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. Wow, it's Saturday already. Where
has this week gone? It's absolutely flown by. Well it
certainly has been a cold week, hasn't it. But fingers
crossed will be able to get to the allotment today,
depending if it's snowed or not when I've recorded this,
I don't know, but yeah, hopefully it's not snowed and
hopefully I can get down to the allotment. Well what
are we planning on doing this weekend? Well, I'm planning
on doing all my strawberry beds area and around near
where all my phone less blackberries are growing, all my
grape vines, and I'm going to be sorting out all
around them, which is going to be a pretty big
job as this probably will last me the most of
the weekend to be honest, but we'll have to see.
And I basically want to get all my BlackBerry canes
tied up, fastened to the fence so portered, and yeah,
get all my strawberry beds trimmed back, get all the
old leaves off, what are dying off or gone funny
on them, just freshen them all up and make them
look ready for next year. So that's going to be
a pretty big job in itself. And then I'm going
to tidy up all my paths, sort out all that
and yeah, that area should then be done after that,
and then hopefully if I get all that done this weekend,
then next week's tasks I'll be starting off to get
my shed ready for the massive revamp, which I'm looking
forward to as I need to start looking at ideas
on how I want to make it look on the inside.
I want to spruce it up, make it look good
as I want to use it as an area where
I can start filming videos in there, doing demonstrations, sharing
miss so in my sea, we need some transplanting all
my plants and just doing like weekly videos in there,
keeping you all up to date with everything that's growing
and what's not growing. As you know, I'm an honest gardener.
But yeah, I'm looking forward to getting all that done
and getting it all spruced up ours. It doesn't need
a lot of work doing on the inside, but I
am going to strip it all back and do it
all afresh and make it look good for next year,
give it all the pain, brush out, sweep down, and
do any repairs that need doing to the roof, which
one of the pieces is missing, so we need to
repair the roof. We've got that to do. And also
I've ordered some winter wash for my fruit trees, so
hopefully I'll be able to get that done soon. I
want to get them all sprayed down. I need to
put some of that green sticky tape round the trunk
of them to stop anything from crawling up on them
nesting on them over winter. So yeah, we've got plenty
to keepers going. And obviously once I've done inside my shed,
I'll be doing in cyber Polytunnel as that is one
of my goals for next year to start growing again
in my polytunnel. I'm going to continue growing my tomatoes
and cucumbers outside because they do absolutely fantastic. They did
really well, but I'm going to look at growing my
some melons and some peppers and some chilis in cyber
Polytunnel next year. Now the thing is we're doing that
is that I'm going to have to look into setting
up irrigation for them, as obviously I won't be able
to go down to the allotment every day of the
summer as obviously I'm working now on Monday Friday, so
I'll only be down at weekends. So I'm gonna have
to look into irrigation for them. And I've done this
once before. I set up a water butt we've dripper
heading off it, so then they were dripping not fast,
but like just a gentle drip every so often and
fill the water but up and it'll last for ages.
So I'll either do that or I'll use bags as
I've used them in the past and they're really good
as well. You're fastened the bag onto the side of
the polytannel and again it has drippers leading from it
and they'll you can like twist them to the speed
of the drip that you want. But yeah, I think
I might do that again next year. And obviously it
just keeps them watered. Obviously it's not a big water
and just a gentle drip, but it's getting some water
to the roots if you get me so then at
least it'll keep them watered. And obviously my dad will
pop down every so often to give stuff a water
for mix is pretty good like that. But hopefully we're
gonna get a lot of stuff done this winter. Are
depending on the weather obviously, but soon I will actually
be able to sit back and relax and not do
anything because I don't think my shed will take me
a long time to do it. Possibly will take me
back a month to do it all our Obviously, painting
is a big job, and putting up new shelving and
just clearing out all the rubbish what's in there, as
you don't realize how much rubbish you do accumulate when
you're pottering around in the shed, like you just end
up with loads of compost bags for that's one thing
that you end up with loads of compost bags and
seed wrappers and stuff like that, and plastic seed tags
what you write on to say what's in your seats
and stuff like that. I tend to say them because
you can use both sides, or you can standpaper it
down and write over it again, and sometimes by now
it's washed off anyway back and a year, so then
you can just use them again and right over them.
That's what I tend to do. So that is going
to be my job for this weekend, sorting out my
strawberries and my blackberries. As I mentioned previously, I want
to build a pergoda on my allotment, not like a
posh pagoda. It's basically going to be a few posts
fastened to my shed and going to have wires down
the side of my plot to hopefully train all the
local berries, all the blackberries, all the grape vines along
so that they're off of the ground and hopefully away
from predators. But knowing mister Squirel, he will climb along
the wires and I'll eat everything. But we can only try,
so I need to start ordering some wires and getting
that sorted and work out how I'm going to put
the posts in, we out on falling over because knowing
I'll put some posts in and then they'll end up
falling over and it'll all collapse and all the branches
will break. But you're not allowed to use concrete on
your allotment, so unfortunately, I just end up having to
put them into the ground and stamping them down, or
putting a brick outside of them to like wedge it in.
That sometimes works. But if you've got any tips on
keeping posts secure without them falling over, let me know.
As Obviously, like I said, I can't use concrete, so
I've got to look at other options on keeping posts upright.
But yeah, I'm looking forward to this. So we're gonna
order some bits and bobs. I'll obviously I have to
order some wires, and I won't have to order any
get any wood in because I've got plenty of wood.
If you don't know me, I'm a big wood order.
If I see wood available, I'll take it and I'll
save it. When I were down on the allotment the
other day, one or the other tenants said to me, Ben,
have you got any wood that I can use to
start this fire off? I went, yes, I've got wood
but it's not for burning. But yeah, I'm one of
these that'll save every piece of wood for anything because
you never know when it might come in handy. But
I hope that we do manage to get down to
the ottment this weekend. Hopefully it's not snowed by the
time this podcast comes out, and hopefully we'll be able
to start getting lots more stuff done. Like I said,
I just want to finish off this little strawberry bed
area and where all the blackberries are and everything. Once
that's tided, then I can get onto the interesting stuff,
which is sorting out my shared, sorting out my polytunnel,
fixing any of the beds water damaged on the allotment,
and getting all them painted as well, which is going
to be a job in half. But I don't want
to paint them all until springtime really, because if it
snows or if it rains throughout all of the winter,
it'll just wash off again. However good they say these
wood paints are, they do wash off. If anybody knows
a wood paint that doesn't wash off, let me know
because I'll use it. But yeah, I end up having
to paint them every couple of years. You don't have
to paint them. But obviously it treats the wood. It
protects it for a bit longer and stops it rotting
as fast, and it looks nice. I like my allotment
to look esthetically nice as well, So hopefully we'll get
all that done. So I hope you all have a
fantastic weekend down at the allotment. Hopefully it isn't too
cold for you. I'll be wearing my body warmer. I
may have started a bonfire again, keep warm around the
bonfire if I have a bonfire, and I won't get
any word done because I'll just sit around fire. I
do love sitting around the fire and smelling the burning.
I know that's weird, but everybody loves the smells like
I love the smell of tarmac as well. So yeah,
hopefully we get that area finished and get it all sorted.
So until tomorrow's episode, everyone 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
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