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hey everyone and welcome to Gardening
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with Ben in today's episode we're going
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to continue our little series of getting
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an aotment for the first time so we're
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going to talk every episode about
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starting an a lotment how to get hold of
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them and the process of getting started
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so if you've not watched yesterday's
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video make sure you go and check that
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one out where we were talking about how
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do you apply for an aotment so in this
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episode we're going to talk about what
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to expect when you first get an aotment
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now when you first get an aotment you
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can either be lucky and get an aotment
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what's been just given up recently or
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you can get the total opposite where
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it's been left derelictked for a few
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years and most certainly a lot of people
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get them when they derelict trust me I
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get many people commenting saying how
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bad a state their plot is but sometimes
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that's good because you can design it to
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how you want it to be and the first
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thing you need to do when you get your
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plot is take a photo of it because then
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you can see your progress from your
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start date right through to getting it
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cleared and tidied up and make sure
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you're tracking it as you completing it
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and getting it all sorted the first
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thing I would do if I got a brand new
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aotment that was derelict would be to
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trim it all down just trim it down to
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ground level as quite a lot of times the
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weeds have grown and they're massive and
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you can't sort out what needs to be done
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and obviously go around first and have a
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look to see if there's any fruit bushes
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hiding around because you don't want to
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trim them down or any other plants what
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you want to keep but yeah trim it all
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down and then get hold of some black
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membrane uh it lets the water through
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but it doesn't let anything grow or get
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to polling if you can't get black
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membrane sometimes you can get it free
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on Facebook marketplace so have a look
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around and see if you can get any free
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beds cover it all over that is the best
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thing to do cover it all over it'll stop
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the weeds from growing back it'll kill
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them back down it won't get rid of all
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the roots but it'll stop them from
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growing and then the next thing you're
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best off doing is starting on a small
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area and working your way back
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progressively once you've dug it over
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and cleared it got rid of all the roots
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cover it back over until you actually
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need it again because trust me the weeds
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will grow back i've seen loads of people
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get a JCB in clear out the plot left it
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for a few months come back and it's
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absolutely bad again it's not an easy
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job it's not as easy as what people make
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out on Instagram when you see the nice
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photos of the a lotments it's a
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full-time job it's hard work but once
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you get on top of it you can get it
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started so once you've got it all dug
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over and cleared and you got it all laid
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out that is when we talk about making
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the plan for your plot which we'll talk
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about in another episode so make sure
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you come back for that so the first job
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is trim it down cover it over and just
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clear bits at a time as you need it it
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took me 16 years to get to the top of my
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plot and yes that is a long time but we
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got there eventually it's not about
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overdoing yourself it's about doing it
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in steady steps and just working on a
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small area at once and enjoying it
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because sometimes when you do too much
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you don't enjoy it just do a bit at a
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time and work your way up the plot so I
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hope you've enjoyed this episode make
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sure you give us a follow and stay up to
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date with all these new tip videos that
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we're giving out and yeah until next
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time everyone remember keep smiling keep
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shining and keep gardening with Ben
