THIS LOOKS WEIRD / JULY 2022 / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Good morning everyone, welcome back to my allotment diaries. If you're new around here my name is Emma, these are my allotment diaries. I would love for you to subscribe to my youtube channel, I put up kind of vlogs all about my allotment plot gardening, my home garden and now cooking as well, so I'm actually showing you what I'm cooking with the produce from the allotment plot. Not that there's much growing at the moment, I'm a little bit disappointed with the way that my plot is looking right now, just because I removed the broad beans and the peas have now gone and there's not very much to harvest anymore and it just all looks a little bit flat, do you know what I mean? Like normally in July I've got things sort of up here and this year everything seems to be down there, but I mean that's probably because of what I've chosen to grow, but at the same time things like pumpkins are not really getting going yet and I haven't got any sweet corn. The saga with the sweet corn this year, I've germinated it twice and it's died on me twice, I've ordered it from an online garden nursery and the order got cancelled because they couldn't grow it or something, or like it didn't germinate in time, I don't know, but having struggles with sweet corn, I really want sweet corn this year, everybody else on this bloody allotment site's got sweet corn growing and it's all looking really healthy and really really good, so I've got some sweet corn seeds with me and I thought I would just sort of try and direct sow them today really, and just see if I can just get into germinate, because if I can get into germinate and grow where they're supposed to be and just not touch them, I might have a fighting chance of actually getting some, so we will see. Anyway that's what we're going to do today basically, so also I just need to show you my pond. So when I first got this allotment plot about three years ago now, one of the very first things I ever did on it was dig a pond, because we were renting at the time and you're not allowed to dig ponds in gardens, in rented gardens believe it or not, and I really wanted a pond because I wanted frogs and I wanted to grow pond plants, you know water plants, whatever they are, so I dug this beautiful pond, it started as a bit of a mess, turned into an absolutely stunning pond and now it's reverted back to a bit of a bloody mess, but this is the biggest problem of all, it's dried up, there's no flipping water in there at all, like the entire pond has just died, so I really urgently need to fill it up with water and that is going to be my first urgent task of the day I think, just getting some water in there and then maybe starting to tidy it up a little bit, but it's completely just gone, I only noticed the other day that it's totally dried up. The duck has gone, there's no duck in there now, no duck, did I imagine that duck? Was that duck even there? Did I imagine that? If I hadn't filmed it I'd have thought I'd have like been seeing things, honestly I'd be really having a moment right now thinking I've seen something that's not there, there was definitely a rubber duck in there wasn't there? Yeah, see now I'm convinced someone's playing with me, that's not normal is it? Who puts a duck in there and then takes it back out again? It's not right is it? I tell you what, that might put the snails off hiding in my watering can, they get the shock of their life now thinking they're going to land on a nice pumpkin plant and they end up in a pond. Right, so sweet corn, this is the bed I'm thinking for sweet corn, the old broad bean bed, I can just imagine rows and like a little square of sweet corn all coming up, because you've got to plant sweet corn in a square, in a grid, not in rows, because it's wind pollinated, not that that really matters, not that it really matters at my allotment plot, because if something's not going to grow, it's not going to grow and it doesn't seem to matter how I plant it, you know, but anyway, that's just semantics, something, I don't know. Right yeah, so sweet corn, we're going to plant the sweet corn direct. The sweet corn that I've got is Swift F1 and it says that you can sow it between, well you should sow it outside in June, we're now just in July, I think we'll get away with it to be honest, and to be honest, like if anything says that, like oh you should sow it then, you should sow it then, just whack it in whenever you want and see what happens, because you never know it might grow. I've sown sunflowers in like August and had sunflowers bloom in like October before, so although it's really good to read the back of the seed packet, it gives you an idea of when you should plant it out, but it's not like completely set in stone, because obviously our seasons are changing, the weather's changing so much, it's not always easy to predict when something's going to grow and when it's not now, so the best thing to do is just whack it all in. What I am going to do is protect it all with a load of like see-through plasticky things that I've been collecting, which are, lots of these are from last year, sorry I'm like walking around the place, lots of these are from last year, and I just like to keep plastic things, don't like to throw them away, and I use them over and over again until they literally disintegrate, so loads of them, right these will do, these have brussel sprouts in them, that'll do, there's a nice little cover, right let's get as many out as we can I think, right like I said the only thing I really know about growing sweetcorn, the only thing I think you really need to know about growing sweetcorn to be honest, is that you need to grow it in a grid, not in rows, so it's like you know four, four, four, four, like that, that's actually what we're going to do, four, four, four, four, sixteen, that's what we're going to do, right bloody aeroplane always appears when I start talking. Thirteen, got thirteen, how are we supposed to do a grid with thirteen? All right we'll whack them in anyway, how am I going to know where they are? Oh so many questions, don't be silly Emma, think about it Emma, well we're gonna have to do them one at time I think, it's that age-old maths question isn't it, how do you make a square out of thirteen? Well basically you just whack them all in anyway, all together in a big clump, and expect that a few will die anyway, and you're only going to end up with eight really, so what does it matter? Right there's the holes, what we've done this time, we dug the holes so we know where they're going to go, to make sure it's a grid, you probably can't see this properly but I can sort of see it, we're going to have to do each one individually so I can protect it and water it, right, it's all wobbly, bloody camera, I've bloody dropped bloody seeds now, actually it's all right because there's only 12 now, right, oh right, okay, I think it's just nice, it's going to take a while doing it this way but I think this is probably the best way, I can't physically think of a different way of doing it to be honest, so it's the way we're doing it. You're probably thinking why don't I just wait for it to germinate and come up out the ground and then protect it with the plastic things, but the thing is is I won't be here on that day, I will not be here, I will be off somewhere, I will be sick, I will be busy doing something else, they will pop up and the slugs and snails will get a meal and that's what will happen, so that's why I'm protecting them as I'm going. Imagine a world without slugs, we'd all be so happy. I can't remember where bleeding seed is and these things are so small, it's really hard to know but something's better than nothing. Right so that stuff that I've just put around it all is strulch, I'll just show you the bag because it sounds a bit weird doesn't it, strulch, it's basically a straw mulch with slug and snail deterrent, so basically it's to mulch it and stop all the weeds and stuff but it also kind of, the slugs and snails don't like it, it looks like this, it's all organic and everything, it's perfectly fine and it feels quite nice putting it on your soil, you just feel like you're doing your soil quite good really and apparently they just don't like this, they don't like crawling over it, so I've mulched the entire bed. This looks weird doesn't it, this looks very weird, I used to like steer away from doing things like this, the plot, when I first got my allotment plot I was so obsessed with it looking nice and like looking beautiful and being perfect that I wouldn't do things like this, like put bottles over everything because I felt like it ruined the like aesthetic of the plot. I used to look at a lot of instagrams of allotment plots and lots of pinterest and pictures and stuff and everyone's plots would look so perfect and everything growing and it all looked lovely and I didn't see any like beds with just like plastic bottles like sticking out of them and stuff, do you know what I mean? So I used to get really hung up on like how it looks, now that I've been growing for three years I know that it's more important to protect crops however you can and actually get a produce and a harvest out of it than to just whack everything in and make it look beautiful but nothing's actually growing, so it was kind of like a long learning curve because I found that really hard, that was one of the hurdles I had to overcome because this isn't just a space for me to grow stuff and eat stuff, it's actually like my sanctuary, it's my happy place, it's why I've got like my pink shed and everything, it just makes me happy to be here so I want it to look nice but I do want stuff to grow at the same time so it's a constant battle really. I want to just share one of my mistakes with you, I mean if I shared all of them we'd be here all day so I'll just share one and it's when I planted this lavender plant, I'm just going to show you what's happened to it, so still flowering and everything but it's not quite so happy, this is the mistake I made when I planted it, I planted it too shallow so it's, I don't know if you can see but it's sort of raised from the ground a little bit and what that means is that when it rains or when I water it, it's not getting enough moisture and it's drying out really quickly, it's basically the same as like having it like up on a pedestal and we'll do a heat wave and I'm really worried about it so I'd really like to bury it a bit deeper and I really hope I don't kill it but I think it needs to go a bit deeper because it's just the roots are just not getting enough moisture. I knew I'd made the mistake when I was doing it but I just kept doing it, I don't know why but now I'm going to try and correct it, I really hope I don't kill the plant. I think that's better now, can you see what I mean how he's more in the ground? So like when it rains now the water's actually going to go sucking down into his roots and he's not going to dry out so quick, he just might die now out of like protests that I've actually moved him, plants like to die out of protest. I've sown something over here and I completely forgot about it, I don't know if you can see the row, oh you can see the row, look at the row coming up, I don't know what it is and there's another little row there, gold knows what this is, I don't know but I'm going to water it and hope it lives. There's a lot of borage coming up, this is borage, absolutely stunning flower and you can eat them as well and look there's loads of them all coming up, really really beautiful so I'm going to leave all that because the bees love it and I love it as well and I didn't think I'd get any this year but it seems to have grown outside of my bed, I don't know if that's some kind of plant protest, some kind of message to me, I don't know but it's here and it's looking lovely and then I'll just show you the brussels sprouts as well because they're doing pretty good too albeit a couple have been eaten but I think so far they've done pretty well. So it looks like I'm going to get some actual brussels sprouts this year which is quite amazing, I don't know why these have been eaten, are these caterpillars, is this caterpillar damage or is this slugs and snails, it's hard to tell, oh there's a dead bumblebee there, oh oh dear, it's come into my garden and died, why has that happened then, that's a shame, maybe it didn't have enough water, I've sorted the pond out now, oh it's too late for him, never mind, right I don't know what's eating these, that looks like slug and snails because it's coming from the outside and normally, oh no that one's not, oh caterpillars, caterpillars I think, right I better caterpillar check them all. Do you know I rocked up at the plot this morning with a bit of a negative mind frame about it, I think because last time I was here I was like oh it's not very good, there's very much growing, there's not very much height going on and stuff and obviously like my sunflowers didn't work this year so I haven't got any sunflowers and sweetcorn's not germinated yet that we're going to try again, but actually I don't know what I was thinking last time because what is growing is growing really well and in particular that bed over there with all the lovely lettuce and stuff, I can see it from here, it's so green and vibrant, it really looks like it's just taking off and over here it's looking so much better with the pumpkin and the little snapdragons. I really don't know what I was thinking when I was just being so negative about it, I think to get to my plot I have to walk through about 50 other plots so I'm constantly seeing everybody else's progress and stuff and I guess sometimes you know comparison is the thief of joy, is that what they say, but yeah I find myself comparing my plot to everybody else's and yours has got sunflowers and yours has got sweetcorn and mine hasn't and you know, but actually what I have got growing I'm really proud of and I do this myself every year, it's just me doing this, you know, on top of all the other jobs I've got to do, so I'm really proud of myself and I don't know why I was so down on myself to be honest. I hope you enjoyed my vlog today, if you did do subscribe to my YouTube channel, there are other ways to follow me down below as well and I will see you in my next vlog which will be hopefully on Wednesday, see you Wednesday guys, bye!