hello and welcome to gardening with Ben
your go-to podcast for all things green
and growing I'm Ben your alotment guide
and here to help you cultivate your
garden and your passion for plants
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you each episode will'll dig into tips
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have been up to on the AL so sit back
grab a brute and enjoy today's
episode hello and welcome back to
gardening with Ben for a brand new
episode well we're busy busy busy at the
moment and we are so busy especially
down at the allotment and with
everything in what I'm doing at the
moment we're busy getting all the seeds
ready what's growing in the greenhouse
ready to be planted out as I've got
loads more to be planted out we're ready
to harvest that garlic from my allotment
as well that's about ready and we're
going to start harvesting our lettuce as
well which is coming on really well
they're getting the heads inside them
now and they're looking absolutely
delicious and over the next few days
we're going to be be recording more and
more podcasts and also more and more
videos so if you've not checked out my
YouTube channel go and check them out
and give it a follow and a subscribe as
I'm posting so many videos at the moment
I'm trying to push out my YouTube
channel so keep following that for lots
of videos with tips and handy hints on
there what I'm sharing with you all from
the allotment and today's topic what
we're going to talk about is about grow
gr sunflowers growing large sunflowers
now sunflowers are a phenomenal flower
and if you've never tried growing a
sunflower before you should really give
it a chance now you've still got time to
plant some sunflower seeds if you want
to give it a try
so go out get some seeds and give them a
try you can get them from Amazon you can
get them from the range where I get mine
from and yeah plenty of places sell
sunflower seeds and and they're so easy
to grow well you just have to be careful
at the beginning because slugs can come
along and nibble them up and you'll end
up losing them but if you plant them out
once they're big enough and tall enough
then you've got more chance of
protecting them from the slugs from
eating
them so how do we grow nice tall
sunflowers now one variety which does
grow absolutely massive is a Russian
sunflower these grow absolutely huge you
can get get a sunflower up to 30 foot if
you're lucky and the best thing about
sunflowers is that if you grow plenty of
them you can use the stock as canes the
next year because they dry out rock hard
and they're perfect for canes and
supports and stuff like that so it saves
money on buying canes so just grow lots
of sunflowers this year and you'll have
loads of canes for your running beans
and supports next year it's one thing
that I use I use all the canes to
absolutely Rock Solid
cannot break them most of the time
they're that hard um but yeah they make
great supports and great canes for the
allotment so how do you grow big tall
sunflowers or and what are the tips for
growing decent sunflowers well I've grew
mine in my greenhouse and then I potted
them on grew them to a decent size and
then I planted them out yes I did use a
few slug pallets around them because I
wanted to protect them I wanted them to
be safe and get growing but I don't need
the slug pallets now they're at a decent
size and they should survive well but
once they start getting quite tall you
need to start supporting them by putting
the cane in there as that will get it
growing straight and it will support it
from snapping which you do not want once
You' start it but obviously when you
fastening it up to a cane what you need
to make sure is that you don't tie it
too tight you need to leave
a bit of movement in it because the
thickness of the stock on the sunflower
will get really thick as it gets bigger
and obviously you don't want the wire
what you're uh tiing it to the came with
to cut through the stem and damage it so
you need to make sure that you do leave
some movement in it and if you're
watering them on a regular basis like on
a daily basis you could
be fening it up every few days because
once sunflowers start growing they start
growing fast and are mean really fast
and every time I go to the alotment I
will give them some water because they
are thirsty drinkers they are really
thirsty drinkers so yeah make sure you
give them plenty of water when it comes
to feeding the
sunflowers I tend to put some chicken
pellets around the bottom which will
feed the sunflowers for two to 3 months
so I'll go around again in a couple of
months time and sprinkle some more
chicken pellets around it and they will
break down over the few months and feed
the plant and obviously they're good for
when you watering them for when it rains
it will keep feeding the plant which is
something that you want to
do I also use Liquid feed as well once a
week I'll just give some food to them
and hope that they'll drink it and it
will help them boost them and grow them
and I've done a YouTube video on this it
should be appearing in the next couple
of days if it's not already up there
already uh on what feed I use for my
sunflowers so make sure you do check
that out but obviously once you get to a
decent size you can have little
competitions with the family and friends
to see who can grow the toly sunflower
on the allotment or in the garden and
have a little competition between one
another like I've won 's grown one
really tall and I mean so tall it will
like at home it will fasten up to the
drain pipe it will that tall and I want
a sunflower competition for growing the
tallest one so it is pretty good fun and
then obviously once it's come to the end
of the year when the head's dying off
you can either save the seeds to grow
again next year you can leave hang the
seed heads up for the birds to eat
because the birds will love to eat the
sunflower seeds or you can actually
roast them I've never tried roasted
sunflower seeds so if you have tried
roasting sunflower seeds please do let
me know and share with me if you
actually like them or not because I do
like to find out these things so yeah
that is how you grow massive sunflowers
and regular water like once every day or
once every two days give it some water
to drink and it will grow massive
especially when it's flouring make sure
you keep water in it and give it some
liquid feed once a week to two times a
week and put some chicken pellets down
around it as well to give it that extra
kick and keep feeding it so I hope
you've enjoyed this little podcast today
talking about how to grow massive
sunflowers down at the alotment or the
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