1 00:00:02,279 --> 00:00:07,000 Hello and welcome to Gardening with Ben. You'll go to a podcast for all 2 00:00:07,080 --> 00:00:12,359 things green and growing. I'm Ben, your allotment guide and here to help 3 00:00:12,400 --> 00:00:17,600 you cultivate your garden and your passion for plants. Whether you're a seasoned gardener 4 00:00:17,760 --> 00:00:22,679 or just starting out, this podcast is for you. Each episode will dig 5 00:00:22,719 --> 00:00:27,879 into tips, tricks, and techniques to make your garden and allotment thrive from 6 00:00:27,920 --> 00:00:32,520 planting, sewing and growing. We will share all the tips and add advice. 7 00:00:33,560 --> 00:00:37,799 We will also have regular episodes talking about what we have been up to 8 00:00:37,960 --> 00:00:43,520 on the Alltment. So sit back, grab a brew and enjoy today's episode. 9 00:00:45,920 --> 00:00:50,439 Hello and welcome back to Gardening with Ben for a brand new episode. 10 00:00:50,880 --> 00:00:56,840 Today is Sunday, and yeah, we're here to give you a review of 11 00:00:57,159 --> 00:01:03,799 BBC Gardener's World Live and wow, what a day. I'm still aching as 12 00:01:03,920 --> 00:01:08,359 I'm doing this video now. I must have walked and walked and walked, 13 00:01:08,439 --> 00:01:12,159 and this year I didn't walk as much as I did last year. I 14 00:01:12,200 --> 00:01:19,000 took it a bit easier and I'm still absolutely aching. If you have never 15 00:01:19,079 --> 00:01:25,480 been to the NEC at Birmingham, it is absolutely huge. And when I 16 00:01:25,519 --> 00:01:30,879 say huge, it's like bigger than an airport near enough, you're just walking 17 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:38,159 for miles, but it is such a worthwhile day out. It's doesn't cost 18 00:01:38,239 --> 00:01:44,719 much for how much you actually get back from visiting it. And yeah, 19 00:01:44,799 --> 00:01:47,920 obviously I've spent quite a lot of money there, but that was out of 20 00:01:47,959 --> 00:01:52,560 my own choice, to be honest, and the things that I've come back 21 00:01:52,719 --> 00:01:57,000 with are fantastic plants for my allotment. So let's tell you about our date 22 00:01:57,079 --> 00:02:04,920 at BBC Gardener's World Live to twenty twenty four. So obviously we had to 23 00:02:04,959 --> 00:02:07,799 get there, which we're like setting off at like six o'clock in the morning 24 00:02:07,319 --> 00:02:15,120 on a coach here from Sheffield to Birmingham. But we got there for about 25 00:02:15,159 --> 00:02:19,439 half eight nine o'clock. And once we got there, what we did is 26 00:02:19,520 --> 00:02:23,599 we had a Weatherspoons breakfast. You can't start the day off without a Weatherspoons 27 00:02:23,639 --> 00:02:27,199 breakfast, especially if you're going to be doing a lot walking. You need 28 00:02:27,240 --> 00:02:30,400 all the energy you can get for the food. But yeah, we had 29 00:02:30,439 --> 00:02:36,560 an ice Weatherspoons breakfast. And it's certainly not Weatherspoons prices at that place. 30 00:02:37,240 --> 00:02:42,919 They definitely a lot more than the usual Wetherspoons, but oh well, we 31 00:02:43,039 --> 00:02:49,360 still had an ice breakfast, and then we went to go into the NEC 32 00:02:49,759 --> 00:02:55,680 and I looked at the forecast and it was forecast heavy rain and thunderstorms on 33 00:02:55,919 --> 00:03:00,719 Friday. So what we decided to do is as soon as we got there, 34 00:03:00,719 --> 00:03:05,879 we made sure we went outside first to start having a look around all 35 00:03:05,919 --> 00:03:10,960 the different stalls. Now there's loads of like craft stores and obviously people selling 36 00:03:12,039 --> 00:03:20,400 different shop item type stuff outside, and obviously there's plants outside as well from 37 00:03:20,439 --> 00:03:27,319 different nurseries. And we'd only been out there i'd say fifteen twenty minutes and 38 00:03:27,439 --> 00:03:31,120 it absolutely bounced it down, and that is not a good start to a 39 00:03:31,199 --> 00:03:38,759 day, especially when it's seeing stuff outside, especially people show gardens and stuff 40 00:03:38,800 --> 00:03:46,280 like that. It obviously can affect all the plants and all their gardens and 41 00:03:46,360 --> 00:03:52,400 all the time and effort they have put into building them. So we ended 42 00:03:52,479 --> 00:03:59,400 up going into the flooral market first off and getting undercover. But obviously everybody 43 00:03:59,439 --> 00:04:01,879 is in good inside, don't they. When it's raining, nobody stays outside, 44 00:04:02,240 --> 00:04:06,759 so all the holes were full of people and the floor and market were 45 00:04:06,879 --> 00:04:17,639 absolutely fantastic. It was so beautiful. Now I've just put a YouTube video 46 00:04:17,759 --> 00:04:21,800 up so you're be able to see the YouTube video inside the floor and market 47 00:04:23,360 --> 00:04:27,680 and what they do. Rather than just selling the different plants, they have 48 00:04:28,040 --> 00:04:34,120 a display of them, of what they would look like real flowers and how 49 00:04:34,160 --> 00:04:40,920 they would look once they're fully grown. And it was absolutely phenomenal, Like 50 00:04:41,040 --> 00:04:44,480 you've got all your futures, You've got all your lilies, you've got all 51 00:04:44,480 --> 00:04:53,839 your Salvier's, you've got all your lavender plants. You've got absolutely loads of 52 00:04:53,879 --> 00:04:56,879 different displays. Now, if you've checked out my YouTube video, you'll see 53 00:04:56,879 --> 00:05:00,199 all these different displays of what they've got. So looking at all the future 54 00:05:00,240 --> 00:05:04,199 plants and I'm thinking, oh, that one's nice, that one's gorgeous. 55 00:05:04,240 --> 00:05:06,959 I want that one. I want that one. And they obviously do like 56 00:05:08,040 --> 00:05:13,560 the three buy three for certain price, so I was wanting like three three 57 00:05:13,680 --> 00:05:18,680 vritis And I came back with some futures. What are good for hedging? 58 00:05:19,199 --> 00:05:24,920 So I've got some of those for one of my borders. And everyone's that. 59 00:05:24,959 --> 00:05:28,839 I kept thinking with eyes. There were none of them were hardaches, 60 00:05:28,959 --> 00:05:31,439 so thinking no, no, I can't buy it. I'm not risking it. 61 00:05:31,480 --> 00:05:34,839 I'm not risking growing it. I'm not risking losing it in the winter 62 00:05:34,920 --> 00:05:41,120 time if we get a cold winter so I purchased all hardy for writers. 63 00:05:41,399 --> 00:05:45,600 Now I purchased quite a few. I purchased nine future plants altogether. Some 64 00:05:45,639 --> 00:05:48,519 are duplicates because I wanted a couple of them, and some were singular, 65 00:05:48,920 --> 00:05:53,920 so fingers crossed they'll all survive and they'll all grow. There are pretty tough 66 00:05:53,959 --> 00:05:59,920 plants for futures, so hopefully it will get some lovely looking futures possibly the 67 00:06:00,240 --> 00:06:04,319 year, and hopefully even bigger plants next year once they've settled in and grown 68 00:06:04,360 --> 00:06:08,800 a lot. So I've got them in the ground today. I went down 69 00:06:08,839 --> 00:06:12,000 to my lot them today and I planted them all straight away and got them 70 00:06:12,040 --> 00:06:15,160 all in the ground and hopefully they'll take route. And we keep getting quite 71 00:06:15,160 --> 00:06:18,360 a few storms here in the Sheffield at the moment and rain, so hopefully 72 00:06:19,040 --> 00:06:24,000 it will rain them into the ground and they'll settle in and they'll all get 73 00:06:24,040 --> 00:06:30,959 growing well. I also purchased some Salviers, as Salvias always look absolutely gorgeous 74 00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:34,600 to come back year after year from when I've seen them growing in places. 75 00:06:34,959 --> 00:06:40,240 So I bought three Salviers as well, three different varieties of Salviers. Now 76 00:06:40,279 --> 00:06:44,480 that will be going on my YouTube channel tomorrow on showing you which ones I've 77 00:06:44,560 --> 00:06:47,839 purchased, the varieties that I've got, so watch out for that as well. 78 00:06:47,879 --> 00:06:51,560 Coming on YouTube. If you don't follow me on YouTube, search Gardening 79 00:06:51,560 --> 00:06:56,519 with Ben and I'm starting to share lots of little videos on there now for 80 00:06:56,560 --> 00:07:00,959 you to watch and enjoy, and obviously give tours of my allotment as well 81 00:07:01,000 --> 00:07:04,319 on there so you can keep up to date with how well things are going 82 00:07:04,319 --> 00:07:10,759 down at the plot. So we purchased three Salvia's as well. And in 83 00:07:10,800 --> 00:07:14,839 this Flora Market you could have absolutely spent loads and loads and loads. Now 84 00:07:14,879 --> 00:07:20,199 people go with actual proper trolleys to pick stuff up in and take home and 85 00:07:20,199 --> 00:07:24,720 stuff like that. But obviously we'd gone on the coach so we couldn't collect 86 00:07:24,720 --> 00:07:28,040 too much, but we came back with plenty. We came back with so 87 00:07:28,240 --> 00:07:31,120 much stuff from there, so we had a good look around for the floora 88 00:07:31,199 --> 00:07:35,639 market. Then after we'd been in the Flora Market, we went inside the 89 00:07:35,680 --> 00:07:43,240 main arena where a lot of the main stalls were and companies were, and 90 00:07:43,480 --> 00:07:46,839 also in there is like obviously where the shows are where people come up and 91 00:07:46,879 --> 00:07:50,120 do talks and stuff like that. We didn't book into see any of this 92 00:07:50,240 --> 00:07:56,319 year we decided against that, so we didn't see any talkers this year. 93 00:07:57,480 --> 00:08:01,120 We didn't even see anyone famous to be honest, and Ho monted On was 94 00:08:01,160 --> 00:08:03,600 there on the day that I was there, but I didn't actually see him, 95 00:08:05,120 --> 00:08:07,759 which is a shame. But there's certainly plenty of stuff that we did 96 00:08:07,839 --> 00:08:13,040 do while we were there, but that was obviously we didn't see that. 97 00:08:13,560 --> 00:08:20,680 And then a we went around BBC Good Food as well as well as BBC 98 00:08:20,839 --> 00:08:24,040 Gardeners World. There's BBC Good Food where all the chefs come. There's all 99 00:08:24,160 --> 00:08:30,879 food tasting. There's drink tasting, which is even better. So it's going 100 00:08:30,920 --> 00:08:35,840 around having shots of little drinks and stuff like that. Wow, absolutely delicious 101 00:08:35,840 --> 00:08:41,360 some of them. And I've found some cheese stalls well, just tasting all 102 00:08:41,399 --> 00:08:46,840 different cheeses. I came back with some cheese what I had paid six pounds 103 00:08:46,840 --> 00:08:50,519 for but it was absolutely delicious. Wow, it would gorgeous. You could 104 00:08:50,600 --> 00:08:54,679 just well, I didn't have anything tweet while we're there yesterday. I was 105 00:08:54,679 --> 00:08:56,960 just going around tasting everything. Why do you need to buy any food? 106 00:08:56,960 --> 00:09:01,759 But you can just go around and taste everything on every every stall. But 107 00:09:01,919 --> 00:09:07,679 yeah, it's absolutely brilliant now some people that we're talking to there, they 108 00:09:07,720 --> 00:09:11,639 spent two days there going around it, and it is understandable that you can 109 00:09:11,639 --> 00:09:16,120 spend two days going around it because it is massive. It's absolutely huge. 110 00:09:16,519 --> 00:09:20,000 So obviously we went around the BBC Good Food. Then in the afternoon, 111 00:09:20,039 --> 00:09:24,960 when it had brightened up a little bit, we went outside and we checked 112 00:09:24,960 --> 00:09:28,440 out all the show gardens, the ones that got an award, and there 113 00:09:28,440 --> 00:09:33,360 were Adam's Frost Garden there, which looked absolutely fantastic with all different vegetables in 114 00:09:33,399 --> 00:09:37,440 it and stuff like that. I don't know how they do it, because 115 00:09:37,559 --> 00:09:41,679 some of the plants in there were bigger than what you would see ready, 116 00:09:41,960 --> 00:09:45,960 like the tomatoes were ripening on the plants and stuff like that. How they've 117 00:09:45,960 --> 00:09:48,919 managed to do that, I don't know. That's a question. They've obviously 118 00:09:50,039 --> 00:09:56,039 somehow shipped me in from somewhere to get them to through look like they ripening 119 00:09:56,080 --> 00:10:01,720 already. But yeah, it's absolute phenomenal. And then there were just loads 120 00:10:01,720 --> 00:10:07,440 and loads of stalls outside. It was absolutely fantastic. We could have asked 121 00:10:07,600 --> 00:10:11,840 for a better data. Obviously, the rain is a dampner, but what 122 00:10:11,919 --> 00:10:16,039 you get out of it is amazing and I'm definitely going to be going again 123 00:10:16,080 --> 00:10:20,080 next year. It is going to be a yearly thing. Now I'm going 124 00:10:20,120 --> 00:10:24,639 to make sure I get there every year. And one of the things as 125 00:10:24,679 --> 00:10:28,120 well is that they had a store where they were giving out three goodie bags 126 00:10:28,799 --> 00:10:33,320 and there were two cues. There were a massive long QUEU and then there 127 00:10:33,320 --> 00:10:37,799 were short Q and I thought, what was his short Q for? And 128 00:10:37,840 --> 00:10:39,879 they said, if you're standing this short queue, you've got to have a 129 00:10:39,879 --> 00:10:45,039 photo take and we are leaflet and you'll get two bags instead of one. 130 00:10:45,399 --> 00:10:48,200 So I thought, why not. I'm used to having my photo taken. 131 00:10:48,240 --> 00:10:54,600 I'm everywhere I am gardening with Ben, but yeah, I took my photo 132 00:10:54,639 --> 00:10:58,120 taken. We came up with these two goodie bags. You get some fantastic 133 00:10:58,159 --> 00:11:01,600 stuff in them. Now I'm not looked in them properly yet, but I 134 00:11:01,600 --> 00:11:05,440 know there's some biscuits and some products in there and stuff like that. So 135 00:11:05,480 --> 00:11:09,240 I'm looking forward to going through that bag. So I might share that in 136 00:11:09,279 --> 00:11:13,159 another video with your of what I've actually got free in these goodie bags. 137 00:11:13,759 --> 00:11:16,519 But like, there were like a stall as well for QVC. If you 138 00:11:16,600 --> 00:11:22,360 signed up for their newsletter, you got some free seeds and free cakes and 139 00:11:22,399 --> 00:11:26,840 stuff like that, So just signing up to everything me. I'm one of 140 00:11:26,840 --> 00:11:28,759 these. If I can get something for free, I will get it for 141 00:11:28,840 --> 00:11:35,519 free. Any people want anything advertising, feel free to send it to back. 142 00:11:35,960 --> 00:11:41,879 Only joking, but yeah, it is an absolutely fantastic Now if you've 143 00:11:41,879 --> 00:11:46,440 always thought about going and you've never been to BBC Gardener's Worldlife, get yourself 144 00:11:46,480 --> 00:11:52,679 there. It is worthwhile as well as the BBC Good Food, absolutely fantastic 145 00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:56,840 tastes, absolutely brilliant everything, all the samples. You couldn't ask for a 146 00:11:56,879 --> 00:12:03,559 more well organized event. It's obviously in Birmingham, so if you see the 147 00:12:03,600 --> 00:12:09,120 tickets advertised for next year, get yourself booked on because I will certainly be 148 00:12:09,159 --> 00:12:13,360 there next year and I couldn't recommend it enough and it makes me feel like 149 00:12:13,440 --> 00:12:16,840 wanting to go to some other events. But I need to have a look 150 00:12:16,879 --> 00:12:20,360 around to what other events you are out there that are like that. So 151 00:12:20,759 --> 00:12:24,840 I hope you've enjoyed this podcast today. It's been a review of BBC Gardener's 152 00:12:26,320 --> 00:12:31,039 World and BBC Good Food, which I give it ten out of ten. 153 00:12:31,879 --> 00:12:35,000 And if you're not following our podcast, make sure you give it a follower, 154 00:12:35,399 --> 00:12:39,279 give it a like, leave a comment, share it to a friend 155 00:12:39,360 --> 00:12:43,600 or two. If you've not followed our YouTube channel yet, go and find 156 00:12:43,639 --> 00:12:48,279 it Gardeners with Gardening with Ben and you will see my video from the BBC 157 00:12:48,759 --> 00:12:52,559 Gardener's World Tour as well on there. Until next time, remember, keep 158 00:12:52,600 --> 00:13:01,600 smiling, keep shining, and keep gardening with Ben. Everyone. Thank you 159 00:13:01,679 --> 00:13:05,519 for joining me on this episode of Gardening with Ben. I hope you have 160 00:13:05,720 --> 00:13:11,720 found some useful tips and instegiration for your own gardening and a lotment journey. 161 00:13:11,039 --> 00:13:16,240 If you've enjoyed today's episode, please make sure to follow and subscribe to the 162 00:13:16,279 --> 00:13:20,440 podcast so you'll never miss a new episode. And if you have a moment, 163 00:13:20,480 --> 00:13:24,080 I'd love for you to leave a review and share the podcast with fellow 164 00:13:24,200 --> 00:13:31,240 guardening enthusiasts. Your support helps us brow this community and continue bringing you great 165 00:13:31,279 --> 00:13:37,080 content. We can also follow us on social media on every platform All Gardening 166 00:13:37,120 --> 00:13:43,600 with Ben for daily gardening tips and of days, happy gardening, and until 167 00:13:43,679 --> 00:13:48,759 next time, remember, keep smiling, keep shining, and keep gardening with Ben.