FEEDING THE SLUGS, AGAIN! / NOVEMBER 2022 / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Good morning everyone, welcome back to my allotment diaries, my name is Emma. These are my allotment diaries, this is my shed and I'm sitting in my shed which is in my allotment plot which is based in South London and this is my the end of my third year on the plot so I'd love for you to subscribe to my channel now if you're new and then go back and see how I got on this spring summer. My shed is being overrun with fibres at the moment because it is that time of year and I just noticed that behind me what was that I think it was my coat um behind me there's supposed to be tools like like lined up along the the sides there I've got all these like storage things for the tools all I've got is a saw a rusty old saw I don't know where everything else is so I've obviously not been putting it um I've got a couple of jobs today so um I said last week about this time of year we've got to start preparing our raised beds for spring and just clearing them and just mulching them over so I'm going to carry on doing that um and then also I'm going to secure my polytunnel and a lot of you were reminding me that I need to secure my polytunnel if you've got a polytunnel now is the time to secure it really well because I think the weather in the UK in particular is about to change and get really really bad so time to just batten down the hatches basically I'm going to get out of here because I'm just going to freak out right you have to excuse the noise behind me guys because there is a bit of building work going on and there's not a lot I can do about that because it is just London um I'm going to focus today on the front of my plot I've decided because I've just looked at this giant bush of nasturtiums and I just thought immediately nope nope not dealing with that today so what we're going to do is we're going to deal with the front front four beds really really sort them out really make them really beautiful clear up all this area here all this rubbish around the place like that we're just going to go for it full force last time we were here we focused on the back of the plot which is this bed here and this one here and you can see how much nicer it looks there um so we're going to do the same to the front just going to basically work through the plot in stages every time I come here so front of the plot this time and then we'll tackle the middle the riddle of the middle the middle is not not the easiest one I think right so what I'm going to do the way I'm going to go about this is I'm going to select my raised bed to work on so I've chosen this one and then what we're going to do is just clear it of all the weeds um hoe it over with a hoe and then hopefully mulch it with some manure which I'm going to go and grab after so that's what we're going to sort of do work work our way through a bed at a time um yeah so I think that was well explained life is a winding road no telling where it goes driving through days and nights won't stop for traffic lights and I I really want to know really want to know if I figure out where the road goes right we've reached sprout city so there's a couple of jobs I need to do in this bed because I need to sort the sprouts out um what I'm going to do is stake them a bit better and remove the lower leaves and then weed them all around them because sprouts need a lot of nutrients and room to grow and stuff and oh my gosh what is that what is that what is that what is that oh god why did it do that just a little warning here that if you are not a fan of all the bugs and critters autumn time is just one of the worst times for them they just seem to get this like energy about them and they just come out and just start waltzing around the place like it's their territory or something you know like I don't pay for it um so just be warned if you're not a bug fan autumn is just not not going to be for you for you basically right what we're going to do is we're going to remove all the lower leaves the yellow ones do the yellow ones don't want yellow ones yellow ones are bad I don't really know why there's sprouts on that baby oh they just sort of fall off they're just falling off it's because I think they're dead I think they're dead that must mean they're dead oh my snake was a bleeding deadly yellow these look ready I really wanted these for Christmas I wonder if they'll last till Christmas at least some of them I really want them to last till Christmas um we'll see died then could have died oh come on Emma you're just staking them it's not a near-death experience situation no one would believe me sorry please don't die I promise I'll look after you better next year right just look how much better the sprout bed sprout city now looks now that I've mulched it and I've staked them all and got rid of the yellow leaves the sprouts are looking incredible um and just like I've got so many of them I actually can't believe how many sprouts like even the little ones I didn't think were going to do very well have done amazing I think I might have to pick some of them this week so what I do is I'll come back in a week and pick probably this one he's quite a big one because I really want them for Christmas dinner but um I mean I don't know how many I need it's like hundreds here's hundreds of sprouts so um we are in November now I could do a mini roast dinner at the weekend and just have some sprouts with it I might do that to be honest um and then I've got some onions growing as well which are very carefully weeded around I don't know these have just started growing again so I don't know when they're going to be ready oh look who it is it's everyone's favorite allotment cat it's Rocky hi Rocky oh just a fleeting visit today then oh all right can't help but think I've annoyed him somehow but I don't know how I don't know what I've done I haven't done anything right um cats eh so you can see that a lot of my onions that were here these are planted in June or July so like I did the summer planting of and they were planted from sets none and set is basically like a mini onion well not that one I think I might decapitate that one um but they've all started growing again just now so now I don't know what to do I think I might just leave them as some more around the front of the bed as well which look really strong and healthy these ones are a little bit straggly but you know what I mean I mean they're all growing and they're all green so I feel like if they're growing leave them alone when they look like they're dying pick them quick yeah so while they're sort of like sitting there growing with green shoots coming out of them I'll just leave them alone but I really don't know when to pick them maybe they'll be ready for Christmas as well I can use them in a Christmas recipe be quite exciting but the sprouts I'm thrilled with utterly thrilled just when I collected some manure I think it's horse poo I don't know if it makes a difference it's horse poo or cow poo or chicken poo I think all poo is equal when it comes on my camera that's disgusting right um here's the here's the poo it's all very glamorous in the autumn isn't it so I've got to decide whether this bed gets it or this bed gets it because I'm not going back for another one you broke my back I actually think I'm going to feed this bed because I don't think it's been fed for a long time because it's just had strawberries sitting in it for years basically for three years this one has been fed so I'll mulch that one another day so you might be able to tell this is actually quite fresh this is fresh horse poo um and you can see it's still got the hay in it and everything like it's not rotted down at all so this bed is now officially closed for the autumn winter I will give it um a mulch with some bags of compost shop-bought compost um and basically allow that just to rot down over the winter time um and then by the time we get around to the spring again it should be ready to plant in it should be really really rich um so I could plant loads of stuff in there basically yeah see he's all mulched and sorted sprout bed is looking amazing so you can now see at the front of my plot is just looking so much better than it was before all the weeds are gone we're starting to mulch um I say we're starting to we're done one bed um but we're getting there we've got four really good sized beds to grow in for next spring absolutely fantastic took me about an hour to do just the front four four raised beds um it never takes as long as you think it's going to take and it really is worth doing in bits um if I'd taken on too much today I would have done all of this half-heartedly and nothing would have been done really well but what I've done is I've just focused on the four main beds here and I think you'd agree like I've gone all around the edges all around the edges of the beds there I've gone and everything you know it's done really really well yeah so he agrees definitely right thumbs up from the crow right good so we've done the very back the last bit to do is the middle the middle riddle basically the archways now the reason I've left this so long is because I actually think I'm going to get rid of these archways because they're too flimsy now I need to reposition my pumpkins I think pumpkins are going to go there or something so we're going to redo this bit and take it all down and stuff so this is a big job but we're getting there I think I think you'll agree we're getting there the plot's looking a-okay I know the weather's getting bad from tomorrow so what I want to do is just double check my polytunnel and make sure that it's secured down enough so many people sending me messages worried about my polytunnel and you have every right to be I'm worried about it too so we're going to do that now all right there is a wire missing over here somewhere so these came with it and these are really good really really secure all right so we've got another peg thing I mean this is all compost which is new peg into the ground somehow I wish I'd had someone here who knew how to do this sort of thing I really don't know what I'm doing it's so annoying not knowing what you're doing oh the camera's falling down oh okay stop moaning Emma that's enough moaning that's done right brilliant you don't know what you're you never have I can't pull that out with my strength I don't think the wind can though I don't think the wind is that strong is it right right we're going to put the poles on the inside so we've got four is it always hard I can't be shit at it easy I'm gonna try this one instead right sit calmly Emma and then it'll happen right what we're gonna do is put that in there oh I'm stepping on everything now right what we're gonna do is we're gonna pull god what the hell what we'll do is we're gonna try it in this one over here absolutely stupid and ridiculous and pathetic and I hate myself right sorry do excuse my little uh fit there I can't get the bleeding poles into the ground so what I'm gonna do I don't know what I'm gonna do I literally just don't know I don't know the answer guys I don't know the answer I'm just gonna hope and pray it doesn't fly away I'm gonna buy some proper stakes I'm gonna get my husband to come down and do it the weekend that's what I'm gonna do because I can't do it I can't get the poles in I know what I want to do I want to put new poles in to secure it like I do with my archway but I just can't believe and do it they won't go in right we are going to end on a positive note today because we're going to harvest some of these absolutely incredible looking radishes which I'm going to take home and have for my lunch so this one here I don't even know what that one is but it looks edible doesn't it sort of okay all right all right what about this one then look at that look at the vibrancy of the color just beautiful and then look we've got a little little red one there I'll have him oh these are so beautiful growing them as rainbow radishes oh he's been a bit nibbled we'll leave him growing rainbow radishes is so exciting you know what these look like the things in my polytunnel maybe it's radishes I'm growing let's see what we've got on this side these look a bit bigger oh they are but they've been nibbled that's such a shame because that one is massive oh never mind right oh they've all been nibbled lovely slugs they know where the good ones are don't they they know those bleeding slugs absolute pain of my life slugs have become never used to think about slugs before I had an allotment and now I dream about the little buggers oh there's a good one for me he's all right oh this is so exciting I never had a harvest of radishes like this before it's insane so good I'll eat him oh these look like onions I don't know what these ones are but I'll eat them as long as it's not secret potato I don't see the slugs leaving all the little ones for me how kind of them hey how kind of them there's one more there I think we'll have that one too yeah we'll have him as well absolutely blooming typical of the slugs to go for the three biggest juiciest most colorful radishes I've grown and those the ones they go for blooming typical eh right I hope you enjoyed my little vlog today if you did subscribe to my youtube channel um as you can see in autumn time very very muddy time of year um I just wanted to really quickly tell you actually about these gloves which are by cool job and you know that I work with cool job but they haven't actually sponsored this video but I'll just show you these are their winter gloves and they're made completely from recycled plastic bottles which is incredible in itself isn't it but inside them excuse the wonky camera inside them they are fleece lined so it feels like wearing a winter glove um but they're like gardening gloves and they're really thick and lovely and I just wear them all the time now I actually wear them on a school run they're really nice and thick and um yeah fleece lined in the middle so they're perfect for this time of year and they're really thick I've been picking up like stinging nettles with them and not getting stung or anything um so they are fantastic I thought I'd just share them with you I'll leave the link below in case you want to go and buy a pair for yourself um but yeah I hope you enjoyed the vlog today if you did subscribe to my channel um and I'll see you in the next vlog which I'm not sure when it be because we do a lot of rain in the UK but um I'll be doing pretty much the same thing so see you next time bye