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. I hope you're
glad to hear that we're back again for the time,
but yeah, we're back with the podcast and recording them
again on a regular basis for you. So today's podcast
is we're going to talk about what we got up
to down at the allotment yesterday as we were busy
bees down there yesterday. Obviously we had the forecast for
torrential rain and thunderstorms. We didn't get any thunderstorms where
I am so far up to recording this episode. But
we did get some torrential rain, which is good because
I didn't bother water in my plot on Friday or Saturday,
so I'm glad that it came. Hopefully it's soaked in well,
and hopefully it will not have me watering for a
few days now and we can just let things grow
with the n actual rainwater, which is a lot better
than tap water when you grow in plants. So what
did we get up to, Well, we did a bit
of picking before the rain actually came. I picked some
massive squash which you might have seen on my Instagram
or Facebook, and I've just got to work out how
to cook them now that's the only problem. We're growing stuff,
but it's cooking stuff that's another issue. But yeah, hopefully
we'll be able to cook something nice with them. We
also picked a load of tomatoes as they're all starting
to ripe them pretty fast. Now we're just waiting on
them beefsteak tomatoes to start ripening. Once they obviously start ripening,
then they'll all start ripening. But the massive, absolutely massive,
one of them's literally the size of my hand and
it's still growing. It's still growing every single day. We're
keeping unwatered every single day, sometimes twice a day, and
it's just growing massive. At the moment, I don't know
when it's actually going to stop growing. I might be
able to turn to it in a competition at this
rate with how big it is. But yeah, they're absolutely amazing.
So today, obviously with it raining, we decided to do
some polytonal jobs, the jobs that I don't often do,
as I like to be outside when it's a nice day,
making most of the sunshine while we've got it. So
we stayed inside in the polytunnel and we tidied up
all my smart plants. I took off all the lower
leaves I took off any I took off the tops
of the smart plants as they'd reached the top of
my polytunnel. So I want them to concentrate on growing
the tomatoes now, not growing the actual plant. That's a
plan anyway, whether that will happen, hopefully we get a
load more to Martes on them and keep them fruiting
all the way up to end of September October time
and get a great reward from them. So we've got
them growing. We also sorted out as beefsteak tomatoes. Again,
took off a load of leaves and sipped the top
off as they've reached the top and it won't get
as many tomatoes on that one, but hopefully we'll get
some decent sized, wopper sized ones. We also gave them
a good feed, We gave them some blood, fish and bone,
we gave them a good water in and they were
all looking healthy. And we tied them all back up
because they were getting all over the place. So we've
sorted all them out. Next up we've sorted out as
pepper plants. Again, I don't know how you look after
pepper plants. I should have really read up about peppers
as it's not something I often grew. But again I
took off the lower leaves and the only issue with
my peppers is that they're getting eaten by something. Whether
it's ants, slugs, I don't know. Something is eating them
and I'm not happy about it. So if anyone's got
any tips for stopping things from eating my peppers, please
do let me know. Maybe I need to put them
in a bowl of water so nothing can crawl into them.
But yeah, we'll see how we get on. Hopefully we
do get some peppers from them, because there's loads on there,
but they just keep getting eaten. I'm like, no, not
another one. So I ended up just cutting it off
and throwing it away and hopefully we do get some
peppers next up. I then sorted out all my melon plants,
now not grown melons for a few years. Down at
the allotment. It must have been about eight years or so.
I grew some cantaloup melons and they were absolutely phenomenal,
great taste, great flavor, and smell absolutely beautiful. And we've
grown some more melons again this year. Don't ask me
what variety, because I've forgot to label them, or I've
forgot to label them up. I don't know. But we've
got some melon plants and they had not even tied
any of them up. They were just growing everywhere. So
we've put some netting up on the side, and we've
also fastened them all up to the netting and sorted
them all out and hidden away. There were some melons
growing on it. So looks like we possibly will get
some melons growing and get a great reward from them
and see how well they get on. So I'm happy
with that. I posted a video of that on my
Facebook and Instagram if you want to go and have
a look at that and see how well they're getting on.
I've also sorted out my aubergine plan as that I've
got a load of leaves on it. It looks like
it's pretty hungry because the leaves are going a bit
yellow on it. So I've given it a good feed
as well and stripped off a load of lea what
weren't doing any good and tidied it all up, fastened
the cane and tied the plant up. And yeah, I
bought my aubergine plant this year. I didn't grow it
from seed. I've never had any luck with growing aubergine
from seed because you have to start them off pretty early.
So I thought I'll buy a plant, see how it
gets on. And wow, one plant is en off. There's
absolutely loads of ubergunes on it. It's doing absolutely amazing.
I can't believe how well the aubergines are growing on there.
So we're getting going to get some great rewards from
that as well. So overall, we have had a very
busy day down at the lotment. I spent about four
hours down there this morning. As I'm an early riser,
so I usually get down there for about eight half
eight and get on and get started with my job.
Now tomorrow, hopefully, fingers crossed, we're going to be setting
up irrigation for my tomatoes and stuff in my polytunnel.
I've got a big, massive, really been what I fill
with water, but I want to set up an irrigation
on it so it does get a constant of water
twice a day and keep them happy because obviously the
big plants now they'll need water in possibly twice a
day because it do dry out really fast. As the
composting it's absolutely Rubbishou's no good. But hopefully we'll keep
them water and keep them alive and keep things growing
on it. So that's my plan for tomorrow. I was
meant to do it today, but I've got to take
them down to the plot, which I are absolutely annoyed
myself for. But over we did get a lot of
stuff done down there, so I'm happy about that. So
make sure you come back to tomorrow's episode at where
we'll be talking about how we've got on. We're setting
up this irrigation. It's the solar powered irrigation system rather
than battray, so hopefully we'll get enough sun to make
it work, but talking to other people, they've managed to
get it to work even with little son, so we'll
see how we get on with that. I'll obviously film
a video on it as well to share with you
all as well. And if you're listening to this, make
sure you do follow my Facebook page and feel free
to lie the comment, like the post comment on it
as obviously it pushes it out with hit twenty five
thousand followers now, which I'm absolutely and thrilled about. It
took us eight years to get to twenty five thousand,
and hopefully the next step will be fifty thousand, and
hopefully it'll be a lot faster than eight years to
get to fifty thousand. So thank you all once again
for all your support and everything. So until next time,
everyone remember keep smiling, keep shining, and keep Guardening 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
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