Speaker 1: 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. Hey everyone, and welcome
back to Gardening with Ben for another brand new episode.
I hope these podcasts are sounding a lot more better
and no more noisy police or ambulancers driving up and
down the road like they always were since I've moved
into a new flat, and I hope that you're all
enjoying that the podcasts are back. We've been concentrating this
week on talking about all the plants that you can
plant this month, all the jobs which need doing in
the fruit, vegetable and flower gardens. And also in yesterday's episode,
we talked about the jobs which need doing in the
sheds and the polytunnels. Well, today's podcast episode, we're going
to be talking about my allotment journey. How my allotment
journey's been. Has it been a good journey, has it
not been a good journey. Well, we're going to talk
about all that in this episode, and why not. We
need to start off with a Christmas joke for you all.
So today's Christmas joke is, why did the Brussels sprout
bring a shovel to the Christmas Party? Why did the
Brussels sprout bring a shovel to the Christmas party? Because
it wanted to dig the vibe. It wanted to dig
the vibe. Trust me, these jokes get a lot better
or worse should I say? But yeah, I hope you're
enjoying all these Christmas jokes that we're sharing with you
on a regular basis. If you're not following us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok,
and YouTube, make sure you give us a follow. Just
search for Gardening with Ben and you'll be able to
follow us and see up to date videos. So, yeah,
we're going to talk about my allotment journey and to
say that I'm thirty nine years old. It has been
a long allotment journey in my lifetime to say, like
a lot of people would just be getting into allotment
in at my age. Now people think, oh, it's not
cool to allotment when you're young and meant to be
going out and everything like that. But times are changing
and younger people are getting into growing their own produce,
which is absolutely fantastic. I absolutely love it. And this
is why we do these podcasts to encourage more and
more people to get involved in doing it. So I
started my allotment journey back when I was fourteen, fourteen
or fifteen years old. And what it was is that
in my local area there was this allotment site. There
were one person left on the allotment site. All the
rest of them had gone developed, they'd overgrown, and yeah,
the council was saying, if we can't get them back
up and running again, we're going to get rid of
them because nobody's using them. It's a waste of land,
you know how it all is. So the local community
formed a group and the council cleared them all and
they managed to rent them all out and they got
funding for the allotment site to get roads put in,
stand pipes put in so that there were water on site,
which is a key benefit. If you're looking for an allotment,
always look for a site that's got water on it. Yes,
you might be able to catch some in winter when
it rains, but you'll aso run out of water. Trustmate,
We've had heat waves in the past and I know
people have struggled we're getting water to the allotment sit
so always look for water. So yeah, I then started
helping my dad on his allotment. Because my dad was
part of the organization, he had an allotment, and I
used to go and help my dad garden on his
allotment and I absolutely loved it, and obviously tasting all
the vegetables that you were growing were fantastic. So when
I turned eighteen, I thought, why am I helping my
dad do his allotment when I can have my own allotment.
Now I'm old enough I'm allowed to have one. And
I was still living with my parents and I often
used to think, I just need to get out of
the house and just be away, you know what I mean,
You need your own space. So I applied to get
my own allotment and I got it. And back then,
obviously allotments weren't trendy, back when I was eighteen, which
is nearly twenty years ago, and they were no waiting lists,
no waiting list for the allotment. So I got one
straight away and got my own piece of land. And
from then on, I've never looked back all my friends
just to say why have you got an allotment at eighteen?
You should be going out and enjoying yourself. Why you've
got an allotment? And you're sad? Basically obviously they called
your names and stuff like that, saying like why why
are you having an allotment at that age? And the
best thing is is that they're now contacting me asking
me for tips and advice on growing stuff, So it
isn't sad after all. And I encourage more and more
people to get into it, and like I say, it's
getting a lot more trend here and more people are
wanting to That's why there's these big waiting lists now,
because everybody's wanting to do it. And a lot of
times people post photos showing what they've produced, and people
I think, oh, that's an easy thing to do. Trust me,
it's not. It's nearly a full time job growing fruit
and vegetables. I don't know how we're to manage on
two days a week now going to my allotment because
it is a lot of hard work. And yeah, I
started off with my allotment. I got a greenhouse from
somebody else down at the allotment site, but I had
to go to his house to get it because it
was at his house. And unfortunately with that roos day, we
managed to get the glass out, but we couldn't get
the frame apart. So me and my dad ended up
walking about one and a half miles with a greenhouse
frame and that wasn't pleasant at all. And that has
to be one of my biggest regrets getting a greenhouse,
because obviously I'm six 't five. I struggled to be
in it. Yes, it were good to start off with,
but obviously the glass breaks, it smashes, pieces fall out,
and there were glass everywhere and stuff like that. So
I don't always recommend getting a glass house on an
allotment site. I'd recommend I have a plastic one or
building your own like I have done now. So we
started off with that. Then we got my I organized
my plot. I got some fruit trees. I started off
with a cherry tree, a plum tree, a nectarine tree,
and a cooking apple tree. And my cooking apple tree
and my plum tree is still there to this day.
They're still growing fantastic. My nectarine tree never did anything,
so I chopped that down. Same with my cherry that
never did anything, so I got rid of that as well.
And since then we've now got two more apple trees
eating apple trees. We've also got two pear trees, which
do absolutely fantastic as well as eating apples, they do
fantastic as well. And two years ago I planted two
more plum trees because my plum trees uggling a bit
these days, and last year was absolutely terrible. It like
literally half died off when it was growing, so I
don't know what happened to it last year. So hopefully
these new two plum trees will do fantastic down at
my a lotment. And these are Victoria plum trees that
are absolutely gorgeous, So if you're looking at plum trees,
get a Victoria plump because it's absolutely delicious. I then
planted some rhubarb, which I've still got down there to
this day. I've got about sixteen crowns of that now
because over the time I've cleared the area and dug
it all up and split the crowns, replanting them, and
got more rhubarb plants growing down there. We've also obviously
got a strawberries, which are originals from the beginning of
my plot. Every year I keep taking the runners off
and me planting them and getting new plants and sharing
them with other people on the site as well, so
my strawberry plants are all over the allotments. We've also
got our blackberries. We've got as raspberries have been in
there from the start as well. They've been doing an
absolutely fantastic year after year they grow and they get
fantastic produce on. So I've still got some of my
same stuff what I've had down there since I started,
like when I was eighteen. And obviously we've got as
polytunnel which has been up about sixteen years. That cost
me five hundred pound when I bought it. But it's
a twenty foot polytunnel I think it is, or twenty
five foot by about fifteen foot wide, so it's a
decent sized polytunnel. But like I said, it cost five
hundred pounds, but it was a brilliant investment and it's
ideal for growing stuff in there in the winter. Obviously,
it's marted cucumbers and stuff like that. I've messed around
with irrigation over the years, self irrigation, which has worked
fantastic when I've got it all set up working. So yeah,
it's been a fantastic experience. And I started blogging probably
about seven years ago or so, and that was just
sharing pictures and little videos of what I were getting
up to. I'd blogging with a massive thing back then,
and I was just sharing tips and advice of what
I were doing. I'm basically keeping a diary of what
I had planted where and how I'd planted it and
what did well and stuff like that, just for my
own purpose. Little did I know that people would actually
start following me. And then I started building an audience
up on Facebook. It all started on Facebook to start
off with. I started building a little audience. People were
getting involved, they were interacting, they were enjoying it, and
I thought, yes, I'm loving this. I'm actually loving talking
to everybody and sharing what I'm getting up to and
suddenly I'm like twenty thousand followers on Facebook. I can't
believe it. And then I obviously started doing stuff on
Instagram as well, sharing pictures on there, and obviously I
do my YouTube videos as well. Now on there. My
first ever YouTube video on my YouTube channel, I don't
know if you can find it. You can usually sort
them by age. And it's when I actually first built
my shed. And yeah, the shed is still standing from
when I built that video. It's had a few a
major revamp over the years, but the framework is still
up and still standing, which is a bonus for me
because you know what I'm like, we're building I'm absolutely
rubbish with And we didn't actually start live streaming till
I it's lockdown because I thought people are enjoying what
I'm doing. I'm going to go live and talk to people.
But then I was scared thinking what if people ask
me questions that I don't actually know about because I
don't know everything about gardening. I've just learned what I've
done myself. If you get my I'm not a professional.
I don't have a certificate to say that I'm a
professional gardener. So I got started with that, and I
absolutely loved it talking to people, people interacting with me
on live. Obviously, I don't do my Facebook lives anymore
these days because I don't have time for it, because
it takes about half an hour to do all that,
so I have to crack on with my allotment these days.
That's why I do a lot of my videos for
you to watch that way. And over these years, I've
learned so much different methods, different ways of growing, different verises,
what work best in growing. And some years, like in
my first few years, I was successful with so much
stuff growing, and then after that it failed and I'm like, well,
what I've done wrong? But that is gardening. One year
you might be absolutely fantastic with growing and then a
few years yeah, later it might be absolutely rubbish and
you think what am I doing wrong? But that's just
the art of gardening. And one thing I've learned about
gardening is never give up. Keep trying. And it's yes,
it's you get produce from it, but it's fun and
it's enjoyable. And if something grows success, If it doesn't,
oh well, you just try to get next year or
in a few more months. When it's a bit warmer,
but it's all about having fun and enjoying it. And
yes it can be quite expensive. It's not as always
as cheap as people say that it is to grow
your own stuff. Some stuff's cheap to grow, but some
stuff you might just be cheap off buying it the supermarket.
But it's the taste. You know it's organic, it's fresh,
and you know your hard work, time and efforts got
into it. And that is what I absolutely love about gardening.
So over these twenty years of gardening, my allotment journey
has been absolutely fantas asked the people that I've got
to know through doing my social media and getting involved
in my posts. Yes, I may not always reply back
to posts and comments, but I do read them and
I do love to see all the comments on the post.
If I replied back to every post and comment, it
would be a full time job, and unfortunately this podcast
doesn't pay for that. If we get millions of people
listening to this podcast, then maybe we can retire and
do it full time. Hint hint, share share share. But yeah,
I absolutely love it and I wouldn't change it for
the world, and I'm going to keep on doing these podcasts,
keep on doing the lives, the videos for you to watch,
the photos that I share, the little Christmas jokes and
stuff like that. I absolutely love doing it all and
finding new stuff for you to listen to and to watch.
So if you've ever got anything that you want me
to talk about or think that i'd do well on
the podcast, videos or posts, please let me know. You
can always message me on Instagram. I'm always a message away.
So I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. If you're not
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Click the bell to get the notification when the podcasts
come up as well. And until next time, everyone, remember,
keep smiling, keep shining, and keep gardening with Ben. Thank
you for joining me on this episode of Gardening with Ben.
I hope you have found some useful tips and instegiration
for your own gardening and a lot more journey. If
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keep gardening with Ben,