AN ALLOTMENT AND PERSONAL Q&A VIDEO / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Hi everyone, welcome back to my gardening and allotment YouTube channel. If you are loving my videos I would love you to subscribe. My name is Emma by the way, these are my allotment diaries. As you can see I'm in my bedroom at the moment because I promised you a Q&A video, however I did venture to my allotment plot the other night. I haven't been there for a little while because the weather in London has just been so terrible, like literally we've just been having storm after storm so I haven't managed to get there for a while. I did venture there the other night and which was a complete disaster and so scary. It would have made a great Halloween vlog but I didn't get there in time for that but I will show you some of the footage from that now. Guys this feels like a little bit like a horror movie here at the moment. I'm actually here at my allotment plot at night time and the reason I'm here is because my son has got karate so I'm around here anywhere, I've got nowhere to go so I thought I'd just come down to the plot and see everything but I didn't realise how dark it would get and then I thought oh I can't vlog because it's too dark to vlog but I thought I'd sort of document it just in case I go missing here. Don't say that, why am I saying it? The more scared I get the more I say things to make myself scared and I don't know why I do it to myself. Anyway I'm here and everything's been eaten so I'll just show you quickly because why not. I've got my torch on. I don't know if you can see here a lot of it's been eaten and these are my lovely three rows at the back and then just round here look at this. This really is like a horror movie now because it's like dead plants. It's like the polytunnel of death which is such a shame because everything was just doing so well now it's just all dying isn't it. I do have some little baby pumpkins to pick though which I might just go and do now. Oh god, I'm just going to shine this torch at my face. I don't look suspicious at all do I? Just down here I've just noticed that my little munchkin pumpkins are ready to pick now. When I say ready to pick I mean there's literally no pumpkin plant left. It's literally just these little pumpkins sitting there. That's it. That's all I got. So this one's not done too bad. Oh this one, hang about, this one's actually got some colour on him. Look at him. There he is. He looks all right you know. That's all I got though from my um, you know what I should have done this vlog on Halloween. It's really creepy here at night. It's really scary. At least I got something out of them considering that I actually planted those in like end of September so not too bad. I can't see where I'm going now guys. I'm gonna have to. That dog barking just makes it so much worse. Right nasturtiums have just taken over this. It's like no one's been here for like years. Oh gosh honestly how can it go so wrong so quickly? Over here though I did notice that my, look at this, my Romanesco is massive. So exciting and then down here I've got, look these have come back to life suddenly and these are pak choi. Very exciting. Please don't let anyone be standing behind me like some kind of horror film. I literally can't show you anything else because it is literally so dark. I've just seen down here that um dahlias, the dahlias have all collapsed. Absolutely collapsed and my gladiola has never flowered. I think I got one that flowered and that was it. So I don't know what was up with them that this year but they've just not flowered at all. Oh what's that? Oh god. I don't know if this is actually going to show up on camera if you can actually see me like this um but I'm turning my torch off because I'm a So as you can see it was just not a very good idea to go there at night. I would not recommend it especially when it's windy. Genuinely genuinely I was afraid that I would be impaled by something because the wind was just so intense last night. I thought I would do my much promised Q&A. I've been putting this off for a little while because I didn't think it would make a very interesting vlog but as the weather has turned I just thought okay let's just sit down and have a chat and let me tell you all about me because I haven't done this yet on my channel and I get a lot of questions about who I am and you know what's going on with my life and stuff so if this is interesting to you keep watching and I'll hopefully answer all your questions. Um okay so I've kind of split these up into um about me and then about allotment plots and then about my pumpkin arch because these are kind of like the questions like groups that I kind of get asked a lot. So I'll start with me and about me. Who am I? What do I do for a living? What is my life like? So I am 34 years old. I live in South London with my husband and my two children Alice and Tom. Alice is 10 nearly 11, Tommy is 8 and we live in a little Victorian terrace which is basically falling down so we're kind of constantly having to find money to put into the house to fix things that keep breaking but we love it. We love living in London. We like being near to the train station. I mean so close that the trains are literally the the railway line is literally behind my house so. What do I do? Well before I did YouTube and I did my I had my allotment plot I was working um with young children in a school. I'm actually trained to do that. I have a degree um in early childhood education so I was kind of working nurseries and schools and things like that and then I had my own kids. Then I left my job because it was a year contract. I kind of took work as and when it came because it had to fit around the kids um and I left my job because the contract came to an end. Started looking for another one and then the pandemic came about and happened. I left my job. I put my name on the list for an allotment plot and I was just like I'd like to have a plot of land just to grow fruit and veg on and there were loads there's loads around me where I live. There's about 10 allotment plots in my borough and I managed to get one just before the we got locked down so I got it in I think it was like October November and we got locked down end of February was it? So I had my allotment plot and I was looking for another job and then the pandemic hit and I just thought okay I'm just gonna put everything into my allotment plot then and just do this instead. Picked up my camera I just started filming it and vlogging it started putting it up you can go back and see the beginning of my journey um my vlogs were just all over the place crazy filming whenever I felt like it yeah I don't know people started to watch it and then I started my Instagram and um I have nearly 50,000 followers on there which is insane and I just started documenting my my allotment plot on there and then I think because we had the pandemic and the lockdown gardening kind of blew up didn't it and everyone wanted to do gardening so it's led to loads and loads of opportunities for me so I've been on on a podcast with Jimmy Doxey talking all about my allotment plot um I've had a little like stint on TV as well I was on um the Great Gardening Revolution the Great British Gardening Revolution or something on Channel 4 and then more recently like brands are starting to work with me I don't know if you've noticed I've started to get a few ads um and like products sent to me that I can try out and I also get a little bit of money for um advertising them and for reviewing them which is amazing so I am starting to build up a little bit of a career um in terms of what I make on YouTube this is another question I get quite a lot uh not very much um making money just out of YouTube videos isn't very profitable I don't get paid very much for like ad revenue I think you probably have to be getting thousands and thousands and thousands of views every week to earn a decent amount of money just from YouTube but I do get paid for the adverts that I make and stuff like that I also have a blog um thepinkshed.co.uk just below which was recently put into like a top 10 gardening blogs blogs in the UK which is amazing um I showcase all my writing there and if you guys are regular followers followers of me you might know that I love writing writing is my true passion it's the thing that I've always wanted to do with my life right from when I was a kid I always wanted to be an author always wanted to be a writer and I contacted a couple of gardening magazines and kitchen garden magazine got back to me and the editor there Steve Ott is just amazing he's given me I don't think he realizes how much like opportunity he's actually given me but he's allowing me now to write regular articles for their magazine um and I submit all the photos for it as well and it's the fact that I'm getting published in a magazine has just led to it's just opened the door to so many more opportunities I'm now I literally am a freelance writer that is how if people ask me what do you do for a living um I say I'm a freelance writer because that is what I do um and yes I am in talks with a couple of publications about uh releasing a book which is just beyond exciting I've been trying to do this for like over a year and I keep having my confidence knocked so the book keeps getting through to like the final round whatever it is and then it kind of gets pushed back and people go oh no actually I'm sorry we just we're not going to publish it so that's happened to me four times really hoping that one of these publishers now finally it like gets through and actually gets made into a book so fingers crossed and I will obviously let you know all about that that was a really long introduction as to who I am I hope that answers a lot of your questions I do get a lot of questions about what I do who I am what I do for a living um if I wasn't doing YouTube I think I would probably have gone down the writing route and I'd probably have written a novel by now or something I'd have written something by now because writing is just my life really now I'll move on to questions about my allotment plot and gardening in general so uh what inspired me to get gardening well a few things I think I've always been into the outdoors and into nature and I like gardens and I I rented for so long this is our first house we've had it three years um I've rented for so long that the garden has always been a place that's kind of out of bounds um and you know when you can't do something like when something's not available to you you kind of want it more and so I used to like look out the window at the garden and just be really annoyed that it wasn't my garden and I couldn't like go out there and actually dig in it and do what I wanted to do with it I used to get really frustrated so for that reason alone I got into gardening and I was determined to have my own garden um and then my nan died and I think when I lost my nan and it's funny because it's only now looking back that I can see the connection between my nan dying and me getting into gardening and growing my own food um because it it wasn't a conscious decision I wasn't like oh I'm grieving I'm gonna go and buy a load of seeds and grow a garden it just kind of happened um so my nan died and then I think the following spring was when I started buying all the vegetable seeds for my rental garden I started growing into pots and things I ran out of space and I just wanted more space and that's how it just came to be with the allotment plot it's as simple as that I just ran out of space and I wanted my own plot of land that was completely for me right what is my favorite thing to grow I I think anyone who watches this channel regularly is going to know my favorite thing to grow is my pumpkin archway um which is why I got so frustrated with it this year when only part of it grew but I love growing pumpkins I think squashes are just the most fascinating craziest things I can't believe that so much comes from such a small seed um next year I'm definitely going to be experimenting with lots of different varieties of squash and I'm just going to get my archway right I'm going to do it next year it's going to be perfect um what is my worst thing to grow oh my worst thing to grow that's really difficult because I don't know why there are definitely things that my plot that won't grow very well I've never had a very good time with garlic and onions um and I think carrots don't normally work for me a lot of things don't work um but I don't not enjoy growing anything that doesn't make sense I don't think I have a least grow at least favorite thing to grow I think I enjoy growing everything I I wish that everything would grow and not everything does grow that's frustrating but I like growing everything I think everything's fun to grow I wish I had a greenhouse so I could actually start more like sensitive seeds like flower seeds I'd like to grow more flowers and I think I'm annoyed that can't because I don't have a proper greenhouse and I don't have storage space to keep the seedlings and that stuff but other than that I'll grow anything um no dig or dig interesting so this always brings up a lot of debate on my channel whenever I talk about no dig um I just want an easy life guys I hate weeding and I hate um all the effort that goes into having to dig so when somebody when I read about you know no dig just literally layering it up I was just like this is my kind of gardening guys this is so much easier I like no dig because it is literally easy I don't like no dig because it's so bloody expensive and I haven't mastered my own compost yet so I find it really hard to figure out how the heck compost happens and that is something I definitely need to train up on because I don't get compost at all so I have to buy all my compost which means that no dig is quite expensive for me and I find that frustrating but in terms of like the ease of it and stuff I think uh no dig all the way how big is my allotment plot my allotment plot is 130 square meters um actually it's 135 because I did steal a little bit from the front but nobody knows uh nobody cares so uh yeah it's 135 square meters it's not the biggest it's not the smallest at the plots um at the allotment site some people have uh half plots which I think are like 35 square meters or something like that so you can get a really small plot uh I find mine adequate enough to grow what I want to grow sometimes I say I want more but then it kind of gets into summer and all the weeds start to come and I lose control of half of it and I think oh thank goodness it's only this size so I think you can grow a good amount on about that that amount I think you can grow more I think you can grow on any sized plot people always say how big should I ask for an allotment plot I think just take what you can get and just figure out like grow stuff vertically uh grow a lot of crops that you can you know harvest quickly and then put something else in the ground there's ways around it you can grow in any space uh how much time do I spend at my allotment plot not enough uh I spend more time there in the spring and summer because I go there almost every day um because there's so much to be doing and also I make these vlogs as well these vlogs and Instagram keeps me accountable and I need to be creating content so I'm there quite a lot um even if I'm there just to film a video um yeah I enjoy it but in the autumn winter months I'm there a bit less so probably once or twice a week how do I manage my kids and the allotment plot so when I first got my allotment plot we'd just gone into well going into the lockdown so it was kind of easy because I just took my kids down there all the time um and called it like learning and I guess it is learning it's real life learning isn't it so uh I found it quite easy with my kids but then my kids weren't that young I think Tom was five or six when I got my allotment plot five so I just had to count back then from eight yes they were they were old enough to kind of get them involved in things and my kids do like gardening Tommy in particular seems really interested in gardening Alice a little bit less so but then she's older and she's into her phone and you know roblox and all that stuff uh but Tommy is more hands-on and he he quite likes coming down and digging and and stuff like that so I find it quite easy with my kids personally so I guess I'm just lucky um okay I'm gonna go on to questions now about the pumpkin archway I get so many questions about my pumpkin archway so I'll try and answer them for you here I've got three main questions number one what variety should I grow over an archway so I'm the expert on this because I made the mistake growing the wrong kind of pumpkins over my archway now the truth is you can grow any squash vertically okay any score even courgettes will grow up um because they have tendrils and tendrils are those really long thin green twisty things that come off of a plant if a plant has that it has the capability of pulling itself up onto something and big giant pumpkin plants do have those so I try to grow those giant jack-o'-lantern ones um up my first um first archway and basically they just were snapping off and the archway was collapsing under them and stuff like that so if you have a really strong sturdy structure you could probably grow any kind of pumpkin up I prefer the smaller varieties so I grow jack be little baby boos I tried the okikikiri but mine didn't get going but I will try those next year though they are excellent for growing up an archway trombone trombone trombonocini trombone trini those long ones the long ones um uh the little munchkins little munchkin ones um all of those will grow um the only ones that I wouldn't grow up an archway are patsy pans because I found that they're more bushy and they they're not they don't really want to climb they want to bush out so patsy pans I would grow just on the ground but any other kind you can just grow up just grow them up do you have to train them to grow up no um this year I didn't tie mine in at all not even one time the trick is to plant your pumpkin the correct way round and that way is the opposite way of the first true leaf so when your pumpkins are growing okay so you've got a seed in the pot here we go one of my crazy explanations you've got a seed in a pot and it starts to grow okay and then you get the first leaves which are the seed leaves okay so every every seed that you plant the first two leaves that it gets are seed leaves they're not real okay they're fake leaves the plant's deceiving you they're not real the leaves that come after the first two leaves are the true leaves now when you watch your pumpkin plant and it gets those first fake leaves we're calling fake leaves because it's easier right two fake leaves when it gets this first true leaf you plant it the opposite the opposite way is the way it's going to grow up okay so your first true leaf is going this way you need to plant your plant facing the archway that way right opposite way of the first true leaf and then your pumpkin will be growing in the direction of your archway now if you put it next to your archway in the correct way and it grows towards your archway it will automatically start to cling on and pull itself up it okay i did not tie mine in at all this year i have tied them in before when i planted them the wrong way and then you can just very gently train them round to go the way you want but be careful because the stems do snap quite easily okay you can tie them in if you're desperate to or if you want to i don't know like manipulate where they're going and cover the archway more you can do that the jack belittles and baby boos they support themselves i have never had to give them any additional support they've never snapped off okay because they just do not get big enough and they just hang down beautifully just leave them alone okay that's my advice with that i hope that helps um and the final question that i get asked all the time is how many pumpkins do i plant so my speciality pumpkins are jack belittles and baby boos on these plants you can get up to about 15 uh pumpkins okay but you kind of want to keep it between eight and ten because then the pumpkins are going to be getting the nutrients that they need okay so each pumpkin plant will grow about eight to ten good pumpkins so bear that in mind when you're growing it because you will be inundated with pumpkins on my two arches that i have made i put three each side this year only one pumpkin grew one pumpkin plant it covered pretty much one whole side of that archway and gave me about 11 pumpkins you could probably get away with just doing two pumpkin plants and you would get plenty you get beautiful archway and you'll get plenty of pumpkins i would say a maximum of six so three on each side because you want to give them enough space pumpkins are susceptible to a disease called powdery mildew which is a fungal disease um lots of squashes get it and lots of other plants get it too it's a white powder that appears on the leaves and it will eventually kill the plant and planting your pumpkins too close together kind of enhances that it makes it spread because the disease likes to spread in humid cramped conditions so you need to give your pumpkins lots of airflow lots of space between them so less is more when it comes to pumpkins okay they're massive plants they spread out they're crazy they're like jungles okay so less is more and i hope that helps as well it's surprising how much i actually know about pumpkins and growing a pumpkin arch i could talk all day about it let me know if you want a video just about me chatting about pumpkin arch um i hope you enjoyed this little q a this little this is probably gonna be a half an hour video um and yeah let me know if you've got any other questions that i didn't answer in the comments and i will reply to your comment and answer your question uh let me know if you've got any other video requests from me because i don't normally take video requests but if there's something that you're absolutely dying to see um and want me to make a video on i'd be quite happy to do that except about family life i think i'm not gonna make videos on specifically on my family life i'll keep that separate from this and that just means that my mental health stays intact i'm less likely to go you know just crash and burn out of youtube um i like to keep it separate so but anything to do gardening or allotmenting or my allotment or allotments in general anything like that let me know if you enjoyed the video subscribe to my youtube channel i'm going to leave links below to my blog my instagram um that's it and i'll see you in my next video guys thanks for watching bye