Speaker 1: Welcome to Gardening with Ben, your 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 allotment 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 another brand new episode for you to listen
to on this Sunday morning when it's meant to be
actually starting to warm up today. Fingers crossed, hopefully all
that snow and ice will melt away, because I've been
stuck in my flat all week and i need to
get out. So I'm hopefully going to go out today
and hopefully go down to the allotment. I'm not going
to do any work down there, but I'm just going
to make sure that my bird feeders are filled up
because they'll have eaten all the bird feed that I
put out last weekend, So hopefully we can fill those
bird feeders up and get them eating again. Like I
said in my previous episode, I'm going to invest in
some squibrelproof bird feeders, so they're like ten pounds each,
but hopefully we'll be able to get some of those
and hopefully stop them eating all the seed. Not that
I don't mind them eating it, but when they eat
it all, it costs a lot of money to keep
filling them up every single day, so we need to
get some of those on order, hopefully in the next
few weeks. So yeah, hopefully I'm down on the allotment today,
hopefully filling those bird feeders up, and obviously feeding the
cat as well. My dad's been feeding that every day
for those that wondering, as we've got an allotment cat
down there and it pops into my shed, and yeah,
we give it some food every single day. He's even
going down even when it's been snowing and bad weather,
so good on him to keep feeding that pussy cap. Obviously,
there's plenty of food around for it with the mice
and the birds and stuff like that. We've seen a
few pigeon feathers around, so obviously it's keeping plenty of
food and keeping healthy. So yeah, what have we been
up to. Well, in yesterday's episode, I'm going to tell
you I said, I was going to tell you all
about what I've got growing at home at the moment.
So the things that I've got growing at home are
my onions, my peppers, my chilli is, and some auber gene.
That's what we've got growing at the moment at home.
And my onions are all starting to pop through. My
peppers and my chilis, they have not started sprouting yet.
Like I said, is that peppers and chilis need a
temperature of about twenty five degrees to germinate, which is
very hot. It's a very hot germination rate, and obviously
you can usually start them off in your allotment in
like April time, but last year when I saw them,
they were only just fruiting around September times, so they
were very behind. So we're starting them off really early
to try and get ahead of the game and hopefully
get some decent peppers off this year, because I want
to try and give them a good go in growing.
I'm also going to grow some melons this year, so
I'm looking forward to growing them and sharing with you
how well we get on with the melon growing. I'm
going to be growing loads of different stuff. To say that,
I'm only going to be down there two days a
week this year, I'm going to try and put a
lot of effort in it, show you how well and
how accomplished you can actually be. We're going to the
allotment for two days a week. Obviously, all my allotments
cleared and tidy. I don't need to do any work
on it, so it's a case of just growing and
keeping on top of things. So my allotment's pretty sorted.
I've had it for about twenty years now, so we're
pretty on top of it. Obviously we've got maintenance working
bits and bobs to do, but we are on top
of getting it all tidied and ready. So yeah, I'm
excited about that. And we're not going to be starting
any other seeds off at the moment. We won't be
starting out other seeds off till end of March time
beginning of April time. Sometimes you get like a week's
heat wave which you have to watch out for because
when it comes, that's when I start sorting on my
seeds to get them all growing and germinated because I
haven't got a heat of greenhouse or anything like that,
so I have to wait for the heat heat wave
to come and get them started. But I'm also going
to try and grow a few citrus plants at home.
That's one thing I want to give another try. I've
done it before, but I forgot to water it before
and I ended up killing it off. So I've got
so grapefruit seeds the other week from out of the grapefruit,
so I've saved them. So I'm going to try and
grow some grapefood. I don't think we'll be getting any
grapefruit on them. And I also got some sat suomers
as as well, so I'm going to try and grow
some of those and see how well we get on.
You never know, if we have a massive heat wave,
we might get some of them, but I really do
doubt it. And I'm going to try and grow some
lemon again. I've grown lemon plants before, like I said,
but I've got to water them so they died. But
I've got a secret way of getting the seeds to
germinate and grow, so I'll be sharing that with you
all when we get them all started and hopefully get
them germinated. Hopefully it works. And I'm not proven wrong,
but the last time I germinated my lemon seeds, I
managed to get them to germinate within a fortnight, So
hopefully we can work do that trick on the grapefruit
and on the satsuomers as well and get them growing.
So yeah, I'm looking forward to doing that, and I
just want to try loads of different things this year.
And I put a post out on Facebook the other
day saying about obviously it's cold weather, it's frozen over
and everything like that, but now it is a perfect
time to be planning and writing down all the seeds
that you want to grow this year, and making a
plan of your allotment and garden and showing what you
want to grow aware and how you're going to grow
it or if you're going to draw any improvements on it,
what you want to do, and bits like that. And
I've got so many sweet peas growing in my shed
in my allotment. Hopefully they're still alive. Hopefully the cold
weather's not killed them off. Hopefully they're still going to grow.
But we'll see, we'll see fingers crossed, they will knowing
my look, when I go down to the allotment tomorrow,
they'll all be dead. But like I always say, I'm
an up and and on his gardener. I tell you
how it is and how well I'm growing. I'm not
one of these gardeners that just show you all the
good things. I show you all the bad things as well,
because then it makes it more relatable to everybody, because
people think, well, they always seem to manage to get
them to grow. Well, no I don't. But yeah, I'll
love being open and honest with everybody. So we'll be
trying lots of different things this year. We still got
to make our seed list. I've got a load of
things in my Amazon shopping cart of what I want
to buy. In my shopping cart, I've been looking at
flower seeds at the moment because I want to try
loads of different flowers. A lot of my vegetable seeds
I tend to get them from wilcos which is obviously
now in the range. So if you've got a range
near you have a look at their Wilcose seeds because
They're usually pretty cheap, and they usually germinate pretty well.
I usually have good success with them, so I'll be
doing all my vegetable seeds from there. But my flower seeds.
I like to look all different unusual vegetables which we
probably won't see in a garden center. I tend to
get off Amazon or from a seed supply, and at
the moment, in my Amazon shopping cart, I've got a
load more. Even though I got loads of sweet peas growing,
I've got a load more different varieties of sweet peas
in my shopping cart. I've literally gone for every different
variety and put them in my shopping cart because I
want to try as many different varieties as sweet peas
as possible this year. I've also done the same for sunflowers.
I've got different varieties as sunflowers, and different varieties of
geraniums as well. I did have poppies in my shopping cart,
but I've ordered all them. We've got all them. We've
got loads of different varieties of poppies. So I'm trying
lots and lots of different varieties of stuff this year.
So it'll be exciting to see so fingers crossed. They
all grow and we hopefully get some good displays for
you all, some good pictures, because if not, it'll be
a big waste of money. But I don't care about
losing out of money on my allotment and garden, and
it's just about being outside and enjoying it, learning new things.
Given it try and if it fails, it fails. But yeah,
I absolutely love being outside in the garden. And that's
the thing I've missed this weekend is not being out
in the garden and being able to do stuff. But
I've been concentrating on other stuff. I've got these podcasts back,
I've been sharing posts on my Facebook page about what
to plan and what jobs need doing and stuff like that.
So I'm being pushing out my social media instead and
keeping everyone updated. So if you don't follow me on
my social media channels, give me a following in Instagram
and Facebook. Just search for Gardening with Ben and you'll
see all my posts and updates on there. So yeah,
that is hopefully what we're going to be getting up
to today on Sunday. Obviously I've pre recorded this episode
before I've gone down to my allotment, and hopefully we're
going to have be able to get onto the plot.
If not, I'll pluck away from the allotment and walk
down to the plot because I do want to get
down there, and I do want to have a little
look around and get some nice wintry pictures as well.
That would be nice. So yeah, hopefully I'll get down
to the allotment and hopefully get some stuff done. 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 pride. Don't forget to stay connected with
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keep smiling, keep shining, and keep gardening with Ben.