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 Allotment. So sit back, grab
a brew and enjoy today's episode. Hey everyone, and welcome
back to Gardening with Ben on what seems to be
forever since we've done a podcast episode, but yes, we
are back now, and hopefully we're going to be get
these podcasts out to you on a regular basis now
that I'm working normal hours again. And yeah it's used
for ever since I've worked normal hours, but yeah, I'm
working nine to five now and I've got my weekends off,
my night's free. So we're hoping to get these podcasts
out to you on a daily basis for you to
enjoy and hopefully they'll be uploaded like for seven o'clock
in the morning, so you can listen to them on
the way to work, or while you're having your morning brew,
or why you're taking the dog for a walk, or
while you're at the allotment. The choice is down to you.
But where have we been for the last month? But obviously,
like I said, we've been settling into our new job,
getting used to our new schedules and everything that we're working.
And also I've been getting my YouTube channel back up.
That has been my main focus for last month, getting
lots of new videos up on there for you all
to enjoy. So if you're not following my YouTube channel,
do give it a Followers is absolutely loads on there
for you to watch. And I've started posting more YouTube
videos again this month. And also I'm going to be
sharing daily questions as well for you to get involved
with on the comments, and I'll try and get back
to all the comments that come on the YouTube videos
and on I'll be posting them on Instagram as well,
so wherever you follow me on the platforms, I will
hopefully see all the responses. So we're going to be
getting them out as well. On a daily basis. So
we're doing lots more content for you. We're gonna have
those podcasts, we're gonna have regular videos, and yeah, I'm
gonna be sharing lots and lots of pictures as well
for you all to enjoy. So how has our allotment
year been this year? That is the question. Well, it's
been a hell of a year with the weather. To
put it, mainly, we've not had a very good summer
whatsoever down at the allotment. As you will know, it's
places have very nice summer. But whether I've been, we've
not had no summer this year. It's been absolutely awful.
I think it's nicer now than it was in the summertime.
So yeah, the bizarre one. We've certainly not had no
droughts this year. But yeah, hopefully we'll have a nice
autumn and we'll be able to get us allotments and
gardens prepared all the way ready for next year and
get them all looking good, ready for a new year
and a fresh start. That's what I always see with
a Lotment's like, yeah, you may have a bad year,
but then you clear it all down, you start from
scratch and you've got a new year. Ahead of you.
And that's how I always see. I don't get upset
if stuff doesn't grow well, and you just learn from
it and move on and we'll do it all again.
And that's the joy of gardening. Just keep trying until
you get a fantastic crop. Now, what has had crops
been like this year? Down on the allotment, Well, let's
go through my allotment and i'll tell you how well
everything's done now on there. So this year, my plum
tree was an absolute failure. It looked really really healthy
to start off at the beginning of the year, but
then it's sent to whether it caught a disease or
got something wrong with it, but it all seen to
die off and literally all the leaves dropped off it,
and yeah, it wasn't very healthy whatsoever. So I don't
know if it got silver leaf or got infected or
something like that, or whether trees get flus, I don't know,
but it absolutely struggled. So the plum tree was an
absolute failure this year. You never know, Fingers crossed, we
might get some next year. Whether it were just this year,
I don't know, but it's the first time it's ever
done that. And we'll see how we get on and
hopefully get some plums on it next year. Cooking apples.
I only got about six or seven cooking apples off
it this year, not many, and offer like my cooking
apple trees about twenty years old. It were one of
the first plants that I planted in my allotment, and
I gave it a massive cutting back last year and
freshening up. But hopefully we'll get a lot more off
it next year. It's obviously down to the pruning on it.
Sometimes when people say that if you prune them really hard,
it stressed as a tree out and it can cause
them to have a bad year. So I think that's
the reason why, so I'm not giving it a prune
this year. I may just trim the ends on the branches,
but I'm not gonna give it a massive prune at all.
Hopefully we'll get lots of cooking apples on it next
year because it's so expensive to buy and I can't
beat them having them in my crumbles absolutely delicious. And
talking of crumbles, my rubarb, my rubob did absolutely amazing
this year. We had I had crumbles all the way
through someone literally every single day my mum making them
week after week after week, and that's the best. I
grow it and she does the baking out of it,
so I get a fantastic rhubarb crumble out of it.
So hopefully we have another good year next year. Off rhubarb.
Rhubarb always seems to do well. Whatever you do, it
always grow as well. My eating apple tree and my
pear treet again fantastic. They did amazing. Hopefully we'll get
loads on it again next year. I don't think I'm
going to even mapprune this year. They've not grown too big,
and hopefully we'll get some more great produce out of
them next year. My strawberries, My strawberries did absolutely horrendous.
They didn't grow very well and so I've ended up
planting two hundred plants. Yes you heard it right, two
hundred strawberry plants have planted this year ready for next year.
I've used all my runners off them, planted them all up.
They've all seem to have taken They look like they're
growing nice and healthy and they're happy in the ground.
So fingers Crossed will get absolutely loads of strawberries next year. Blackberries,
if you've not got a Famless BlackBerry, get one. Honestly
one of the best things that I'm growing in my alopment.
I've got two BlackBerry bushes what I started, and the
canes on them have grown absolutely massive, or should I
call them whips. They grow absolutely massive and really long
all the way down the side of my plot now
and you don't get falls in yourself because they're fallless.
And the blackberries on them are absolutely delicious and gorgeous
and massive, and they seem to fruit for longer as
well than famless ones. So if you've not got a
Famless black break, get one. They're a game changer. Raspberries
did it amazing as well. We had summer variety and
we had autumn variety. Both did absolutely fantastic. We had
some great crops off them, and yeah, you can't beat
homegrown raspberries. So next up is waters and cucumbers now matamatos.
I grew with them outside again this year because I've
grown them the year before outside. They took longer to
ripen this year. Like I said, we've not had much
sunshine this year, so they took longer to ripen. Cucumbers.
I've never grown cucumbers outside before. Ever, and this is
the first year that I've grown them outside. I had
three plants in the polytunnel, only got a few cucumbers
off them, grew all the spares outside because I thought,
rather than throw a well, plant them, and wow, when
I were clearing the plants away, I've got seventeen cucumbers
off what harvested what we're all hiding everywhere. They did
absolutely amazing And this is the market more variety of
cucumber that I grew outside. It did absolutely phenomenal. So
I'm going to keep growing my cucumbers outside every year.
Saved by the compost because I can plant them straight
in the ground and it's cheaper. And obviously the water
as well. If it rains, it rains, it watered them
so they get more more water than probably what they
would do in a polytunnel. So I'm going to grow
my market more varieties of cucumbers outside again next year.
That's the thing. If you don't try stuff and give
it a go, you'll never know if it works or not.
So that is what I'm doing again next year. Next
up is my sweet corn. My sweet corn did absolutely amazing.
We had some fantastic harvests. Off it so impressed with
how well it all grew and it absolutely tasted delicious. Potatoes.
My potatoes again, they did absolutely amazing. I didn't grow
them in the ground again this year. I grew them
in boxes because I've grown them in boxes the year
before and They've done absolutely amazing, so I thought, I'm
growing them in boxes again rather than in the ground
because growing them in boxes they seem to not get
as many pests eating them or holes in them from
wireworms and stuff like Thatbviously, it costs a lot of
money for the compost, but overall the crop did absolutely fantastic.
And the best thing we're growing them in boxes is
that when they're read eye, you just empty the boxes
out and pull all the potatoes out. You don't have
to dig from and you don't end up chopping them
all in a half or stabbing them with the fork
or with chopping them with the spade as you digging
them up. So yeah, you get one hundred percent good
crop out of them. And I had absolutely loads. And
yes I didn't always water them. I forgot to water
them sometimes, so they probably could have been even better
if i'd have watered them all the time. But yeah,
they did absolutely amazing. So again next year we're going
to be growing them in boxes. Because if you don't
try stuff and see if it works, you'll never know,
will you. So hopefully in a few weeks time, I'm
going to be harvesting my Christmas potatoes. All the plants
are dying off on them now, so they're ready for harvesting,
probably a bit earlier than what I hoped. We're hoping
to harvest them towards Christmas. Bought the plants a dyeing
off now, so we'll have to start harvest them and
get them all in my flat ready for some chippies,
because I'm cooking chips out of all my potatoes this year.
My airfry absolutely love it, and I've got a chopping machine,
so it's chopped them all into nice chips, decent sizes,
and I just chuck them in the air fright with
some cheesy spice on. I don't know what it's called,
but it's like a cheesy sauce one and you just
sprinkle it on it and absolutely fantastic. The taste delicious.
So hopefully we've got some nice potatoes readye for harvesting,
So make sure you stay turned on YouTube for the
potato reveal and I'll show you if they've grown or
if they've not grown, so we'll share it all together
and the excitement. Next up is coajets and squashes rubbish.
I had no cause jets, no squashes, no patty pans,
no button up squash, stely pathetic rubbish pumpkins. However, I
managed to get some pumpkins. They took further to ripen,
but we got some pumpkins off, so are happy with them.
Not as big as what I'd hoped, but next year
we're going to concentrate on them and see if we
can grow some really massive ones. So let's see how
big we can actually grow a pumpkin, and we'll be
sharing that journey through the videos, sharing our tips and
advice on how to grow a massive pumpkin. I'll be
feeding it regularly, I'll be watering it all the time
and making sure that we'd get a nice size pumpkin
on it for harvesting for Halloween next year, which is exciting.
But I know Halloween seems forever away next year because
it's only just been but we'll be starting them off
in March, so it's not far away when we're going
to be sorrying our seeds for pumpkins. So we've got
all that to do. And what else have we had.
We've had lettists that's done amazing, as beetroot's done amazing,
as peas absolutely phenomenal. We had two harvests of peas
did absolutely fantastic. I'm sorry, pleased with my peas this year.
Usually I grow them in the ground and the rats
of the mice seem to eat them. But we grew
them all in pots this year. First got them growing,
got them to a decent size. Then we've planted them
all outside and they did absolutely amazing this time. So
if you grow in peas, I advised to grow in
pots first and then plant them out when they're at
a decent size and you'll get some amazing crops in
the garden. So yeah, and my runner beans have done
amazing as well, and hopefully we've got some runner bean
seeds for next year. What was saved from all their leftovers,
what they're on the plant, and hopefully we'll get some
of those. But yeah, my allotment's done absolutely fantastic this year.
That's all my vegetables and all my fruit as that's
done well. My flowers on my allotment, I'm absolutely amazed
with our flowers. Must have been bulbstered amazing. We've got
some beautiful spring displays as sunflowers were huge. They did amazing,
probably one of the best sunflower displays I've had on
my allotment. We had some amazing sweet peas which smelled
absolutely fantastic. I've got all my sweet peas in now.
I've planted them earlier this year rather than planting them
in March. I've planted them now and hopefully the plants
will be stronger for next year and we'll get more
crops off them. So watch this space. I've been sharing
videos on my sweet peas on YouTube, so if you've
not seen them, check them out and you'll be able
to see how well my sweetpeas are doing. But yeah,
they did amazing. And then we had grown as pans
is from seed. Hopefully we get some flowers on them.
But yeah, I can't remember what the name. And my
other plants are. What I've done well, We've got some
amazing futures as hydrainers. We've got some cuttings off them
which have done well. But yeah, I'm so pleased with
how well my flowers have done this year. We're going
to try even more flowers next year. I'm loving trying
new flowers because i never used to grow flowers, but
now I've got into it and I enjoy it. And
trying different flowers because I've got flower boarders now, and
trying different things down there is absolutely phenomenal. Like I
grew different varieties of pans is but not pans as
poppies this year and they were gorgeous. So we're going
to try loads of different varieties of poppies for next
year as well. We've saved all the seeds from this
year's to hopefully grow neck yeah, and produce even more poppies,
so stay tuned for that. So yeah, I'm glad to
be back doing these podcast episodes. Like I said, we're
going to get them out on a regular basis. The
next episode what will come up, we'll be talking about
all the things that you can plant in November, and
then the episode after that will be all the jobs
which need doing in the garden and the allotment in
November as well. So stay tuned for them to episodes.
Make sure you come with your notebook because and you
can take notes and write down all the jobs which
you need doing for next year, ready for the allotment.
So I hope you've enjoyed this episode. Like I said,
if you're not following us, do give us a follow
and I think you can leave comments as well now
in these podcasts and also give them a rating, So
please do that and it'll help push it out to
other people. And feel free to share it as well
if you've got anything to share it onto. So until
next time, everyone, remember keep smiling, keep shining, and keep
gardening with Bed. Everyone. Thank you for joining me on
this episode of Gardening with Ben. I hope you have
found some useful tips and instegiration for your own gardening
and allotment journey. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please make
sure to follow and subscribe to the podcast so you'll
never miss a new episode. And if you have a moment,
I'd love for you to leave a review and share
the podcast with fellow gardening Fusey asks your support helps
us grow this community and continue bringing you great content.
You can also follow us on social media on every
platform or Gardening with Ben for daily gardening tips and mondays.
Happy gardening and until next time remember keep smiling, keep shining,
and keep gardening with Ben