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 a brand new episode.
BlimE me, it's Friday already. Where has the week gone?
Fingers crossed? We have a better weekend this weekend, but
we don't know yet. I'll have to check the forecast
and see what it's going to be like. Hopefully it
will get lots more than down at the Allotment. You'll
have to find out later in the week what we
get up to down at the plot, whether we actually
get some stuff done well. Today's episode we're going to
be talking about how I got over the winter blues
in gardening. And this is quite obviously a personal story,
but I get over the winter blues from gardening because
when I first started my allotment, what I used to
do is I used to go really hard with my
gardening throughout all the spring and summer periods. But when
it came to October, I just leave my plot and
leave it until January time. I wouldn't even go down
to the allotment to do any work down there. Probably
just rock back up in January the first and see
what it looks like and get started from them. I'd
not even dug up any all plants or anything like that.
I just left them all in the ground. And then
I'd have a big mas mad rush to get it
all ready and get it all prepared for the year
after well for the coming year, and get it all tidy,
get any beds remade, get it all painted, get it
all tidy again, get it all weeded, and get all
the roots up out of the ground. And this was
a hard chot to get it done, and to try
and get it all done by March time, because March
time is the busy period down at my lotment when
I'm throwing all my seeds, getting all them started, and
concentrating on growing them, keeping them watered, et cetera, et cetera.
So that is the hardest job of the lot. So
I did. I did this for years. I used to
do it for years, just pack up and not come
back for January. But whether I started blogging on my
allotment and sharing tips and advice and showing people what
I was getting up getting up to or down at
the blot, I thought. I used to get messages like
people used to say to me, Ben, where are you
all right? We've not seen you down at the allotment
for ages, sharing pictures, et cetera. And I used to think, yeah,
I'm not staying up to date with people. I'm just
leaving them hanging. They'll probably think I've disappeared or left
my allotment or just vanished. But yeah, Then I started thinking,
I need to carry on through the winter period. I
need to show people what's happening down there over the
winter months. So I started doing my life streams again
through the winter period, and I started showing people things
that you could grow through the winter. I don't often
grow anything through the winter, not much at all. I
learning like I have some onions in and some garlicin,
or some broad beans in, I won't have a lot
of things growing down at me a lot because I
use it now as a time for sorting out all
my plot and getting it all tidy and ready for
the year next year. And as soon as the produce
starts to die come October time, when it gets a
bit colder, and when things have stopped producing any vegetables
like your pumpkins and your squashes and stuff, I'll start
digging them up and clearing the beds straight away. And
the quicker I get all my plot cleared ready for
the year for the next year, I ticked it off.
I've got about eighteen beds altogether. They're all the pretty
much the same size. I like count it down, like
figuring I've got three more beds left to do. I've
got six more beds left to do, et cetera, et cetera.
And once I've cleared all my beds, I'm like, I
know that I've done the biggest part of my plot
and tidying all them up. Because as well, I have
a lot of issues with bind weed on my plot,
and I can't really dig into the ground to get
all the bind weed groups out while things are growing
in that bed, because bind weed will travel all over
the place and you can't really get it out without
actually getting the fuck in there and getting all the
pieces out and giving it a good turnover to get
every little piece out. So come October time November time,
when I'm digging them over, I'll get most of the
bind weed groups out. Yes, I'll get some more growing
in it, probably over the winter period, but it won't
grow as fast, and I'll just keep turning them over
every month or so to get as much out as
possible for the year ahead. So get all that done,
and I actually enjoy winter Now. Winter is one of
my best times down at the allotment. So before I
obviously used to pack it up and not come back
till January. Now I absolutely love being down there in
the winter, not because I'm growing anything, but because I'm
building stuff and getting involved in making it look fancy
for the year after. Not that it looks fancy, It
just looks fancy to me. But yeah, I absolutely love
winter out. And since obviously, like I say, I've started
gardening through the winter months, I get excited because I'm
planting all my winter bulbs for springtime. I'm tidying all
my shed up. Obviously, I'm doing maintenance on it now
that I've had storm damage. But yeah, we make it
stronger and hopefully last a few more years. I sweep
all my paths down, I trim all my shrubs back,
I sought out all my fruit trees for the year after.
But yeah, I absolutely love the winter period now being
down there. Yes it may be freezing cold, and yes
I didn't do anything down at the plot hardly last weekend,
but some days I absolutely love it. And I do
love the mornings as well down there, and just enjoying
being down there. But winter has to be one of
the best periods down at the allotment. I enjoy having
a good fire going. Because Alan, I'm a wood hoarder.
I don't know if you're the same. I just store
wood down at my allotment. My shed's full of it.
That much fault that the cats used it as part
of their nest when they were late. When they were
got some kittens down in my shed, they were all
hidden behind it. But yeah, I'm a wood hoarder and
I'll just save any cutoffs as well, because we're not
allowed to burn stuff through the spring and summertime. We're
only allowed to burn stuff in the winter months. So
I'll store all my off cuts and I'll just have
some nice bonfires burning in the winter period. I love
the smell of bonfires as well, and you can just
sit at the side of the bonfire just thinking about
all the things that you're going to do for next
year in growing. But winter is a special period of
the time down there now and it does help my
mental health a lot so much because people struggle more
with the mental health throughout the winter periods. All you
see in a lot of the time is darkness and
being out in the fresh air and enjoying the passion
of being in your garden doing what you do. You
absolutely love it and it encourages me. And now that
I'm working nine to five Monday Friday, it's nice to
get out of the house and out of the flat,
being in the fresh air, getting your fingers in the soil. Yes,
it may be nippy and may be cold, but you
can't take an ice flask down there and have an
ice brewer as well. And I love making the content
for you all, and I just love interacting with you all,
sharing what I'm getting up to down at the allotment
on my Instagram and my Facebook, and I hope that
you all enjoy it. So if it wasn't for you
guys asking me where I am through the winter period,
Ad Paula still be curled up again hibernative throughout the
winter period and getting ready to start again on the
first of January down at the plot. But yeah, it's
down to you guys that give me the motivation to
go to the allotment and keep doing stuff to produce
for you all, and it encourages me to learn more
about the sort of things that you need to do
in the winter as well as the things to be
done every day of the year in the allotment. An
allotment is not an easy job, and I see it
so many times new people coming down to the allotments
thinking it's going to be an easy job, dig it
all over or hire a j c be to scrape
all the top off, and then it all grows back
again and they soon give up after a couple of months.
It's not an easy job. If you think you're taken
on a lot, but you think it's an easy job.
It is far from easily. It's a who lot of
hard work and time and effort. Trust me, if you've
not got much time, just go for a small little plot.
But I've got a massive one, and if I hadn't
had all the free time periods, I wouldn't have been
able to keep up and get it all sorted and
done now. But if you're looking for an allotment, I
will do a podcast on tips and advice for taking
on allotment coming up as well. We need to talk
about that again. We've not done that for a while,
so we'll talk about that as well coming up soon.
But yeah, thank you all for giving me the motivation
and encouragement to keeping these podcasts going for you all
as well, and the more people that listen to it
encourages me more to do it as well. So until
tomorrow's episode, everyone remember keep smiling, keep shining, and keep
guardening with 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
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and the days happy gardening, and until next time, remember
keep smiling, keep shining, and keep gardening with them.