LOOK WHAT I GREW! / AUGUST 2022 / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Good morning everyone welcome back to my allotment diaries my name is Emma these are my allotment diaries I'd love for you to subscribe to my youtube channel if you're new around here. I am at my allotment plot right now obviously there's my pink shed behind me um we're in the midst of a second heat wave in the UK it's not going to be as bad as the first one it's not going to reach up to sort of 40 degrees whatever it got to um but it is going to be quite warm and we're not going to have any rain so I'm trying to get here as much as I can to keep it watered at the moment and try and get here as early as I can I'm quite lucky in the fact that my plot is in the shade until about half past nine in the morning and then we get full sun um for the rest of the day but at the moment it's very shady so I think I'm sort of all right to rock up here at sort of half past eight in the morning instead of 5am and just give it all a water and I think it will still do its job obviously the idea with um watering before the sun comes out and is really hot is that um if you water in full sun like that the water will just evaporate and the plants won't get what they need um so any shade I think is is does the same thing really now he's back is he I think there's a tree growing in my parsnip bed have a look at this because I'm not sure what it is looks suspiciously unparsnip like doesn't it these are all my parsnips which are doing incredibly this year of all the things of all the things I planted to do really well parsnips okay um this looks suspiciously like a tree I know it is part of a parsnip it's turning color this might be a lack of water as well because parsnips are something I'm really sort of leaving to it so I might give those a water today as well um sort of surprise successes of the year and I say surprising because I didn't expect it to grow I thought it would all just perish and die um it's the sweet corn and the reason why this is surprising is because the direct sowed it um probably about a month ago now and I've never done that with sweet corn before I've always like um started it at home put it in a pot grown it on brought it to the plot planted it out it's always been a big faff and this year I waited well I did have some in pots and they all died and then I thought oh stuff it we'll just put them in the ground straight away just whack it all in and it's all grown um I say all I had 13 I've now got 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 7 out of 13 but had I known it would grow I probably would have brought some more some more seeds and had more to put in but the ones that are growing are growing really really well and really quite quickly and they're not needing that much attention from me so I only water them like once a week when I remember this one's gone curly I'm wondering if it's got a disease or something or maybe it was just thirsty I don't know but yeah it's surprising but happy surprising oh if we if the weather stays nice you know we will get some sweet corn out of that even if it's like December time because if the weather stays quite mild which I reckon it will um yeah that should be no problem so I'm really happy about that because I actually got some sweet corn growing now which I wasn't expecting so that's a nice surprise thanks guys appreciate it oh my goodness I can't believe it I just thought what is this great big plant growing here is this a weed do I need to like rip it up look what's growing under it even the birds are excited to say look at that I think that is a turnip that is an actual living turnip and there's another little one there actual turnips the right color in everything aren't they amazing they're like purple there we go we're in focus now look at that look at that vibrancy in the color that is incredible I've got some little ones here that haven't done anything yet oh my goodness I've actually grown a turnip I've actually grown a turnip right 2022 the year Emma grew a turnip and hopefully some parsnips as well because they're doing pretty amazing you know what I might have a dig in one don't do this don't copy this this is bad bad gardening but I might just have a dig and see see what's growing under there I can't stop myself now I can't stop myself these are massive aren't they oh my god are you is that it oh my goodness are you joking me are you joking me is that the parsnip oh my goodness look at the size of that look at the size of it oh my god I've never grown anything like this before in my life that is amazing the sheer size of it wonder how deep it goes down probably not deep enough yet wow oh my goodness guys you're not just all leaves I have never managed to grow any root vegetable you you've seen my carrots a few times any root vegetable turnips parsnips um what's the other one kohlrabi anything like that never ever managed to grow this is growing I can't believe it this is absolutely incredible I'm gonna have a parsnip forest for Christmas I love parsnips as well I absolutely love them that's why I'm so genuinely excited I'm actually growing something I like to eat doing absolutely fantastic well how exciting is that rocky how are you I've got shorts on today oh I don't like this at all oh don't hurt yourself rocks don't hurt yourself rocks be careful now no digging today okay because we've had good news you coming around and spoiling it okay you've been okay oh good oh good I don't know people say I have to scratch his ears I've never had a cat before so oh my god if he digs in there I'm probably going to freak out guys don't call the animal rights so pumpkin plant looking great looking really big going over the archway amazing gonna get some kind of pumpkin over it um a lot of you are asking me about milk like mildew um because a lot of you have got more than one pumpkin growing lucky sods and um you're getting white powdery stuff over your leaves which you've looked up and it's mildew and you want to know what to do about it so I thought I'd let you know because I have been through this a few times and if you watch back any of my videos from last year you'll probably see the panic so it's an infection that basically is when your plants are too close together and and it's like a powdery stuff that forms over the leaves it's usually white um and it starts speckly and then it takes over the leaf and eventually it will just kill it and it spreads from leaf to leaf so the first thing I would do is if it's only on a few leaves I'd remove those leaves just cut them off cut them off that's the first thing I do the other thing that you can do is start to release some of the good leaves to try and get more airflow around the plant you want air to be able to travel through the plant basically um you don't want it all so close together and the final thing I'd do if you really want to try and cure it there's formulas that you can make up online like sprays with bicarbonate soda um follow the instructions that you find online for those but I will warn you if you spray your leaves with bicarbonate soda in the sun the leaves will scorch and burn and die so that's what happened to mine the first year sorry mate they do not like human contact do they I scorched all my leaves the first year because I just sprayed sprayed them with just baking powder basically I didn't have any bicarbonate soda thought it was the same thing sprayed it with baking powder and they all scorched in the sun so be careful if you do follow that rule do it at night time or in the shade or whatever um but I would just remove those leaves and then remove other leaves to make sure you've got airflow and that's it really that's that's the information I've got on it it's never affected my pumpkins to the point where my whole plant has died I've always managed to contain it just just get rid of them any leaf that looks bad and rubbish like these down here look oh no they look a bit rubbish I just literally just get rid of them like that just get rid of them and that one look oh that's horrible just get rid of it because if you've got things like this on your plant dead things or like really horrible looking leaves the energy of the plant is sucking up the energy and you don't want the energy to go into that you want the energy to go into these lovely new leaves so just anything that looks a bit dodged just take it off plants are stronger than you think they are don't panic too much about them they know what they're doing they know what they're doing we don't we haven't got a clue we're just you know mucking about with them but they know what they're doing so trust them oh my oh my goodness what is that that's not a pleasant bird song is it that's not sort of bird song you want to wake up to in the morning oh my gosh it sounds like a rat in a tree what is it I can't see anything it's a magpie it's a magpie I knew I knew they were shady it's not really the relaxing ambience in the background of the vlog I was looking for does that mean guys I'm gonna go and pick some of my tomatoes now and put it in this little Buzz Lightyear lunch box that I found at home in the cupboard because I think I need picking he's really going for it today that crow I don't know what his problem is I'm just trying to take stock of some of the things I need to sow for autumn so I've already got cauliflower growing which is really good I've got the sweet corn which I'm going to count as an autumn plant this year why not I've got my parsnips I've got brussel sprouts which are doing really really well I've sown a few rows of carrots and stuff but I think I need to plant some broccoli some kohlrabi and what else I could do some more cauliflower or something I'm just trying to like make a little mental note of what I want growing here for autumn time and go home and basically sow it all today and that'd be my plan for when I get home but right now let's go pick some tomatoes such a beautiful thing to harvest tomatoes aren't they they just look so vibrant and you feel so proud of yourself when you've got a big old Buzz Lightyear lunch box full of tomatoes you know so my plot neighbor actually gave me some of these these are lemon cucumbers I've actually got a plant of it growing at home but it's not growing very well so I'm going to take these home now and try them so let's do that um we are definitely in the midst of a heat wave right now because it's just feeling so so warm I think it's going to be over 30 degrees every day for the next week or so um and I went to the garden center the weekend and got a few new plants I thought I'd really quickly show you them um so I picked up this cosmos I didn't all my cosmos kind of died this year it germinated but then it didn't do anything else my god that sun is so warm so this one was getting really really big at the garden center and it was um on offer because I think they're trying to get rid of it because obviously it can't survive in this little pot for much longer it's a white cosmos um and it should be really beautiful and then I got this little marigold again that was in the sale because it's got really big and then you can see all my plants here doing really really well um and I picked up a couple of dahlias now I don't normally buy dahlias when they're actually blooming especially flowering but like I said they're in sale they were trying to get rid of them I think they just couldn't couldn't sell them um so this is a lovely pom pom dahlia and then this one is more of an insect loving loving one I wish I could show you a flower but basically the flowers open more which um pollinators like a lot better so I picked up a couple of those and I also got this little box um box package whatever you call it of salvias um which are really gorgeous lovely flowers and I'm going to plant those out in my garden somewhere today hopefully it doesn't get too warm out yeah courtyard garden going really good really really happy out here everything's growing really nicely hopefully I'll just keep it all alive in the heat wave and now I wanted to show you that uh lemon cucumber whoa it's dark in here like how dark it is compared to outside oh yay there I am right um I wanted to show you this um lemon cucumber that my neighbor gave me and show you how to eat it because I do have two cucumber plants out there but they're not doing very much at the moment they're still very small and my pumpkin has taken off so hopefully they'll take off too but let me show you it so this is a lemon cucumber I believe it's called a lemon cucumber because it quite literally looks like a lemon so when it's like hanging on the vine that looks very much like a lemon so um the way that you eat it now I actually thought that you had to cook them but you don't the lemon cucumbers you don't you can actually eat them raw so you just literally eat it the same way as a cucumber so I'll just chop him in half there he is cucumber it smells just like a normal green cucumber um and then what you can do you can either slice him you can dice him do whatever you want with him really I like to cut them into wedges like that there are so many cucumber recipes online you can pickle them you can put like sea salt over them and stuff and that they just taste amazing cucumbers are so refreshing to eat in the summer but with these ones you literally just eat it as a wedge I wish I could tell you that it tastes different than a green cucumber but it just doesn't it tastes exactly the same it's got such a lovely crunch the skin is really delicious and it just tastes of a normal cucumber but how exciting is this to have on your plate instead of green cucumber I mean it's so much fun to cut up and yeah it's just such a lovely lovely fruit I want to say fruit because it's got seeds in the middle I think a lot of people call it a salad vegetable but I call it fruit I think it's got a fruity vibe to it especially this one because you kind of eat it in wedges just like that I think it's kind of like got a bit of a fruity vibe going on but you could just eat it like an apple if you wanted to um but yeah that is the lemon cucumber I'm so grateful to Steve my neighbor for giving me those because I really wanted to try one for a long time um I don't know if I'll get any myself um I've got them growing but who knows who knows as with everything in my garden it just seems to be a bit of an experiment but whose garden is not an experiment that's what gardening is it's just one giant human experiment on nature hope you enjoyed my vlog today I know they're going out um a day later I think I might just stick with it and keep doing them a day later so it'll be Tuesday Thursday and Saturday and see how that goes I tend to get more people on YouTube on a Tuesday and Thursday so um maybe you're all just watching on Tuesdays and Thursdays anyway I don't know let's try it for a little bit so I will be back again on Saturday if you enjoyed this vlog please subscribe to my YouTube channel the ways to follow me are just below in the description bar and I will see you again in my next vlog which will be on Saturday so I'll see you Saturday guys happy gardening bye