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 for another brand new
episode this week well if you've not
listened to my previous episodes we talk
about everything that we've got up to
down at the allotment on Saturday Sunday
we've braved the rain we've gone down to
the allotment and we have got some stuff
done so if you want to find out what
I've got up to make sure you listen back
to them
episodes so in today's episode we're
going to talk about all the common
mistakes what gardeners do and I
certainly make many of them and I'll
certainly make plenty more of them and
with gardening you're always learning
every single day there's always
something new to learn when you're
gardening and I learn from mistakes I
don't mind making mistakes because
obviously that's how you learn and
sometimes you fix the mistake and then
you make the mistake again but you have
to keep on trying and persevering and
you will then achieve great things down
at your alotment and
gardening but the first we're going to
talk about five different things down at
the allotment the five things most
common on making mistakes Stakes with
now one of them is
overwatering and you can commonly
overwater plants now I didn't learn much
about this until I actually worked at
the Garden Center and they taught me how
to keep things watered and how to check
to see if they still damp and stuff by
checking underneath them to see if if
they're wet underneath because sometimes
you can just stick your finger on on top
think it's dry but it's not it might be
wet deep down and that is where the
roots are and overwatering them
obviously can cause root rot which you
obviously don't want now one of the main
things that can get uh damaged by
overwatering is pumpkins marrow squash
if you're watering near the top of the
plant they can easily snap off from over
water and they can cause the rot and
cause the plant to actually just snap
off
easy one thing I learned about watering
my squash plants like your coet your
marrows your pumpkins your zucchini if
you're in America that's what you call
it not Co
yet but yeah one thing I learned about
them is to plant a plant pot at the side
of them down into the ground and when
you're watering them water into the
plant pot and it Waters straight to the
roots right where the water is needed
and where the plant needs it and where
it'll soak it up from I even Chu some
like chicken pets in it as well so then
I water straight into that and the
chicken pellet feed will go straight to
the roots and feed them that way that's
one way that I do look after my pumpkins
and squash and that's one little tip
that I've learned myself really I just
saw the video online of people planting
plant pots but they didn't show putting
like a bit of food in it or something
like that so that is how I get great
produce from that so when you're
watering make sure that they are fully
dry or that they not too damp when
you're watering stuff you don't want
always want stuff sat in water as again
sat in water doesn't help them it'll
just rot them because the water will
just rot away the roots and then you
won't have any good produce so just keep
them watered every few days and they
should Thrive pretty much when I used to
have stuff in my polyal growing like my
peppers and my tomatoes and my cucumbers
I used to have to water them every
single day because it did dry out the
compost dries out so easily and yeah you
you have to water them every single day
but just be careful when overwatering
stuff like
when we had a drought the year after I
decided to plant all my tomatoes and my
cucumbers outside because I knew I
wouldn't be able to get down to the
allotment to water them every day in the
poly tunnel so I planted them outside
because I knew that the ground holds
water pretty well so I could water them
like every three or four days rather
than every single day and they
absolutely thrived my cucumbers have
dumped best that they ever did last year
and it was the first time that I've ever
grown them outside so I am going to grow
my cucumbers outside from now
on so on to number two ignoring soil
Health now I didn't learn much about
soil health for quite a few years down
at the alotment I just used plant stuff
every single year didn't used to bother
looking into my soil and seeing if it
needed any nutrients and stuff like that
obviously you can get testers to see uh
the ph and whether there's any nutrition
in the soil and stuff like that and
obviously you can feed your soil as well
as well as feeding your plants you can
feed your soil by add adding nutrition
from adding manure
adding um special soil food and compost
or leaf mold
stuff like that to improve your soil and
to improve your plants if you don't look
after your soil your plants will fail
and they won't do very
well so you need to start looking after
your soil and use the winter time to
improve that soil the winter is the
perfect time to do it and add in that
manure and dig it in or layer it on the
top of the ground and then dig it in in
the springtime to feed the soil and get
the nutrition back and hopefully grow
some fantastic produce down in
allotments and Gardens I so can't wait
to get growing again next year it needs
to hurry up and get to
Springtime so next up is planting
without planning now I always go on
about this at this time of year I draw
up a plan of my allotment and I write
down where things are going to grow I
look at the shade on my allotment where
trees are what's shady and what's not
shady what gets full sun all the time
and plant accordingly and obviously you
need to look at your spacing as well
when you're planting plants don't try
and cram too much in I've done that in
the past I've got loads of plants
growing so I've just crammed them in and
hoped for the best because I don't like
wasting plants that have grown but if
you don't leave enough space in it's
hard to weed in between the plants and
then the plants won't survive and they
won't be able to get established and
grow as well without the good space in
so you need to keep plenty of space in
between your plants to keep them weeded
it's best off to have less plants keep
them weeded and then you'll get
fantastic produce as well so look into
the spacing and also look into companion
planting I've not really learned much
about companion planting I need to learn
about that that is one thing that I need
to start looking into like I know that
there's the three sisters if you plant
like sweet corn Runa beans and something
else as well they meant to help each
other when growing them but yeah there's
different plants that you can plant near
each other and they will help grow
better plants so have a look into
companion planting as well and so do I I
need to look into that so maybe I'll do
an episode on companion planting and
then we'll both learn at the same time
I'm always learning with gardening
whenever I'm doing these podcasts I do
like Research into things so I'm
learning every single day and I think oh
I'm going to do that oh that's happened
to me but yeah you're always always
always learning with
gardening so neglecting seasonal timing
so you need to look into the importance
of understanding planting calendars you
need to think of when you're going to
start sewing your seeds at the right
time of the year and planting out at the
right time of the year as well everyone
gets so excited at the beginning of the
year when it starts getting warmer like
sometimes we can have a heat wave around
Easter time and people start planting
plants outside and I'm thinking no no
don't plant them outside yet because you
can still get a frost um that's the
saying never cast a cloud till May is
out and that is to do with the gardening
that you shouldn't plant outside until
May is gone because you can still get
Frost if you're down south in the UK
possibly you'll be all right but up
north where I am in Yorkshire you've got
to think about when the
frost has passed them when we won't get
no more frosts and keeping on the
temperatures and the weather and have a
look around when you should be planting
stuff so never get too eager to plant
stuff outside because if the frost comes
it can just wipe the lot out so look at
the calendar and think about when you're
going to be growing stuff as
well now the next one the last one which
is the most important one of the lot and
I should listen to this yes Ben you need
to listen to this this and this is
forgetting to label plants hold your
hands up everybody who does it nearly
every year forgetting to label your
plants yeah I hold my hands up I am a
plant labeler
forgetter I'll stand up to that
one but yeah you need to label your
plants and I've done in the past like
I've sewn all my seeds I put my seed
packets underneath the seed trays and
then I water them all and the plant
packets become disintegrated and I can't
tell what's growing there and then you
looking at your core Jets your squash
and your Mars and you're thinking which
one's which what variey is which oh no
uh and then you don't know what it is
until it actually starts growing produce
on it what actually plant it is it's
like all the squashes look the same like
you pumpkin barer and coet then all your
brassas look the same like your
cauliflower your cabbage your
cauliflower your brussel sprouts they
all look the same and you're thinking no
what am I doing here I don't know what
I'm planting and you think no I need to
label them I need to label so make sure
you spend time and label all your plants
up and obviously you can make your own
plant labels it's cheap enough to do
just use a milk carton slice it up into
strips and write down the name of the
plant with a permanent marker
and then you can label your plants up
and if you ever see me doing a video and
I've not labeled them up make sure you
commented it Ben label your plants Ben
label your
plants I know I'll end up forgetting
them to do them again but yeah those are
the five Big M mistakes what you can
make when you're gardening an alotment
in and remember one thing that you've
got to remember is that mistakes help
you grow just like your plants so it
doesn't matter if you make mistakes I
make mistakes all the time and sometimes
to learn from them sometimes I don't
learn from them and obviously a lot of
times I share them with you all the
mistakes that I do cuz I'm H his
Gardener I'll tell you what I've done
good and what I've done rubbish but yeah
I do share everything with you so I hope
you've enjoyed that podcast for today if
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until next time everyone remember keep
smiling keep shining and keep gardening
with B
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