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 everyone, and welcome back to Gardening
with Ben for a brand new episode. There. I hope
that you're all well, and I hope that you all had.
Speaker 2: An amazing weekend.
Speaker 1: And yeah, today we're going to talk about a halfway
year and how well we've got on with our allotments
so far. There's success, the failures, and the damn right brilliant.
And it has been a tough year so far this year.
I must admit that I mentioned the other day that
I only get down to the allotment now for a
couple of days a week. I tend to go sometimes
at night, just give it a quick water and form
a bit of content for people. But I only tend
to spend two full days down there now, which is
happy on Sunday. And allotments are literally a full time
job in themselves, and it's a struggle keeping up with
it in two days. Let me tell you that even
the bind weed is a job and half keeping on
top of all that. It grows so fast. And now
that we've had all this heavy down poor rain, it's
going to shoot up everywhere, which is going to make
my life difficult. But we'll keep on top of it.
We'll keep smiling, we'll keep shining, and we'll keep gardening
with them. And hope flight will keep on top of it.
It keeps me going, it keeps me busy, and there's
always something to do with that. But yeah, what have
been our success as this year? Down on the allotment
so far this year? So starting off at the beginning
of the year, and the first thing I usually pick
is my rubarb, and the roobarb was absolutely fantastic. It
started to come to its end now, but hopefully will
get lots more up until August. We usually it died
back at August time so that all the nutrients can
go back into the roots of the plants into the
crown and it will then keep that food sort of
in itself, and that will give it the encouragement to
start again next year. Now we've had his roobarb plants
in for twenty years and the absolutely fantastic they come
back year after year, and the fruit that I get
from it is amazing, and the crumbles that my mom
mates are absolutely delicious. So we've got all that to do.
And what else next up is strawberries. Now, last year's
strawberries were absolutely rubbish. I had no strawberries whatsoever. They
failed on me. They didn't do it well, and yeah
they were a total wash out. But we didn't get
much of.
Speaker 2: The summer last year. It was absolutely useless.
Speaker 1: But this year as been in the complete opposite. We've
had absolutely loads and loads of strawberry plants, fast strawberry
plants and feelings cost they'll all be sending out of
the runners now so that we can start off extra
plants maybe for next years, filling all the gaps and
hopefully double the amount of strauberies that we had this year.
Speaker 2: That's what I usually do.
Speaker 1: I usually make use of all the runners, plants them
all out and filling the gaps and get even more
straubbies and must have about two hundred strawberry plants. You
never have enough strawberries, trust me. And yeah, absolutely fantastic.
Next up is our lettice. Our lettice has done absolutely
amazing again, done very well.
Speaker 2: I'm happy with that.
Speaker 1: It's always done well. I'm not growing iceberg this year.
I've grown of course we can come in again lettice,
which I disappointed actause I do love my iceberg lettices.
I should have grown some icebergs, but we've still got
a good crop from them, and it's doing absolutely amazing
and yeah, hopefully keeping going for a bit time. Next
up is beat route. Now, my beat root's not done
brilliant this year. I didn't know well we planted it.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to do well.
Speaker 1: We're growing it, and yeah, I don't think I'll be
getting any beat root this year. We might get a bit,
but we'll see. There's only ways of trying and seeing
how we get on with that growing. Fingers crossed, we
do get some beat route at least growing, but it
won't be very until probably it end of September oct
the time at our beat route.
Speaker 2: Next up is our course jets.
Speaker 1: Now, as courts are very slowly growing, the plants seem
to be take keep further to produce any food on them.
I don't know why, but they're taking the time. They're
getting bigger, so hopefully we'll get some coll jets coming
on them and hopefully will be inundated, and then we
should have not planted the college jets. But yeah, I'm
still waiting for my first green corse HT now yellow
corse jets. I've had quite a few of them off
there from really well. I don't know why why they're
doing better than the green ones, but we're getting some
yellow ones off, which I'm happy about. We've also had
some massive squashes off, absolutely amazing, the first time I've
ever grown. This variety that I've got. I think the
spaghetti squash. I'm not too sure, but they're absolutely massive.
I'll know what they are ones are quite inside them
if they are spaghetti squash or if they're a different squash.
Speaker 2: I often again not.
Speaker 1: Label with them up, so I don't know what variety
they are, so after wait until I cut it into them.
Next up is cucumber. Now as cucumber as plants fail
or mate.
Speaker 2: They didn't do very well.
Speaker 1: They didn't grow, so I've got no cucumber the plants
this year, which I'm highly disappointed at. I'm not happy
about because I do love cucumbers and usually they are
pretty years to grow, but this year absolutely failed or
mate whatsoever. Then we've got smart plants. I didn't start
any off from see this year. I bought my plants
from the supermarkets, so they.
Speaker 2: Were a bit bigger.
Speaker 1: So they're doing well and we've got absolutely alerts on there.
We've got Moneymaker a variety, and we have got beef
steak ones. The beef steak ones are the first time
I've ever.
Speaker 2: Grown beach Day.
Speaker 1: I've never grown Beach State before, so hopefully we get
some good ones from them. They're absolutely massive. They're just
not writing yet, so given time, they'll start writing in
pretty soon, hopefully, fingers crossed. Then we've got as melons.
We've not grown as melons for about eight years now.
And yeah, I don't know what variety of the areas again,
I've not learned all them up, but they have got.
Speaker 2: Melons on them and they're growing massive.
Speaker 1: Of the plants that are growing all over the place,
we've tied them all up. They're absolutely fantastic now, so
just to keep them fed and keep them going. Pepper
plants have not grown peppers in about fifteen sixteen years,
and I thought, beginning of January, I'm going to start
them off in my flat, get some plants growing, and
we're going to grow some peppers because they need a
long growing period. So we started them off. They got growing,
the plants did well, kept them alive in my flat,
and we started them off down at the allotment after that,
and they've got absolutely loads of peppers on them. They're
doing absolutely amazing. However, as I mentioned in my other podcast,
they're getting eating spits. So we're going to try a
few ways to try and stop them from getting eaten.
See if you can stop that and hopefully get some
decent peppers. And they're meant to be mixed. Cry to
the colors. I think they're all green at the moment,
so we'll have to watch out for them changing color
and seeing if we get some.
Speaker 2: Different color peppers growing.
Speaker 1: Then we have got our pumpkins. Now. I grew some
pumpkins last year. But again, like I said, the weather
wasn't fantastic. It was awful last year, and this year
it's a lot better. And hopefully they're raping in time.
They didn't rapping in time last year. They didn't mark
it at all, to be honest. So hopefully we get
the decent autumn weather to get them to ripen and
get some decent ones. Expecting some bekish ones. With all
this rain that we've had the last today, last few days,
hopefully it'll make them swell and hopefully it gets some
decent sized ones growing sweet corn absolutely amazing. A lot
of people mentioning that they were struggling. We started a
week calling off. I started off and they did absolutely amazing,
planted them all out and there I was towards me.
I've never grown on that tall before. And they're still
growing now. They're getting all the husks home, they're getting
the cops them. So hopefully we'll get a decent crop
of sweet corn this year. And I always put bottles
on them when they get to decent size and when
they start wearing brown, because that's when the basks smell
them and the squirrels, and then that's when.
Speaker 2: They'll eat them and putting bottles over them.
Speaker 1: We're protect them from getting eaten, but obviously don't do
that until they starts to getting ready because they need
the pollination to pollinate it to make the sweet corn
in the corps. So we've got that. What else next,
there's plums are fruit in this year. They're not swallowing
as much. Hopefully all this rail will help them swell.
Cooking apples absolutely.
Speaker 2: Loads on this year.
Speaker 1: Last year I didn't do very well because they're giving
it a massive trimm back, but I left it this
year and we've got.
Speaker 2: A load of cooking apples on. I'm after trimming.
Speaker 1: This year's absolutely huge now and eating apples again, a
massive crop of them. Pears also doing fantastic, so we're
going to get a lot of fruit halvest time round
end of August September, and that'll keep me going all
the way through winter and getting well. This garlic didn't
do too well this year. It could have done better.
Maybe it's down to me not looking after it enough.
But we've got some decent sized small ones, so hopefully
we're gonna try and make some hummus for them. I've
never made hummers in my life but I tasted it
once and it was absolutely gorgeous. Red goosebries the first
year we've had a massive red goosberry crop, and they
were absolutely delicious. The only thing is with gooseberries is
that they've fallen out in a pretical year every time
you try and pull them off. But we managed and
we got some off and they were absolutely delicious. The
red ones are the sweet ones. Green ones are the
sour ones. So I don't grow the green ones. I
just grow the red ones. But yeah, overall our crops,
I've done really well this year. So I've not done
a lot. I'm pleased with what's grown and how it's
grown and the results that we've got from it. So
I hope you enjoyed this mid year catch up and
how well we're getting up to so far. So until
next time, I want remember keep smiling, keep shying, and
keep guardening about 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 ride. Don't forget to stay connected with me
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