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today's gardening podcast with
Ben hello and welcome back to gardening
with Ben for a brand new podcast today I
hope you're all well well we've recorded
this in advance ready for you for today
as the day what I'm recording this on
was absolutely Ching it down so far I'll
record a few podcast and then you've got
something to listen to this
week and yeah we have been busy at the
allotment the other day which we
mentioned about in yesterday's podcast
and what we're getting up to in
hopefully the next few weeks down there
in getting it all ready and prepared for
the year to come because this year I do
want a good crop of fruit from my plot I
want a good crop of vegetables and I
want some really nice flowers growing
down there this year we'll talk about
what we want to grow this year in an
upcoming episode and some of the new
things what I might try this year down
at the allotment so stay tuned for that
episode coming
up so what are we talking about today
well today we're going to be talking
about looking after the wildlife in your
alotment and the subject we're going to
be talking about is looking after the
birds because
recently well last year mainly I started
looking after the birds in my allotment
I purchased some bird feeders and I
started feeding the birds getting all
different types of bird seed for the
allotment um not knowing what sort of
variety to purchase I just looked at the
packets and it said this is for such and
such a bird this is for such and such a
bird so I went out and purchased some
for the
birds and the absolutely loved it they
ABS they devoured it and yes it can
attract mice and rats to the allotment
and the squirrels uh can also help the
themselves but it did attract a lot of
birds to the alotment and I do love
seeing different varieties of birds at
the alotment especially blue tits I do
love to see the blue tits and the
Robbins down there and hopefully I get
plenty of different other varieties down
on the plot as well so we're going to be
working towards trying to hopefully
encourage more and more varieties of
birds to my allotment and one of the
reasons why I do like to attract the
birds to my plot is because I hang the
bird feeders up in my fruit trees and
fruit trees can be a common ground for
lots of hibernating caterpillars moths
ants insects all different varieties
hiding in between the branches and stuff
like that and attracting the birds onto
the trees will help a meum and hopefully
keep away all the pests that are
affecting the fruit trees and what can
cause problems so the more you can get
the birds into the fruit trees the
better really
and last year I went out and purchased
some bird boxes uh I thought I'll I'll
give I'll give it a try seeing if we can
get some birds uh nested on the plot and
I didn't know what bird houses to
purchase whatsoever so I just went
online on Amazon and purchased some ones
at a reasonable price and yeah I put
them up and I I didn't really look on
instructions on what you should do and
where you should put them to be honest
um I just put a couple on the side of my
shed near where my bird feeders were and
literally within a couple of hours of
putting that bird house up blue tits
were going in and out of them inspecting
him I thought wow this can't be true I
literally have put this birdh house up
and they literally moving in looking at
them straight away and having a look
around and I thought wow this is
fantastic and then within a couple of
days they were going in and out putting
all making all the nests creating all
the little homes for the themselves and
I thought blah mean this is fantastic
there not knowing anything about Blu tis
and everything and like my family R bird
houses and they've never had any blue
tits in them and stuff like that I
thought I'm doing all right yeah and
after a few months I got some babies in
there I could hear them uh squawking and
I like oh fantastic unfortunately I
couldn't see in I didn't want to disturb
them I didn't want to open it up because
they could uh the parents could leave
them and they could then die and uh fade
away and they could abandon them I
thought no I'm going to leave them I'm
going to leave them as they are so we
left them and I watched them fledge and
it was absolutely amazing um to watch
blue tis down on my allotment move into
this home and encourage the different
birds onto the
plot uh I often have Robin come watching
me while I'm doing my gardening and I
dig up all the worms and I throw them to
the Robin and everything like that I've
not had one land on my hand yet uh that
is one thing that I do want to try and
do cuz they are pretty tame Robins uh
and you often see pictures of people
feeding Robbins from the hand uh but
we'll see about that we'll see if we
manage to do it one day but yeah I've
got these bird houses and obviously now
is the time to start cleaning out them
bird houses from last year um especially
if they've got nests in them um you do
need to get them all cleaned out because
you won't get any blue tis moving in
while there looks like there's a chance
that something's already nested there uh
so we've got that job to do we've got to
take them down which I'm not looking
forward to cuz I'm wondering if there'll
be any spiders hiding in them and stuff
like that uh but we'll take them down
unscrew them and empty the nests out and
give them a good clean out with
disinfectant and to stop any diseases
what have been lurking around in there
and stuff like that so we're going to
give them a good clean out and put them
back up so yeah I'm hoping that we can
get some more blue tits down at the
allotment again this year
because that would be great because just
sitting there watching them most of the
time flying in and out of the nest
they're so fast at flying in and out
it's unbelievable and it's funny because
like I used to have a bird house as a
kid and it used to have a little stand
outside the hole but now they're saying
that you shouldn't do that uh so these
ones haven't got stands on them to for
the birds to stand on they just fly in
and out like they do and easy as all um
obviously the hole needs to be at the
the right size but yeah I'm really happy
with the bird houses that I've got and
hopefully we can get some more footage
again this year down at the plot because
I'm certainly seing a lot of blue tits
flying around on my alotment site and
it's amazing to see um I'm hoping that
we can get some different varieties of
birds down there I don't know how you go
about getting them to nest in bird boxes
or stuff like that different varieties
of birds or whether they do actually
nest in bird boxers it's something that
I do need to look up and see about doing
um but we are going to try and get
different varieties of insects and books
down there this year uh so we'll be
talking about that in future episodes of
what what we're going to try and do this
year because the more insects and birds
and butterflies we get down to the
allotment it all helps with pollination
and stuff like that the more butterflies
they spread the pollination between the
plants and they're amazing to see as
well so I won't talk too much about that
because we'll talk about that in another
episode uh but I am wanting to get some
different stuff down
there and it's just amazing I could just
spend all day literally down at the
alotment watching different Wildlife
down there um if you've got plenty of
different Wildlife on your plot let me
know let me know what you do to
encourage the wild life onto your plot
and what you do to attract the birds if
you've got any tips and advice as well
it's is always good to hear from
everybody uh obviously it's expensive uh
doing the bird feeders but I only tend
to do them in the winter time uh I don't
tend to do them in the summer time
because there's plenty around for them
to eat like all the fruit and the
raspberries and blackberries and stuff
like that I don't tend to fill the bird
feeders up in summertime as it can be an
expensive job because they soon do go
down these bird feeders it's amazing how
fast they do actually go down but we'll
see we'll see how we get on and
hopefully we can attract lots of
varieties and hopefully I can get some
pictures I managed to get a picture of a
blue TI yesterday uh on the plot uh it
doesn't look quite old to be honest it
looked quite youngish um but I don't
know when the nesting season actually
starts so we do need to get on cracking
with clearing out these bird houses
ready for the year to
come so yeah we have been busy and
obviously like I said I've been putting
plenty of YouTube videos on my new
YouTube YouTube channel uh so if you've
not found my YouTube channel it's called
gardening with Ben it's not a new
channel actually it's been there for a
few years but we are going to be putting
lots of videos on this year I'm really
going to start trying getting it up and
running and sharing lots of content with
you that's the plan for this year
obviously I do these podcasts and I do
my Facebook and Instagram post but I
want to get my videos up and running
because a lot of people do like to see
what's happening and actually see
somebody speaking rather than just
listen listening as well um so I'm
hoping to get that up and running and
get that sorted this year so if you've
not followed my YouTube channel go and
find it gardening with Ben and click
that subscribe button and then you'll
get notified of when new YouTube
channels come up and yeah thank you for
listening to these podcasts I know I've
received a lot of messages from people
saying how much they're glad that
they're back again uh I do tend to
Waffle on sometimes but but I try to
make them about 10 minutes long and make
them interesting and hopefully people
learn something from it and take
something away from it so I hope that uh
those that are listening today you think
about putting some bird feeders up in
the alotment or in the garden and
watching what gets involved and put up a
bird house as well and see if if you can
get a blue TI living in your garden this
year to watch when it fledges and
everything like that so thanks for
listening to today's podcast until next
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