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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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today's episode. Hello, and welcome
back to Gardening with Ben for another new

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episode this week. We've had quite
a few new episodes popping out, so

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I hope you're managing to keep up
with them all. Yesterday we were talking

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all about mental health in the garden
and the allotment, and hopefully I'm going

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to be doing a video on that
as well soon on my YouTube channel.

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If you've not checked out all my
latest videos, there is lots more new

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videos popping up on my YouTube channel. And thank you to all those who

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have subscribed to it and been watching
my videos. It has really helped.

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We are pushing for it to get
to the stage of monetization this year,

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so all the views, all the
subscribers really does help push it out there,

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so thank you for that. But
yeah, hopefully we'll get lots more

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videos coming. If you've got any
ideas of videos that you want on there,

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just drop me a message on Instagram. I'm always up for new ideas

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and yeah, I love sharing tips
and advice from down there. We'll also

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be doing another tour video coming up
this week down at the allotment. I'm

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good to be doing them on a
weekly basis as obviously things are growing now

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on the but we'll trying to with
this weather. But hopefully we'll get lots

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more growing down there, and we've
got quite a lot more to be getting

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planted. And that leads on to
one of our subjects of today. We're

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going to be talking about growing cucumbers. Yes, cucumbers. Now, cucumbers

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are expensive obviously to buy in the
shops, and I've always done well with

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growing cucumbers down at my allotment,
and the variety that I usually grow is

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the market more variety of cucumber as
it seems one of the easier ones to

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grow regarding pollination, getting them started
and training them and growing lots and lots

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of food on them. So I've
been growing market more variety for about sixteen

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years now, and I've never had
any issues growing them. Sometimes you obviously

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get nibbled when they get started on, but after that usually they get growing

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pretty well. And I tend to
grow these in my polytorol, and yeah,

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it's can get kind of hot in
there and humid, but I do

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have a good success rate with them
all. And all I do with my

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cucumbers is I just grown in a
bucket with some holes in the bottom,

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and I just purchased some regular compost
from the supermarket or from the garden center

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DIY shop, and I fill it
about three thirds full of compost and I

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plant one in each bucket. Now, these buckets I usually get from someone

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like Morrison's, the flower buckets,
and they usually do the job pretty well.

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And we've had these flower buckets for
years now. All we do is

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wash them out each year and reuse
them and make the use of them down

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in the allotment. So we've got
about five cucumber plants growing down at the

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allotment at the moment, and these
are ones who are all potted up in

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the buckets, all ready for growing
this year. And we've also planted about

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two to three weeks to go fifty
more seeds from a packet and they've all

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germinated, so we need to start
getting those planted up into the buckets as

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well, So that might be a
job for this week, but we'll see.

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We'll see how well they're looking when
I'm next down at the allotment.

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But yeah, I want to get
as many cucumber plants growing as possible this

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year, as they always go down
well with myself, they always keep well,

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and I love sharing them out with
friends and family as well, and

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I usually have a good reception from
people when they've tasted them, tasted how

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delicious and how sweet they are.
So cucumbers are pretty easy to look after

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obviously, Like I say, I
grow man in a potannel so our water

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mine every couple of days as they
big drinkers. Obviously, cucumbers are made

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up of a lot of water,
mainly water, so they do require quite

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a bit of drinking water and keeping
them hydrated, and obviously I like water

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in the morning and some times spray
them just to keep them nice and moist

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with water, and I usually do
pretty well with them. So once we

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start get growing and get to a
certain height, what you need to do

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is you need to make sure that
you get them growing up something. You

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don't want cucumbers growing along the floor
as things can eat them. They can

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get rotten, they can get eaten
bye wraps, mice, slugs, anything

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will have a nibble on it.
So you need to make sure you're growing

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them up off of the ground.
Now, what I usually do is I

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usually grow them up from netting,
and cucumbers are very strong plants. What

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they do is they send out little
I've forgotten what the word is now,

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like little shoots where they will grab
onto something. Tendrills a bit like I

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think they're called. They lash onto
things and wrap the cells around them.

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So if you've got netting or they'll
throw out these tendrils and they'll wrap themselves

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down the netting and they'll hold themselves
tight. They won't need fastening up.

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You'll need to get them started by
tying them onto the netting. But once

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they're growing up the netting, they'll
grow pretty easy and they'll do pretty well,

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And it's funny with growing cucumbers.
What I always have the issue of

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doing is that I'm growing them all
and then like you suddenly any cucumbers and

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you look and there's one hiding to
say how big they grow. You can

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literally be looking somewhere and you just
suddenly find a cucumber hiding somewhere and you're

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like, wow, where did that
come from? And it can be massive.

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But I always do well with my
cucumbers. And what I also do

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is I put some chicken pellets in
the soil as well, so that it

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breaks down over two to three months
and gives it continuous food right through up

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until it fruiting. And also I
give them a feed weekly until the flowers

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and the fruit start appearing. And
then once the flowers and the fruit start

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appearing, then I'll feed them probably
twice a week because the more they're growing

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the plants, the more food they'll
need, the more energy they'll need in

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growing those cucumber plants. Now,
depending on how many cucumbers you want growing

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on it, sometimes if it's got
quite a few growing on it already,

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you can take the flowers off what
haven't developed so that it concentrates on the

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cucumbers that are growing, or if
you want a continuous crop, I sometimes

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just leave them on. Once one
cucumber is ready, then another one will

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start growing on the flowers. And
obviously if you're growing them in a greenhouse

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or polytunnel, you'll need to make
sure you leave your doors open so that

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the bees can get in there and
pollinate the flowers, so that they do

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pollinate and you do get some cucumbers
on them. If not, you can

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just go around with a paintbrush and
tickle each flower and that will help pollinate

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the flowers and hopefully produce some more
delicious cucumbers. So yeah, they are

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pretty easy to grow cucumbers. If
you've never tried growing them before, I

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do advise to go out and get
some. You will have a good success

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with them. Market more variety are
a brilliant variety to grow. Now you

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possibly have chance to plant some if
you've not planted some, because they'll grow

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up until October. But you're best
off probably having a look in at a

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garden center or something like that seeing
if you can find some cheap ones to

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stick in. But I do advise
giving cucumbers a try. Let me know.

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If you're going to try some cucumbers, send me a message on Instagram.

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I always like to hear people's feedback
from the episode, and yeah,

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I'm going to be sharing lots of
tips and advice on my cucumbers and photos

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of them as well. Wants to
start growing, so that's going to be

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our next job, potting up fifty
cucumber plants, which is going to be

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fun. And yeah, I'll do
a video as well or it all fastened

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up with them on the new and
everything like that in the polytunnel, So

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make sure you stay tuned for that. So until next time, remember keep

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smiling, keep shining, and keep
gardening with Ben. Everyone, thank you

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for joining me on this episode of
Gardening with Ben. I hope you have

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found some useful tips and integration for
your own gardening and a lotment journey.

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If you have enjoyed today's episode,
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great content. We can also follow
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tips and of days, happy gardening,

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and until next time remember keep smiling, shining, and keep gardening with them,