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Weathering the Storm: A Day at the Allotment with Storm Darragh
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Jan 1, 2025
🌱 Weathering the Storm: A Day at the Allotment with Storm Darragh! Wind, rain, and flying tarps — but the plot must go on! ⛈️🧤 Join me as I brave Storm Darragh, check on the damage, and do what I can to protect the plants and keep things ticking over. Have you had to storm-proof your allotment lately? #StormDarragh #AllotmentLife #WeatherOnThePlot #GrowYourOwn #GardeningInTheRain #UKGardener #AllotmentUpdate
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0:02
hello and welcome to gardening with Ben
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your go-to podcast for all things green
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and growing I'm Ben your allotment guide
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and here to help you cultivate your
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garden and your passion for plants
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whether you're a seasoned Gardener or
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just starting out this podcast is for
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you each episode we'll dig into tips
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tricks and techniques to make your
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garden and alotment thve from planting
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sewing and growing we will share all the
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tips and AD advice we will also have
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regular episodes talking about what we
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have been up to on the alarm so sit back
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grab a brute and enjoy today's
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episode hey everyone and welcome back to
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gardening with Ben for another brand new
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episode well it is Sunday today and I'm
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recording this on Saturday night and
1:00
wow it is absolutely horrendous the
1:04
weather it's not as horrendous as what
1:06
other people have had it obviously I'm
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based in Sheffield which is more Inland
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than on the coast where Wales is and
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Liverpool and Blackpool and all that
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area so I'm not on that side of the
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coast I'm in the middle of the country
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and the wind has been awful we've had
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torrential rain it's been absolutely
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awful today and I'm really really really
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dreading driving onto my alotment
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tomorrow because I'm scared that my shed
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might have blown away collapsed pieces
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might have flown off it my polyl might
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have ripped and yeah I'm really not
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looking forward to going down to my
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allotment tomorrow fingers crossed it's
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all Stood Still and survived but we'll
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have to wait and see and hopefully keep
1:56
them fingers crossed and hopefully that
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you have not had much damage as well in
2:01
your Gardens and your allotments and
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hopefully you will be able to recover
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from this bad storm and that's the thing
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we we have to get used to this around
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winter time we get these storms and we
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just have to keep us fingers crossed and
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legs crossed and hope that we don't get
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too much damage we're probably bound to
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get a bit of damage but hopefully not a
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load so we'll have to wait and see and
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see what it looks like tomorrow so yeah
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make sure you to next episode so that
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you find out how my allotment is
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standing and if it is still standing I
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presume that it will actually be okay so
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we'll hope and we'll pray that
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everything is safe so today's episode is
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where we talk about what we have been up
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to down at the allotment today yes I did
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go to the allotment this morning and yes
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I did get quite a bit done but it was
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absolutely torrential rain so I couldn't
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stay outside and do any work outside
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like I wanted to I wanted to do some
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jobs in my strawberry patch but I
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couldn't get round to doing them because
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it was just awful outside so I went in
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the shed and obviously I listened to my
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own podcast giving me tips and advice on
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what to do in the shed at this time of
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year so I've been doing quite a bit of
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tidying up I've been throwing away any
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plants that were growing in there what
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haven't taken or I forgotten to water
3:28
them and they've died
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uh so I've been throwing all them away
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clearing them all away and putting all
3:34
the compost into a bucket which I'll use
3:36
again in my beds and stuff I never waste
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compost I always dig it into the beds uh
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The Leftovers that I've got from my pots
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and stuff like that so I've been tidying
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all them up and also what I've been
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doing is I've been taking all the plants
3:52
off of the shelves and I've got a load
3:55
of plastic uh really strong plastic like
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polyol plastic
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which I got spare from years ago and it
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was just shoved under my one of my
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benches and I thought I'm going to use
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that to protect my shelving in my
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allotment in my shed so I've been
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cutting it all down and putting it on
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the shelving and then putting the plant
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pots back on it which is quite time
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consuming because you have to lift every
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little plant pot off there and lift more
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back on again and yeah it's been quite a
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big job today so we've done half of my M
4:29
Elin today so hopefully tomorrow we're
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going to do the other half the weather
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is still looking bad again for tomorrow
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here in shefield so it looks like rain
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again so I'll probably be stuck inside
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the shed or I'll be repairing everything
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that's broken and damaged but we'll see
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we'll see how things are
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so while I was in the shed as well I was
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trying to work out what Renovations I
4:55
want to do inside it so like I said I'm
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going to Spruce it all up this winter
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and make it look nice for next year and
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I've been looking at what colors to
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paint it inside at the moment most of
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the wood is painted like a green color
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and I want to change the color I want to
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brighten it up and make it look more
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attractive so I'm looking at painting it
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a nice letter box red paint color so
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that's my plan to paint all the wood up
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PLT all the metal up and make it look
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nice for next year and hopefully a lot
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brighter but obviously we can't paint
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them at the moment because the wood is
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quite damp from all the rain and
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everything because it just soaks through
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from the roof and everything down into
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the wood it's it's not rotten or
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anything it's pretty strong wood but
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while ever it's damp I can't be watering
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it at the moment not watering it
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painting it so I can't be painting it at
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the moment so we're going to let it dry
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out usually we get like dry spells in
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January time when it's just cold and
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Frosty and not raining so maybe we'll
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get it painted around then we've just
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got to get wait for some decent weather
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to start painting inside
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it but yeah I'm going to be looking at
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hopefully sewing my onion seeds as well
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soon and my peppers and my Auber jeans
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seeds because usually start them off
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around January time so I'm going to be
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looking at getting all them
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started my onions I'll probably start
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off down in my shed because they should
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germinate all right fingers
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crossed hopefully they'll have enough
6:35
warmth to get them to germinate but my
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peppers and my orber jeans I'm going to
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start them off in my flat because I've
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never had a windel in my old flat and
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I've actually got a window Soul here so
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I'm going to start a few Peppers off and
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a few or jein off here in my flat so
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that I can give them that extra start
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and extra warmth to get them germinated
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because Peppers will need like 25 26° to
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germinate so they need really warm
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weather so we're going to start them off
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at home and get them started but the
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thing is when you're starting seeds off
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on your window you have to be careful of
7:14
them being Ley and getting enough light
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so you have to keep turning them around
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and everything like that but yeah once
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they have established then we'll take
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them down into my shed and continue
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growing them down there at the allotment
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but it's just giving them that extra
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boost and extra few months in past I've
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started them off like March time and
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they've only just been producing frood
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by the time it comes to the end of
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summer so we're giving them a few extra
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months to get started and get
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established to get them seeds growing
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down at the
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allotment but yeah I didn't actually do
7:52
a awful lot at all down the alotment
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today uh I fed Miss cat well Mrs cat
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should I say uh I fed her she's always
8:01
waiting as soon as I come down to my
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alment she's like waiting at the gate
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for me and my dad started whistling her
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whenever he comes down to alotment but
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as soon as she is the cars come she'll
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run onto the plot and get in position
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ready to be fed we feed her on a daily
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basis so she's well looked after and uh
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she's just a rogue cat but obviously she
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keeps the rats down and keeps the nice
8:25
down so it's good to have a little
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allotment cat wandering around it's
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probably from one of the houses behind
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the allotment site but she's often down
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on my
8:35
allotment and I did see her at the other
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day so hopefully she managed to get it
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so yeah we've also got all those bird
8:43
feeders to fill up as well uh I thought
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there's no point filling them up today
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because the wind is absolutely awful
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some of the bird feeders were on the
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floor and yeah if I filled them up
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they'd probably just blow off the trees
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again and all the seed would just blow
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all over over the floor so it's pretty
9:00
pointless filling them up today so
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hopefully when the wind dies down we can
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get them all filled back up again for
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the birdies and yeah I brought on my SD
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card for my wildlife camera uh it's not
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got any good footage on it to be honest
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it's not taken any good shots of
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anything so we're going to have to look
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at repositioning that and sorting it out
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hopefully get some Wildlife on it that's
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what we want we want to see some badges
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or we want to see some foxes around I
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just want to capture some nice footage
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of different Wildlife done at the mment
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because that's what I like to do I like
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to encourage the wildli to my plot yeah
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the bad Wildlife some of them like rats
9:40
mice and squirrels but I love seeing all
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the wildlife down there and every little
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thing that I can do to help them I
9:48
certainly will do so yeah hopefully we
9:52
will be back down at the allotment today
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when you're listening to this on Sunday
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so hopefully we'll be back today
10:00
hopefully we'll be able to get some work
10:01
done and then tomorrow's podcast again
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we'll be talking about what we've got up
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to down at the alotment and what we've
10:08
managed to achieve and hopefully get
10:10
done and hopefully I'll give you a
10:13
report on if my shed is still standing
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and my poly tunnel's Still Standing so
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wait for that episode to drop on Monday
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morning so I hope you've enjoyed today's
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episode a little Roundup of what we've
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been getting up to and obviously storm
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Dar hope hopefully everybody's pretty
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safe and hopefully not too much damage
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so until next time everyone remember
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keep smiling keep shining and keep
10:39
gardening with Ben
10:42
everyone thank you for joining me on
10:45
this episode of gardening with Ben I
10:48
hope you have found some useful tips and
10:51
inspiration for your own gardening and
10:53
allotment Journey if you have enjoyed
10:55
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10:58
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11:21
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11:24
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11:27
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11:30
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