THINK I MIGHT HAVE KILLED THEM! / JUNE 2021 / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Morning everyone, welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma, these are my allotment diaries. I'm just sorting out the paths today because there's quite a big pile of wood chip in the communal area and I thought I'd put it to good use and try and neaten up the plot a little bit. It's not too rainy today, that's why I didn't do it yesterday, but things are just sort of getting a bit overgrown and I think it's good to try and keep on top of it if you can. I mean I'm not the best weeder and it's not something I enjoy doing but it's obviously important to keep around the beds weeded because that is where slugs and snails like to hide out as well, so I like to keep it as neat as I can. So that's what I'm getting on with this morning. Mate's back again, here he is. Hello, hi, did you miss me? Did you miss me? I think he missed me. Are you like my new allotment friend now? Eh? Are you my new allotment friend? God please don't go in my shed. How do I get it out? How do I get it out of the shed if it goes in the shed? Yeah. Why does he like me so much? Can he not sense my hostility towards him? Clearly not. Clearly not. He really likes me. Oh what are you doing snooping in there? There's nothing in there for you? Yeah. I do enjoy this job. He might be sad of me to admit that but I like any job that gives me an instantaneous result because it feels like it's like worth the effort immediately and keeping the paths mulched is not only like for aesthetics and stuff but it's good for keeping the weeds down on the path because I still get a lot of weeds growing and it's also good for safety because I don't want to trip over everything so if I keep it mulched it's quite nice and level. My plot's a little bit up and down and bumpy but this is the result so I don't know if you'll agree but I think the path just looks so much better so much neater and more level as well. Instantaneous results. What I'm gonna do is go around and just catch some of the weeds that are overgrowing into my beds and stop them from slithering their way in especially bindweed. I have a lot of bindweed on my plot but I just keep picking it. I just keep picking it. That's the only advice I can really give. Just keep picking it and eventually it will die hopefully. Mine has yet to do that but I have hope. I have to stress you know when you have an allotment plot one of your biggest jobs will be weeding and keeping everything neat and mulching the paths and stuff and it's so I don't know like sometimes I like it because I find it quite therapeutic and like I said it's like an instantaneous kind of result which is quite satisfying but a lot of the time I can't be bothered and I come here and see it overgrown it's quite disheartening so if you've got like a first allotment plot it's like you're a new allotment plot holder and you're finding that you're just weeding all the time it's getting exhausting I would say just limit your weeding days to once or twice a week let the weeds come up a little bit it's not gonna kill everything straight away you know and then just dedicate some time to it put some headphones in and just relax and try to see it as a you know a therapeutic job or something but it is one of those things you just have to grit your teeth and kind of do and people don't really vlog about it I haven't seen many allotment vlogs where it's like today I'm just weeding because it is a bit dull isn't it but there you go it's just one of those things you've got to do hey look guys this is what bindweed does if you let it grow you can see it's come from all the way in the grass which is not even my plot territory and it's come all the way up and wrapped itself all around this pole now just imagine for a second that this is a sunflower and this plant has just wrapped itself around it it's going to be restricting the sunflower of light nutrients from the ground it's going to strangle it and get tighter and tighter um this is what bindweed does and this is why we hate it so much just strangles and starves other plants in order to get to the top it uses them as a bit of a ladder to get up high and takes everything from them so you just you've got to keep picking it and getting rid of it it's a nuisance I'm going to try and sort this mess out now and see if I can rescue some of these sweet peas I don't know well it's not like the conventional way of growing sweet peas it looks like I've created a sweet pea monster like a big tall monster of sweet peas I don't really know what to do with them to be honest I feel like ripping them out but I feel so bad they grew so well I don't know they're not going to be happy like that are they it's like when your hair gets knotty when you come out the shower it's just a big tangle I don't really know what to do about it to be honest I'm not an expert and I think I've just mucked it up I think it's a goner what do you think but I was going to do today that I'm no longer going to do because I'm knackered is try and sort out my wheelbarrow my salad wheelbarrow because it's just died for whatever reason you can see I've got all the prickles growing over it now I've just sort of given up on it everything in it is just going yellow and just dying like it just all needs yanking out really it's just not not good anymore and I don't know if these are going to grow these are supposed to be beetroot I don't know I might leave them a little bit longer but anyway I'm I don't know what I'm going to replant in it yet and that's why I'm not going to do it today but probably shallow root stuff but yeah it just didn't work I don't know why it worked for a little bit and then it just died like most things on my plot they work for a little bit and then they die job for another day I think right that's it from me today I hope you enjoyed it today just a little bit of tidying up going on but it's the realities of the allotment plot and I'll see you thanks for watching if you're not already subscribed do forget don't forget to subscribe to my channel and I'd love to have some more subscribers and I'll see you in my next vlog