BIGGEST CAULIFLOWER I'VE EVER GROWN! / OCTOBER 2022 / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Good morning everyone, welcome back to my allotment diaries. I always say good morning and actually it's the morning when I film it but it's usually the afternoon when I put these up so I can see how that can be a little bit confusing. Anyway my name is Emma, these are my allotment diaries. I'd love for you to subscribe to my youtube channel if you are new to my channel and you like all things to do with gardening, growing your own vegetables and allotment plots. I'm here today, it's a lovely sunny day. I know that we're due quite a lot of rain in the next coming kind of days and weeks so I wanted to get here and just start to tidy up my plot a little bit. I think it's autumn time now, one of my biggest jobs is going to be tidying it, maintaining it, topping up beds with manure, sort of things like that. So getting straight into it today and sorting out some of my beds which have got some weeds in basically. That's what we're going to start with. I often think when I'm doing a job like this, like weeding, how differently we treat different plants that grow in our garden so how differently we treat crops that we've actually purposely grown to like weeds that are just sort of free-growing plants basically because that's all they are isn't it, they're just plants that are free-growing and they haven't been sown by humans and it always interests me just how differently we look upon those two different plants. Weeds are a menace, they're a pest, they're annoying and something that we have to get rid of all the time whereas like the plants that we grow we just kind of accept them and we're like no you're okay. Another thing that we do is we always treat weeds as being pretty indestructible plants and we kind of accept them as being these really really difficult plants to get rid of and they're real survivalists whereas our crops that we sort of grow purposely we always see them as a little bit vulnerable, a little bit stupid and like they need a lot of human intervention in order to live. We kind of see them as if I don't water them they're going to die. For example here's a pretty typical weed that appears in my garden all the time and if I just did that and pulled all the leaves off like that you might be thinking and I'll be thinking as well well that's just going to grow back because I haven't taken the root out but now if I went and did that to say one of my gladiolus or one of my dahlia plants if I just sort of pulled all the leaves off of it right down to the ground I'll be like that's it I've killed it it's gone it's a goner but we don't think that about weeds we think with weeds we think we've got to get every single tiny bit of root out because that's going to grow back and it's just really fascinating to me how differently we treat weeds from normal plants. What is a weed anyway eh? What is a weed? Right this is definitely looking a bit better now I've left some of the snapdragons in they're still flowering I've got my little rows of radishes this is a perennial plant this is a courgette and this is a random parsnip and then right in the middle of all this there's one little leek growing so who knows maybe I will get one leek this year who knows oh there's another one behind him it doesn't look quite as healthy but yeah who knows maybe after all I will get a leek. You see weeding can be fun sometimes you never know what you're going to find I'm going to go and get some wood chip now and some manure and start topping up these beds and the pathway so let's do that having an allotment plot has taught me anything outside of the realms of actually gardening is that horses poo a lot there's a lady who brings all the horse poo she comes almost every single day with a pile that would like put anyone to shame any human I mean I'm no human couldn't do this I don't know how many horses she's got but that's all from today that's insane isn't it considering all they eat is hay and a few apples it's unbelievable can you see just how much better that land looks with just a little top up of wood chip it looks so much neater and now I've done a bit of the weeding as well the whole plot just looks better more manageable under control there's a lot to be said to that for that it's not just about aesthetics and making it look nice you know it's a mental thing as well if I come here and it's all wood chipped over and weeded and stuff makes me feel better makes me feel like I can do more and I feel more productive so it is important to look after your paths I do keep going on about it but it is right guys it's the bit of the vlog you've been waiting for if I made it my thumb now I don't know yet I'm gonna pull up that Romanesco cauliflower which has grown so big I didn't even think it would like survive none of my cauliflowers have ever survived this one has and it's turned into a giant so it's time to get it up I am so excited about this right there he is absolute beast it's heavy right I'm gonna have to get rid of some of the leaves because obviously I can't take it home can't take it home like that would it surprise you if I said I've never harvested a cauliflower before I don't even know how to do this I need to be able to get it in the bag I can't get it in the bag I should leave some really shouldn't I but same time I don't want to take any snails home with me as well do you know what I mean I don't want snails in my fridge again I did that one time I think I brought home a load of salad leaves and I didn't wash them I put them straight in the fridge because I was knackered and then Dave opened the fridge and there was a snail climbing up our milk carton he was blooming it's not snail lover Dave who is there he is look at that isn't he beautiful absolutely stunning I just love the shape of him I can't believe I've grown that that is incredible I'm gonna eat him tonight for dinner yes I am mate I am very excited to eat you absolute beaut right I'm gonna saw it because I don't know how else to like chop it because it's massive it's really thick and I need to get that in a Sainsbury's bag so I don't know how I'm gonna get that in a Sainsbury's bag so I'm gonna have to saw it right this might be the weirdest thing you've ever seen on this channel or any channel to be honest sawing a cauliflower so here we go oh that was easy only wood was that easy to saw there you go it's a little cauliflower it's in my bag now absolutely brilliant what a way to end the vlog after all that hard work I now get to take him home um so like I said before he's a Romanesco um cauliflower very excited to get stuck into him I've never eaten one before so but I do love cauliflower fingers crossed I like him hey as long as you got so big I hope you enjoyed the vlog today if you did do subscribe to my youtube channel I'll be back next week see you next week guys bye