Steve's Seaside Kitchen Garden & Allotment's video: Top tips and lessons learned and a MARSHYDRO SP150 LED grow light winner

** apologies for the audio and transitions in the is video my microphone and clicker failed me ** MARS HYDRO have kindly donated an SP150 LED grow light to my channel, to give away. To win the light you needed to answer one or both of the following questions: 1. What's the best thing you learned from watching my channel 2. What's your best - lesser known - gardening tip Here's a list of all the tips and lessons learned, if you want to take a look. I've tagged them by topic area. The winner is the lights is Letty from Cumbria and I will be emailing her to let her know. https://airtable.com/shrNpw05elVHHQJll Unfortunately this giveaway was only available to residents of the UK, US or Canada as that's where MARS HYDRO are able to deliver. I will provide the details of the winner to Mars and they will ship the light to the lucky winner. You can source Mars Hydro lights from Amazon, the model I have is the SP150. Also, just to be clear, whilst I was gifted the light I made sure that I'm not under any obligation to give a good review and I have no financial incentive to promote grow lights! If you're interested though, the links are included below: US: https://amzn.to/2oMiPNz CA: https://amzn.to/2JNRCBo UK: https://amzn.to/2WHkzEm DE: https://amzn.to/36y0swX If you have questions, we have a FAQ document and video, which you can find here: https://steves.seasidelife.com/2020/01/20/allotmentfaq/ If you are new to my allotment videos you might find a bit of context useful. We live in the north west of England, in Lytham St Annes, which I believe is the equivalent of USA Zone 8. The garden is about ½ a mile from the sea, the allotment about a mile, it’s fairly mild, but very windy. A lot of people ask about the databases and apps that I mention in the videos, I make these are freely available, for more check out these blog posts https://steves.seasidelife.com/category/airtable/ We used to have three allotments in my family, mine (Steve), my wife's (Debbie) and my middle daughter's (Jennie) and you will see these featured in many videos. We’ve recently handed Jennie’s back to the council as over the years we now grow more on the other two plots than we did on all three a few years ago. We also have a small kitchen garden at home. All of the plots are managed in an integrated fashion, so don't expect to see the usual mix of veg on each plot. I do most of the planning and seed starting. We each have our own plots, but we all help each other out. Debbie's plot is mostly full of perennials, it's an ornamental plot. We did a lot of work to keep the weeds down and Debbie's approach is inspired by the TV programme The Ornamental Kitchen garden. My plot is all about experimental growing, maximum productivity and year round abundance. As with all of the other plots I did a lot of work to control the weeds, but it's a high maintenance plot. I'm always planting, harvesting, experimenting and generally having a great time. Collectively the plots deliver an amazing abundance of fruit and veg all year round. Debbie, Jennie, Jon and I are effectively self sufficient in veg all year round and in fruit for much of the year. During winter we sometimes have enough surplus to feed our local family. During the rest of the year when the surplus from our house garden comes on stream we have surpluses in some crops for quite a few friends as well. This video provides an overview: https://youtu.be/q1k-2vIoSQ8 I do an update of the allotments, roughly twice a month, you can find the tours here: https://youtu.be/eLtltf9Rz0M?list=PLFhKoRR-NiCJn5Y6rZf0RCCqycu3xvofX Our approach to allotment life is to: grow as much as we possibly can, to be self-sufficient in veg all year round and in fruit in season, to give away our surplus to friends and family, and to have as much fun as possible. For more on self sufficiency check out these videos: https://youtu.be/nkQgsTJ3iBs?list=PLFhKoRR-NiCLEk16Xu_Axyoe5ZDaDV-Pt We are not slaves to gardening though, I spend about 12 hours a week on the plots (on average) Debbie and Jennie a lot less. We keep nudging that down as we eliminate non-productive work: like grass cutting, weeding and watering as much as practical. We are newbie gardeners, only starting the allotments in 2016. I'm a bit obsessive about the nutrient density of the veg that we grow and making the plots easy to work because it's through this allotment lifestyle and food that I've overcome a debilitating auto-immune disease. I'm always aware though that it might not last so I make sure that I don't work too hard, eat as much organic fruit and veg I can and design the plots so that I can still work them when I flare up.