THE POLYTUNNEL PART TWO / APRIL 2022 / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma, these are my allotment diaries. I would love for you to subscribe to my youtube channel. So I popped down to my plot a little bit later last night just to do a little bit of tidying up of the strawberry bed and stuff and also to do a bit of thinking about that polytunnel frame. I've got loads and loads of really valuable advice from you guys about putting on the cover and how it's really important to secure it down because apparently the cover is the bit of the polytunnel that turns it into a bit of a kite or a hot air balloon or whatever you want to call it and the wind goes under it and then just the whole thing takes off. So though I've secured the frame down really well I think it is important now to think about the cover. So I've got loads and loads of really good ideas from you. I think what I'm going to do is whack it on and see how I feel about it and what I could do to protect it and if I don't feel like it's going to stay on this weekend I'm going to take it off. I have got some bungee ropes I don't know what these are apparently they're for bungee jumping. No I'm only kidding that would be like rubbish wouldn't it I'd be like off of my shed. No I got these from B&Q and I was going to use these to try and somehow secure it so and I also got some pegs as well. So what we're going to do is we're going to whack up the cover and then we'll take it from there and just see what happens basically. We'll go from there so we're going whack it on. Do we ever do anything different at this plot other than whack stuff out and whack it on? No. Why change the habit of a lifetime? How's this going? I don't like the look of this wind guys it keeps being windy and this keeps flying up and I'm really worried I'm not going to be able to secure it. I'll keep going a little bit longer I think but I don't know if it's going to stay up today. That wasn't actually as hard as I thought it would be. Come with me inside the polytunnel it's lined up quite nicely so I've definitely put the frame together right it's all right in here you know. Right we're in the polytunnel and I've managed to zip it all shut so in terms of it fitting and I've put it upright I've definitely put it upright it looks fantastic in here brilliant for tomatoes peppers and things like that so I'm really really pleased with it. I'm absolutely terrified that it's going to blow away of course these hook things these aren't going to do very much at all so I do need to secure it with something now I'm getting a bit nervous actually. Somehow I don't think this is going to work but we'll try it try it on the inside instead. A lot of people suggested bungee cords and in hooks but I can't figure out how to do it because every time I put it in the ground it just comes back out again like a jack-in-a-box so I don't know how that's going to help but I know it will help but I just don't know how to do it it's just going to fly away like that. Right so what I've done for now is I've put as much heavy stuff so I've got some wood on this side and some bricks on the other side as I can around there I've also pegged down these with my pegs that I brought from B&Q and then I realised the polytunnel came with some rope and some pegs and these are really good you can't get those out the ground because I went wrong with this one it's too loose and I can't get it out the ground and I've got four of them I'm not sure if you'll be able to see them I tried to do them quite close so they're not a trip hazard hopefully he'll stay up for a bit we're not predicted any more wind storms or anything so fingers crossed seriously fingers crossed that he stays standing but there he is. So all that's left for me to do is declare the polytunnel open for growing. So the other job I wanted to do today was plant out my broccoli and here it is it's not looking great it's been sitting in my outdoor greenhouse for ages and ages and it just needs to go out now it just needs to I'm going to put it in my new raised bed which is just behind me here so this bed here is my new raised bed and it's basically quite shady here but brassicas like broccoli don't really mind a bit of shade so I'm going to whack them in with a little bit of protection now and hopefully they can just keep growing so this is really really dry so I think I'm going to give it a water before I plant anything in it. Broccoli are quite big plants they are don't be fooled they are actually massive the leaves are massive and they need a lot of space to grow so I'm trying to give them enough room but even that I think is probably too close together but we'll see how it goes and hopefully they'll just be smaller plants or something I don't know plants can sometimes sort themselves out but this is where I want the broccoli to be basically because I've also got cauliflower to go out as well so we'll whack this in we'll hope for the best like we always do that's all you can do when you're gardening hope for the best prepare for the worst right so they're going to need protecting pretty quickly from slugs and snails and butterflies for butterflies I'll come back and make a net for them which will stay on them until they finished but for slugs and snails I've got a good idea I did this last time actually with my broccoli and it worked really well so these are scours which I picked up in Wilko's for a pound I got about four packs of them so really really cheap stuff the idea is slugs and snails don't like to slither over so I've cut myself a line and a hole and that's all you need and this is what we're going to do we're going to place it around the plant like this making sure it's flat I mean granted they all look a bit weird looks like I'm trying to grow scouring pads but it does work I promise and I'll keep you updated on them and when I come back tomorrow and they've all been eaten you can say you told me so there is one last thing I really wanted to show you today before I end the vlog and that's this beautiful couple of tulips that have come up and I don't know what they are I definitely didn't plant them like this so look at these so these were pink tulips basically and they've now come up pink and yellow they look like rhubarb and crumble or something and I did not plant them this is what I planted these beautiful pink ones just over there I had the yellow ones and I'm wondering if there's a bit of cross-pollination that's gone on here um I didn't even think that was possible with tulips but there we go I think that is probably what's happened but how beautiful are they absolutely gorgeous maybe I've made a new tulip who knows anyway beautiful um I thought I'd show you that at the end of the vlog I hope you enjoyed today's vlog and if you did do subscribe to my channel and I will see you in my vlog on Monday see you Monday everyone bye