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 Allotment. So sit back, grab
a brew and enjoy today's episode. Hey everyone, and welcome
back to Gardening with Ben. Well, it's been about a
couple of weeks since our last episode, and I do apologize.
I know I said I'm going to do them every
single day, but we have had a reason why we've
not been doing podcasts every day. The reason is I've
moved house, well moved flat, and I've got a new
place where I'm living now, and so I got to
see it on a Tuesday and I started to move
straight away the next day. So it's been all systems
go in getting moved out of my old place into
a nice new, brand new place which is absolutely beautiful,
so peaceful, so quiet, and yeah, no sirens in the
background when you're listening to your podcasts now, I can't
believe how quiet it actually it is. It's absolutely bliss
where I'm living now, so hopefully the podcast will sound
a lot better for you from wherever you're listening. So yeah,
we've all settled in and it's strange being in a nice,
brand new property because obviously I didn't want to bring
all my old stuff with me. I've been out and
bought all brand new stuff and it looks absolutely fantastic.
And thank you to those that have commented on my
posts or sent me messages wishing me well in moving
into my new property. I absolutely love it. So hopefully
here's the podcast back again and hopefully no more breaks
unless we move house again, but I don't think it
will be for a few weeks now. But yeah, thank
you for all the support that you have given me.
So what are we going to be talking about today? Well,
it's actually the first off note December, not November, first
of December today, so we're going to talk about everything
that we got up to in November and then tomorrow's
episode we'll start talking about all the things you can
grow and obviously all the jobs which need doing in December.
So if you're not following, mate, do give me a
follow and make sure you stay up to date for
them episodes dropping shortly. So what did we get up
to in November? Well, we absolutely blitched my allotment. I
did so much work down at the allotment during November
to say I'm only getting like two days a week
down at the plot. Now that I'm back working full time,
I've absolutely done loads and I'm so impressed with myself
because of how much I've actually got done. I've managed
to clear all my allotment. All my beds are completely empty.
I've cleared out all the bind weed what we're growing,
and dug over all my beds. We have planted all
our spring bulbs. They're all nicely planted and summer starting
to grow and pop through, which is absolutely fantastic. We
harvested all my Christmas potatoes. Yes it's not Christmas yet,
but they were ready. The plants had died off so
there were no more growing in them, so we harvested
all of them. We dugle pa geraniums and we moved
them into the shed, which was good sign because we
had snow. We did have to know, so it's a
good job I got them in and obviously we've had
the frost which would have killed them, and looking at
them today, they're still alive. They're still standing, which is
a good sign. Fingers crossed we can keep them alive
all winter. We also potted up all our salvia cuttings
which I took earlier in the year. They're all growing well,
so it's a case of keeping them all watered and
keeping on top of that side of things. And obviously
on my allotment site they'll be turning the water off
over winter, so we've got to keep things water in
the shed. We've got a big massive bucket full well
a wheelly bin full of water, so hopefully that will
last me all winter. I'm also feeding the cat on
a regular basis. The cat's still visiting my shed and
coming for its food, and my dad goes down on
a daily basis to go and feed it. He absolutely
loves going down to see the cat, so that's a
good thing. Else stuff we're being up to. We have
been sorting out my fruit trees and sorting out all
my BlackBerry canes and loganberrycanes. Have been busy with them today, actually,
been sorting them out, tying them back to the fencing,
chopping off any old branches and shoots what we're growing
on them, and the old signs of the old blackberries.
I've snipped off all them and tiding them all up.
What else we've cleared round all my rhubarb. We've got
rid of all the brambles on the plot, which was
absolutely awful. Dealing with brambles is a horrible job. But
we've done it all. We've got all that done, and yeah,
it's pretty much looking very neat and tidy now. There's
still a lot of work left to do. And I've
been tidying up inside my shed. We did a bit
a few weeks ago when it was absolutely chucking it down,
and I did some today because again it were chucking
it down when I got to the allotment. But when
I got left the allotment today it was absolutely gorgeous.
You wouldn't have thought it was December. It were warm,
it was sunny. I felt like I was getting sun tanned,
which I couldn't believe. But yeah, it will gorgeous down there.
So we've done all that, so we've got a lot
of jobs left to do. During this month of December.
We're going to be obviously digging over the beds again.
I'm going to do that on a monthly basis because
roots will still grow in the ground. Even if you
don't see weeds on top, you might still get roots
growing in the ground. So if we keep digging them
over and pulling the roots out, then we'll keep on
top of it and hopefully less weeds will be growing
in them beds next year. And obviously I don't want
the bind weed growing back, so getting as much as
that out as possible while it's winter is the perfect opportunity.
We're also going to be looking at sowing some seeds
this month as well, but stay tuned for what we're
going to be sewing. I'll share them with you on
a later date. So we've got all that done, and
this month I'm thinking about it might be time to
start prepping my shed, start doing all the renovational work
inside of what I'm wanting to get done this winter,
So I'm going to look forward to that project side
of it. But next week we're going to be busy
sorting out around my strawberry beds. We're going to get
that area sorted, and once that's sorted, then I'll be
happy enough to leave the rest of the plot until
next year and we can concentrate on doing everything in
the shed that we want to get done for the
winter period. And once the shed's done, then we can
concentrate on going back outside, which might be around February time, obviously,
depending on the weather, but hopefully we'll be getting lots
done down there. We've also sted in some bird feeders
down at the allotment. We're feeding the birds on a
regular basis. We've got plenty of different seeds and feeds
down there for the birds. And I did see a
rat screwing around today, so at least we've got the
cat to catch the rats. I nearly struggle saying that,
but yeah, at least we've got the cat to catch
the rats, so hopefully he will get them and stop them.
But yeah, I'm happy with everything that's been going on,
and i'd like, like I said, I do apologize for
not coming on and doing the podcasts, but obviously I've
had more exciting things to be doing at the moment,
we're moving into the property and setting up all my
setup and getting that done. We're going to be doing
quite a bit of new content this month as well,
and I hope that you enjoy it. I've dropped one
already today, a Christmas gardening joke, and if you think
it's a bit corny, they'll get a lot work. Trusty
have recorded some for every day this week, so make
sure you stay tuned for the daily Christmas joke that'll
be on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube for you to watch
and TikTok, so stay tuned for the daily joke of
the day. They're all Christmas related and they're all gardening
and Allotment related, so I hope that you do enjoy them.
If you do see them, do give them a like,
give them a comment, as it does help push them out.
And we're going to be doing a lot more content
hopefully this month. We filmed our Allotment Tour video today.
Obviously there's not much to show you, but you can
have a look and see how things are getting on
down at the Allotment at the moment, and hopefully we're
going to be doing some other types of content down
at the plot over the winter months, just showing you
what we're getting up to and different topics that we're
talking about. So I hope you're enjoying all this new content,
as it is taking up a lot of my time now,
but I absolutely love doing it, and the more people
that see it, the more people that follow, the more
I'll definitely enjoy doing it. And so many people listen
to my podcast last month, it was probably one of
the best months for downloads out of all the times
that I've been doing these podcasts, so it encourages me
to do them more and more. And yeah, I hope
that you're enjoying them, So I hope you come back
to the next podcast. We're going to be talking about
everything that you can grow in December, and I'll talk
about what I'm going to be sewing in December as well,
so stay tuned for that and the episode after that
will talk about all the jobs which you can do
in your garden and allotment in December to keep them
going and keep on top of things. So until next time, everyone,
remember keep smiling, keep shining, and keep gardening. We bet everyone.
Thank you for joining me on this episode of Gardening
with Ben. I hope you have found useful tips and
inspiration for your own gardening and a lotment journey. If
you have enjoyed today's episode, please make sure to follow
and subscribe to the podcast so you'll never miss a
new episode. And if you have a moment, I'd love
for you to leave a review and share the podcast
with fellow gardening beauty asks. Your support helps us grow
this community and continue bringing you great content. We can
also follow us on social media on every platform. All
Gardening with Ben for daily gardening tips and to days
happy gardening. And until next time, remember keep smiling, keep shining,
and keep gardening with Ben