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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Gardening with Ben. You'll go to

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a podcast for all things green and growing. I'm Ben,

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your allotment guide and here to help you cultivate your

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garden and your passion for plants. Whether you're a seasoned

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gardener or just starting out, this podcast is for you.

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Each episode will dig into tips of tricks and techniques

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to make your garden and allotment thrive from planting, sewing,

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and growing. We will share all the tips and add advice.

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We will also have regular episodes talking about what we

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have been up to on the a lotment. So sit back,

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grab a brew and enjoy today's episode. Hey everyone, and

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welcome back to Gardening with Ben for another brand new

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episode today. I hope you're all well. I hope that

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all your week's green well, and I hope you're managing

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to stay warm. While it is a bitterly col it

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certainly is here where I am fank like I'm working

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in the week, so I don't have to go down

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to the allotment in the week. I just go at

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the weekends now, so roll on Saturday for when I'm

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next at the allotment. So what are we talking about today? Well,

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today's episode is encouraging the wildlife to your gardens and

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your allotments. We're going to talk about today. So the

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reason why I'm talking about this is because I find

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it particularly beneficial for an allotment holder to have as

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much wildlife going down as possible to your allotment. Now,

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I've been working on this over the last few years

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to improve the wildlife onto my allotment. And as you know, recently,

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obviously I've had a cat coming down on my allotment.

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It even had some kittens in my shed which have

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fledged off now and moved on and obviously found new homes.

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But yeah, it's good to see the cats down there

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because obviously they'll catch the mice and catch the rats

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and keep them down, which is a bonus. One at

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times even left one in my shed, a dead one unfortunately,

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as a present, but I got rid of that soon

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straight away. But yeah, what else are we helping to

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get down at the allotment and in the garden. Well,

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at the moment, it's obviously at winter when we're recording this, well,

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it's getting to winter. It's currently in autumn, but it's

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feeling like winter certainly is now and at this time

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of year, we like to concentrate on feeding the birds.

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I don't feed the birds throughout the summer period. I

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only feed them through the autumn and winter periods. In

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springtime as is not much around for them to eat

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down at the allotment. And I still want to help

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encourage them to come to my allotment plot because then

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they'll eat all the bugs and stuff like that off

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other plants. So we're encouraging them by hanging up bird

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feeders at the moment. Obviously, the only problem with hanging

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bird feeders up is it attracts other wildlife as well,

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some not beneficial, which are obviously the rats and the mice.

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They come and eat the seed, but hopefully the cat

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catches them, so it all works around in one favor.

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And obviously it also attracts the squirrels to the allotment.

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And I have no problems with having the squirrels coming

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down at my allotment. They can come down or they want,

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as long as they don't make too much damage to

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my plot, which is obviously my spring bulbs, which they

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like to attack all my broad beans, like they nibbled

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all the tops off them in my shed. But yeah,

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we do like to attract the birds. And at the moment,

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we've got up some suet balls, we've got some suet pellets,

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we've got seed up, we've got peanuts up, we've got

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a sewet block up. So yeah, we're trying to attract

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all different varieties of birds to my plot. Obviously, there's

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not a lot of birds around at the moment because

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some obviously hibernate and fly off to warmer countries over

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the winter period. But there's still little birds around like

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your robins, and I still see a little blue its

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around and which other ones colt its, I've seen some

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of those around. But yeah, we see lots of little

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birds around and I love to encourage them. And obviously,

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while I'm encouraging them to eat seeds from the plot,

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I've also got some bird houses down at the allotment

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as well, where I encourage them to come and live

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on my allotment basically and to have babies. So I

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put up a couple of birdhouses a couple of years ago,

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and within half an hour blue teds were flying in

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and out of them. They must have been in the

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ideal location from and they were flying in and out

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building the nest and then they had some babies in

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there and they fledged off and left. So yeah, having

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bird houses down on your plot, it's it's brilliant to

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watch the blue it's flying in and out. So I've

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been encouraging them, and obviously once they've had the babies

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in the fledged and there's no birds living in there,

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you need to take them down and clear out any

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old nest or spiders and webs hanging around in there.

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Just clean them out with disinfectant, get rid of the

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old nest because new bluets won't move in if they

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know that there's previous occupancy in there. So we do

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this every year and we get bluet its living in

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them every year, which is absolutely fantastic on my plot.

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So after that we also for my birthday, I had

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a ren birdhouse from my sister, so we're putting that

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up this year as well, so you never know, we

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might get some baby wren's next year on my allotment.

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So I'm looking forward to seeing that. And obviously there's

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other types of bird houses out there, so I might

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look at different ones to try and attract some birds

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living on my allotment. So if anybody's got any suggestions

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of any other bird houses what they've got, let me know,

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as I know there's robbing ones out there, so I

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might look at robin's as well, because obviously we do

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get a lot of robbins living on our allotment site,

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which is always fantastic to see when you're digging up

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the soil and they just sat there waiting for the

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worms and they're scooping, get the worm and then fly off.

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They serve team as well. They come right close to

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you and yeah, what other wildlife are we looking after

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on the allotment, Well, we have got a pond down

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on the plot because I want to encourage the frogs

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to my allotment and news and all the pond life

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creatures as well, because obviously if you've got frogs living

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on your plot, they'll go around eating all the slugs

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at night, which is another bonus because obviously the more

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frogs you have, those slugs you'll have, which is what

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you want when you've got on allotment sits. You don't

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want everything getting eaten down there. So we'll be cleaning

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that out over the winter period and freshening it up

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ready for next year, ready for when it's time for

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foxborn season and hopefully get some fogs born in there,

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and hopefully get some foggies again next year on my

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allotment and encourage the fog to live down there. Whatever. Oh,

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we look after the ladybirds as well, you might think,

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how do you look after the ladybirds? Well, you can

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actually buy ladybird houses. Well, I like tubes with little

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holes in for the ladybirds to nest in over the

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winter periods and hibern it and encourage the ladybirds to

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come down. So yeah, we're encouraging the ladybirds as well.

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Down at the plot, we have also got a hedgehog house.

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What I need to put out. I've had that about

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a year and still not put it out yet. But

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you need to find somewhere obviously quiet and round, where

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there's some leaves and shade and stuff like that from

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just a living I've also seen that you can actually

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get a hedgehog food, but I don't know if I

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should put that down or not because it might obviously

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encourage squirrels to eat it and they're acts of mice.

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But if anybody else feeds the hedgehogs, let me know,

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because I would like to know about them. I obviously

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look after the bees as well. The bees are the

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main big thing on the plot what I look after

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as obviously, Like I always say, I plant the spring

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bulbs to attract the bees down in the springtime when

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they wake up from hibernation, to give them the energy

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for the year ahead. I also plant a lot of

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fragrant flowers and flowers that they can land on to

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collect the pollen. And obviously, the more bees that you

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get down to the plot, the more produced you'll get

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from your fruit. Because if the bees are around on

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your plot, they'll pollinate or your fruit trees or your

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fruit bushes, etc. And your strawberries, and that'll give you

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more fruit produced. So without these we wouldn't get no fruit.

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So the more bees that you can get down on

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the plot, the better. We're also going to start looking

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into how to look after the butterflies as well. We

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need to attract the butterflies to our gardens and allotments

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more as obviously there's not much beneficial in them obviously

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the pollinator, but and you don't want catapillars eating all

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your stuff up. But I do love to see the butterflies,

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so I'm going to look at how to attract the

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butterflies to my allotment and what flowers I should be

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planting to attract them, because absolutely gorgeous when you see

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them flying around, And obviously you can plant buddlier Budley

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is a good one for butterflies, but there must be

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other different flowers out there to help look after them.

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So yeah, I do my little bit down on my

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allotment to help the wildlife. And I've also got a

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wildlife camera up now which I purchased previously, so we've

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put that outside, so hopefully we catch some wilde activity

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on my plot. Hopefully I don't catch no burglars down there,

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but yeah, i'd love to see like badgers and foxes

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down there. That would be brilliancy. Obviously it's not good

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for my crops, but I would love to see some

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wildlife down there, like badges and foxes around at night.

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Because it's an infrared camera as well, so it picks

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it all up, so hopefully we might be able to

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pick something up down there, So stay tuned and hopefully

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we'll get some footage for you to show you. So yeah,

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let me know if you're doing your little bit for

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helping the wildlife on your allotments in the garden. It's

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always brilliant to hear from you. Make sure you do

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like the podcast, give it a comment, and if you're

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not following us already, why not give us a follow

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and tick that bell as well and you'll get notified

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o'clock in the morning for you to listen to for

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the day. So I hope that you all have a

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great day everyone, and remember keep smiling, keep shining, keep

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gardening without everyone. Thank you for joining me on this

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episode of Gardening with Ben. I hope you have found

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some useful tips and instepiration for your own gardening and

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a lotment journey. If you have enjoyed today's episode, please

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make sure to follow and subscribe to the podcast so

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a moment, I'd love for you to leave a review

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You can also follow us on social media on every

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platform for all Gardening with Ben for daily gardening tips

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and other days happy gardening, and until next time, remember

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keep smiling, keep shining, and keep gardening with Ben