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today's gardening podcast with
Ben hello and welcome back to your
episode of gardening with Ben for a
brand new one I hope you're enjoying
your week and it's nearly the weekend
for you but my weekend is just ending as
I'm back on night shift tonight and I
will be not back at the allotment now
for probably around 4 days and obviously
we've been having a lot of rain and a
lot of wet weather so it'll be fine
it'll stand still and stay well until
the time comes to go back to the plot I
may pop down one of the afternoon it
depends how I feel because night shifts
really do wipe me out and I need all the
rest I can get now I'm getting older um
but yeah we'll be back there in about 4
days time but what have we been up to
these last four 4 days while obviously
I've been talking in my previous
podcasts about all the seeds that need
planting and all the jobs that need
doing so yeah let's recap a bit about
what we've been getting up to at the
plot at the moment well the main thing
that I'm starting to do is I'm starting
to get it ready for Autumn and yes
Autumn is just around the corner it will
be with us next week I think I think
it's Autumn from next week so yeah
Autumn is fast lit approaching and that
will be the time when we start planting
all them bulbs and if you listen to my
previous podcast the other day I'm going
absolutely mad with planting bulbs this
year I'm going to make it a spectacular
show on my allotment of spring bulbs and
hopefully it will look absolutely
stunning that is the plan that is the
key plan but we will see we'll see what
it looks like hopefully we can make it
look stunning this year we'll give it
we'll give it as best shot anyway so
what I'm starting to do is I'm starting
to clear out all the beds where all the
bulbs are going to be going and clearing
them all and making them weed free
again but yeah I in one of my beds that
I've been sorted out it had all my
Autumn raspberries in and they're
finishing now so they coming to the end
of their futing why are they called
Autumn raspberries when usually they
finished by Autumn time I do not know if
anybody knows why they're called Autumn
raspber and they're finishing by autum
please do let me know but yeah they're
starting to come to the end now and
Autumn raspberries you can cut them back
to the base whereas summer raspberries
you only cut back the canes that had the
fruit on the new growth this year you
leave for next year cuz that's what be
fruit in so I've being trimming back all
my Autumn raspberry canes and getting it
all tided really and one of the things
that I need to do is get some gardening
gloves because I was nettling myself all
over today and if you like me you pick
up the Nettles by the end and you still
get nettled but yeah I do need to sort
myself out with some gardening gloves
now that I'm getting back to doing the
hard work and getting all the
nitty-gritty stuff done and all the
weeds out so we've been clearing all
them we've also been sorted out my
sunflowers because some of my sunflowers
are starting to die off now they're
starting to come to the end of the time
and what I'm doing is I'm chopping all
the heads off and I'm actually hanging
them up in my poly tunnel I made the
mistake the other year of laying them
down in my shed went back one day every
one of them had been eaten by mice rats
or birds or squirrels something like
that but they'd all been decimated so I
had no seeds back they were full to
busting they' had a nice lunch but yet I
had no seeds for my sunflowers and I
want to save as many seeds as I can for
next year and hopefully have a beautiful
display of sunflowers I'm going to sew
them straight into the ground next year
because that worked well this year I
started some off in pots and I also
started some off in the ground later on
and the ones in the ground did
absolutely fantastic I had them in a
nice long line they all grew brilliantly
and yeah they were beautiful so that's
what I might do again this year but well
next year now but we need to save all
the seeds and get them stored away and
I've got a lot of lovely varieties of
sunflowers so hopefully we can have some
beautiful displays on my alotment and
make it look attractive because that's
what I like to do I like to have some
nice attra acve flowers for the photos
for the Instagram obviously so we've
been sorting out all the sunflowers
recently and what else have we been
doing we've been just generally tidying
up really I've been sorting out the rest
of my strawberry plants they're all
hopefully in the ground now or in pots
all the runners so then we can have lots
and lots of strawberries for next year
but I I do need to sort it all out that
area next year and I need to make room
for these extra 200 strawberry plants
because I do want to get as many
strawberry plants in the ground as I can
and if I can get a fantastic crop of
strawberries next year I will be well
impressed with myself so that is the key
to have in fantastic strawberry plants
next year but we'll see we'll see if if
we can manage it fingers crossed we can
and i' I've got faith in myself and if I
stick to the method that I've been doing
the last few years of planting them
through black membrane then we should be
all right and they should grow really
well but we'll see how we get on with
them but I plan on it being the best
it's going to look next year um this is
a good time to start planning all them
winter jobs I'm starting to make notes
of all the improvements that I do want
to make on the plot because during the
summer time you can't do all this work
because you're too busy doing the
weeding you're too busy doing the
harvesting and stuff like that so during
the Autumn winter months I do all my
maintenance work and all my
improvements that I want to do to the
plot like some of my paths need leveling
out for next year I need to sort some of
my beds out what I've rotted and need I
I repaint them every year so they'll be
repainted again through uh the winter
time to make them look nice for the
summer and the
springtime I just like to do any extra
work that needs doing and I need to
spend a lot of time on my shed next year
there's quite a lot of work that needs
to doing in my shed I've got a really
bad problem with bind weed on my
alotment and again it's like a jungle
inside my shed so we need to work on
some some kind of way to keep that bind
weed down but we'll think about it we'll
think about how we need to do it and
obviously bind weed it grows under the
black membrane uh so if you got black
membrane down it'll still grow under it
and usually it can pull out roots as
long as anything from under the black
membrane so black membrane does not stop
bind weed at all in fact it makes it
grow even
further because it's looking for the
light to get out but yeah we've got a
lot to do this winter um last winter
obviously I did so much improvements to
my plot um I put up new fences I built
up new beds I generally did absolutely
loads last year and there shouldn't be
as much to do this year but knowing my
the way that I work on my allotment
there will be a lot of work that I want
to do
as I do want to get more perennial
plants on my plot for next year um
obviously I can't do that while the
spring bulbs of stuff there but I can
plan it all out I can think about what
plants I want to add on to the plot next
year and all I end up doing is just
looking in the uh garden centers and the
supermarket seeing which plants they
redu and that's what plants get planted
on my plot but some plants have been
waiting to get and when they reduce them
I'm like yes I've got them so yeah we'll
have to think about it but I'm keep on
trying to make it as low maintenance as
possible my plot uh which is the best
hardest thing to do um because then I
don't have to concentrate on weeding my
paths I don't have to concentrate on
keeping them paths tidy and everything I
can just concentrate on the beds
themselves and keeping that looking good
so yeah we've got all that to
do and it's a case of planning where all
my spring bulbs are going to go cuz the
other day as I said I bought absolutely
loads and loads of tulips I've got so
many tulips for next year it's
unbelievable um I do need to start
looking though for some high syn bulbs
at a cheap price because High sys are
expensive and I want some
crocuses I'm tempted to have some snow
drops but snow drops do spread so and
they can be quite leafy I like the
spring puls but I don't like all the
leaves on the uh snow drops that are
left over after the snow drop dies off
um but yeah hopefully we can have some
really nice flowers on the plot for
Springtime um I like the more unusual
varieties and the Tulips that I've gone
for like all the parrot type ones the
Fey looking ones the weird looking ones
I don't go for the normal sort of
flowers I like to go for the spectacular
ones if you get me um some of them are
quite boring and quite plain so I like
to go for ones that look really nice and
impressive to be honest because it's a
nice thing to look at and it's
attractive not for me and for the
bees the bees might think oh that's a
better looking flower I'll come and have
a look at that one instead so yeah I've
got all that to do as in regards to
fruit plants we've got all the fruit
plants we need but over the winter
period we need to look at sorting out
all my cooking apple trees and my other
trees and around my rhubarb area because
it's getting quite overgrown now and it
was it's struggle to get down the side
of it so we need to look at how we can
work out that area and make it easier to
walk down uh I might have to really give
good hacking on some of my trees this
year uh I've really already given a good
hacking on my plum tree and I'm I know
I'm not going to get any plums on it now
for a couple of years probably uh
because of how much I've hacked it back
but it did need it we're not meant to
have uh fruit trees that tall on the
plot so I try to keep them small and
keep them manageable and keep them to a
height where I can actually pick the
fruit off as well without having to
climb a ladder or climb the branches to
get to them because you don't want
things too big and out of hand down at
an allotment so yeah it's going to be a
very busy time so hopefully over the
next few days I can start planning I can
start preparing and I can start thinking
about what I want to do over the Autumn
winter period and over the coming
episodes we're going to be talking about
what we can be planting during autumn
and winter and what I am plan on doing
on the plot and how I'm going to improve
it and yeah the next few episodes won't
be talking about what I'm doing on the
allotment because obviously I'm not
going to be at the alotment for the next
four days uh so we'll find little topics
to talk about to keep the podcast going
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listening to it and so many people are
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Ben thank you for listening to today's
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