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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 Alltment. So
sit back, grab a brew and enjoy

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today's episode. Hello everyone, and
welcome back to Gardening with Ben. We're

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your host Gardening with Ben. And
yeah, it's Saturday, the weekend is

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here. And to be honest,
it wasn't as hot today this morning as

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it was yesterday. It was absolutely
roasting yesterday, but today I were pretty

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cool. I didn't have my t
shirt off, which is something of a

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good site. But yeah, it's
been quite a cool day today. But

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I did have to do a lot
of water in today as obviously it was

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a hot day yesterday, so we
needed to get all the plants watered and

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get them soaked. And the main
thing that I did water was my cucumbers

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that I planted yesterday, and I
was going around checking them all making sure

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that slugs were going firm or eating
them or starting to destroy them and touch

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wood. They are pretty safe at
the moment, and I'm going to be

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keeping my eyes peeled on them because
I don't want the slugs to get them.

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We're going to try growing them outside
for the first time ever, and

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hopefully we'll get some good crops.
So it's a bit of a trial never

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this year on my cucumbers outside.
I've got some growing inside, so we'll

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definitely get some cucumbers. But we're
going to try some outside this year so

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that we can see how well they
do whether it's worth off growing them outside

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or growing them indoors. Let me
know if you have ever grown cucumbers outdoors

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before market more variety. It's a
variety that I'm growing, So give me

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a message and let me know if
you grow any outdoors. So what else

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have we been up to today?
Well, I did actually have pretty much

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a chill day down at the allotment
today. I didn't do an awful lot

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as to be honest, I started
the gym the other day and it's destroyed

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me. I did some like trystep
exercise US and I couldn't move my arms

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this morning. They're absolutely killed,
bearing in mind had not been for two

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days. They absolutely killed. I
ended up having some paracetamol just to get

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rid of some of the pain.
But as I'm recording this, it seems

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okay at the moment, So hopefully
I'll be back to normal and I'll be

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back at the gym again. Hopefully
it won't put me off. But we've

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now got an Apple Watch as well, so that we can keep track of

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all my exercise and try and encourage
me to get fit again. And obviously,

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like I say, gardening does keep
you fait, keeps you going,

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keeps you motivated, keeps you moving
around. And hopefully I will see the

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difference and progress, and hopefully now
summer's coming, we'll be having all the

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healthy food as well, picked from
as a lotment. Now. I was

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looking today and my loganberries are getting
ready. They're starting to turn ripe.

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Now, if you've never tried loganberries
before, loganberries are a longer version of

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a raspberry, and they're a bit
more harier than a raspberry, but they

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are absolutely delicious. I always remember
as a kid my mum used to make

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loganberry jam because we had a big
loganberry bush in the garden. And the

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best thing about logan berries is there's
no fawns on the canes. They pamless,

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and you can they just go mad, go wild, and you'll get

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absolutely loads and loads of fruit on
it. So fingers crossed over the next

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few years will have a lot a
lot of the logan berries growing and some

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delicious fruit, because you can never
have enough fruit. The fruit that I

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grow from my allotment pays for the
allotment in itself. Like my allotment a

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year is about one hundred and twenty
pounds a year, which to some of

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you it will sound a lot,
but that does include the water, and

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it is quite a big plot.
And I'll easily pay one hundred and twenty

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pounds for having a piece of land
that I can go and relax on and

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enjoy the up and space on and
grow my own vegetables on. It's not

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about me saving money and growing my
own veget It's about my mental health and

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getting outside and being out in the
fresh air and enjoying it and being back

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at nature. But yeah, the
logan marriers are getting ready. We've also

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been busy planting as well today.
If you remember yesterday we talked about how

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we planted all our peas out.
Yesterday, we planted all our cucumbers out

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yesterday. We planted our sweet corn
the other day. So we've planted some

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more beetroot today. Some of my
beetroot that I had growing has been getting

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eaten and destroyed, so we've got
a lot more beatroot planted today. And

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I've planted these all in the gaps
between all the plants, just to fill

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the spaces up because my allotments quite
limited for light. There's some trees at

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the top of my plot, so
it doesn't get much like at the top,

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so I'm limited for space, so
I need to use every bit of

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space that I can. And obviously, putting those beetroot in the middle of

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the plants and stuff like that,
it'll stop the weeds from growing because hopefully

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the leaves will fill out and they'll
stop anything else from growing. So hopefully

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we'll get a lot of beetroot growing. And yeah, we've got a lettuce

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ready. We've had some lettuce off
absolutely delicious, crispy head on it.

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It's an iceberg varriety that I grow. I've always had good luck with growing

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iceberg lettuces. I've never had any
issue whatsoever. I just make sure they

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netted over to start off with to
stop the pigeons eating them and attacking them.

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But I've never had any issues growing
iceberg lettuces. I always have a

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good success with them. So we've
got some more of them started off growing,

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so hopefully we'll be planting some of
those out later so that we'll get

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a second crop throughout the year and
get more growing as we come on.

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So we're back at work tomorrow for
the next four days, so we're not

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going to be down at the allotment, but hopefully we're going to record plenty

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of episodes for you to keep you
going and keep it all ticking over for

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you, because I'm enjoying doing all
these podcast episodes. At the moment,

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we're getting quite a lot out and
the views of the podcast is brilliant.

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There's loads of people listening every single
day to them, so I appreciate every

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one of you that does listen.
So what's next week's plan when we're about

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down at the allotment. Hopefully we're
going to be picking those loganberries, we'll

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be picking some strawberries. I did
notice as well, my blueberries are starting

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to ripen, so we're going to
be having some blueberries off soon, so

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they'll be delicious to have and enjoy
down at the allotment. And obviously,

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I say I've got a meal plan
at the moment what I'm having, and

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part of it is to have some
Greek yogurt at night with some fruit of

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my choicing. So obviously I'll be
using the loganberries, I'll be using the

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blueberries, strawberries, everything that is
ready around this time a year, I'll

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be popping into that Greek yogurt at
night. So got lots going off,

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and hopefully the peas will start to
swallop. So we need some more rain

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to come. That's what we need. Yes, it is sunshine, but

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we do need some mein and we
need it to water them and make them

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swell. I'm always one of these
that I don't mind if it's boiling hot

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sunny during the daytime, but just
chuck it down at night. Please just

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water my allotment. It needs it
because there's only so much watering that you

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can do down at the allotment.
I don't know if you like me,

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but I absolutely hate watering. It's
not something that I enjoy doing whatsoever.

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So hopefully we do get some main
too, but I don't think it's likely.

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It's forecast to stay warm pretty much
all week. I think this is

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going to be like a little heat
wave in a sense, even though it's

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like twenty one twenty two degrees.
I call it a heat wave because it's

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gonna be nice. On one,
we're not used to this, whether are

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we in England, So any sunshine
is nice and hopefully it'll get things growing

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on pretty well. And I should
be getting around to picking my hat potatoes

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soon. They should be starting to
get ready. I planted them like on

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Good Friday, so they should be
ready. But I usually pick them when

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they start to die back. When
the plants start to die off and go

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yellow, that's when I usually know
that they're ready to harvest. And they're

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still green and healthy. They've not
had no flowers on them yet, so

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I'm leaving them as they are and
just keep watering them and keep them growing

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because hopefully then i'll have lots and
lots of potatoes in there, but it's

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one of those old little magic tricks
into it, like you don't know what's

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in there until you find out.
It's like a surprise. Whereas all other

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vegetables what you grow and you can
actually see what it looks like. With

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potatoes, you've got no chance of
knowing what they look like until you empty

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them, so you don't want to
empty them too early and not be ready.

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So it's a case of waiting it
out and seeing what we get from

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our potato crop this year, and
I'm hoping we've got a decent crop.

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I do like homegrown potatoes are absolutely
delicious to gorgeous, melting your mouth and

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absolutely phenomenal. So I think that's
everything that we've been up to down at

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the allotment today. I've chopped back
my aliums as well. They've died off

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now, so we've chopped all them
back, clear them out of the way,

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and we've got some nice flowers growing
down there at the moment. I've

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got some fabulous futures that are coming
out at the moment. They're absolutely gorgeous,

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and obviously these are your first year
plants, so they're not that big

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plants at the moment, so hopefully
next year they'll look even better and even

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bigger, and they're displays will start
to look absolutely beautiful. So that has

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been our podcast episodes for today,
a nice, short little episode for you

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to enjoy. So if you've not
followed this podcast, do give it a

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follow, give it a subscribe.
If you've not checked out my YouTube channel,

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go and check it out. There's
plenty of videos on there to watch.

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Until next time, remember keep smiling, keep shining, and keep guardening

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with Ben. Everyone. Thank you
for joining me on this episode of Gardening

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with Ben. I hope you have
found some useful tips and inspiration for your

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own gardening and a lotment journey.
If you've enjoyed today's episode, please make

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sure to follow and subscribe to the
podcast so you never miss a new episode.

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And if you have a moment,
I'd love for you to leave a

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review and share the podcast with fellow
gardening enthusiasts. Your support helps us grow

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this community and continue bringing you great
content. We can also follow us on

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social media on every platform for all
Gardening with Ben for daily gardening tips and

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mondays. Happy gardening, and until
next time, remember keep smiling. Keep

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shining and keep gardening with Ben