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 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 everybody, and welcome back to Gardening
with Ben for a brand new episode on a brand
new week. Happy Monday, everybody. I hope that you've all
had a fantastic weekend. I know I certainly have, even
though it's been absolutely chucking it down. But good things
happen with rain because that means we don't have to
spend all morning watering, which has been an absolute blessing.
And fingers crossed, I won't need to water now for
a few days because I checked the soil and it
looks like it's soaked in pretty well, so hopefully we
won't have to water probably until about Thursday if it
don't main. So yeah, pretty much we're going to be
happy for the rest of the week with watering. It's
saved me a big job doing that, so we could
concentrate on other things down at the allotment today and
this weekend. So today we have been busying our polytunnel again. Yes,
I was in there yesterday sorting out all the tomatoes, peppers,
the melons, the aubergine plant. But today we have been
setting up an irrigation system. Yes, I had in the
irrigation system years ago, but I thought I'll try again,
and I bought one of these solar powered pump ones
to give it a try and see if I could
manage to do it. Okay, And I only bought it
for about ten plants, but I bought an extension kit
on it, so it added a few more drippers onto it,
and we've managed to set it up for all my plants.
So we've got it on my tomatoes, we've got on
my peppers, we've got my aubergine and on my melons.
At the other side of the polytamal because I've got
enough tubing for it all to connect up to. And yeah,
it were pretty much easy to set up, a lot
easier than I thought. And I'm no good at they
and building things, definitely not, especially when it comes to
building sheds or fall down straight away. But yeah, we've
been so busy down at the allotment setting this up
this morning, and it didn't take that long to do. It.
Were pretty straightforward, easy to fit together, and I just
followed the instruct and we're all sorted now. In my polytunnel.
Usually I just water and were watering can but I'm
having to water them like every single day, even sometimes
twice a day, so they are getting pretty dried out
because the compost isn't that brilliant in them. And you
know what composts like, it does dry out a lot faster,
especially if it's in a polytunnel where it is a
lot warmer. So we set up all the drippers into it,
and we set up the solar panel. And we don't
get a lot of sun in the polytunnel when it's
dull like it has been today, raining and bits like that,
but the solar panel got it working. It fitted up
to the timer, I turned the timer on and it
pumped out the water, which was absolutely fantastic. I was
quite impressed with it. And obviously my wheelibin it can
hold a lot of water, so it should last for
quite a few days. And then all I have to
do is just keep topping up the wheelibin with water
as and when needed. And if I want to feed
the plants, I could just chuck some feed into the
water and it will feed the plants there and then.
So it's an easier way to feed things as well,
a lot easier than measuring out the caps and doing
it all that way. You can just add it straight
to the wheelibin itself and it will feed the plants. Now,
in with the kit, it came with a pipe what
you put into the elbin or into your water butt,
and it's got a filter on the end of it
as well, so that if there's any muck in the water,
it won't get sucked into the pipe and it won't
mess it all up in sense, it won't cause any blockagers,
So that is one good thing. And it also comes
with some water prongs what you're sticking, and it's basically
when the prongs are dry, that means there's no water
left in the wor and it won't try and pump
it out, it'll just keep off until it's actually filled
back up again. So we'll see how we get along
with that and see how much water we can use
on our plants and how long it lasts for without
having to fill it up. You can also change the
settings on it. You can change it to what five minutes,
fifteen minutes, or thirty minutes on it I believe it was,
and you can do it for every twelve hours, every
twenty four hours, every forty eight hours, or every seventy
two hours. So I've set mind to five minutes watering
every twelve hours, so they get a water twice a day,
one in the morning and one at a night time,
so that it'll keep them hydrated and hopefully keep the
plants alive. It'll save me a big job going down
to the allotment every day keeping them watered and keeping
them hydrated. And obviously my dad does a lot of
the watering as well, so it'll save him having to
do it, and we'll see if if it works. If
it doesn't, it's obviously only a bit of money lost,
but we'll have to go back to the watering can,
but it's worth trying. I love trying new stuff out
and little inventions. It's always exciting trying different things and
different methods in growing these things. So yeah, it's been
pretty much a busy morning down at the allotment today.
We have also been recording a couple of videos. I've
recorded a little tour on my polytunnel which i'll be
out later in the week as I weren't able to
do my outside tour today. I wanted to do a
tour of my plot as it's been a couple of
weeks since the last one, and I couldn't do it
because it was absolutely chucking it down on the allotment
and I didn't want to get wet obviously, So we'll
be doing a tour of the plot pretty soon. Hopefully
i'll record it this week while one night when it's dry,
because obviously I won't need to do any watering because
the plot's watered for a week now, it'll be fine
for watering the plot. So hopefully we'll get a tour
video recorded for you coming up. But I'm happy with
everything how it's gone on. I also did a little
slug hunt as well, this morning because obviously with the
rain outcomes to slugs, and I was just checking on
my pumpkins and I could see slugs attached to the pumpkins,
so they were straight off there. I were taking them
off the pumpkins. I don't want them getting eaten, not
when I protected them for so long. And they're actually
growing quite big now. I'm quite surprised, actually, because my
Atlantic Giant one is growing faster than the other one,
which is quite large at the moment. So I'm expecting
the Atlantic Giant to overtake the normal sized pumpkin pretty
soon because it's growing so much every single day, I
might end up having to have a fort lift to
move it at this way, fingers crossed. But we'll see.
I don't think it'll be a massive giant one, but
we'll see how big we can get it to grow. Obviously,
we're in July now, and the pumpkins usually stop growing
around September time, so he's got quite a few months
to grow and hopefully get to a decent sized pumpkin.
Because I'm excited about this. I've never grown the Atlantic
Giant ones, so it'll be exciting to see how big
we actually can grow it. We only show these about
end of May time, and obviously usually you start pumpkins
off aro out March time, so we're pretty late in
starting these off. So if they do well this year,
I'll obviously be starting them off in March next year,
and then maybe we will get a massive giant one
because that will be fun to see how big we
can actually grow a pumpkin. That's the thing with gardening
as well. It's not just about growing food. It's about
having fun, having little competitions, seeing what you can do,
see how you can grow it, and set yourself little
challenges as well, as that makes it more exciting. I
don't care if I don't get no projects from something.
It's just about having fun and enjoying being outside in
the fresh air and making the most of the weekends
rather than be stuck inside doing nothing all weekend. So yeah,
that has been what I've been up to on Sunday
down at the Allotment. If you're new to these podcasts,
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keep smiling, keep shining, and keep gardening. We bet everyone.
Thanks for tuning into today's episode of Gardening with Ben.
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