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Unique Ways to Utilize Every Bit of Your Allotment.
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Jan 1, 2025
🌱 Unique Ways to Utilize Every Bit of Your Allotment! Make every square inch of your plot work harder for you — even the corners, fences, and awkward spots! 🧤✨ From vertical growing and companion planting to creative composting and pollinator zones, here are smart ways to maximise your space and harvest more. How are you making the most of your allotment? #AllotmentHacks #GrowYourOwn #GardenTips #AllotmentIdeas #MaximiseYourPlot #UKGardener #ProductiveGardening
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0:00
how do you feel when you switch to Geico
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and save on your car insurance it's like
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finishing your laundry and successfully
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matching all your daughter's baby socks
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together on the first try let's see
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Panda socks firetruck socks socks with
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those cute little strawberries on them
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you matched each and every one of those
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tiny socks I mean has this ever happened
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in the history of laundry and a penguin
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wearing a cowboy hat socks done enjoy
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the moment dad you've earned it yep
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switching and saving with Geico feels
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just like that get more with Geico
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hello and welcome to gardening with Ben
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your goto 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 will dig into tips
0:53
tricks and techniques to make your
0:55
garden and alotment th from planting
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sewing and growing we will share all the
1:01
tips and AD advice we will also have
1:04
regular episodes talking about what we
1:07
have been up to on the alarm so sit back
1:10
grab a brew and enjoy today's
1:15
episode hey everyone and welcome back to
1:18
gardening with Ben for another brand new
1:22
episode well it's middle of the week
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already we're nearly at the weekend
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we're nearly at Christmas Christmas is
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nearly here and I've still not bought a
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single Christmas
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present but yeah Christmas is soon upon
1:35
us but that doesn't stop me from doing
1:37
these podcasts and it certainly doesn't
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stop me from going to the alotment and
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doing my gardening and enjoying what I
1:44
do best and yeah it helps me so much to
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get to the allotment and to the Garden
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it's one thing that I can always look
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forward to at the weekend getting down
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to the alotment seeing how things are
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getting on
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and it helps motivate me as well doing
2:00
this for you guys and it pushes me and
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keeps me going if I didn't do all this
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I'd just sit back and lay on my bed all
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day and do absolutely nothing so I do
2:11
love doing these podcasts for you all
2:13
and I hope that you all enjoy them too
2:15
if you're new to these podcasts make
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sure you do click that Bell button give
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get updated when new podcasts are
2:28
available to listen to
2:30
so what are we going to talk about today
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we're going to talk about utilizing
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every area of your allotment to for its
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potential same for your garden really
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it's the same sort of
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concept now whether you've got a massive
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allotment whether you've got a small
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allotment it's about utilizing the space
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correctly and
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appropriately as I've learned from the
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past and I've
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when I sew my seeds I never say uh tend
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to save any of the seeds I just throw
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them all into a seed tray and Chuck away
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the plants that I don't need or I'll try
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and plant them all and use too many and
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you don't actually need to plant as many
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plants as you end up planting because
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you'll have not use them all that all be
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ready at the same time or they'll just
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go to
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waste so only plant what you actually
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need to plant
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and by doing that you can grow other
3:33
stuff and fit more stuff in and it goes
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down to companion planting as well as
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I've not really done much companion
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planting I know about certain things of
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companion planting and how to plant
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things to use less space like I know
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when people say like plant sweet corn
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plant your runner beans to grow around
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your sweet corn and then grow marrows or
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c along the floor to use that space up
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so it's about utilizing the space
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and using what's available and I have to
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do this because I get a lot of shade on
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my allotment so I don't have much areas
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that I can grow stuff with sunlight so I
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have to think about what can grow in the
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shade okay without much sun and then
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grow everything what needs sun in the
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beds that need it
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and obviously like at the moment I've
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got my garlic growing I've got my onions
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growing and they're in the beds that are
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sunny and the thing is these will be
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harvested around June time July time so
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when I harvest them then I can use them
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beds again and plant maybe beetroot in
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them lettuce in
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them uh marrows corett runner beans in
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them I can use them spaces up once I
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harvest the produce and it's about
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timing about being being able to use the
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space wisely like if I were to use the
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sunny beds to plant brussel sprouts in
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for instance the brussel sprouts you'd
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be planting them out in March April time
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and they wouldn't be ready to harvest
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till November so I'd be wasting that
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full bed a sunny bed on brussel sprouts
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which I don't particularly like and I'll
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end up using a shaded spot to grow
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something that needs Sunny if you get me
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so it's about using the space wisely and
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obviously certain things you can grow in
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tubs or in baskets like you can
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grow tomatoes trailing Tomatoes what you
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can grow in like pots on your fence or
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in a hanging basket and they can Trail
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down so you could if you're shorter
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space grow stuff in baskets or in tubs
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like lettuce can grow in tubs as well
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and yeah make the use of all your Fen in
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like grow your runner beans up your
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fencing or hang some pots on your
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fencing and grow lettuce in it spring
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onions in it carrots in it it's about
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using the space as much as you can and
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making the most of how much space you've
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actually got and man's a big allotment
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and I could grow lots and lots of
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different varieties of stuff if I had
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time or if I had the patience to do it
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but I tend to like to leave quite a bit
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of space in between my plants so that I
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can keep it weed freeze like like if I
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was retired or something like that I
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could go down every day and weed in
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between all the
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plants on a regular basis and because I
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can't go down every day and I'm only
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down there twice a week now I have to
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leave a lot of space in between the
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plants so that I can just quickly whiz a
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hoe around and scrape off the top root
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uh heads of all the weeds and keep on it
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topper it that way but I could plant the
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beds to be absolutely fully stuff like
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you could have a row of beetroot you
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could have a row of lettuce you could
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have a row of carrots you could have a
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row of spring onions and you could
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squeeze them in as much as possible and
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grow an absolute ton of vegetables on
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your allotment if you wanted
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to again utilizing that space and I know
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there's a method called square foot
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gardening I think it is and that's the
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case of squeezing everything in in
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different rows but organized and it'll
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just be the right amount of veg to grow
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for yourself and you can fit plenty of
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vegetables in doing it in that method as
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like obviously carrots don't take up
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much room spring onions don't take up
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much room beetroot doesn't take up much
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room so you can plant them all in rows
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like that if you want and again I end up
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planting too much that I actually need
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to actually grow like I've got 200
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strawberry plants now you probably say
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that's too much but it's not too much I
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absolutely love my strawberries if I
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could have an alment full of
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strawberries I certainly would do and
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the more that I do of strawberries I
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would do all if I could I'd have them on
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in baskets on the fencing and I'd have
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them up the side of my shed but then
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they dry out every single day and I'd
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have to water every single day but yeah
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there's so much stuff you can grow like
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on the side of your fences and stuff but
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obviously I can't get down every single
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day to keep these
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watered and I think it goes back to my
8:43
previous episode is that using this time
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now to plan what you want to grow in
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your beds and the layout of the plot it
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all goes hand in hand in getting the
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most out of your a lopment and garden
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and trying to fit as much in as possible
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and yeah I could grow absolutely loads
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of stuff in my plot and I might possibly
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try and do that this year I might see if
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I can grow the most stuff that I've ever
9:13
actually grown down at the allotment
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it's going to be hard it's going to be
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tough because obviously I'm working 9
9:18
to5 Monday to Friday now but if I put in
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enough of time and effort I could
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actually do it because having an
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allotment is like a full-time job people
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think oh it's going to be easy it's
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going to be so easy to just like go down
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and do a bit every soften but no it's
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definitely a full-time job and I
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absolutely love it I do it as a
9:39
full-time job I'd love to be down there
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at the allotment all the time but
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unfortunately this podcast not gone
9:46
viral
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yet once it does then I can do it
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full-time keep sharing the podcast out
9:53
everyone but yeah hopefully we can grow
9:57
as much stuff as possible next year so I
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might start looking in my seed catalogs
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writing down all the seeds that I want
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to do and plan my layout and see about
10:06
utilizing my allotment space a lot more
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and trying to grow more and more stuff
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this year and hopefully get some
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fantastic results in some fantastic
10:16
harvests and share with you all how well
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I've actually done and on the little
10:22
time that I have to do it and see what
10:25
results we can actually get so stay
10:28
tuned I will be sharing pictures and
10:30
tips and advice on how to do it all but
10:33
I hope that you do enjoy these podcast
10:35
make sure you do give us a follow until
10:37
next time everyone remember keep smiling
10:40
keep shining and keep gardening with
10:45
Ben thank you for joining me on this
10:48
episode of gardening with Ben I hope you
10:51
have found some useful tips and
10:53
inspiration for your own gardening and
10:55
alotment journey if you have enjoyed
10:57
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11:27
happy gardening and until next time
11:29
remember keep smiling keep shining and
11:32
keep gardening with Ben
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