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 allotment. So sit back, grab a brew and enjoy
today's episode. Hello everyone, and welcome to a brand new episode of Gardening
with Ben. Where Ben and this is your podcast? Well, it's now
the first of July, and summer is here apparent if that's what the weather's
forecast. People are saying. We've been having hot spells, we've been having
coal spells, we've been having downpours, we've had some hailstone and yeah,
I'm surprised we've not had nur snow. Mind you up in Scotland they've had
snow, so yeah, you never know what we'll have this month. But
hopefully we'll have some warmer weather, but this past week that we have had
a little heat wave here and yeah, it's certainly boosted things along. And
in this episode, we're going to be talking about what we've done in June
and how well we've got on how badly we've got on the things we've harvested,
and what our plans are for July. Tomorrow's episode we'll be talking all
about what to start, what jobs to do in the allotment and garden in
July, so make sure you stay tuned for that episode as we'll be talking
about that one. So I haven't recorded a few episodes for a while as
I've been extremely busy in the background, still working on gardening with Ben.
And yeah, I'm trying to sort of brand new website out and get things
up and running on that as I'm wanting to do like daily newsletters and daily
tips and advice. I've been trying a few of those out on Instagram at
the moment. You may have seen them, so yes, stay tuned for
lots more content coming along. So I'm trying to get this website up and
running as fast as possible so that i can start getting the tips and advice
out on a daily basis to you through my website and through newsletters as well.
So stay tuned for you to sign up to get the newsletters on a
daily basis. I will soon be sharing that link with you all. So
June down at the allotment, what have we been up to? Well,
obviously we went and visited Gardener's World. We went to Gardener's World. It
was absolutely fantastic and it is too big to walk around in one day while
even I get tired from all the walking around. It is a massive area
because it's BBC Good Food as well as obviously BBC Gardeners World, so there's
so much to see, so much to taste, so much to buy.
And yeah, we came away with quite a few things. We came away
with a lot of futures. We came away with some salvia. They're all
now planted in my garden and they're growing really well. And please that they've
all taken. I've not had non die on me yet. That is a
success in itself, So yeah, I'm hoping the futures take because the futures
that I bought are bushy varieties, so they'll grow with icon big filling the
gaps and hopefully make it look attractive and welcoming to the bees as well,
so that the bees come down and enjoy them. So we've got all them
planted. We've also obviously been doing lots and lots of weeding. There's always
weeding to be done at the allotment, but we've been doing that. We've
also been busy harvesting. Yes, we've started harvesting our produce. Today I
harvested my potatoes and they look absolutely delicious. I didn't get as many as
I thought, as I'd hoped to have got, but I think that's down
to me not watering them as much as I should have done. If i'd
have watered them Mark, we probably would have got a bit of crop.
But yeah, we've got a decent crop from them. I've shared that picture
on Instagram and Facebook. If you've not seen it, check them out gardening
with Ben and you'll be able to see what potatoes I've got them. Just
looking forward to cooking them now and trying them. That's the best thing to
do. I don't know whether to try air frying them or boiling them,
that is the question. So we'll see. We'll give them a try.
I've got one of these choppers as well what you're putting it, and it
just slices it up into pieces as well, so it might be nice in
the airfire. But we'll have a look at them and try out some different
recipes with them, and I'll let you know how we get on with them.
I'm not a chef, but I'll google things and have a look and
give things a try. It's always worth trying new things. So if harvested,
have potatoes with harvested peas. We've harvested some peas and they are absolutely
delicious. They's so scrumptious and nice and tasty, juicy, succulent peas,
absolutely gorgeous. We've still got absolutely loads left to pick, but these ones
are swelled up and they got to the right size, so I picked them
off before they got too big, because then they will not be as juice
as there have just been rock hard, So you need to make sure you
pick them at the optimum time. If you're picking your peas, don't wait
until they're already. Pick the ones that are ready and use them as and
when they're ready, so that you can have some delicious peas with your potatoes.
As well, so yeah, we'll be having the Sunday dinner soon.
We've also harvested some lettuce. We've been wearing iceberg lettuces. They've got a
nice, fantastic head on them, absolutely delicious and crunching. Yeah, not
many slugs hiding in it either, which is a good things. Sometimes you
get slugs hiding in the iceberg head itself, and when you're unwrapping the leaves
you find little slugs hiding and bugs and stuff like that, so you always
got to be careful, make sure you wash them faoly and they're looking absolutely
delicious as well. We've had strawberries off again, not too many this year.
I've not done very well with my strawberries. I don't know why,
but we've not had a good crop of strawberries this year. Hopefully Fingers Crossed
will have more next year and will plant loads more plants from the runners what
are starting to come off from now. We've had loganberries first year having logan
berries off on my plot. My dad gave me some canes off his allotment
and they're easy to take cuttings from locan berries. If you've got a whip
growing out, all you do is shove the end in the soil while it's
still attached, it'll grow roots on it, and then you can just snip
it off and there you go. You have a logan berry plant. But
the logan berries will grow on the cane what grew the previous year, so
you might not get some in the first year, you'll probably get them on
the second year. So this is the second year that I've got them in.
And yeah, hopefully we're going to get a load more logan berries ready
in the coming weeks. Because we've got so many on there. They're like
weighing down the planet. They're snapping the branches. But hopefully we'll get some
delicious logan berries off. And I've been fastening them up. All the new
canes are growing ready for next year, So fingers Crossed will have even more
next year on the plants, and you'd never known might start making some logan
berry jams soon. I've harvested more rhubarb, absolutely loads of rhubarb. The
plants are starting to die off a bit now, so I wanted to pick
the rhubarb before it all died back. And yeah, I gave it all
to my mum. Usually she makes me about five crumbles with it. But
this lot made me et crumbles in little boxes. She packs them up in
little boxes, gives me some custard, and I'm set for pudding for the
weak ahead. So hopefully we might get some more rubarb off. Will have
to keep watering it and keep it growing hopefully, fingers crossed, because we
do want some more rubib crumbles, and then it will be onto the light.
Apple crumbles coming up soon, but the apples are way off from picking,
so we've got to keep the rhubarb going for the time being so that
we get some more rubob crumbles off. We've also harvested our garlic this week.
I didn't know this. This was something I learned the past week.
I actually picked it on the longest day of the year, and apparently meant
to pick it on the longest day of the year, because you meant to
plant it on the shortest day and then plant it pick it on the longest
day. But I never knew that. I just happened to pick it on
that day, which is bizarre. It must be my green fingers. I
must have had it drilled into my head sometime or later that I should harvest
it on the longest day. Well, we've put it all in our polychno.
It's hung up drying out very far using And yeah, I've never cooked
to a garlic before, so that's going to be an experiment in itself by
trying to grow cook stuff with garlic. So we'll have to look up some
recipes for that and see what we can get with that as well. But
yeah, I think that is everything that I've harvested this month. It is
fantastic when you do start harvesting all that produce for me a lot, But
again trying to not harvest too much at the same once. Just harvest as
and when you need stuff, and see what you want as and when you
want it. Like I've got some more boxes and potatoes, I have not
harvested them yet because I've got one box of potatoes harvested. What I'll keep
me going for a couple of weeks. So only harvest what you want and
what you need. And remember to keep feeding your plants as well as obviously
they need food and nutrition to keep them growing. I keep going around with
some blood meal once a week to give them some food, and I keep
sprinkling some chicken pellets around every so often as well to help hopefully growing bigger
all the plants that are growing, Like I've got my sweet corn that's starting
to get big. Now, I want some massive sweet corns, so we
need to keep them growing well. We're giving them drinks of water all the
time because they do like a lot of water sweet corn, So we're going
to keep them water and keep them growing. And hopefully I'll be sharing lots
of sweet corn pictures with you in them coming months, well September time when
they'll usually be ready. So it's been a busy June down at the Allotment.
Hopefully July is going to be as busy. Hopefully we're going to get
some hotter weather and not just rain all the time. I don't mind it
if it rains at night, because send it waters my plot for me.
I just want it to be nice and warm in the daytime so that I
can spend some time down there. We are having to get wet and miss
going to the allotment as well. So yeah, it's been a very busy
couple of weeks down at the Allotment. Again, in tomorrow's episode, I'm
going to be talking about what jobs need to be done in the allotment in
July, so make sure you stay tuned for that. If you've not followed
my YouTube channel, go and check that out as we've got some videos on
there. I've not posted any for a while, but we've got some videos
on there for you to watch as well. And if you're not following my
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remember keep smiling, keep shining, and keep Guardening with Ben. Everyone,
thank you for joining me on this episode of Gardening with Ben. I hope
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