IT'S A CARROT / JUNE 2021 / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Morning guys, welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma, these are my allotment diaries. I'd love for you to subscribe to my channel if you are new. I'm getting stuck straight in today because I've brought with me my Brussels sprouts and I carried them in a bag and they're not looking too happy with me. I should really take them down in a tray or something but I'll just use a Tesco carrier bag. I think they look okay. That's a pumpkin. I think they're looking okay but I actually sowed them a little bit late this year. I think you're supposed to sow them in like April, March, April time and I actually didn't sow them until the beginning of June. So they're only a few weeks old but then the weather's been really slow this year so I figured I might get away with it. They're going to go in this bed at the front but I have got two cosmos plants in there at the moment and I think I might have to move them. Last year I underestimated how big cosmos plants get. They're massive, massive, massive plants. Loads of flowers, really bushy and I think they might swamp these so I think I'm just going to move it over a little bit and then get these in. They've not done too bad considering I sowed them in, when did I say, beginning of June. They're all right. They're little plants but they're quite healthy. They're getting lots of leaves. Let's just hope the slugs and snails don't get them. I mean they've already got this one a little bit you can see and he's just been in a pot in my garden so godspeed little ones. Right this is the cosmos I'm going to move over to here because he's going to get really big and that's where I want my brussels to go. Where's my spade gone? Where's my flipping spade? Oh it's over there. Try not to kill him. Wasn't quite how I was going to do it but okay. There he is. I'm thinking that spacing is about right. I know that brassicas, is it part of the brassica family? They get really big those plants and I've obviously planted my cabbages too close together so I don't want to make the same mistake here so I'm just going to stick five in like that but we'll find out. As with everything we will find out when they all flop over on each other and bloody die. Hopefully not. Plastic again. Look at that. Ridiculous. After all this time still finding bleeding plastic. The brussels in. They're meaning to do this for ages and ages and I just keep putting it off because I'm convinced that slugs and snails are going to get them and you know what they probably are but hey ho there you go. I'm done with them this year. I just can't keep stressing about them. Maybe one will survive and I'll get some brussel sprouts that would be great so let's just hope the little buggers stay away. I don't really know what else to say. Right I'm wondering if these carrots are ready to pick. They've been in for flipping ages like months and months. I don't really know how to tell if carrots are done but they're doing something a bit weird that I've never seen carrots do before. Only at my plot eh? They're sort of going up and they're sort of forking at the top. I've never seen a carrot do that before so I'm wondering if I've just left it so long that it's going to flower. Do carrots flower? They must flower. I never knew that all vegetables flower but of course they must. I am slightly curious to see what carrot flowers look like but at the same time I do want some carrots so I think I'm going to pick a couple and just see what they look like. Some of them I can tell aren't done because they're too small but some of them are quite big so I'm just going to pick some. Let's do it. Let's pick some carrots. The big moment, the big moment has arrived. This one looks big. It's a good start when a carrot seed grows an actual carrot isn't it? There he is. He's not bad. He's not bad at all. Now somebody on Instagram picked a carrot and said that because of this long dangly root thing at the end it's not done yet so I don't think they're quite done but look at that. God it smells like a carrot. I say this with everything I grow but it really smells like the thing you're supposed to be growing. Like it's the strongest carrot smell. I say the carrot flies are going to be onto this now definitely but this is amazing. This is a great start so I think I'm going to leave them a little bit longer and just let them do their thing and hopefully get a bit bigger but look at that. It's straight. It's not that bendy. It's a flipping carrot guys. It's a flipping carrot. I mean that is the most carrot of a carrot you can carrot you get. Oh it's beautiful. If you watched my last vlog you might know that my tomato plants started to grow horizontally because I hadn't tied them into the canes and you'll be happy to know they are sort of starting to go vertical again which is excellent because I have tied them in now so hopefully I can sort of train them to go up. I've had to tie them on now. I'm a bit late but you can see the stem wants to go sideways so I'm trying to encourage it to sort of straighten up a little bit. It's really difficult to do that when a plant wants to grow bendy. You know it's bendy. That one might be all right. That one might be all right. Yeah I don't know. I wasn't even going to plant these out in the plot to be honest so if we get one tomato I think it'd be quite an achievement. You should always tie your plants into the support ASAP because otherwise this happens. This is exactly what happens and I did know that I just didn't do it but in other news I've just noticed all my blooming marigolds have been eaten by slugs and snails covered in slug slime. They've eaten all of them little buggers all of them. Oh god bloody slugs. In other news I was going to say my pumpkins are starting to grow up which is excellent. That's exactly what I wanted and I think I've got it right this year because they are growing the right way. This is the first pumpkin to start to grow up vertical and I've just tied him on to the chicken wire and he's he's quite happy going away going up and I think this one's going to go up too and I think this one I can train to go up as well which is just brilliant. So something is growing vertically. I'm obsessed with growing things vertically because it's such a good space saver and also it keeps all the pumpkins off the floor which is a brilliant idea. This one's actually doing it. I'm so proud of you. I hope you know how proud I am of you. You're my favourite pumpkin. Don't tell the others. Please don't die now. Please don't die. What other news do I have for you? Oh sweetcorn's great. It's all survived. Slugs and snails don't seem to like sweetcorn so this is all fine. It's all living. That one's doing amazing. Look how flipping big it is. I don't want to jinx it though so I don't really want to talk about it but this is all all great. Courgettes are looking fabulous. Let's see if we've got any more flowers. Yeah we've got more more flowers. I think I can see a baby courgette as well which is so exciting. I think the baby courgette is just behind this flower. See that bit there? That I think is my first courgette. I think it's a little baby one. It's quite cool isn't it? And then on this one look we've got more flowers coming in. Yeah really good really really good really happy plants. I knew these would be easy. I just had a feeling. I just had a feeling. One of my irises has flowered. I think it's one of the water ones. Absolutely stunning. And then this plant here which I whacked in last year which sort of grew but didn't do very much has got these big old spikes with these like feathery flowers on the top which have kind of gone pinkish and I flipping love them. So I'll show you the plant it is. It's this one with these sort of green and white leaves. It didn't do very much last year but this year it set off these great big long stems with these flowers and they look white on camera but they've got like a pinkish tone to them as well and they're massive. They're so pretty. I don't know if you can see maybe oh this one here you can really see the pink on this one. Can you see the pink tone on it? It's just beautiful isn't it? I don't know what the flipping heck it is but it's lovely and if I stand back you'll see how tall they are. Look they're as tall as I am. It's so pretty at the moment. I think it's just in its element. The only thing I haven't got is any calendulars because they one grew but the other ones haven't so other than that I'm not complaining. It's beautiful. I'm going to leave it there today because I need to get going home and do cleaning and other boring stuff. Anyway I hope you enjoyed it today. It's nice to be back here. It needs a bit of a weed and everything but I think I'll get there and the weather's okay. It's going to rain again so the slugs and snails probably get all my Brussels sprouts but hey what can you do about that? So if you are not subscribed to my channel I would love you to subscribe. There is still time to vote for me in the Grow Your Own Awards. The link is below in the description. Just click on it. You have to vote for everybody else as well but in the category Best Gardening Influencer please vote for Emma Bailey. That's me and I'll let you know how I get on with them. See you in my next vlog guys. Thanks for watching. Have a nice weekend. Bye.