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 i'd 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 for another brand new episode.
Well we said we'd be back today to let you
know how we got on with the storm damage of
storm data down at the allotment. Well, our dreading absolutely
going down there. Like I drove down there and I
could see on different plots issues what had happened from
the storm, like people's polytunnels and stuff ripped. Thinking, no,
what's going to be happening online. So I got down
and got to my shed and had a look at it,
and one of my pieces of perspects had come off
the front, so that's easily replaceable. I've got some spare
perspects to stick on it. And also a piece of
the roof had come off as well, which is in
an easy position because I can just lean over and
fasten a new piece on. Thankfully it's not right in
the middle or I wouldn't be able to get up
to replace it. But yeah, not much damage done to
the shed, thankfully. And then I went on to obviously
check my polytunnel, and my polytunnel was still all stuck
together with tape. I thought, how the hell that managed
to stay together, because every year I end up like
putting new tape on it, et cetera, et cetera. The
water washes it off eventually and loosens it up, and
then obviously it comes unstuck and it just needs to
be sticking again with fresh tape. But yeah, it's still
in one piece, which I'm absolutely surprised that. But thankfully,
not much damage done to my plot that I know
of well, that I've seen so far, so hopefully we'll
get them pieces replaced and fixed over the coming weeks
when it's a bit nicer down at the allotment. Well,
what did I do down at the allotment today, Well,
I did absolutely nothing. Basically, I did nothing down there.
I just went to inspect it and then I came
home again. I thought, I can't be bothered going do
it staying at the plot today. It was cold, it
was absolutely chucking it down, and yeah, I just didn't
fancy being down at the plot today, so I thought
I'll come home and I have a chilled day. So
basically this weekend I've hardly done anything down at my plot.
I've just put some plastic on my shelving to stop
the rain from rotting it as my shed does drip
all over the place, so I've put some plastic down
to protect the shelving and hopefully stop it from rotting.
So hopefully figures crossed come next week we will be
able to get back in the mood for gardening and
get some work done. So it's been a bit of
a lazy weekend this weekend. We all deserve a weekend
off every now and then, don't mind. So then I
did actually go to Morrison's on the way home as
I needed a few bits and I ended up picking
up a poise setter. I could never say the word properly.
But we picked up one of those as obviously that
is a Christmas plan and you can never seem to
keep the leaves on them, can you. I don't know
if you can, but let me know any tips if
you managed to be able to keep the leaves on
them pretty well. And we also picked up a red
amarillus as I like to grow one of these every
single year in my flat because the flowers on them
look absolutely fantastic when they come up. I may even
pick a few high hims up soonish. We'll have to
have a look into them, because obviously they add a
dice smell into your flat as well, so I might
pick up a few of them and get them growing
as well in the flat, just to add a bit
of color and a bit of fragrance to my flat
and make it smell fresh, Not that it doesn't smell
fresh already, but yeah, you can understand what I mean. So, yeah,
it's been a bit of a waste of a weekend,
a bit of a wash out altogether. We do have
some of those weekends, but like I said, I'm pretty
ahead of schedule for getting my plot ready for next
year or my bed to Doug over. It's just a
case of tiding it up and basically sorting out my
shed and polytic ready for next year. So we've got
about until May time when we're out in the actual allotment,
so we've got plenty of time to get all ready.
But March time is when we'll start sewing all our
seeds as well. And talking off seed growing, well, I
wanted to start some onions off. I've been talking about
these for a few episodes. I want to start some
onion seeds off. So I went and had a look
at what gardening magazines are out at the moment, because
I used to get my gardening magazines all the time,
the Grow your Own and the Kitchen Garden magazine, but
they went down hull a bit recently. The Grow your
Own magazine you don't get as many seed packets in
as you used to used to get ten packets in altogether,
and I think the same for the Kitchen Garden magazine.
But you don't get as many seed packets in now,
so it's not as worth it to buy them. I
were only buying them for the seeds mainly, but I
saw the Kitchen Garden magazine had got onion seeds in them.
So I went and got the Kitchen Guarden magazine. I've
not opened the magazine up yet. Actually there's other seeds
in there, so I'll have to have a look what's
in there. And I had a look at the Grower
your Own magazine, but there were just herbs in there,
so atre a bit pointless real life, so I weren't
just buying it for the seeds this time. So we've
got the Kitchen Guarden magazine, so I've got some seeds
in there. So I've got my onion seeds. So hopefully
over the next couple of weeks I might be starting
my onion seeds off and getting them started, as I
once did an experiment where I grew onions from seed
and also from set to see which ones do better. Obviously,
you started seeds off around December January time, you started
sets off around March April time, and the seeds actually
did better than the sets. So I might do an
experiment again this year and do see which ones do
best out of both, just to show you all how
well each of them do, to be honest. So we're
going to start some seeds off, and I need to
start looking into getting my pepper seeds and my chili
seed and my opportune seeds as well for next year.
As those they're going to be the next vegetables that
we're starting off down at the allotment. I want to
start them off pretty early and get them growing and established,
because the quicker you getting them going, the quicker. Obviously
they'll start fruiting next year. The bigger the plants will
be et cetera. So hopefully we get some decent produce
off them next year. So that's our plan for the
coming weeks. But there's not much else that we'll be
doing down at the allotment coming up obviously, Like I said,
I want to start painting inside the shed, freshen it
all up. Obviously, I've got some repairs to do on
it now. Hopefully we don't get any more big storms
that we've had like we have this weekend down there.
But I saw mister pussy Cat or missus pussy Cat
this morning, gave her food, gave hers some treats, and yeah,
she absolutely loved it. So hopefully we can start planning
our allotment next week and start thinking about what see
I'm going to be growing. I'm going to be starting
off all my Amazon shopping basket, start popping in all
the seeds that I want to grow next year, and
hopefully starts growing. But I'm excited for next year. I'm
excited to try some new things as well. I want
to look at some new varieties on what I'm going
to be growing down at the allotment. I'm always up
for trying new things and different ideas down at the allotment.
But yeah, basically storm Dre didn't do much damage overall,
which is what I wanted. It's just that fought of
not being at your allotment. Obviously, if you've got a
garden where you do all your gardening, you can look
out of your window and see what it's like. But
when you've got an allotment and it's not at home,
you have to like travel there to see what it
actually looks like. So I can feel a pain of
a lot of people. And I've seen like a lot
of posts online of people's greenhouses and pop ups that
have been damming and bent and broken, and I've seen
it trending on Google, like I look often like gardening
trends and stuff like that on Google, and today's trending
topic is greenhouse glass repercement. So quite a lot of
people have obviously got greenhouse glass, and that is one
thing that I do recommend on moving away from if
you've got a greenhouse, is to replace them with the
perspex panels. My dad's greenhouse used to be glass, and
he replaced it all with perspects sheeting rather than glass.
The perspects can blow out, but obviously it'll stay in
one piece if it blows out, rather than the glass
blowing out and it's smashing and having to replace it.
But my dad's made his greenhouse so solid that none
of the plastic perspects blows out. Is like screwed pieces
of wood behind it so that they don't pop out.
And yeah, we're obviously we're inspected mine this morning and
my dad came down just to have a look, because
my dad will be the one that helps me repair it.
He's the one who's got all the DIY skills. And
he checked his greenhouse and it's still solid, still still
in one piece, still fantastic. But yeah, he knows what
he's doing, and he's the man who gives me all
the tips and advice. It's good to learn from somebody.
And my dad's my inspiration of my gardening. So I
hope you've enjoyed today's episode. We'll be back with more
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keep smiling, keep shining, and keep gardening with Ben. Everyone,
thank you for joining me on this episode of Gardening
with Ben. I hope you have found some useful tips
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