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 Alltment. So sit back, grab a brew and enjoy
today's episode. Hey everyone, and welcome back to Gardening with Ben for another
brand new episode today. I hope you're all well. I hope you all
enjoyed yesterday's episode. Like I said, I'm going to get a few episodes
recorded so that you've got quite a few to listen to as they drop on
a daily basis. As I know people like to listen to them. And
someone once said to me and said, why don't you create longer episodes?
And sometimes I find it too hard to find stuff to talk about too much
really, because I just love these short, little episodes, and I'm sure
people further short little episodes. Let me know if you would like longer episodes
or not. As I would like feedback on my podcasts. I've had a
lot of good feedback back about the quality of the sound. It sounds so
much better for you all, and you're enjoying the better quality. And obviously
the investment that I put into this microphone one hundred and forty five pounds,
so it's not a cheap microphone, it's a very good one. But like
I say, everything that I get from these podcasts, I put back into
sharing stuff with you and the tips and advice, and I do appreciate you
all, thank you for my gardening journey. And as I said, over
the next few podcasts and episode, I'm going to be sharing tips and advice
on getting started on an allotment, tips just general tips and advice, and
also tips and advice on what I do to try and get better vegetables and
get a better quality of vegetable. So today we're going to be talking about
growing pumpkins. Yes, pumpkins. Everybody loves to see how big they can
grow a pumpkin, and not last year, but the year before. I
managed to grow quite a big pumpkin myself and get a quite heavy one.
It was that big that I took it to my local pub where I do
my quiz nite and they made pumpkin soup for everybody, and it was absolutely
delicious. Like I said, a lot of the stuff that I grow,
sometimes I give it away and share it out with other people, as I
don't get to eat it all myself. Rather than it good to waste,
I'd like other people to enjoy it. So we got this massive pumpkin the
other year, and I'm hoping to try and get another big one this year,
and we are going to give it a good go. And the way
that you get a good sized pumpkin is that obviously they need the pollination for
the pollination of the flower to get the pumpkin growing in the first place.
But it's obviously down to keep feeding them on a regular basis. I'll feed
mine once twice a week get by giving it some plant food or tom right,
as obviously the pumpkin needs the food to help make it grow, and
obviously it needs its water as well. But you've got to be careful with
water in pumpkins, as you can base rot on the stalk. So sometimes
the best thing to do is stick a plant pot at the side of it
in the ground and water into the plant pot. That way it waters down
into the roots, rather than watering the stem where it can cause the rotting
of the stem. And then if the stem rots off, then you've lost
the full plant, which you don't want whatsoever. You need to protect it
at all costs and get it good and growing. Now, another thing is
that sometimes if you wanted a big, big pumpkin, it's best not to
grow many pumpkins on the plant because if there's a four or five pumpkins on
the plant, the plant doesn't know which one to put all the effort into,
so you'll just get like general smallish sized pumpkins off them. Whereas if
you're wanted a big one, maximum pumpkins on the plant is about two at
least two or three, and then you will get a good sized pumpkin it.
Obviously I've been saying about feeding the pumpkins. I've fed it and feeding
it some produce called boost by Westland. I've just created a video on that.
It should be on my YouTube either today or in a couple of days,
so stay tuned for that and I'll show you what I've made and how
I look after my pumpkins. I've also put some chicken feed chicken palets around
him as well. As chicken palets break down over a few months, the
last about three months, so I'll put them down a couple of times up
until the ripe. And you've got to be careful with like chicken pallets,
because if you get them on the leaves, they'll burn the leaves and you'll
end up burning the plant. So you need to make sure they're around the
base of the plant, not too close to the stem. As I say,
you don't want to burn the stem, so just place them around the
bottom and when it rains, it will water them and feed them at the
same time. So that's another good way to keep them fed and growing.
Another good tip what I did as well last year. And so as pumpkins
grow, they'll end up sitting on the soil and you don't want that.
You want the pumpkins to be sat on something because if they sat on the
soil, they could get wet, they could get damp, they could rot,
and that is the last thing that you want to happen. So what
I do is I've got some old roof tiles. The pieces are slight,
and I just rest the pumpkin on the site so that is not touching the
soil. That way, it'll stop it, not let it rot, and
you will get a good pumpkin. And it just lifts it off the ground
a bit better, so then hopefully it protects it and you'll get a beautiful
pumpkin. Obviously, pumpkins are usually ready around the end of October the beginning
of November, and you don't want to leave them on the plant when the
frost is due. If the frost is due, it would cause the pumpkin
to either rot or explode, and that is the last thing you want,
so make sure you're keeping on on them temperatures as well. Obviously we're safe
around now because we're not going to get frost now hopefully or snow. But
yeah, stay checking off those temperatures towards the end of October November, as
you don't want them to get frost and go mushy. So when it's about
time, cut them off, pick them off, store them in a cool
place, not a hot place, a cool place, as again it can
cause them to rot if it's hot, so store them somewhere safe. So
that is our tips for growing pumpkins. Make sure you feed them on a
regular basis. I'll give them food twice a week. Also put some chicken
pets around the base to give them feed over a time and to improve the
soil and look after them. Give them your full attention, keep an eye
on them, Talk to them, Talk to your plants, say come on,
pumpkin, grow big. You must think I'm mad, but it does
work, trust me. So like I said, I've got a YouTube video
coming out on my pumpkins and showing you how I've done my pumpkins, So
stay tuned for that. If you're not following me on YouTube, do give
me a follow. There's lots of new videos coming out at the moment,
and I hope that you enjoyed it. I'll start sharing lots of photos of
my pumpkins on my Instagram as well so that you can stay tuned and see
how big we can actually grow a pumpkin. This year, hopefully we'll get
a whopper fingers crossed, and hopefully I'll be sharing it with my local pub
again so they can make me some delicious soup. So stay tuned for that.
So until next time's episode, remember keep smiling, keep shining, and
keep gardening with Ben. Everyone, thank you for joining me on this episode
of Gardening with Ben. I hope you have found some useful tips and inspiration
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