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. Hello everyone, and welcome back to Gardening with Ben for a
brand new episode today. It's later than usual. Usually you're getting it at
eight o'clock in the morning for the last few days, but for the next
few days you'll be getting it in an afternoon as we're going to be talking
about everything that we are getting up to down at the Allotments. Keep you
up to dated with what's growing and what's not growing. Well, today I
spent a few hours down there. I didn't do a hell of a lot
down there, to be honest with you, as it started off looking pretty
decent the weather and then it absolutely chucked it down. But before we got
to the allotment, what we did we went to the range and we bought
some more seeds. Yes, so stay tuned for that. We'll be talking
about what seeds we've purchased and hopefully what we're going to be growing, as
all these seeds that are purchased can be grown this month, so we're going
to be sharing that and we'll be sharing the progress of how well they're getting
on with growing. And I've also shared a image on Instagram and Facebook today
of all the things that you can still so in July. Some of the
things that I purchased aren't on the list, but on the packets it did
say that I could sew them this month, so I'm looking forward to sharing
that with you. I never usually start sewing stuff at this time of year,
so it's something quite new to me as well, so fingers crossed we
can get some good crops from it. But we'll be keeping you all up
to date with how well the things are growing now. One of the main
things to do today down at the allotment was to harvest all the rest of
my first lot of peas. The plants were dying off and the peas were
no longer growing on them. There's no more flowers on them, so it
was like there's not a bit anything else that grows. So we've been harvested
all them and we've got a big bucket load of peas, and I mean
an absolute load of them. I can't believe how many I've actually got off
these plants. Like We've had three four big pickings off them. So I'm
happy with the amount of peas that we have off to say how bad the
weather has grow being this year, but obviously the rain has helped the peas
swell and grow well. So it swings around about. Sometimes obviously you want
the warm and hot weather to grow stuff, or sometimes you want the rain
to help things swell and get plump and fat, which certainly has happened for
my peas. So we've had a massive, great crop this year, the
best pea crop that I've ever had. And one of the things that I
am going to be doing is I'm going to be sorry some more peace.
Yes you may think it's July, but we're going to grow some more peas
and we're going to see how well they grow and if we're too late or
not, so make sure it stay tuned to see how well we get on
with them. And one thing about the piece is that when you're getting rid
of the plants like I have done today, you don't pull them out.
Do not pull the roots out of the plants. What you need to do
is snip them off at the base so that the roots are still in the
ground because all the nutrition goes back into the soil and feed the soil.
That is one thing that I have learned is that you need to snip them
off at the bottom. The same goes for runner beans, any of lagomes.
Snip them off at the bottom of the plant and you will get more
nutrition back in the soil, which is what we want. We want to
feed the soil so that more stuff can grow in there and keep feeding the
plants that are growing in there, to be honest. So that is one
thing that I have learned and that I have done down at the allotment.
So I'm looking forward to getting a load more peace sown and growing. And
when I mean a load, I've bought three big packets from the range and
you usually get about two hundred to three hundred seeds in the pack, So
hopefully we're going to have some great peas coming towards the end of summer beginning
of autumn, which will be excited as I've I'm so pleased with the crops.
They've tasted absolutely gorgeous. Now they're not the same crops what I'm going
to be growing this time of the year. The ones that I grew at
the beginning of the year was early onwards peas, and these are Kelvin wonder
pee variety that I am going to be growing. So if you're looking out
for some peace, make sure you go to the range and have a look
at the dates on the packet, as the packets do usually tell you when
the planting season time is for optimal performance. So have a look and see
what peace you can grow and grow along with me and let me know how
well you get on with growing the piece. I'm not going to be growing
them in the ground to start off with. I'm going to be starting them
off in sea trays as that has worked perfect for me this year. They've
all all the seeds have germinated, they all grew. I got them to
a decent high, decent size, looking healthy and then I planted them all
out in the ground in the soil, protected them with netting so that no
birds, pigeons, rats bad could get to them and eat them. Obviously
mace and mats can probably still get to them, but it deterred them and
they all survived and we've got a fantastic crop from them. One of our
other jobs what we've done today is that we bought a lavender plant. Yes,
I have got a few lavender plants on the plot, and as you
know, I have taken some cuttings from the lavenders and from my futures,
and we've got them in some water here in the flat. Now. I
wanted to film a video of cutting it back and planting them in soil,
so I'm trying them in soil, I'm trying them in water. We'll see
which ones do the best. If you've got an idea which ones will do
best with water or the soil, will let me know. Well, it's
not soil, it's compost. So the only thing is we're growing them in
composts. They'll dry out pretty fast, so we've got them sat in some
water to keep them moist and hopefully get some roots growing from them. Now
I purchased this three pound fifty eight lavender plant from Tesco. I'll literally snip
the whole the plant off, so literally nothing is showing in the soil where
the lavender plant is. Hopefully it'll continue to grow and sprout back, but
if we lose it, we'll lose it. But I have taken forty cuttings
off this lavender plant, so hopefully fingers Crossed will get absolutely loads more plants
growing. Now, put all these in soil in the compost. They're in
my polytunnel, well watered, and hopefully they'll take root. So we're going
to keep an eye out to see which ones do better, the water ones
or the compost ones. And if they all do well, then my allotment's
going to be absolutely full to busting with lavender. But that's the plan.
I want them all down the side of my borders of the plot so that
it's filled with lavender, so that the bees are absolutely loving it. Because
bees absolutely love lavender. They will come from a far to go on your
lavender and it will smell absolutely gorgeous and divine down there. And obviously it
can harvest the lavender as well, which we've never actually done. We've never
harvested lavender, so it might be something new what I'll learned to try next
year if we've got some decent sized plants. So yeah, that has been
a busy day down at the allotment today, hope. I've also filmed a
tour of my plot as well, so I just need to edit that,
get it put together and that will go on our YouTube channel. Also,
I have put a get together a video of my lavender cuttings what I've done
today down at the a lotment, putting them into the compost, So make
sure you stay tuned for that on my YouTube channel. If you're not following
my YouTube channel, go ahead and find it Gardening with Ben and subscribe to
it. Don't forget to click the bell so that you get nutified when new
videos go up. We're hoping to get more and more YouTube videos up on
my channel as we're getting a lot of people watching them these days, as
well as obviously listening to my podcast. So we'll probably be down at the
allotment again tomorrow. Fingers crossed the weather's better than it was today, I
won't be able to plant any of my seeds what are purchased as I need
to go and get some compost, and obviously the shops are open later on
a Sunday, so we might be planting all our seeds on Monday, which
we'll be excited and hopefully we can keep them watered and get them germinated,
and obviously we need some warmth to get them growing. But everything is growing
so well on my allotment at the moment. I was having a look around
today. My cucumbers starting to grow big. Hopefully we'll have as first harvest
of as cucumbers soon, so we'll keep an eye out for that. We've
also got a sweet corn growing well. We've got our lettuces ready for harvesting.
We need to harvest them because it's coming to the end of how well
they're growing. They're starting to look a bit shabby now, but they have
got a big head on them, so hopefully we'll get some delicious lettuce from
them. We've also while the sunflowers as sunflowers growing massively, growing brilliant.
As tomatoes are growing fantastic, not as tall as what I'd like them,
but we will get some tomates on and fingers cross because there's lots and lots
of flowers on them. So it has been a fantastic day down at the
plot today. It's been good to get back to the garden after not being
there for five days. And if you've not checked out my lily photo,
my Lily's finally opened on my allotment. We've been waiting weeks and weeks for
that to open, so I have a check out of that on my Instagram
pictures as well, and it looks absolutely gorgeous. I may have to cut
out the pollen vo because I don't want to catch myself as I'm walking past
and staying myself. But yeah, it's been a fantastic day down at the
allotment. Hopefully, like I said, we're going to be down there tomorrow,
so make sure you're tune in tomorrow and see what we've been up to.
If you're not following this podcast, do give it a follow, give
it a like, give it a comment, and feel free to share it
to your instare. Until next time, 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 for your own gardening and a lotment journey. If you have enjoyed today's
episode, please make sure to follow and subscribe to the podcast so you never
miss a new episode. And if you have a moment, I'd love for
you to leave a review and share the podcast with fellow gardening enthusiasts. Your
support helps us grow this community and continue bringing you great content. We can
also follow us on social media on every platform. All Gardening with Ben for
daily gardening tips and days. Happy gardening, and until next time, remember
keep smiling, keep shining, and keep gardening with them.