"Reflections on a Year of Gardening: Lessons and Highlights"
2K views
Nov 14, 2024
📆 Reflections on a Year of Gardening: Lessons and Highlights It’s been a year full of growth, both in the garden and beyond. 🌱✨ In this reflective episode, I look back on the successes, struggles, and standout moments from the past year on the allotment — and share the valuable lessons I’ll be taking into the next season. What was your biggest gardening lesson this year? #YearInTheGarden #AllotmentReflections #GardeningWithBen #GrowYourOwn #GardeningPodcast #UKGardener #GardenHighlights
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0:00
hello and welcome to gardening with Ben
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the awardwinning gardening podcast as
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voted for by the grow your own magazine
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relax grab a brew and let's enjoy
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today's gardening podcast with
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Ben hello and welcome to gardening with
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Ben the show where we dig deep into the
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world of gardening and allotments as the
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year comes to a close is the perfect
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time to reflect on our gardening Journey
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today we'll reminisce about the seeds of
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knowledge we planted the challeng we've
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weathered and the Bountiful Harvest
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we've enjoyed from the first sprouts of
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spring to the last leaves of autumn
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we've nurtured our Gardens and in turn
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they've nurtured us so grab your
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favorite gardening gloves settle in
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let's explore the growth the learning
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and the joy this year has brought to our
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green spaces this is gardening with Ben
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where every day is a good day to
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grow so that is it it's the 31st first
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of December it's the end of the year now
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and as our year draws to an end I'd just
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like to thank
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everybody that does support me through
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all of my social media platforms through
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Facebook
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Instagram Tik Tok and these podcasts
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however when I've looked at how many
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podcasts I've recorded this year I have
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recorded very little and I do apologize
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for that men's life because I do like to
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keep the podcast going and I've done a
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rubbish job this year so I do only
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apologize for that but we're planning on
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doing some good ones this year so make
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sure you do hit that subscribe button
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and we keep you up to date with all our
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podcasts and also I have had 22,000
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downloads this year so you can't say
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it's not doing bad still people are
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still listening to the podcast so thank
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you to everybody body that does listen
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to them and if you're new here make sure
2:33
you do give my Instagram a follow and
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drop me a message and let me know that
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you're listening to this podcast as I do
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like to hear from the people that listen
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to them and yeah so this episode is
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called reflecting on a year in
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gardening and what a year we have had at
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the plot and it's not been a good year
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honestly it's not been a brilliant year
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whatsoever down at the allotment and the
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reason why that goes
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to happen is because I've not put as
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much effort in as I would like to have
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done one of the main reasons for this
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goes down to not having my shed to grow
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my seeds in this year as like I said my
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shed collapsed last year uh the end of
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winter and I didn't manage to get a
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rebuil in time ready for the springtime
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and so I didn't have anywhere to grow
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all my seeds in which it is a main big
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factor in growing stuff on my plot as
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obviously I've got my poly tunnel but
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when I grow stuff on the ground in the
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poly tunnel the rats come in theat all
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the seeds all the squirrels come in and
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the mice and everything and they just
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nibble at them whereas if they're in my
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shed they're on the shelv in out of the
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way where the rats can't get a hold of
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them so that was one of the main factors
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why I didn't manage to grow much stuff
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this year because I didn't have an area
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to start all the seeds off growing so
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one of the things I had to do was buy uh
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plants that had already started from
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uh garden centers and shops but
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obviously they're expensive so I didn't
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get to buy and purchase many of those
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but the ones that I did purchase did
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grow well we got some good lettuce we
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got some good beetroot growing and yeah
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we got some decent results from the
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stuff that we did grow um but I didn't
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manage to grow much at all this year in
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them terms but on the fruit side of
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things I did manage to grow quite a lot
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uh we got a lot of fruit growing down at
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the
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plot as obviously I've got my fruit
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trees growing uh with all them fruits
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I've got my app app Les I've got my
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plums I've got my pears we've got a
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strawberries we've got blackberries
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we've got
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raspberries uh and they did absolutely
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fantastic the amount of pairs I had this
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year and the apples I did absolutely
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fantastic I didn't get many cooking
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apples uh this year but hopefully
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fingers crossed we do get a lot of
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cooking apples next year but we have
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given the trees a massive chop back
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because they were getting too tall so
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we'll see we'll see if we manage get
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some fingers cross we do even if we get
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about 10 15 I'll be happy with that
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it'll make me plenty of Apple crumbles
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to
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weat I don't I don't do the cooking I
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always give the apples to my mom and the
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rubab and she does all my cooking for me
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uh which she don't mind she likes making
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them so and I just stick them in my
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freezer and then eat them with hot
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custard as you would
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do so yeah um that's
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what we've done with the food this year
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and fingers crossed we do get a lot of
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stuff growing next year I've got a lot
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of big plans for down at my plot um I
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want to get back into it um this last
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year I've not done much down there at
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all this year um I didn't grow any
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pumpkins I didn't get any cett growing I
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didn't get no marrows growing I didn't
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have no squash growing oh I had sweet
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cor we did fantastic with the sweet corn
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the sweet corn was absolutely fantastic
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and also now I've got an air fryer at
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home um so I cooked my sweet corn in the
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air fryer and wow did it taste
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phenomenal or what it was absolutely
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delicious the sweet corn was beautiful
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and I'll definitely be growing a lot
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more sweet corn again next year sweet
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corn is one of the things that I always
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do plan on growing and we have a lot of
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trouble always squirrels down at the
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alotment and one of the tips that I
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always give out for the sweet corn is
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that when it's getting ready is to put
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PL plastic bottles over the tops of the
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corn to stop the rats and squirrels from
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eating them and that gave me a 100%
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success rate of none of them getting
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eaten by animals other people on the
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plot had their stripped they had them
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eaten they had them know away and stuff
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like that where it was all mine all grew
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fantastic and we had a fantastic crop
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outcome so if you have any squirrels or
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rat issues put a bottle over the top of
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the Corn when they're nearly ready and
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you will protect them because as soon as
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they start to smell ready the rats and
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the squirrels will come along and eat
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them all and even if you think I'll do
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it tomorrow they I've done that before
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and next day they've all been stripped
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and I've lost every sweet corn car
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whatsoever so yeah that is my sweet con
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that was fantastic
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absolutely so we want to get back to
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Growing um more stuff again next year so
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I'll talk about that in my next episode
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my plans for next year uh so make sure
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you stay tuned for that one hopefully
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that one will be coming tomorrow
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hopefully we'll get it recorded for you
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to listen to as I say I'm going to start
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getting these podcasts published quite
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regular again and get them back out for
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you to listen to because I do know
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people do miss them and they do like
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them uh I'm surprised how much people do
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like me waffling on and talking to you
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all and both people enjoy it while
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they're
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gardening
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so overall the last year has been
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absolutely rubbish down at my plot part
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from fruit which was absolutely
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fantastic um I have got some issues with
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my poly tunel
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uh we might have to replace the skin uh
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I'm I keep taping it up keep taping it
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up but the tape keeps coming off again
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when it gets really windy uh and we're
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getting a lot of storms at the moment
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and there's some more storms on the way
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so we've got to be prepared for
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them but fingers crossed we do get some
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good stuff growing in the poly tunnel uh
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I'm going to be growing my tomatoes
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again next year uh yes I forgot to
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mention my tomatoes my tomatoes did
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fantastic this year uh I keep thinking
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of different things as I'm
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talking but what we did with tomatoes
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this year rather than buy the actual
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seeds in the packets of seeds uh I
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thought I know what I'm going to go to
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the supermarket I've seen it all over
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social media people going to the
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supermarket starting the seeds off from
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tomatoes and getting fantastic crops
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whether it was just a clickbait thing I
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don't know but I tried it I got some uh
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ponet of mixed small Tomatoes they were
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yellow orange and red like Cherry sized
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ones and I'd seen rather than dry them
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out just scoop the seeds straight out
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put them in the soil and let them grow
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so that's what I did and if by Magic if
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all of the seeds grew I got absolutely
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tons of plants grow from the
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seeds uh they did
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fantastic uh they grew really well and
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the yellow ones tasted absolutely
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beautiful um so if you wanted to grow
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some tomatoes next year go to Tescos and
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get the multi pack of different variety
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Tomatoes they like the plum ones the
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yellow ones the orange ones and the red
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cherry ones and just use some of them
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and scoop them out into sub soil and
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start them growing and I grew them all
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outside I didn't grow them in the poly
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tunnel um because my poly tunnel was out
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of action last year uh we grew them all
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outside and we had some fantastic
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results for
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them and they were just amazing
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absolutely amazing um so I'm going to
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stick into that trick next year I might
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even try it with peppers rather than
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buying seeds for uh from the super uh
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from the shops for the peppers I'm just
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going to buy a pepper and scoop the
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seeds out and try it that way because
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you get more seeds in a pepper than you
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do in a packet of seeds which are more
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expensive so we're going to try that so
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make sure you stay tuned for that and
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see how we get on uh it's a lot cheaper
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buying the vegetable and taking the
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seeds out and doing it that way rather
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than
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actually buying the seed packets of
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seeds sometimes uh so make sure you have
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a look and give that a try and see what
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you can do see if if you can get stuff
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growing from seeds from the actual uh
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plants in the
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supermarkets uh I don't know if I'd try
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it with cucumbers or not uh I grow a
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market more variety cucumbers rather
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than the telegraph ones usually and they
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don't have the market more ones in the
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supermarket so we'll give uh them a Miss
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probably but yeah I'm going to try a few
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different things from the supermarket
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take the seeds out and try growing them
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for them so make sure you stay tuned for
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that and hopefully
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we're going to try some different
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varieties of stuff next year as well so
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like I said stay tuned for the next
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episode and we'll talk about that more
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in detail I do need to get a seed
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catalog for to have a look at some
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things to try and grow so make sure you
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click that subscribe button and then
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you'll get notified when new episodes
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come up and yeah thank you for tuning
12:53
back again uh I'm glad to be back doing
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these podcasts uh I think we've had more
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podcast in the last few days than we
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have over the
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year but yeah um let's try and get a lot
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of episodes out next year let's try and
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get this podcast Channel back up and
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munning to how it used to be and I know
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people used to love it and I've got a
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new app now to give me ideas on
13:20
suggestions for podcast ideas and stuff
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like that uh which I've been using and
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I've been using it throughout the
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beginning bit of the podcast
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uh if you've enjoyed that entrance bit
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when I'm talking about the introduction
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uh but yeah hopefully we're going to get
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this podcast booming and lots of
13:40
listeners in so if you've enjoyed it
13:42
please do click that subscribe button
13:44
send me a message on Instagram and stay
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tuned and until next time remember keep
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smiling keep shining and keep gardening
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with Ben
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everybody thank you for listening to
13:59
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14:58
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