hello and welcome to gardening with Ben
your go-to 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 we'll dig into tips
tricks and techniques to make your
garden and alotment thve from planting
sewing and growing we will share all the
tips and AD advice we will also have
regular episodes talking about what we
have been up to on the alarm so sit back
grab a brute and enjoy today's
episode hey everyone and welcome back to
gardening with Ben I hope you're all
well and I hope you're all keeping busy
and yeah it's finally the weekend the
first first weekend of December so who's
going in the allotment or who's getting
ready for Christmas that is the question
or in the garden should I say as well
but yeah are you getting ready for
Christmas are you out writing your list
for Father Christmas or are you spending
it in doors staying warm and dry or are
you mad like me spending it in the
alotment so yeah as always we're going
to be giving you a Christmas joke of the
day for those that don't see them online
this is another place where you can
listen to them so unlucky for you or
lucky for you whichever way so today's
Christmas joke is why did The Gardener
plant mint at Christmas why did The
Gardener plant mint at Christmas because
he wanted a Minter
Wonderland why did the garden at Plum me
at Christmas because he wanted a Min
Wonderland there you are that's the best
you're going to get and there'll be
plenty more to come all the way up to
December so I hope you're enjoying these
daily Christmas
jokes so what are we talking about today
well in yesterday's episode we talked
all about the key tasks of getting you
alotment prepared and ready for the year
ahead I hope you found it useful and I
hope it gave you some enthusiasm and
encouragement into getting your Gardens
and allotments done so what are we going
to be doing at the allotment this
weekend for us down at the allotment
that is the question let me share with
you what our plans are for our allotment
and if it encourages you to do a bit in
your garden or allotments that's what I
want to hear from so yeah what are plans
well I need to go out and get some more
bird feed as they are rumaging
throughout throughout all my bird feed
eating loads which is a good sign it
shows that I'm feeding the birds and
encouraging them but obviously the
squirrels are taking some they're eating
it and I've seen a rat down at my
alotment as well so they're eating it as
well so I'm feeding all the wildlife
down there and obviously I'm feeding the
cat as well which we've got down at my
allotment but yeah I'll be feeding
filling up all my bird feeders and
getting them ready for the winter
because we have had a bit of cold
weather but not a load so the ground
isn't that much Frozen so birds can
still get worms and stuff from out of
the gardens but obviously looking after
the birds especially when it's cold and
they can't get anything out on the
ground it keeps them going and obviously
feeding them certain bird feed gives
them energy as well throughout the
winter months which is what they
want the next main job down at the
allotment this weekend well last weekend
I only went down on Sunday because I was
out celebrating Christmas parties but
yeah last weekend what I did was I
rearranged all my Loganberry Bush and
tied it in a better position so it
easier to get down around where my
strawberry beds are and I also tied up
all my new BlackBerry canes as well what
have been growing this year because
obviously the next year's blackberries
will grow on the canes which grew this
year and the same goes for Logan berries
the Logan berries will grow on the new
canes this year year so it's case is
tying them up and supporting them and
getting them all in place ready for the
year ahead so I did that very delicately
because I didn't want to break any of
the canes or damage any of them and
they're all tied to my fences and
supports so they're all sorted so my
main job this weekend is going to be
sorting out around where my strawberry
beds are and Tiding them all up and I'm
going to be trimming back any of the old
leaves what are on them what are dying
off or any disease Le
to stop them from like getting diseased
and spreading throughout the winter
months so I just give them a good trim
over the winter and I'll obviously cut
off any runners what are growing and
plant them up into the ground and make
sure they're well watered which
obviously there will be at this time yet
especially with the amount of rain that
we've had recently uh so it's just case
of keeping them watered into the ground
to make sure that they take but yeah we
planted about an extra 200 strawberry
plants the other month of my allotment
because last year I did get a good crop
so I've replaced a lot of the plants
I've filled tons of gaps in which were
all over in my Pol uh black membrane so
they're all spaced out equally so we
planted absolutely loads of strawberries
so I'm hoping for a fantastic crop next
year because my crop this year was
abysmal I wasn't happy with it uh either
the plants didn't do very well or the
birds ate them so we need to keep an eye
out and possibly protect them better
next year from any birds and squirrels
from eating them next year so we're
going to have to look into possibly
making a little structure or some uh
netting over them to stop anything from
coming down and getting them so we're
going to be Tiding all them up we're
also going to be Tiding all the paths
around my strawberry bed area so that
it's easy to get round and get down the
side of the bed so that I can reach over
and sort all them out we're also going
to be emptying my carrot bed what I
planted I started off while we I seed
all my carrots in this race planter in
my greenhouse and they all started
growing because they're high off the
ground so the carrot fly won't get them
and I thought oh I'm going to get some
decent carrots this year I forgot to
water them throughout the year didn't
I I just put them in a corner and forgot
about them and didn't water them so I'm
not expecting miracles from these
carrots but we're going to pull them all
up and we're going to see what carrots
we've got from them so make sure you
stay tuned for that YouTube episode
because you know me I'm very open and
honest I'll tell you if I've done
rubbish or I'll tell you if I've done
absolutely fantastic I share the truth I
don't hide from it uh not like some
gardeners will just say well we grew
these and probably bought them in the
supermarket and stuck them in the
ground but now we are open and honest
with how well we do with our growing so
we're going to be harvesting all
them and then possibly on Sunday we're
going to start with the renovation of my
shed and I'm excited for this because
I'm rubbish at DIY I've always admitted
that I'm absolutely terrible it looks
awful and I do a rubbish job but I enjoy
doing it and it's good fun so we're
going to be renovating the inside of my
shed this year last like I said last
year we spent the time on rebuilding all
the
outside sorting all the structure out
and everything like that this year we're
going to call concentrate on the inside
of the shed because I've got into making
my YouTube videos quite a lot now and I
absolutely love doing it so I'm going to
try and make a potting bench type thing
where I can film I can show what I'm
doing with a good backdrop to it so it
looks professional somehow
professional one day I'll be
professional one day I'll be famous keep
listening to these podcasts and maybe
one day I will be but yeah I want to
have a nice backdrop to it I want it to
look fantastic and
look like a proper little shed studio
type thing so I want to improve in my
shed and do that I also want to sort out
all my shelving tidy it all up I'm going
to paint all inside my shed make it all
look fresh and brand new I've got wooden
shelv in at the moment and it's
fantastic they're all cut to pieces I
can take them all off if I want to grow
anything underneath them so that um I
don't have to unscrew all the benches I
can just take them off of the supports
and take them out but what I'm going to
do is I'm going to possibly paint them
all and then I'm going to put some
pooline over them I've got a load of
pooline in my shed and I'm possibly
going to put polyene over them so that
when I'm watering my plants it won't
give the wood chance of rotting if you
get me it's going to protect it so that
the water will just run off and and then
the shed will grow uh not the shed will
grow the shelves will be protected for
years to comeing hopefully last plenty
of years so I'm going to do all that and
I need to sort out a lot of my plant
pots and my um all my seed trays I need
to get them all cleaned out and ready
and just sweep up and tidy up and burn
any old wood I need to start having
bonfires that's one thing I've not
started doing yet we need to start
having some bonfires down there and
getting rid of some of the old wood that
we've got down there so hopefully I'll
be starting to do the shed but uh I will
definitely be filming plenty of videos
down there in the shed showing you all
the transformation of what I'm getting
up to and you can follow along and see
how well I get up to so if you don't
follow my YouTube channel do give it a
follow and then you'll be able to see
how well my shed is actually coming
on and another job one weekend once it's
dry is probably to
spray all my fruit trees that's one
thing I want to do I want to spray them
all and get them all pretty much I put
like a winter wash on them and I'll also
put some sticky bands around them as
well to stop any insects from crawling
up and trying to damage the trees over
the summer periods so if you put them on
over winter it'll stop any insects from
hibernating in it and laying its eggs
and stuff like that but yeah that one
job I usually do every winter but
there's still a lot of leaves on my
cooking apple tree I'm guessing there'll
be a load more left uh come off it now
because it has been windy today and
awful when I've been recording this
episode so hopefully the leaves all all
dropped off so I'll have to tidy all
them leaves up as well and put them in
my compost heap so that they start
rotting down so yeah we've got a lot of
jobs to do down at the allotment
obviously I'm going to film a allotment
tour I didn't uh put one out this week I
did record it but I didn't put it out
it's a bit late putting it out now it's
bit pointless so I'm going to do an
allotment tour next week we'll start
doing all the videos again obviously you
are getting the daily jokes and yeah
we're going to get some more content
delivered to you over on the allotment
so I hope you're looking forward to all
that I'm trying to get as much content
out there as possible for you to watch
and listen to these days and I hope
you're all enjoying it I get a lot of
good feedback about my podcasts so I
hope that you enjoy all them so if
you're not following us do give us a
follow feel free to share it to
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Facebook anything share it to your
friends so until next time everyone
remember keep smiling keep shining and
keep gardening with B
everyone thank you for joining me on
this episode of gardening with Ben I
hope you have found some useful tips and
inspiration for your own gardening and
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