I MADE A HUGE MISTAKE / JULY 2021 / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Good morning 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 are new, thank you if you already have, it's lovely to have you here. I am back today, if you watched my last vlog you'll know that I set out some traps for the slugs and snails, some beer traps and I've never done this before and I'm really excited to check them. However, as with all my plans, I don't check the weather or anything really and last night we had the worst storm ever and it absolutely like downpoured, like London actually flooded and most of the trains got stopped and all the roads got shut and it was like proper flash flooding, which is so rare and I don't think it's ever actually happened in London but of course it happened on the night that I put my beer traps out for the first time ever because that's what I do, I control the weather. So I'm going to go and check on them but if not I have brought another beer with me so Dave's going to notice that his beers are going missing soon but we won't tell him yet, will we? Right, I'm excited about this. Okay, the good news is it's worked, even with the flooding, the bad news is it's worked and I don't know what to do next. I did not think this bit through, this is the bit that I didn't think through. How do I get the flipping slugs out? The good news is they seem to have left all my broccoli alone, not broccoli, sprouts, they all seem to be okay so it's clear that the beer traps have definitely worked and attracted them to that beer instead of brussel sprouts. I mean that's fair enough, I think most people would probably choose beer over brussel sprouts, not me, I like sprouts better but I'm weird like that. Right, I've got to get them out now. So I knew I shouldn't have done this, I knew it from the second I was doing it, it went against everything, it went against everything that I believed in at this plot and I just got so bloody desperate for sprouts and I've killed a frog, there's a frog in there and it's a baby one and I've killed it, bloody killed a frog, sakes and I love frogs and I just want to frogs at my pond so much, evil bloody person, I thought I've done that, I probably have done that, I'm never doing that again, that's it. What a horrible way to learn a lesson as well, like what an awful awful way and it's such a harsh nasty lesson from like mother nature because all I've wanted in my pond is frogs, you know that, you know how obsessed I've been with frogs at my pond for like the longest time and then you know to go against everything that I'm trying to do here and decide to kill slugs, like to literally kill them, I've killed a frog which is the bloody creature that I've wanted in my pond the whole time, who would have eaten the slugs, who would have eaten the slugs, that is one heck of a lesson learned, that is one heck of a lesson learned and I will learn from this and I will never ever kill a slug or a snail again and I will never ever do something that could endanger other wildlife, even if that's eco-friendly slug pellets and I know you keep saying to me to use them and stuff and you know just put them down they're harmless to wildlife but I just don't believe it anymore, I just don't believe it and I'm not doing it anymore and even the slugs was horrible, it's horrible, it's a whole jar full of bloody dead slugs, it's nasty, it's horrible, I'm chucking away creatures, it's nasty and I'm not doing it anymore, oh my god, right onward, guys we'll move on because we'll just put that down and I think that's the most important thing, I've learnt my lesson, I will never do that again and I'm going to draw a line under it and that's it forever, the slugs can just have the plot, we'll just let the slugs roam, it's fine, don't worry, I'm still getting some stuff so I'm not too bothered anymore, right we're doing potatoes today and the potato seeds that I've got are which look like that, so I'm going to whack these in the ground and I did do a bit of research on them, I'm going to also cover them for the frost in the winter but basically I'm going to dig two trenches quite deep and put the potatoes in and just cover them with a little bit of soil and when they start to sprout I'll bring the trench down and keep doing that until we get plants basically, that's what I'm going to do now, I'm going to dig two trenches, give me something to do, tell you if this is right or not because the truth is I don't really know but this is what I saw them do on garden as well, they did like a trench, so this is the first trench and that's the dirt to bring over to it and that's the second trench and there's the dirt to bring over to it, what are you doing, what are you doing, throwing stuff at me now, it's all against me now, they all hate me now because of what I've done to their mate, anyway I'm going to put the potatoes in, I think I'm going to do five, how many have I got, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, I'm going to do five potatoes per row, I think it's probably too much but I'm not really expecting them to grow so we'll just whack them in, I think, I'm not entirely sure about the spacing of them, I think it's okay but I'm not sure, I'm not entirely sure, I've never done this before and I'll just yank one out if it gets too crowded or whatever but yeah I think this is right and I haven't chitted them, what you normally do with potatoes is you chit them which means you put them in the sun until they sprout some shoots but in July apparently you don't have to do that, some of them are getting little shoots, you can see on this one here, I never knew they were shoots though because this is what my potatoes look like all the time in my drawer because I let them go, I leave them so long and I still eat them, I probably wouldn't eat these ones, I don't think you can actually, I think they're seed potatoes which is completely different apparently but yeah so I've just whacked them in like that and then we'll just cover them with a little bit of soil just so it covers it because they need to get to the light, they need light in order to grow, I don't know if it's right but it's what we've done so if we get potato plants amazing and if we don't we don't, you can only do what you do and and try and just get it right, if I pull the potatoes up and they're all green or something I won't eat them but yeah I don't know, I don't know, oh crikey don't ask me, I think it's obvious right now I don't know what I'm doing, stick in some more beetroot seeds, beetroot whatever you call it, I don't know, I don't know what variety this is but oh my goodness traditional Italian beetroot, very fitting as we lost the football to them we'll grow some Italian food and yeah I'm just going to stick it in because the only beetroot I've got growing is in my wheelbarrow and it's not doing very well so I'm going to stick it in the actual ground and see if it does better so I'm going to stick those in somewhere now and yeah just do that right I'll stick them all in behind the pumpkins because even if the pumpkins grow over a little bit you can see they're starting to stretch out, beetroot can grow in sort of partial shade and I think it'll be okay here to be honest so I'm going to whack it in here just in a long row might not be the most traditional time to start sowing beetroot and stuff in sort of like late July I know you can sow it up to July but I like to just start whacking stuff in in July I don't think there's any harm in it, you know if it doesn't grow it doesn't grow but just whack stuff in front of it in it we might get some beetroot or we might get nothing but it's okay either way it's okay I lost my mojo a little bit today now I feel a little bit miserable now that I've killed that frog I've got my potatoes in which is what I really wanted to do today to get those sorted and I've got the beetroot in as well I think I'm just going to leave it here today to be honest I'm wondering now if there are actually frogs in my pond but they're so little I can't see them I can't see any but that frog that died was so little maybe there's little ones I don't know maybe there's tiny little frogs in here and I just can't believe you see them maybe they've been here the whole time so gutted that I did that I'm so gutted but it is just a lesson I'm just going to have to take away and learn and it is just a circle of life it's only one frog and at least it was only one frog do you know what I mean at least it wasn't a hedgehog unless there's a drunk hedgehog swaying around somewhere I don't want to think of that but um yeah it's a lesson learned and I just I'm going to stick with my guns now and I'm not going to kill anything I'm going to be eco-friendly and I'm just going to use eggshells and brambles and things like that um yeah I hope you enjoyed the vlog today as much as you can enjoy me killing a frog um and I'll see you in my next vlog guys with uh hopefully a more eco-friendly happier plot see you next time bye