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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 alltment. So sit
back, grab a brew and enjoy today's

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episode. Hello, and welcome back
to Gardening with Ben for a brand new

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episode. Well, we're busy,
busy, busy at the moment, and

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we are so busy, especially down
at the allotment and with every what I'm

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doing at the moment. We're busy
getting all the seeds ready, what's growing

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in the greenhouse ready to be planted
out, as I've got loads more to

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be planted out. We're ready to
harvest that garlic from my allotment as well.

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That's about ready, and we're going
to start harvesting our lettue as well,

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which is coming on really well.
They're getting the heads inside them now

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and they're looking absolutely delicious. And
over the next few days, we're going

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to be recording more and more podcasts
and also more and more videos. So

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if you've not checked out my YouTube
channel, go and check them out and

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give it a follow and a subscribe. As I'm posting so many videos at

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the moment, I'm trying to push
out my YouTube channels, so keep following

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that for lots of videos with tips
and handy hints on there. What I'm

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sharing with you all from the allotment
and today's topic, what we're going to

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talk about is about growing sunflowers,
growing large sunflowers. Now, sunflowers are

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a phenomenal flower and if you've never
tried growing a sunflower before, you should

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really give it a chance. Now, you've still got time to plant some

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sunflower seeds if you want to give
it a dry So go out get some

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seeds and give them a try.
Cat from Amazon. You can get them

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from the range where I get mine
from. And yeah, plenty of places

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sell sunflower seeds and they're so easy
to grow. Well, you just have

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to be careful at the beginning because
slugs can come along and nibble them up

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and you'll end up losing them.
But if you plant them out once they're

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big enough and tall enough, then
you've got more chance of protecting them from

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the slugs from eating them. So
how do we grow nice tall sunflowers?

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Now, one variety which does grow
absolutely massive is a Russian sunflower. These

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grow absolutely huge. You can get
some flower up to thirty foot if you're

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lucky. And the best thing about
sunflowers is that if you grow plenty of

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them, you can use the stalk
as canes the next year because they dry

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out rock hard and the perfect for
canes and supports and stuff like that,

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so it saves money on buying canes. So just grow lots of sunflowers this

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year and you'll have loads of canes
for your runner beans and supports next year.

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It's one thing that I use.
I use all the canes that absolutely

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rock solid. You cannot break them
most of the time. That hard.

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But yeah, they make great supports
and great canes for the allotment. So

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how do you grow big tall sunflowers
or and what are the tips off a

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growing decent sunflowers? Well, I've
grown mine in my greenhouse, and then

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I potted them on, grew them
to a decent size, and then I

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planted them out. Yes, I
did use a few slug palets around them

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because I wanted to protect them.
I wanted them to be saying and get

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growing. But I don't need the
slug paletts. Now there are a decent

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size and they should survive well.
But once they start getting quite tall,

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you need to start supporting them by
putting the cane in there, as that

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will get it growing straight and it
will support it from stepping, which you

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do not want once you've started.
But obviously, when you're fastening it up

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to a cane, what you need
to make sure is that you don't tie

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it too tight. You need to
leave a bit of movement in it,

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because the thickness of the stalk on
the sunflower will get really thick as it

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gets bigger, and obviously you don't
want the wire what you support tying it

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to the cane with to cut through
the stem and damage it. So you

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need to make sure that you do
leave some movement in it. And if

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you're watering them on a regular basis, like on a daily basis, you

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could be fastening it up every few
days, because once sunflowers start growing,

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they start growing fast, and I
mean really fast. And every time I

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go to the oatman, I will
give them some water because they are thirsty

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drinkers. They are really thirsty drinkers, so yeah, make sure you give

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them plenty of water. When it
comes to feeding the sunflowers, I tend

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to put some chicken pellets around the
bottom, which will feed the sunflowers for

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two to three months. So I'll
go around again in a couple of months

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time and sprink up some more chicken
pellets around it and they will break down

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over the few months and feed the
plant. And obviously they're good for when

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you're watering them for when it rains, it will keep feeding the plant,

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which is something that you want to
do. I also use liquid feed as

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well. Once a week, I'll
just give some food to them and hope

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that they'll drink it and it will
help them boost them and grow them.

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And I've done a YouTube video on
this. It should be appearing in the

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next couple of days, if it's
not already up there already on what feed

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I use for my sunflowers, So
make sure you do check that out.

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But obviously once to get to a
decent size, you can have little competitions

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with the family and friends to see
who can grow the tallest sunflower on the

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allotment or in the garden and have
a little competition between one another. I've

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once grown one really tall, and
I mean so tall it will like at

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home, it will fasten up to
the drain pipe it with that tall,

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and I want to some flower competition
for growing the tallest one. So it

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is pretty good fun. And then
obviously once it's come to the end of

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the year, when the head's dying
off, you can either save the seeds

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to grow again next year. You
can leave hang the seed heads up for

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the birds to eat because the birds
will love to eat the sunflower seeds,

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or you can't actually roast them.
I've never tried roasted some flower seeds,

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so if you have tried roasting some
flower seeds, please do let me know

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and share with me if you actually
like them or not, because I do

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like to find out these things.
So yeah, that is how you grow

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massive sunflowers. And regular water,
like once every day or once every two

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days. Give it some water to
drink and it will grow massive, especially

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when it's flowering. Make sure you
keep watering it and give it some liquid

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feed once a week to two times
a week, and put some chicken pellets

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down around it as well to give
it that extra kick and keep feeding it.

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So I hope you've enjoyed this little
podcast today talking about how to grow

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massive sunflowers down at the allotment of
the garden. Make sure you do give

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us a follow on here. If
you're not following it already, please do

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subscribe to my YouTube channel where I'm
sharing tons of videos and putting about two

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or three videos up to day at
the moment as I'm trying to get it

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out there and get it get it
going again, So please do give my

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YouTube channel the follow. If you've
got any questions, feel free to message

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me on Instagram Gardening with Ben and
yeah, I hope you've enjoyed it.

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Make sure you give this a share
to a friend or two as well who

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will enjoy it. So until next
time, remember keep smiling, keep shining,

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and keep gardening with Ben. Everyone, thank you for joining me on

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this episode of Gardening with Ben.
I hope you have found some useful tips

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and inspiration for your own gardening and
a lot then journey. If you have

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enjoyed today's episode, please make sure
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love for you to leave a review
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We can also follow us on social
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time, remember keep smiling, keep
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