PICKING SWEETPEAS / JUNE 2021 / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Good morning guys, welcome back to my allotment plot. My name is Emma, these are my allotment diaries and welcome back. It's been a little while since I've been here actually because we had a weekend and it was really nice weather and I just stayed at home. You can see how red I am and how sweaty I am already because it's so hot in the UK. We're having a mini heat wave and I haven't been here to water however the plot is pretty self-sufficient and things tend to be okay. The wheelbarrow is looking a little bit sad so I'm going to get some water on that right away. Some of my other crops need watering as well and the pond probably needs filling up too and don't forget to fill up your ponds in this kind of weather. I always forget to do it and I get here and it's really low and I feel really bad because all the snails are like struggling but yeah I'm just going to have a look around today. Some of the crops are ready to harvest. I can see the spinach just calling to me to pick some of it today so I'm going to do that and also the sweet peas as well which is very exciting. So I'm going to just show you around the plot and get watering really. Here's my spinach looking very spinachy and very very ready to pick. The bees keep going to it for some reason so I'm sort of worried it's going to flower. Can they smell flowers before it flowers? I don't know but yeah it's looking so ready to pick. I love growing spinach it's such an easy thing to grow. It's honestly it's so so simple and it always goes really bushy and I haven't even thinned it and I'm just going to continuously pick this now and these are the newer spinaches that I've sown so when these ones are done I've already got big and smaller ones that are waiting to get bigger which is excellent and you can see behind pumpkins have survived snail attacks which is brilliant. Runner beans not quite so much but hey ho you can't win them all. I've just noticed behind me I've got calendula growing. I don't know where this little guy sprung up from I didn't even sow him here but here he is look at him he's just come out of nowhere oh he's so beautiful and you can eat the petals of the calendula and put it on salad and you can make tea out of calendulas as well. How beautiful is he? I think I'm just going to leave him I can see another one here it's going to come up um they must have been from last year because I know they can sort of self-seed sometimes so I reckon they were from last year and they've just done it themselves so that's excellent. I forgot how beautiful they are they are such beautiful flowers really really pretty courgettes are going strong doing really well I knew they would they're such easy plants to grow but also the sweet corn is really coming alive now and I really thought that would all just die but it's not died I have sown some more at home so we'll definitely have sweet corn this year but yeah the courgette plants are looking great I reckon we'll get some flowers on them soon for sure. I love it when things just grow like courgette plants I just know they're so easy so I whack them in and I've just got no like worries about them I just knew they would grow I knew it some things I don't know as you know some things I get really worried about um but courgettes are not one of them and I was right not to be worried and and I have some extra special super excited crazy news um I've actually got blueberries on my blueberry plant for the first time since I got it and I think I've had this plant for about four years and this year I actually planted it outside and for the first time ever and I think it just didn't want to be in a pot because I've got flipping blueberries growing and I can't believe it look at these there are going to be hundreds of them I didn't even realize they'd flowered I didn't even recognize the flowers on them um but they're absolutely covered covered covered in blueberries I'm not sure if you can see those ones but the whole plant is absolutely bursting with them I can't believe I'm actually going to get blueberries this year it's the first year I've ever grown my own blueberries I can't believe you're working I just want to hug it I just want to hug the plant thank you for working strawberry patch is looking really healthy really happy since I sorted it out I'm so glad that I did that it was such a crappy job but I'm really glad I did it and look we've got hundreds of them absolutely hundreds of them no red ones yet but we're on the way we're definitely on the way for a harvest as long as those little slugs don't get them yeah we're going to get some serious strawberries this year just got to keep the birds away the snails away the slugs away the squirrels away the mice away and other humans away and then I'll have loads of strawberries so fingers crossed my sweet peas have finally flowered and when I came to my plot today all you could do is just smell the sweet peas as you came in and look at them they are just stunning I think they're probably going to outgrow this little structure but look at them they're so gorgeous such beautiful colours and the smell is just overpowering so I'm going to pick a load of them today because the trick with sweet peas is to keep picking them and then you keep getting more flowers so I'm just going to pick as many as I physically can probably all of them to be honest but I just wish you could smell this the smell is just overpowering I could smell it when I walked into my plot I could just smell sweet peas they're just beautiful beautiful flowers my house is going to be absolutely full of them right as I am cutting my sweet peas I'm cutting the flower right down to the end so take this flower for example I will cut it right down to the end where it meets the um the branch or whatever you want to call it um and then I'm trimming it to the size I want diagonally and I'm putting them straight into water because flowers last longer when you put them straight into water so you really want to get it in the water ASAP that's what I've been told so I'm just going to keep picking them until they're all gone and then hopefully we'll get lots more but I wish you could smell them the best smelling flower you will ever smell in your life you must grow sweet peas if you don't grow them you must grow them they are just gorgeous really happy with that harvest we've got a nice big bumper harvest of sweet peas and some spinach to take home for lunch so so nice to be coming to the plot now and actually be having stuff to take home afterwards I've still got stuff to plant out so I've planted some more sweet corn at home that's going to go out soon I've got some brussels sprouts they're going to go out soon okra is going up never grown it before heard it's really really nice so I'm just going to give it a go because I've got the seeds for free in a magazine and I've also planted some more pumpkins just in case those ones die but they do look like they're doing really well so I might try and find somewhere else for them to go and just get more pumpkins but yeah it's all looking really good so I hope you enjoyed it today and I'll be back as soon as I can guys thanks for watching