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.
And I'm excited to say that our podcasts are going
to be launching on YouTube over the next few days
or watch this space. So if you'reet listening to this
on YouTube, welcome to Gardening with Ben. This is my
podcast what I put out on a daily basis, and
usually there about seven o'clock in the morning and you've
got about four hundred episodes to listen to a so
good luck, but no welcome to the channel. If you're new,
it's always good to see new people joining, and if
you are new, click that follower button and click that
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not followed, mate, please do give me a follow. So
what are we talking about today? Today? We're going to
talk about gardening motivation. Now. I talked about this in
one of my YouTube videos what's going to be coming
out as well soon, but I've got to talk about
it on my podcast as Obviously a lot of you
know that I have struggled with my mental health in
the past, and I went to the doctor and they
tried to prescribe me tablets and stuff like that. But
at that time I was talking to my martial arts
coach and he was saying, no, don't do the tablets,
do exercise instead, which I found very helpful and it
helped a lot. And obviously I were going to martial
arts back then, but I used my garden as a
place of escape, a place of where I can relax,
where I can switch off, where I can turn off,
and yeah, that's why I spend the whole weekend down there,
really and that's why I enjoyed putting all these videos
out for you to watch, all these podcasts out to
listen to because I know a lot of people get
a lot of stuff from it. And the comments that
people send a really nice, genuine comments. I don't get
no hatred whatsoever, and everybody is always supportive of what
I do, and it's a fantastic community that I've got.
I absolutely love it. And yeah, if you are listening
to the podcast or watching one of my videos, just
leave a comment. And it really does help with everything
what I do, and it motivates me as well. And
that is how obviously you need to keep your motivation
when you're do in your garden. It's hard to have
motivation sometimes to go to the allotment to go in
your garden, especially if it's an awful day out there,
or something's gone wrong at the allotment, like everything's got
an eating or you've had a break in at the allotment,
or something that's put you off from going. It's hard
to find that motivation to go back. And I never
used to find that motivation in the winter months, once
my harvests had finished end of September beginning of October.
I used to say, right, that's it. I'm not going
back to the allotment now at all January February time.
I've spent all year there and it's been a hard work,
but that's it. I'm not going to be starting again
until January February time. And sometimes it's hard to get
started again once you've not been doing it, and that
is one of the reasons why I decided that a
few years ago I would continue through the winter, go
into my allotment. I don't grow necessarily through the winter, obviously,
you know that I do grow garlic, I grow winter onions,
broad beans, but yeah, I don't grow much through the
winter period. I could grow loods stuff in my polyton
on in the ground if I wanted to, but I
don't want to grow stuff through the winter. It's not
what I want to do. And what I want to
do down at the allotment is all my maintenance, working
tidy in and prepping ready for next year, as that's
what excites me over the winter period. Obviously, I've spent
all year doing all the growing and everything like that.
I won't switch off from that and I like to
prep and do handy work, do some building, even though
I'm absolutely rubbish at building. You all know I'm rubbiship building.
I put a shelf up and it'll fall down in
a few weeks time. But yeah, I absolutely love it.
I love the iy but I'm rubbish it. It never hired
me to build a shed because it'll fall down, trust me.
I can't even put a fence up with like that
falling down. But yeah, I love winter time down at
the allotment now is absolutely fantastic and I'm eager to
go down all the time. And I'm always eager to
go down when it rains as well, when it's absolutely
chucking it down. I'll still be at the allotment, trust me.
And if I'm not, you need to be messaging me
saying Ben my own the allotment, taking pictures and doing
posters stuff like that. But yeah, I'll always go down
at the winter now. And one thing obviously that I
do want to go to the allotment is I make
a list of jobs that I need to do. Obviously
I'll find jobs while you're there to do, but I
write down a few jobs which I need to do
for that weekend, and obviously during the winter months it's
about getting it all perfect ready for next year, which
is a big task in itself, but the quicker I
get it done, and the quicker than I can like
silver Winter if only. But yeah, I write all the
jobs down. I don't give myself too many jobs each weekend,
just a few jobs so that I know that I
can complete them, and I tick them off as i've
got them done. Like I talked about next WEEKND is
I'm going to be sorting out about my fruit trees,
cutting all the brambles back on that and sort in
that area. That's next week's task, which I know will
last just for the weekend. I could probably do it
in a day if I wanted to, but I'll make
it last a weekend. I don't put too much pressure
on myself. I'll tick them off once I've done them.
And then obviously during the winter month is when I
do all my improvements in my shed. I wash all
my pots down, I tidy it all up, I sweep
up all the mess what I've made, pick up all
the rubbish what I've left, because like I say, I'm
not a mess, I'm not a clean and tidy Gardener.
If I if I were cleaning tidy gardener, I won't
have no jobs to do in winter. But yeah, I
definitely won't be going to the allotment if I were
cleaning tidy gardener. But yeah, we love to keep ourself
motivated throughout the winter period. And that's why another thing
what I enjoy doing is doing these blogs and videos
for you because doing the videos and the photos and
everything like that and talking about it, I can see
the improvement from the plot week on week. Obviously you
can as well, so you're following my journey, but you
can see that I've progressed every week and I'm doing
a little bit more and it's looking a little bit better.
And one of the things that I might do next
year if you all want to join in, I don't
know if you want to join in or not. I'm
going to stand in the same spot every single week
and take a photo and just show it what it
looks like every week for fifty two weeks and just
see the progression throughout the year and through to the winter,
which I think could be make what would make quite
a good video. Really, you know, when like merge into
one another and you can just see the change. That
would be a good little video to do. Not that
I know how to make it. It's hard enough making
the videos as it is, but yeah, that is one
other way that I keep myself motivated obviously doing all
these photos. And I've got to say as well, all
you guys and girls that are listening to this, you
all motivate me into keeping gardening and keeping going throughout
the year. It's good to share with one another how
well we're all doing and getting involved on the garden
and what we've been up to down at the garden.
And that's why I love it when people do comment
on the post on Facebook and Instagram saying what they've
been up to, what they've done at the allotment. I
know I may not reply to them all, but I
do read them. If I applied to all the comments,
that would be a day in a job in itself.
But yeah, I do read all the comments. And it's
fantastic to see what other people are doing down in
the gardens and the allotment. And it's about encouraging one another.
And the next time you go out to see a
friend or go out for a coffee or something like that,
just chat to someone about your garden, about what you've
been doing in your garden or allotment, or tell them
what produce or flowers have grown really well and what
you'd like to do next year down at the allotment
and it is you as well talking about it to
other people. It gives you that warm sense of feeling
and encouragement into doing more. So if you are lacking
motivation for your garden and allotment, do get in touch
with me. I'm always here to chat. I'll always reply
to people's messages. You can message me through Instagram. I'm
available to message through Instagram. Just search for gardening with Ben,
give me a follow and you should be able to
message my Hopefully you should be able to message me.
It's always good to hear from people, and I'd love
to hear about what you've been getting up to in
your allotment tips and advice as we're always learning. And
that's another thing is that if somebody says, oh, I
did this and it really successful, like that'll go give
you that little bit of boost and you'll think, oh,
I'm going to give that a try next year. A
bit like what my neighbor did with his carrots on
his allotment here a first year gardener, and hegrew some
fantastic carrots. And I've been trying for sixteen years. Don't
it disheartened you. Let it encourage you into doing more
and more good things down at the plot. I never
get disheartened. If something fails and it does absolutely rubbish,
I'm just like, fair enough, I'll try it again next year.
But yeah, don't let anything put you off in gardening.
Use it as an encouragement into trying again and doing it.
Keep doing it until you get something out of it.
And I hope you found this podcast you was full today.
Tomorrow we're going to talk about another topic, so make
sure you come back for tomorrow's episode. I'm loving doing
these podcasts on a daily basis again now and I
hope that you're all enjoying them. I'm getting certainly a
lot of downloads every day, about one hundred and twenty
downloads a day, which is fantastic, and we're growing every
single day. And like to say, they're going to be
out on YouTube as well, some of these podcasts, so
you'll be able to listen to them on there as well.
If you are a YouTuber so until next time, everyone,
remember keep smiling, keep shining, and keep gardening with Bet. Everyone,
thank you for joining me on this episode of Gardening
with Ben. I hope you have found some useful tips
and instgiration for your own gardening and a lotment journey.
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happy gardening, and until next time, remember keep smiling, keep shining,
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