Speaker 1: Welcome to Gardening with Ben. You'll go to podcast for
all things green and growing in twenty twenty five. Whether
you're a seasoned gardener, a budding enthusiast, or just curious
about cultivating your own slice of nature, you're in the
right place. Join me Ben as we explore practical tips,
inspiring stories, and the latest trends in gardening to make
your outdoor space bloom with life. From a lotment adventures
to wildlife friendly gardening. I'm here to help you grow
your passion and read the rewards. So grab your gloves,
roll up your sleeves, and let's get started on this
year's gardening journey. Hey everybody, and welcome back to Gardening
with Ben. Well, it's Thursday already, and wow, yes, thankfully
the week is flying by and I'm so excited for
the weekend. I'm ready for the Big Bird Watch, which
we'll talk about in tomorrow's episode. But yeah, I'm definitely
excited about it. I can't stop talking about it. Hopefully
we'll get lots of feathered friends down there. But yeah,
look forward to tomorrow's episode where we'll be talking all about
the Big Bird Watch. And yeah, so what have we
been up to well. We have obviously been working this
week so have not been down to the allotment, but
we are trying stuff here at home and I've started
my peppers off, my onions off, and my chillis off,
and so far the peppers and the onions are growing.
The peppers seem to have started really growing this week,
as I've not had no sign of life on them
for a couple of weeks. I must have planted him
about twenty days ago, twenty five days ago, quite a
while ago, and they were taken forever to Germany, and
I was thinking, well, it's warm enough in my flat.
This is the idea temperature obviously, because it needs to
be about twenty five degrees to germinate the peppers, one
of the reasons why I've started them off at home
early to get them growing ready for this year. So
I thought I'll try them at home this year. We'll
start the nice and early and get them growing. And yeah,
no sign of life. I thought I've bought a dodgy
pack of pepper seeds, but nope, they are germinating and
they're all popping through now, so hopefully in possibly about
a month's time, we might pot them all up into
individual pots, keep them growing at home until it's warm
enough to take them down to the allotment to the
shed to grow. So hopefully we'll have lots of peppers
this year. That's my plan to try and grow lots
of peppers, and obviously my onions. I'm starting them from
seed this year and I'm growing some from set. So
I'm going to show the difference between seed onions and
set onions and show which ones do better. And I'm
thinking it'll be the seed ones again because I've done
it from seed before and the seed did do better
than the sets, So I have to wait and see
and see which ones actually do well. My chili is
they have not even started growing yet, so I'm hoping
that they'll start germinating soon or I'll have to start
some more off because chilies are easier to grow than
peppers usually. When I had did them last time, the
chilis grew absolutely loads on the planet. I've not grown
for about ten years now, but they did absolutely fantastic.
So I'm hoping that they do germinate and they get
growing and then we'll get lots of chilies as well
this year. Now I might start some aubergine off as well. Soon.
Now is the time to start aubergine off as well,
obviously indoors where it's warmer and get them growing. So
I might try a few aubergine this weekend and get
them planted. We have also spent a little too much
money online. Guess what I've bought now. Well, I were
talking about watermelons and melons the other day and I thought,
I'm going to go online and have a look see
what seeds they are. So I added them all to
my basket, all different varieties, and I thought, sod it,
I'm purchasing them. So I purchased about six or seven
different varieties and melons and watermelons to try and grow.
So we're going to try lots of different varieties of
melons this year, so make sure you stay tuned for that.
And obviously I'm gonna be growing them in my polytunnel
where it's hopefully warmer, and in pots. I'll be growing
them in pots, so we'll have to keep them watered
well and keep them really watered. So hopefully we have
some decent melons. And yeah, obviously I'll be sharing the
journey with you all. I'll be sharing all the photos
online and updating you on the podcast how well they're
actually getting on. So that is one and morephing ticked
off on my list. Next thing to tick off on
the list will be my different varieties are sweet peas,
different varieties are geraniums, my different varieties are sunflowers, and
my different varieties of squash as well. So hopefully I'll
be able to purchase all them and get them growing.
But yeah, I'm going absolutely mental with the seed growing
this year. I don't know where I'm going to find
all the time to look after these, but hopefully we'll
find time and hopefully we'll get them all growing, and
hopefully we'll get some produce from them. That's the main thing.
It's so I spending all this money growing on it's
whether you actually get produced from them. But yeah, hopefully
we have a fantastic crop and hopefully some great results
to show you all. But I'm so excited. I'm so
excited for March. And I was just live on my
TikTok account before I've recorded this, and I was just
chatting to somebody online who follows this podcast. Ali. They
shout out to you and we're chatting saying that everybody's
excited to grow in seeds, and people can get carried
away and follow the seed packets suggestion for growing too
much and start sewing all the seeds pretty early, and
sometimes obviously they don't germany or if you're going to inside,
they'll get leg a. And the only seeds that I
would start at this time of year are chilis, peppers,
auber jeans, and onions and possibly leaks. I wouldn't start
anything else off earlier, not my tomatoes, not my cucumbers.
I'll start them all off in like March time April time.
They soon catch up and they'll grow up properly. If
they're in a greenhouse, they won't grow leg a. They
won't have issues with germinating from the heat. But yeah,
we everybody gets excited when they're growing for the first year,
and they'll start really early. They need to hold off,
hold off from sewing them seeds. But yeah, hopefully get
planting pretty late on and you'll see me when I
start sewing all my seeds. It'll possibly be like end
of March time beginning of April time. I'll be going
absolutely mental with sewing loads of seeds and we are
going to label them all. This year, we're going to
label up what I'm planting in what seed tray, so
then there's no guessing at the end. My mum bought
me some seed labels this year for Christmas, some wooden ones,
so we're going to make use of them and we're
going to write down all our plants on seed labels
so that we know what we're growing. But I'm so
excited for this year. I'm really determined, and obviously now
that I'm doing more content with videos and with podcasts
and everything like that, I'm sharing what I'm getting up to,
so hopefully you'll all enjoy it and hopefully all enjoy
the journey this year down on the allotment and sharing
what I get up to. And as I always say,
I'm an honest gardener, I'll show you what's successful and
I'll show you what fails as well. There's no point
being a gardener if you don't show what failures you have.
Nothing ever always works, and that's what Obviously people show
the show all the good stuff, but it's good to
show the bad stuff as well so that they know
it's not all easy to do, which is not it's
a hard job to do, and I hope that you
do enjoy these podcasts, and I hope that you do
enjoy my allotment chaining. So we will be back tomorrow
with tomorrow's podcast talking about the big bird Watch, and
then on Saturday we will be down there getting all
the footage and hopefully some birds. There's a strong storm
coming on Friday night, everybody, so if you've got any
like stand up greenhouses or loose bits on your greenhouse,
make sure everything's secure, make sure your pots are secure,
and everything will blow away because it's going to be
a bad storm on Friday, so make sure you prepared
for that everyone. So until next time, everyone, remember, keep smiling,
keep shining, and keep gardening with Ben. Everyone, thanks for
tuning in to today's episode of Gardening with Ben. I
hope you've enjoyed our chat and picked up some tips
to help your garden and allotment thrive. Don't forget to
stay connected with me on all social media for even
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and join our growing community of garden lovers. Until next time,
everyone remember keep smiling, keep shining, and keep gardening with
Ben