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 of 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. Hello and welcome back to a brand new episode of Gardening with Ben.
Oh you've been in a podcast every single day at the moment, aren't
you all looky? If you're not following this podcast, make sure you click
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usually launch them about seven o'clock in the morning so that you can listen to
them even on the way to work while you're walking your dog making your morning
brew wherever you want to listen to it. But we're starting to get these
episodes out pretty regular now. And yeah, we've got quite a lot to
talk about at the moment, because obviously it's the big time of the year.
At the moment, it's quite beat in the garden, so things are
happening. There's lots of jobs that you're doing. So there's lots to talk
about here on the podcast. And thank you for the new people that are
listening, and thank you for those who return and keep listening episode after episode.
I do get a lot of feedback from you all, which is fantastic.
It's always good to hear from people that do listen to the podcast.
So today, what are we going to be talking about. We're going to
be talking about harvesting. It's getting to that time of year when we're starting
to harvests are produced, things are coming along, things are getting ready,
and it's time to start picking all that produce. And one thing I noticed
is that everything seems to come at the same time. Once, like a
few strawberries start ripening, then they'll all start coming the same goods for raspberries,
the lettuce, they're already at the same time, and then they all
go to see at the same time if you don't pick them fast enough,
so you don't learn by the things that you do. Sometimes they say you
should plant things all at once. You should plant them like a few weeks
at a time, separate so that they're already at separate times. But you
don't listen, dear. Everybody just plants them all at the same time,
and then everything seems to be ready at the same time. Well, obviously
things are starting to get to the time of harvesting. You should be harvesting
your lettuces. Lettuce is starting to get ready. Potatoes, the first lot
of potatoes will be starting to get peas, peas will be starting to I
noticed some of my dads they were nearly ready for picking, so the best
watch out it might be pinching them soon. But yeah, peas are ready.
Obviously, your strawberries, yeahs, radishes should be ready, and yeah,
everything will start to come ready. And obviously as yes, harvesting these
things as well as like spring onion as well is replacing them, replacing them
with new stuff. Because just think like you may have had these in the
ground for two to three months to get growing. Well, obviously things will
grow a lot faster fingers crossed. When the weather does warm up, things
should grow a lot faster, and some of the vegetables are pretty fast growing,
like your lettuce, your readishes, spring onions. Things do grow pretty
fast some things. So as you're harvesting these produice, you need to be
replacing them and getting more stuff back in the ground because if you think about
it, if you plant this stuff now, they should be ready come September,
so you'll be able to get another harvest of crops before the year's out,
because once it gets to like September, you won't have transplant anything again
for this year unless it's winter vegetables. So it's important to keep replacing what
you're harvesting to get the most out of your garden and out of your allotment.
And the best thing is around now is that you don't need to waste
a lot of money on like compost. In growing them all in seed trays,
you can start a loss of them off in the ground outside in the
right place that they want to be in. And obviously if you're planting them
outside, they'll need a lot more protection because of this slugs about slugs will
come and eat them, so you need to protect them and pigeons and birds
and stuff like that. So you do need to protect them when you are
planting them outside, but make the move most of growing stuff outside. It's
warmer. It's not cold at night. Well anyone would think it is winter
here in England at Roment. It certainly has felt like it where I am.
Will someone please let me know when the hot weather is coming. We
need some hot weather. But yeah, keep replacing what you're growing. So
I'm going to be harvesting my garlic this week. I'm going to harvest some
lettuce this week. I'm going to be harvesting my strawberries this week. And
what else. My loganberries are looking ready soon. They just need to start
ripening. And I've got loads and loads of logan berries on my loganberry bush.
Now. My dad gave me some cuttings from that a few years ago
and it's looking absolutely fantastic. To get cuttings from loganberry plants, all you
do is put the end of the whip in some soil and it'll get some
roots on it. And then once it's got some roots on it, just
snit that end of the whip off and there while you'll have some runners and
that's all he did for me. And I've got some fantastic ones growing.
And loganberries. The whips grow for miles like. You can grow them all
the way down the side of the garden, or you can grow them over
an archway. It will be fantastic. So if you're wanting to grow some
fruit, try to grows some logan berries. They're absolutely delicious. We've grown
them for years, logan berries, and you can make some nice jam as
well with it. So hopefully we'll be getting some loganberries off some Oh and
I need to look at my peas. My peas are covered up to high
heaven in netting. I have protected my peas with fortunes off netting. The
birds will not eat them, the mice will not eat them, the rats
will not eat them. I have protected them with my life because I have
had issues in the past where I've planted peas out and they've all been eaten.
So I'm protecting them with my life as per as I'm not even sleeping
down there while they're growing. So hopefully we'll't be having some peas soon.
And again, all the peas seem to be ready at the same time and
once the peas have been harvested, do not dig the plants up out of
the garden. Snip them off so that the roots are still in the ground
and the nitrogen goes back into the soil from the pea plant that you've grown.
So if you've never tried growing peas before, remember to snip the plants
off at the bottom. Once you've harvested all your peas, and all the
nitrogen and the goodness will go back into the soil. The same way for
runner beans for climbing beans, snip them off at the bottom and the nitrogen
goes back into the soil and it helps feed it. So then you can
plant some more stuff. And we've got a lot of stuff that we're going
to be planting over the next few days. We've got a load more peas
are planted, like a lake cropping of peas, so that we'll get a
second batch growing. I've got some more climbing beans to plant. We've got
loads of sweet corn plants to plant. We've got some beet with plant.
We've got some lettuce to plant. We've got some spring onions plant, We've
got carrots to plant. We've got so much to plant. Down at the
Allotment. But this is my favorite time of the year. I absolutely love
it, and if I could spend all my time down at the Allotment,
I would do. And it's just a place where I love to be.
I've often said I work shifts, so I'll end up in the flat for
four days on a time when I won't even go out of the house,
and it's a time when I can just be outside, enjoy the sunshine and
relax real life. So if you get if you are harvesting stuff, please
do let me know. I'm going to be sharing lots and lots of photos
again too, of me harvesting on my produce. I'm sorry, but I'll
warn you in advance. As soon as my harvesting stuff photos will be coming
up with galore. And it's making up for all the lack of social media
that I did last year because I was so quiet last year. But this
year I'm doing so much, so much for you guys. My YouTube smashing
it, my podcast smashing it, and now I'm just trying to get my
other socials back up and running, like my Facebook and Instagram. So I'm
hoping that you're enjoying all the content everybody. I'm not going to bring the
live streams back to the Facebook at the moment. I'm just sticking to my
YouTube recorded videos for you all, and I hope you're all enjoying them.
So until next time, remember, keep smiling, keep shining, and keep
gardening with Ben. Everyone. I love you all. Thank you for joining
me on this episode of The Gardening with Ben. I hope you have found
some useful tips and instigration for your own gardening and a lot more journey.
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