Speaker 1: Welcome to Gardening with Ben, your go to podcast for
all things green and growing in twenty twenty five. Whether
you're a seasoned gardener, a budding enthusiast, or just curious
about cultivating your own slice of nature, you're in the
right place. Join me Ben as we explore practical tips,
inspiring stories, and the latest trends in gardening to make
your outdoor space bloom with life. From allotment adventures to
wildlife friendly gardening. I'm here to help you grow your
passion and read the rewards. So grab your gloves, roll
up your sleeves, and let's get started on this year's
gardening journey. Hey everybody, and welcome to Gardening with Ben
for your twenty twenty five season of gardening podcasts. Here
from me. We've got a new intro, we've got a
new ending. So yes, we're ready for season five of
Gardening with Ben. Who'd have thought I'd have been doing
this for five years already. Wow, But I'm absolutely loving
doing these podcasts for you, and hopefully we'll have lots
more episodes for you to listen to this year. Talking
about our allotment journey of twenty twenty five and sharing
tips and advice along the way. Now, obviously today is
the first of January. It is a new year, so
we're going to talk about our gardening goals this year
and what we plan on growing for twenty twenty five.
What are our plans for down at the allotment and
hopefully we'll have a successful bump a year fingers crossed
and tours cross but yeah, hopefully we'll have lots and
lots of produce down at the Allotment this year. Now,
obviously I've been down to the allotment today. This episode
is late been out as I want to talk about
it fresh on twenty twenty five, so I've recorded here
and then on the day. So yeah, we've been down
at the allotment today and we've started tidying up my
polytunnel now ready for this year. I've tidied all my
shed out, that's all been tided Now is the time
to sort out my polytunnel and once we've done that
then we'll be back outside doing work in the allotment.
So what are our gardening goals this year, what are
we planning on growing again this year, and what new
things are we going to be trying down at the allotment. Well,
we're going to be trying a lot of new stuff
this year, and we're going to be growing a lot
of the old stuff that we usually do as well.
There's stuff what's always successful, which I do well with
every year. We'll definitely be growing our sweet corn again
this year, and hopefully growing a lot more of it
because I didn't have enough last year. I need even
more sweet corn because it's absolutely delicious. We'll obviously be
growing out beat root again this year, absolutely fantastic last
year as our first time I've ever cooked it in
an air fire as well. I cooked it like chips
and they tasted absolutely delicious. So we'll be growing them again.
Spring onions, lettuce, we grow iceberg lettuce absolutely fantastic year
after you never had any issues with growing iceberg lettuce outside.
We'll be growing our pumpkins again, hopefully get some bigger
ones this year. They weren't massive this year last year,
I mean, but hopefully it we'll get some bigger ones
this year. We'll be growing our course yets again, doing them.
We'll be growing our peas like we did last year.
They did absolutely fantastic. We started them all off in
seed trays first, and then when they were big enough,
we planted them all outdoors and they grew absolutely fantastic,
the best harvest that I've ever had in the time
that I've ever had my allotment. But the peas this year,
but last year. I keep saying this year, the last
year were absolutely fantastic. So we'll be growing them again,
runner beans again fantastic. Will be growing them potatoes doing
the same method as last year. We grew them all
in boxes, and we'll be growing them in boxes again.
I don't plant them in the ground anymore because when
I'm digging them up, I always end up stabbing them,
or they'll be full of slugs or wire worm will
have got them. And growing them in boxes, I've never
had any issues with any of the potatoes have grown
in them all grown successful. So we'll be doing that
again this year. We'll be growing as onions, garlic. Hopefully
we'll be growing our onions from seed and from set
this year because I want to show you in videos
how well seed grow and how well set grow and
give you a comparison between them both. So stay up
today with all that on our YouTube channel and Instagram
and you'll be able to see which do better seed
or set onions. And yeah, there'll obviously be different sorts
of vegetables will be growing as well. We might grow
some different varieties of certain stuff. We're going to try
and grow a bit more cauliflower again this year. I've
not been successful over the last couple of years, but
we'll try and grow some cauliflower, some cabbages, and some
sprouts as I've never really focused on them, but we're
going to give them a good try this year. And
I don't like sprouts, but you never know, I might
like homegrown one. It might taste nicer, so we'll try
sprouts again. We'll obviously be growing our peppers, as peppers
didn't do very well last year. They were only fruiting
towards the end of the year, which were around September.
But we've already sewn our peppers. They're in and they're
on my window, so hopefully getting them to Germany. Obviously
you need about twenty four degrees for them to germinate,
so we've got them on our window. Salt and make
sure you get plenty of like you don't want them
to grow legge, So we've got them growing. We've got
onion seeds growing already. They're already in. We're growing chili's
as well this year. First time in a long time
that we've grown chili's, so hopefully we get some great
crops from them. We're also going to be growing some
auber jines. I'm going to try smaller jeans as well
this year from seed, so stay tuned for see how
well we get on with auber jeans or if you're
listening in America, eggplants. But yeah, we're going to be
growing auber jeans. And we're going to try corjettes again again.
If in America zuchine, but we call it corget in UK.
So I'm going to try some of those. But I'm
wanting to get a soup maker, so hopefully we can
grow plenty of edge to grow as for some soup,
different varieties of soup. I might give leaks a try
as well this year. See how well we get on
with leaks. I'll never ever grow salerbate, so never ask
me any tips on salerbrate because I have no idea,
absolutely hate it. It's disgusting. So I'll never ever be
growing salary. So we'll be doing that. We'll be growing
as tomatoes. We'll be growing as cucumbers. As tomatoes will
be growing outside again, small little moneymaker type ones, different
colors yellow, orange, red, and maybe white. My dad grew
white ones last year and they were nice, and possibly
black ones as well, so we're growing them outdoors. We
seem to do well. We're growing them outdoors every year.
We'll also be growing are cucumbers outside this year, as
I've grown them in the polyton on in the past,
but last year I planted a quite a lot of
plants outside and they were absolutely phenomenal, the best crop
that I've ever had in years. So we're going to
grow as cucumbers outside this year. We'll also be trying
two different varieties of cucumbers what we've never tried before.
We're going to try some apple variety ones and lemon
variety ones. Now they don't taste like them, but they
look like them, so we're going to be trying them,
so stay tuned for how well we get on with
them this year. But yeah, we're going to be trying
all different sorts of vegetables this year. Fruit wise, will
obviously be growing as strawberries. We've planted two hundred plants
of those this year, so hopefully we get a good
crop next year. We've got as plum tree, we've got
as cooking apple tree, we've got us eating apple tree.
We've got us pears. We've got as rhubarb. Hopefully our
rubarb grows even better as it always does every year.
The plants have been in sixteen years now and they're
doing absolutely phenomenal and we get loads and loads of
rhubob cumbles. I grow it, I give it my mum,
she bakes it and I get the crumbles in return.
So yeah, hopefully lots of crew crumbles. Blackberries we've got
as faunless BlackBerry, absolutely fantastic. We've tied all that up,
all the new growth. Hopefully we'll get loads on it
again next year. This year, but the blackberries are bigger
on the phone less than on wild blackberries, and obviously
you don't get prickled as well, so fantastic. We've got
as raspberries, we've got our blueberries. We've got as gooseberries.
We grow lots of different varieties through I've probably missed
some off, so I got all them to grow. And
then flowers. We're going to go overboard with flowers this year.
We're going to grow lots of different varieties of sweet peas.
We've already got a load of sweet peas growing what
we started in around September time, and we've trimmed all
them back so that they bush out when they grow.
The flowers might not be as big, but it'll produce
more flowers on them, and I'm going to be ordering
a load more sweet peas, all different varieties. I want
to try lots of different varieties and sweet peace this year.
We've also got loads of different varieties of poppies to
try this year. We grew a few varieties last year
and they are absolutely phenomenal. I didn't sew the seed
in the ground. I saw them in trades first so
that I knew where they were growing and I could
plant them out to where I wanted them to grow.
So we're going to try loads of different varieties of poppies.
I literally went through Amazon and Church every packet of poppies.
So yeah, hopefully we'll have a field of poppies this year.
We're going to try a loads of different varieties of geraniums,
different colors of them, same because for sunflowers, we're going
to try all different writers of them. Last year, I
just stuck to the standard ones, which were like the
Russian tall ones, and this year we're going to try
different colors again. I've done it in the past, like
black variety, red variety, Teddy Bear variety, all different varieties
of sunflowers. So my allotment is going to look absolutely
phenomenal Fingers crossed this year. It is going to look
absolutely amazing, So make sure you stay tuned for all this.
I'm going to be sharing loads and loads of videos
of everything this year down on the Allotment, so make
sure you are following my YouTube channel on my Instagram
and we're going to be sharing absolutely loads with you.
So I'm excited for this year. I'm excited for growing
down at the Allotment this year. I've got big plans
for down there, for a beautiful display. And obviously I'm
only working. I'm only off two days a week now.
Last year I used to have four on four off
so I could spend more time at the Allotment, but
we're only having two days off and I want to
show you how we managed to cope and do it
in two days to keep on top of it all
and obviously do all this social media at the same
time as well for you. So I hope that you
stay tuned, and I hope that you followed the progress
throughout twenty twenty five down at the allotment, and I
hope that you enjoy the journey and follow along with
me and let me know if you're growing any of
these things as well, send me a message on Instagram.
I always respond to everyone. So until next time, everyone, remember,
keep smiling, keep shining, and keep gardening with Ben. Everyone.
Thanks for tuning into today's episode of Gardening with Ben.
I hope you've enjoyed our chat and picked up some
tips to help your garden and allotment. Don't forget to
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keep smiling, keep shining, and keep gardening with Ben.