AN ALLOTMENT PLOT TOUR / JUNE 2022 / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Please don't poo in my bed. It's not big and it's not clever is it? No. Morning everyone. Welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma. These are my allotment diaries. If you're watching one right now, it's happening. And if you enjoy watching my allotment diaries, I would love for you to subscribe to my YouTube channel. You can find lots of other ways to follow me down below, including my blog. I put lots of blog posts up. I sent a newsletter out yesterday. So on my blog, you can sign up for my newsletter as well, which is quite exciting. I've got some exciting things coming out this week. So sign up to my newsletter, sign up to my blog. Well, look at my blog. I don't know what I'm trying to say now, but I've got some exciting things coming out. I will just let you know anyway. So you don't need to do anything because I will just tell you about it nearer the time. Right. Haven't been here all weekend. I'm so surprised that everything is still alive. The pumpkins are still alive. All of the stuff that I planted out in the raised beds are still alive. I don't know why, but the plot is being super nice to me today. So I'm going to get out there, have a look at everything, do a little bit of a scout out around the plot and see what needs doing. And then probably do a bit of weeding, a bit of watering, a bit of maintenance work. And that's what we'll do today, I think. I've got some rocket seeds to throw out. Yeah, that's what we'll be doing, throwing them out. You know it guys, whacking it all out. But now let's just go out and just have a little look, have a little gander, see what's going on. I'll just start with the strawberries because they are looking particularly delicious and lovely. I did see a pigeon, a great big fat wood pigeon sitting right in the middle of my strawberry patch. You can actually see where he's bent all this plant over. You see this plant here, this is where he was sitting. He was just sat there and he was just having a lovely time having his breakfast in my strawberry patch. But if you look in here we've got some really lovely great big strawberries developing. A lot of these have not been eaten at all. They look fine. This is very exciting. I just had this weird feeling in my soul that I was going to get strawberries this year and I was going to be able to pick loads and it's happening and I don't know why I knew that. I just had a feeling that they were going to do really well. I think when I replanted them in the autumn time I felt like they were really healthy and they looked really good and they have just become amazing strawberries so I can't wait to pick those later. The broad beans behind me just here, they have fallen down again and I don't really know what to do about them. There's a great big, I mean they've all sort of fallen in the middle. I don't really know how to tie them in the middle but the broad beans, they are looking amazing. I will have to pick a load more today, come up with some new recipes for them. At the moment I have just been mashing them up and making like a guacamole slash hummus-y kind of dip with them and I've also put them into like a noodle soup but I need to think of some more recipes really because I'm getting a lot of them. Look how many plants I've got. Just went a bit crazy with them this year. New raised beds are both still alive, all of my onions still alive and then all of the, what are these, brussel sprouts I think, all fine, all fine. The netting's doing its job, the strulch is doing its job, everything's doing its job so this is fantastic and these onions here which I've planted out as extras, they're all alive as well, doing really really well, really happy with this. Blueberry plant's looking quite healthy except that it's tangled in a net but at the same time I don't want the birds to get him so he's just going to have to deal with that and cope and then behind me, this is the bed I'm most surprised to see living, like seriously most most surprised because I really thought this would be a goner. This is lettuce which I can never grow at my plot, it just gets eaten within a day but here we are with lettuce. Cauliflower, all still alive, all still alive, still tangled in nets but alive and the pak choy, it's not pak choy is it, what is it? No it is pak choy, is it pak choy? I think it's pak choy, that's all alive as well but the point is the strulch has worked. I think the trick has been to strulch the entire raised bed and not just around individual plants, seems to have really helped. We enter the polytunnel, what will we find? Now I left my polytunnel door open all weekend because it was particularly warm and also I was kind of thinking about pollination and I don't blooming know how to pollinate these if the bees can't get to them. I've always relied on insects to pollinate all my plants for me and somebody said how are you pollinating your tomato flowers and I was like I don't know, I haven't even considered the fact that they might need hand pollination which I assume is just taking a flower and putting it on another flower or something. I'm gonna have to look this up but I didn't even think about that and obviously with a polytunnel it's closed most of the time, the bees don't really come in here, try and hold a bee captive or something, hold it hostage in here but I don't think it'd be very happy. Anyway everything's looking good, everything's looking alive in here so that's really good. So interesting I haven't labelled any of the tomato varieties because you know it's me but these ones are growing really tall and that one over there and this one here in particular has gone massive and then these ones have stayed a bit smaller and bushier so they're obviously different varieties which I find really fascinating but yeah I have to see what kind of tomatoes we get on them but they're looking good I think so I'm just going to do a little bit of maintenance. I'm actually removing most of the bottom leaves now and getting really good airflow between the plants because apparently according to my Instagram blight has already made an appearance in the UK. Blight is a horrible fungus fungal I think it's a fungal bacterial disease and it basically destroys tomato plants potatoes and lots of other crops as well and it's just something you do not want basically so I can't believe it's already been spotted in the UK it's so flipping early like if you were planting your tomatoes straight outside not in a polytunnel or greenhouse you've probably not even planted them out yet and if you have you've probably planted them out within the last few weeks so for blight to already have shown its face is crazy. The only thing that I can think to do is to remove lower leaves try and improve the airflow. I've got the mat down haven't I though the weed membrane which I'm hoping is going to help this year but shocking shockingly it's already here so we need to help our tomatoes to live really. Well it's not a relaxing day at the plot because you think you can hear all the noise every time I come here now I'm trying to weed or just cut back one part of my plot which looks a bit overgrown and this bit here was growing all up around my polytunnel so I've sort of cut it back a little bit so it's a little bit more manageable I'm gonna have to sort this out next year put something down to stop the weeds. So sorry about all this noise it's so noisy today but what I've done by accident by the way is look at this bindweed it's gone around my guide rope and I thought it's just bindweed and I've just chopped it off I've just chopped it I've chopped my guideline whatever it's called and yeah because I thought it was bindweed so I'm gonna have to figure out how to reattach this to something otherwise my polytunnel's gonna blow away oh gosh don't say that. Well I hope you can hear me with all of this uh I think they're cutting the pathways or something which is a good thing so I'll let them get on with it it's all right we'll let them get on with that um my pumpkin's all alive I'm sure I've just told you that a lot of people now asking how to get them to actually climb up the archway and it's very very simple there's no massive secret to it or anything it is pretty much common sense and what you'd imagine so hopefully you can see the pumpkin here I'll just reach underneath the netting so we planted in the right way so it's facing the right way and the way that we know is the right way is because this is the first leaf that came off of him this is the second leaf and the second leaf is the way that the pumpkin grows okay so we got in the right way if you don't have him the right way don't panic you can just dig him up and twist him around it's no big deal I would not recommend twisting the stem around because it might snap so dig up the plant twist him round put him back in he might sulk for a little bit give him a good drink and then keep watering him until he gets going again okay right so he needs to grow a bit bigger for me to be able to do this properly as you can see but what I'll basically start doing is as this starts to grow bigger I'll just tie him in just tie him in and then the next bit will come up here and I'll tie that in and then the next bit will come up here and I'll tie that in and any that are kind of coming off like this I'll just start tying in to the archway see I told you there's no big secret to it it's pretty much the same as what you do with any climbing plant you know like even sweet peas and like normal peas and what the heck else climbs beans things like that and you know you always have to tie them on a little bit when they get going the good thing about little mini pumpkins is that they are small enough to support themselves and they have tendrils which these little thin shoots that they send off that can wrap around things so they can climb on their own but you do need to tie them in for a little bit just until they get going and they climb themselves and you'll know when that time is because they'll just start to cling on and that's it you just guide them where you want them to go for a little bit and that's it it's that easy guys it's really not complicated the hardest part is actually trying to keep them alive and protected from slugs and snails and birds I've got a good feeling about these now and I'm so glad that I re-sewed them and I actually tried again and I didn't give up never give up see right I brought some seeds with me today I brought some rocket now I love rocket rocket's one of my favorite salad um salad leaves I guess you'd call them um yeah it's one of my favorites really really delicious um they kind of taste a little bit like nasturtiums or nasturtiums taste a little bit like rocket whichever way around you want to you want to think of that um yeah really nice so where are they yeah so here's my rocket I've got wild rocket which is even easier to grow um it's one of the easiest things you can just whack this in a bit difficult to protect because I think pigeons like this as well as slugs and snails I'm going to whack them in my new raised bed just down here in front of my shed because I think it'd be quite a good little spot for it and they can grow a little bit in the shade as well they don't need full sun to grow they are that easy they are so easy so we're going to whack these in a bit of whacking in for you today slightly disappointed with the amount the amount the amount of rocket seeds in that pack I was a little bit disappointed there didn't seem to be that many but I don't know maybe you don't need that many um I've done two rows so we'll have to wait and see if they get eaten or if they come up I don't know how I'm managing to get any of those strawberries home they are so good um and I just can't believe how many I'm getting this year so I'm just eating them all as if like a bird's gonna come and get it out of my hand or something like the seagulls I hope you enjoyed my little vlog today sorry about all the noise going on in the background happens sometimes it's not always peaceful this is a London allotment plot so I can't always hide all of the traffic and all of the noise going on um I love days like this where I just come down and potter around for an hour or so um it just feels so relaxing and sometimes when people ask me like um how much time do I need to dedicate to an allotment plot it's really difficult to answer because some weeks it's like I'm really busy and I'm here for hours and hours and hours and other weeks like this week it's probably just going to be a harvesting stuff and just taking care of a few weeds and watering so I'm probably not going to spend as much time here but it really depends on what's going on that week so it's quite a difficult question to answer really um but I just love it I just love being here so I just tend to just find myself gravitating towards the allotment plot as much as possible because I just love being here it's such a magical place I hope you enjoyed my vlog today if you did do consider subscribing to my youtube channel come and follow me on my blog and I will be back again on Wednesday have a lovely gardening week everyone bye