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.
Speaker 2: Each episode will dig into tips, tricks, and techniques to
make your garden and allotment thrive from planting.
Speaker 1: Sewing, and growing.
Speaker 2: 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 allotment. So sit back, grab
a brew and enjoy today's episode.
Speaker 3: Hey everyone, and welcome back to Gardening with Ben for
another brand new episode. It's the last episode of the year. Ooh,
and then tomorrow we'll start a new year and you
will get new podcast from next year. So yeah, we'll
be back in twenty twenty five with another podcast and
we'll probably update our intro and spruce that up a
little bit. And yeah, get ready for the new year
and for new podcasts. And thank you everybody for all
those that do listen to these podcasts. I really do
appreciate it and keep on sharing them and let's get
more people listening to them. So this podcast is talking
all about the success and the failures of twenty twenty
four of the allotment. So, yeah, we have had a
lot of success and a lot of failures. As I
always talk about my failures because I'd rather people know
that I'm an honest gardener and know that I do
have trouble with growing certain things. And yeah, having produced
a fail on me, So what have we succeeded in
this year and what have we failed in? We'll start
the front of my allotment and worked my way around
so then I know exactly what I've done. It's easier
to remember that way. So at the front of my allotment,
I've got my plum tree and that did fantastic to
start off with. It got plenty of leaves on it,
it got plenty of buds on it, but then it
died off like halfway through the year. All the leaves
were dropped off and everything. So I don't know what
happened to that, whether it got silver leave, I don't know.
So fingers crossed it comes back to life next year
and hopefully it picks up. If not, we might have
to end up getting rid of it if it doesn't
do very well. But yeah, fingers crossed the keepers plum
tree because that's my Victoria plum tree and the absolutely
delicious plums on them. So hopefully we get some good
produce next year from it. As rhubarb as rhubob did
absolutely fantastic this year. Wow amazing because we didn't get
much sunshine this year, but we got a lot of
rain and yeah, it is absolutely fantastic. I got loads
of rubob crumbles this year from the mum as I
grow the rubarb and she cooks all the crumbles for me.
I think we've got a perfect combination that I don't
you know, I grow it all as they make the
rubarb crumbles. But yeah, absolutely amazing. So what else did well,
let's go on to our apple trees as cooking apple tree,
that didn't do too well either as I pruned it
a lot the year before which can stress the tree out.
And yeah, not produced as many cooking apples. We only
got a handful of them. As eating apples did absolutely amazing.
We've got loads of eating apples this year. They did fantastic.
I've not pruned my cooking apple tree or my eating
apple trees this year as there a decent size, decent shape,
and yeah, hopefully we'll get some good produce on them
next year. So yeah, hopefully we'll get some decent produce
from them. Hairs did amazing as well. They did absolutely fantastic.
So next up our strawberry plants. Our strawberry plants did rubbish.
We hardly got any strawberries this year. Rubbish outcome. So
I planted two hundred strawberry plants this year, ready for
new plants next year. These were all taken from runners,
from the original plants and from my neighbour's plot. So
I planted two hundred strawberry plants, so I should get
some strawberries next year. Fingers crossed. They've all seem to
have taken they're all growing pretty well, and yeah, hopefully
we'll get a decent crop of them next year. Our
tomatoes and as cucumbers absolutely amazing. My tomatoes, I grew
them all outdoors because that's where I grow them now
because I can't always get down in the week, So
I plant outside because then if it rains, then at
least they getting watered. Our cucumbers, I started some off
in the polytonne because that's where I've always grown them.
And yes, they got a quite a few of them.
But then I had a lot of spare plants and
I thought, rather than waste money's buying compost and everything,
I'll plant them straight outside. So I planted to be
in the ground, not thinking that they'll do anything, because
I've never grown cucumbers outside before. This is the market
more variety, and wow, they did absolutely fantastic. They did
ten times the amount of ones that were in the polytunnel.
So I'm going to continue growing cucumbers outside from now on.
With how well the products did this year absolutely amazing.
Next up is I Beat You. I beat you. You
did amazing. First time I've ever cooked it in an
air fire. Usually I just give it to my mum
to pickle me, but I thought I'll try it in
an air fight, and wow, they were delicious. I cooked
them like chips and they tasted absolutely beautiful. Then we
had a sweet corn, a sweet corn again amazing. That
did fantastic, So it might grow even more sweet corn
next year because I absolutely adore sweet corn, so I
might just grew absolutely loads of it. And again I
cooked that in the air fire as well and it
cooks fantastic. Next up is lettuce. As lettuce did amazing.
We always grew an iceberg lettuce, absolutely beautiful and delicious.
We grew some pumpkins. We've got a couple of good
sized pumpkins. They did well. We did our peas. Our
peas were absolutely amazing.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: As peas usually I just saw them straight into the
ground and they do well. But the last couple of
times I've had issues where rat cetum or the mice
aretum or the squirrels. So I thought, I'm going to
start them off in a seed tray first grown to
a decent size, and then plant them out. And wow,
this is the best crop that I've ever had. This year,
I had two croppings. I started some off airly and
then I did another batch and both lots did absolutely amazing.
So I'm going to do the same method again with
growing peas next year. Absolutely fantastic. As corshats doesn't do anything.
They were absolutely rubbish this year, so we'll try again
with them next year. But yeah, we didn't grow a
lot of stuff this year. Oh as potatoes as potatoes
will grow them in boxes and they did amazing. I
don't grow potatoes in the ground anymore. I grown more
than boxes so that you can just tip them out
once they've finished and rather than stabbing them when you're
trying to dig them up, or cutting them in half
by accident, and they don't get as much ringworm in
them or diseased. They did absolutely amazing. So I'm going
to grow my potatoes in boxes again next year. Yes,
it costs a lot of money for all the composts
to fill them up, but it's the best produce that
I've had, so I'm doing that again next year. But yeah,
as vegetable wise, absolutely brilliant. We got loads of blackberries
off half as blackberries. It did amazing and it shot
out loads more vines this year, so hopefully we'll get
a load more blackberries on it next year. I've tied
it all up and sorted it all out as raspberries
again amazing. The autumn ones seem to do better than
the summer variety, so I love raspberries because expensive to
bite as well, So hopefully we get loads more raspberries
next year. But yeah, I think that's about it for
all the vegear fruit this year. We didn't do fantastic.
Like I said, it weren't a brilliant year. We didn't
get much sunshine this year and we had quite a
bit of rain and cold days. But hopefully, fingers crossed
we have a good year next year. The flowers absolutely amazing.
This year. We grew sunflowers. They did fantastic. We've got
some massive ones of those sweet peas, absolutely stunning, so
done in that I've sewn a load already. I saw
them all in October September, October time as they can
make them stronger, growing early and growing through the winter,
so they're all in my shed at the moment. We
snipped mo all back to six inches so that we
can get them to bush out. They won't get big
flowers on them, but they'll get a lot more flowers
on them if you get me. So hopefully we get
loads of sweet peas next year. Salvia we grew salvia
for the first time. That was from BBC Garden as well.
The plants that I got it were black current one
one of them, and it smelled absolutely gorgeous like black currants.
So we took a load of cuttings off that about
twenty and they're all growing. They've all taken, so they're
all growing in my greenhouse now, so we're going to
be planting them outdoors next year. Futures. We've got futures
as spring bulbs were absolutely phenomenal this year, so hopefully
they're good this year. We've not hopefully the squirrels haven't
pitched ball and hopefully they all grew. We've added a
loud while bring flowers this year, so hopefully we get
another good display out of our allotment this year. So yeah,
tomorrow's episode, obviously we'll be talking about everything that we
want to try this year, all the new things that
we're going to look forward to trying and all the
old things, and how we plan on having a successful
year down at the Allotment. So I just want to
wish you all a happy new year. I hope that
you've all enjoyed these podcasts over the year, and we're
hopefully getting more and more content out for you as obviously,
this new Potting menche is going to be absolutely amazing
for videos, so make sure you stay tuned for them.
If you're not following my YouTube, do give it a follow,
as I'd like to get to two thousand followers. It'd
be good for getting to two thousand by end of
new year, but I don't think I will somehow, But yeah,
thank you for all the support that you'll give me.
And obviously I don't ask for payments off anybody and
stuff like that. It's all done through advertising and it
all goes back into my allotment and my content making
so that you're getting the best out of everything that
I do. So until next time, everyone, remember keep smiling,
keep shining, and keep gardening with Ben. We'll see you
all in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: Everyone, thank you for joining me on this episode of
Gardening with Ben. I hope you have found some useful
tips and integration for your own gardening and a lotment journey.
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Speaker 3: All Gardening with Ben the daily gardening tips and days.
Speaker 2: Happy gardening, and until next time, remember keep smiling, keep shining,
and keep gardening with them.