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 a lotment. So sit back,
grab a brew and enjoy today's episode. Hey everyone, and
welcome back to Gardening with Ben for another brand new episode. Well,
these are the new episodes for the week. Over the
weekend we talked about all the things that we've been
getting up to at the allotment. Well, today's episode, we're
going to talk about planning your allotment for springtime, the
best planning the best allotment for the springtime, and planning
your best garden. And we've touched on this quite a
few times and I'm getting prepared ready for the springtime.
As you know, all my allotments pretty much cleared and
tided ready for next year now, and we're getting it
all settled ready for the new season ahead. So we're
going to be looking at what we're going to be
growing next year and how we're going to plan it out,
and keeping a record of how things are growing and
getting on. Now, every single year, I purchased myself a
gardener's log book, and you can usually buy them offer
Amazon or from different shops, or if you just want
to buy normal diary and keep a note in there,
but I usually buy a garden log book and support
a local, support online businesses and stuff like that. So
I like to buy one of them, and I usually
do that far writing down all the things that I'm
growing that month, for that weekend, when I planted it,
how I planted it, the temperature of the month when
I planted it, just like keeping a record of everything
and when I planted it out, when I harvested it,
which varieties I grew, and how well it growed, and
whether I'll grow it again. So I like to keep
a record of things that I'm growing so that I
know what to purchase the year after or what not
to buy if it did absolutely rubbish. So I like
to keep a log at that, and that's one way
of planning for next year, because you can look back
and see how successful things were and whether you'll think
about doing it again next year. So we've done that,
and the next up is obviously planning our allotment. Every year.
I drought a plan of my allotment. It's not changed
much over the last few years, my allotment and keeping
it in the same style as I've always got it.
Now as I've got the layout salted, it's all pretty
much a good layout. I've got my paths laid, I've
got my beds where that I want them to be,
and I've got all my fruit trees where they're growing.
I won't be moving any of those obviously. All my
strawberries are in a special strawberry patched through some black membrane.
They're all pretty much straightforward, and yeah, everything's in its
own place. So I've just got my beds, my growing
beds where I've grown my vegetables for that year. And
obviously I like to improve the soil every year and
add some nutrition into it. But obviously we don't want
to be growing stuff in the same place as last
year because obviously that plant's taking out some nutrition from
the soil, so they might not be that nutrition for
that certain plant in the soil. So we have to
move things around. So we'd like to draw a plan
of all our beds and write down what we're going
to be growing in each bed and how what variety
will grow or Yeah, we tend to do that and
just like make a plan of it all just to
give us an idea where things are going to grow.
We'll probably change things as we go along because we'll
end up shoving things in gaps and if a plant
don't grow, we'll plant something else there. But we tend
to stick to that plan. And again, you can save
a copy of that and look back on it the
year before to see what you actually grew in them beds,
because if you ask me what I grew in certain
beds this year, I've forgotten already. I'd have to either
look back on photos or look back on my planet
and see how it's getting on. So we plan are
year ahead now ready for next year. And then the
other thing that we need to plan is what we're
going to be growing. And as you know, I get
really excited about buying seeds I buy seeds when I
don't really need to buy seeds, but I just waste
money on buy seeds. It's an addiction. I can't help it.
But yeah, i just buy loads of different seeds, and
I've a look on Amazon and a typing like poppy varieters,
which is why I've got loads of different varieties of
poppies this year to grow. Or I'll get a seed
catalog and I'll have a look through the seed catalog
and tick which ones I want and order them that way.
But I do like to grow all different varieties of seeds.
I don't like to stick to bog standard varieties. I
like to grow unusual varieties that you won't see and
got shops or supermarkets to eat. And yeah, that's what
makes it more exciting. And if you're getting different colored
vegetables as well, they're not just a bog standard green
ones like most of the veget it's good to have
some color in your allotment and in your garden as well.
It's how I basically plan for my year ahead. And
obviously I watch a lot of videos as well, and
obviously watch Gardeners World and different gardening programs and see
what varieties they're growing and how well they're growing, because
it's always good to get feedback off other people, Like, yeah,
you might see seeds online or something like that, and
you think, oh, I might give that a try, but
if you've seen somebody else grow it and if they've
had success from it, it's always good to try stuff
what you know will do well. And there's obviously a
lot of fake sites as well online where you can
buy purple bananas or black cauliflowers and stuff like that,
but never get sucked into buying any of those because
they are all fake, a lot of them, and hopefully,
like the online stores, keep on top of that and
get rid of those fake sellers. But there is a
lot of different colored variety of vegetables out there which
are real and which are legit. So if you are
looking at buying seeds, make sure you're buying them from
a legit seed company on Amazon, not just a random seller.
But yeah, I'm excited for next year, and I'm excited
for the new things that we're going to try and
the old things that we're going to keep on doing.
What we did last year, which did really well because
obviously we grew all ap potatoes in tubs last year
and they did absolutely fantastic. We did some garlic last
year that was amazing. The sweet corn always does well.
We grew that in a different position this year, and yeah,
as peas was the best peas that we've ever grown
on my allotment. Ever, I've never had a successful year
as I did last year with my peas, and hopefully
we can continue and do that again. As what I
did with my peas this year. Rather than sew them
all into the ground, which I've done in the past
and they'll get eaten by rats, mice and slugs when
they're popp him through, we told them all in seed
trace first, and then we planted them out when they
were big enough to be able to handle themselves, and
they did the absolutely amazing, the best seeds that I've
ever well, the best peas that I've ever had, and
they tasted absolutely delicious. So we're gonna That's the thing
like as well. Like I always say obviously with that
log book, is that write down your successes, write down
your failures and what worked well and what didn't work well,
and if it worked fantastic, good try it again next
year and hopefully I'll have success, but I've done that
in the past. I like if I've had a success
for something and then I try it again the next
year and it's absolutely failing. I'm thinking, what have I
done wrong, what we've done differently? But at the end
of the day, it's all down to gardening, and it's
all down to the weather as well. And sometimes things
will do well, sometimes things will do rubbish, and yeah,
that's the joy of gardening. You win some, you lose some,
and never get disheartened by anything that you grow. Just
keep trying, try and try it again. So that is
how we will plan for a successful spring next year,
being organized, being planned and getting prepared ready for next year.
So I hope you found those tips useful. Get yourself
a log book, draw yourself a plan, and have a
look in those sea catalogs. Ready for next year. Until
next time, everyone, remember, keep smiling, keep shining, and keep
gardening with Ben. Everyone, m 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,
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