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How to Help Birds and Wildlife in Your Garden | Wildlife-Friendly Gardening Tips
Nov 14, 2024
This video explains how to support birds and wildlife and create a safe habitat in your garden.
The guide covers feeding birds, providing water, offering shelter and planting suitable areas for wildlife. It also includes simple steps to encourage beneficial insects and natural visitors throughout the year.
A wildlife-friendly garden supports biodiversity and creates a healthier growing environment for plants and animals.
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0:00
welcome to gardening with Ben the
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podcast where we dig into the soil of
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our Gardens and the depths of our green
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FS I'm your host Ben here to guide you
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through the joys of gardening from
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sewing seeds to reaping Bountiful
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harvests each episode will explore tips
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tricks and tales from the garden and
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alotment sharing insights from ourself
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and stories from our own back Garden
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Adventures whether you're a season
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Gardener or just getting your hands
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dirty for the first time there's
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something here for everyone so grab your
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brew and gardening gloves and let's Get
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Growing With gardening with
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Ben hello and welcome to this episode
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for today talking about Nature's
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neighbors the podcast that we're
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delivering and fostering a thriving
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Haven for the birds and wildlife in your
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garden and allotment in each episode
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we're going to delve into the world
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of bird birs Wildlife plants tips
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advice and creating a s train that
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welcomes our favorite friends and
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creatures into our garden and our
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elopment and creating czy habitat where
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we'll guide you through the joys of
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adding the nature into your backyard and
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the benefits behind it so grab your
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binoculus and your gardening gloves it's
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time to the nurture the wild side of
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your green space SP in your garden and
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an
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alotment so in this episode we're going
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to talk about why it's so important to
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get the wildlife and the birds into your
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garden and to be honest when I first
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took on my plot for the first few few
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years I weren't bothered whatsoever
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about looking after the birds or the
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wildli and I just thought I'll just grw
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out my fruit and my vegetables and there
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we'll have it we'll be looking after
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what I need to do in my allotment with
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GR is fruit and veg and that's all I'm
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bothered about we don't need to bother
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about anything else and yeah I had some
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successful crops and stuff like that but
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also you get a lot of pests and stuff
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down at your plot
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so what I started looking into is
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natural ways of getting rid of pests and
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the general answer to a lot of that was
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birds and wildlife because birds and
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wildlife will obviously help get rid of
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pests and the reason why birds will get
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rid of pests is that they'll come down
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they'll eat the Slugs they'll eat the
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snails and they'll get rid of them from
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out of your allotment and garden so you
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won't have as many slugs and cells
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you'll still get plenty trust me uh they
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won't eat them all
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unfortunately but it will help reduce
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the numbers down on your plot and
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obviously the same goes for wildlife if
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you attract Hedgehog or slug um frogs to
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the plot they will also eat the Slugs
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and
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snails so encouraging Wildlife to your
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plot is very
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important and over the last couple of
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years I've put more and more effort into
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looking after the wildlife on my plot
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I've got two bird houses up and when I
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first put my bird houses up literally
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and this is the genuine truth Within
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about 30 minutes of putting it up I had
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blue tis coming to inspect them and look
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around to see if they were habitable for
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them to move into and within a day they'
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started building the nests in the bird
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boxes and I was so amazed and they laid
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some blue T eggs and I got some baby
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blue tis on my allotments
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and all the time you could see the blue
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tis flying in and out in and out with
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all the grubs and the worms and the
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Slugs to feed the youngsters and that
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obviously helps keep the Slugs and uh
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snails down in the
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bugs so attracting the blue tits and the
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birds to the plot is very important and
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also obviously as it's winter time at
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the
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moment it's good to feed the birds
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because there's not much food around for
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the birds at the moment obviously they
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can be snow on the ground or the ground
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can be frosted over and rock hard so
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then they won't be able to dig the worms
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out and stuff like that so you need to
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encourage the birds to your garden by
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feeding them and yeah it can be
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expensive but it is nice to see
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different varieties of birds down at my
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alotment I do love seeing them flying in
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and out and yet they can attract racks
4:52
and squirrels to the plot twe the seeds
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but
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it's swings and roundabouts with
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anything
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um you just have to bite the bullet
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sometimes and just go with what you
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think's best so I do love to attract the
5:08
birds down to my plot we're talking
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about the feathered ones here um but
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yeah we try and get as many different
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varieties of bird feed because different
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varieties of bird feed will attract
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different birds down to the
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alotment and I've had like blue tits
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I've had finches I've had sparrows you
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don't see many black birds throw down at
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my plot that is one thing I don't see I
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don't see many black birds so if
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anyone's got any tips on attracting
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black birds down to my plot please do
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let me know cuz I do like to see black
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birds as the lovely and you just don't
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see many of them these days down on my
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plot I don't know why whether they're
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more shy but when I used to live at my
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parents house there used to be a black
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bird in the garden while live there all
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the time they used to attack you because
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they got Birds nesting in the
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uh Hedges and stuff like that but I do
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want to get some black birds down at my
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plot so please do let me know in uh by
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sending me a message how I can attract
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black birs to my allotment as I would
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like to know and also I've got a pond
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down at my plot which I've had in for a
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couple of years and every year I make
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sure that I've got some fog spawn in it
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to get the frogs hatching well uh the
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Tad Poes hatching into
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frogs because the more frogs that you
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have down at your plot obviously they'll
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go around eating all the fogs uh eating
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all the SS and snails up and out of
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everything from the birds to the frogs
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I'd say the frogs are the main thing
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that I want to concentrate on getting on
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the plot because frogs do a fantastic
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amount of work and obviously frogs
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you'll see around the garden M when it's
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wet and when it's
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stormy and horrible because frogs like
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to be out of the rain and obviously when
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it's raining that's when the slugs come
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out as well so frogs are a vital thing
7:11
to your allotment if you can get frogs
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on your allotment you're laughing
7:15
because they will help you so much and
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they'll save so much pain and misery
7:22
from everything in Eaton they're
7:25
literally going around scooping them up
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for you at night time and in the rainy
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weather so it's good to look after your
7:34
allotment the next thing is what I want
7:36
to start looking out for on my plot is I
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want to start looking after the creepy
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crawlers and stuff like that I need to
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get some BG uh houses that's one thing I
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do want to get down on the plot uh so
7:50
that's going to be his next thing to get
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some bug houses we sorted out the birds
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we've sorted out the frogs now we're
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going to be getting some bug huts uh you
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can actually make your own uh if you
8:02
look around on uh line how to make them
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uh or you can purchase them and like
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you'll get your ladybirds your earwigs
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and stuff like that hiding in them um
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butterflies you can get a butterfly
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house as well I might get one of put
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those this year a butterfly
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house so I've got on my list I want a
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Butterfly House a bug hook and I would
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love a couple
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of head
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houses down at my plot uh but they are
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quite
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expensive so we might get a couple of
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Hedgehog homes this year so stay
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tuned if we do get some Hedgehog homes
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we'll keep you updated and we'll post
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some pictures of them uh or if anyone
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wants to send me some feel
8:49
free but yeah keep listening to these
8:52
podcasts and we'll be able to get one uh
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CU they are quite expensive uh but yeah
8:57
I'd love some Hedgehog homes down on my
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plot
9:00
as obviously again hedgehogs are
9:02
fantastic for down at the allotment so
9:04
we might look into that and I do know
9:07
that I've have got I've I've once seen a
9:09
hedgehog down at my plot it were
9:11
hibernated in my poly tunnel so we have
9:14
had traces of hedgehogs down on my plot
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so yeah
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possibly we may look into to getting
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that soon uh if you know when the best
9:25
time is to put a hedgehog house out uh
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obviously they're hibernating at this
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time year aren't they uh do let me know
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when I need to put one out if anybody's
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got any experience with
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hedgehogs uh so
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hopefully we can get stuff sorted this
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year my plot is going to look absolutely
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fantastic this year trust me we are
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going to have the best looking allotment
9:49
around in Sheffield and in the UK you
9:53
can all Miss for that if it's looking
9:55
rubbish people let me know please do
10:00
but yeah I I am certainly in a good mood
10:02
for my allotment this year and the
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amount of work and time and effort I'm
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putting in is
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unbelievable and as I've recorded this
10:10
episode we have already recorded
10:12
Saturdays and Sunday's episode so make
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sure you click that follow button that
10:17
notified button and there will be new
10:20
podcasts out on Saturday and Sunday this
10:22
has come out late on Friday night so you
10:25
may even be listening to this on
10:26
Saturday morning as well so I hope
10:28
you've enjoyed it please do leave some
10:32
feedback please
10:34
do uh hit the rating Button as well as
10:37
it all helps towards pushing my podcast
10:40
out I hope you've enjoyed today's
10:42
episode until next time remember keep
10:45
smiling keep shining and keep gardening
10:47
with Ben everyone and that wraps up
10:50
another episode of gardening with Ben
10:54
thank you for joining me in this journey
10:57
remember every seed planted is is a step
10:59
towards a Greener World and every day is
11:02
a chance to grow something beautiful
11:05
keep nurturing your Gardens and your
11:07
souls until next time I'm gardening with
11:10
Ben reminding you to let your garden be
11:13
your Sanctuary happy gardening and see
11:16
you in the next episode remember keep
11:19
smiling keep shining and keep gardening
11:24
with Ben
#Home & Garden
#Pest Control
#Pets & Animals
#Wildlife