A WINTER MORNING AT THE ALLOTMENT / FEBRUARY 2022 / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Hi everyone, welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma. These are my allotment diaries. I would love for you to subscribe to my channel if you're new. I'm at the plot today and there's been a wood chip delivery, so I'm off to get some wood chip. I've already got two Wilbury falls. I'm absolutely exhausted, which is probably something to do with having had Covid. It's just like still making me so exhausted and breathless all the time, but I'm determined to get some wood chip because where there's wood chip, you must get it. That is my motto. That's my motto for the plot. That's the motto. See a wood chip thing, go and get wood chip pronto. Throwing down wood chip like I just won the lotto. I often use wood chip for my paths so, but it's just it's such good wood chip as well this time, like it's actually so fine. The way it's been like made and grinded up, it's just it's so thin and so lovely and it's going to make such a good little addition to my path. They don't massively need it right now, but then there's, you know, I don't know when the next wood chip delivery will be, and it's always a good idea just to top up the paths because I don't want weeds going through it and stuff. So anyway, let's go and get some more if we make it, if we survive. People bring a shovel when they do this, but I just can't be bothered to carry it all the way here and all the way back because this is quite away from my plot, so I just use my hands and my gloves. Three big wheelbarrow fulls of wood chip which I just put around my paths. You can see some of the ground sheet coming up and everything, so it probably needs a little bit of a top up now anyway. You have got wood chip all over you guys, all over you. A couple of comments to answer in my last video where I showed you how I did my allotment paths. Somebody said that it's a good idea to put cardboard underneath the wood chip. I did do that at the end of my plot, and the thing with cardboard is that it rots down and that means that the weeds come back up through the cardboard and through the wood chip because they don't care about wood chip you see. So I just found that ground sheets or perhaps even weed membrane to allow the soil to breathe a little bit, but anything like that is probably better because it's going to stop the weeds, if that is your goal to stop weeds, which is my goal because the less weeds I can stop coming up here the easier my plot is to maintain, so weeds are like a no-no. Yeah I hope that video helped about the paths, obviously I could have filmed it today because I'm actually doing the paths, but there we go. I feel like my broad beans are looking a little bit sad. Do you think they're looking a bit sad? Some of them are like flopping over and some of them are just like coming apart in my hands when I sort of touch them. They've had quite a few really hard frosts and I haven't staked them yet, so maybe that could be it, but I don't know if maybe it's worth just sowing a whole new batch and just ripping these ones out. What do you think? Is there hope for the broad beans? They are quite healthy plants, I don't know. Maybe I'll just try and stake them really quickly and just see if maybe their little bit of support is what they need. I feel like it would be such a shame to lose the broad beans because it's like the thing that's been growing all over the autumn winter and it'd be such a shame if they just all died, but if they do, they do, I'll grow a new batch of them, it's fine. It's always better to have something growing in a bed than nothing, that's what I've been told anyway, so at least I had something growing here over the winter, even if its fate was just all to die. But they're not dead yet, they're still green. Where there's green, there's hope. I'm seriously neglecting the pond. I've actually neglected the pond for a little while now, so definitely needs a little bit of TLC. I think I'm going to put my gloves on and have a reach in and see what's going on in there. Right, let's have a look what's going on in here then. This little stick. Right, we've got quite a few leaves in here. That's not good, we don't want them in there. We've got to get them out. We've got to get the leaves out and also there's quite a lot of growth in here. I feel like I should cull some of it. By cull, I mean kill. Yeah, there's quite a lot of this stuff taken over. So you might have noticed in one of these videos that I've built my pond under a tree. That's not actually the best place to build a pond. You should be putting a pond in the sun really, because the sunlight helps to clear the water. Also, fallen leaves going into your pond and sitting there for ages release nitrogen, which just basically mucks up the whole biodiversity of the pond and all the natural minerals in there and stuff. So I have got some oxygenating plants sitting in there. They seem to have sort of multiplied and taken over, become essentially a weed. So I need to sort of pull them back a little bit. I think with a pond you need like 60% of your pond should be covered with plant life and 40% should be quite clear. You also need a shallow end and a deep end, so creatures can kind of get in and out of it and stuff. But I think it just needs a little bit of helping hand right now. But normally, I mean usually wildlife ponds, they pretty much take care of themselves. That's what's so brilliant about them and that's why you really should get one at your plot, because they are just fantastic and they're so good for wildlife. Right, I'm just going to yank out as much as I can now really. Obviously, I'm sure I probably don't have to say this, but anything that you take out of your pond that's been in the water, just leave it around the side of the pond so that any creatures can crawl back in. Otherwise they don't know where they are and they get all lost and disorientated and probably would die. And you don't really want that. You want to facilitate the wildlife in your pond, not kill it. So it looks a little bit odd, I'll agree. Little piles of stuff all around the pond. But you know, if you're helping out the wildlife, I think that looks better. I think that looks better. I haven't done much. I've just taken out the leaves and taken out some of that green stuff, which seems to have multiplied. This is stuff I'm talking about. I think this is one of those oxygenating plants that you just sort of throw in the water and it develops its own roots and it just sort of floats around and multiplies, but it's just become a bit of a problem. It's just covered the whole pond now. So I can't envision where the frogs will jump and swim. So, you know, I've made them a little swimming pool now, which I think is quite nice for them. I think they'll like that. And I've given this little plant a haircut. He's done really well, this plant. No idea what he is, but he's done really well. And so is that little grassy one down there. And I'm sure the other ones will come back. Just feels really nice being here at the moment. I know it's February and I just can't wait to get going this year. I'm so excited. I've already started sweet peas, snapdragons and my peppers, which some of you did correct me and say some of them are chillies. I didn't know that. There you go. I clearly don't know that much about gardening, but what I do know is that I really, really, really enjoy doing it and it makes me feel good. And coming here in the morning for a couple of hours just lifts my mood for the rest of the day. So I hope you're getting to your plot still. Mine's doing OK. I'm excited. I'm getting the polytunnel tomorrow. So this will go up on Friday. Friday is my birthday. It's my birthday today. So that's very exciting. I'm getting my polytunnel and that will be going up next week. So I will show you all the progress of that. I hope you enjoyed the vlog today. Do subscribe. It can be my birthday present to subscribe to my channel and I'll see you next time, guys. Thanks for watching. Bye.