll get some robbing
houses well, because we have plenty of robbins down there, so I'd like
to encourage the robbins to nest on my allotment, which had been absolutely fantastic
seeing baby robbins down there. I've never seen a baby robin. All I've
seen are robins just dancing around around, but I know they're quite singular.
They go around on their own, so I'm told. But yeah, we'll
have to have a look to see if you can get a robin house down
there. But yeah, I do love to look after the wildlife down on
my allotment and it's good to see and it's good to be around. So
probably maybe later this year I'll invest in some stuff for bees for the Solidarity
Bees because you can get bees that live on the road, and possibly the
Robbins, so they'll probably be on my list next to look after down at
the allotment and let me know. Please send me a message via Instagram if
you're listening to this How you look after the wildlife in your on what you
do to encourage the wildlife into your garden as obviously there's loads of different methods
and different ways of looking after them. Like I watch videos online of people
feeding foxes, feeding badgers and stuff like that. I've never seen a badger
or fox down at my allotment, but obviously I'm never down there late at
night, so i don't see any of them. But I'm tempted to have
like a wildlife camera set up, but then i'd be watching it all the
time and figuring why are you going near my plot? I'd be seeing everything
everywhere. And we've gotten a two allotment cats as well down on our site,
so they're good to go around. They go around obviously catching the mice
and the rats and stuff like that. So if you've got any cats down
at your allotment, that is perfect, literally perfect. Sorry a little dad
joke, but yeah, absolutely bursting my wildlife my allotment and it's fantastic to
see. I love seeing it all. Yeah, some stuff can damage crops
and stuff like that, but again, like I always say, I'm not
there to grow loads of roads of vegetables and stuff. I'm there for my
mental health mainly and to shed it tips and advice for you all. So
I hope you've enjoyed today's episode. If you can do one little thing in
your garden to encourage some wildlife and to look after it, please do so.
Have a look in shops like B and M's a range that have plenty
of stuff in there will curse which is inside the range. Have a look
and see if you can do your little bit in looking after the wildlife and
encouraging it into your garden, because you never know, some wildlife does help
you out as well. So until next time's episode, remember keep smiling,
keep shining, and keep gardening with bet. Everyone. Thank you for joining
me on this episode of Gardening with Then. I hope you have found some
useful tips and the instgiration for your own gardening and a lotment journey. If
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