PLANTING OUT THE PUMPKINS / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Hi everyone, welcome back to my Allotment Diaries. My name is Emma, these are my Allotment Diaries. Do feel free to subscribe to my channel if you are new. I think it's quite quiet at the plot today because we are due a thunderstorm at about 10 o'clock which is in about half an hour and the weather is looking a little bit, yeah, like it's gonna happen. So I've come down here today though because I want to get my pumpkins out because I thought a thunderstorm might be just the perfect time to My pumpkins are just bursting now and I haven't got any bigger pots to pop them into so I really need to get them out and also I just want to start getting things out now. It is still May and even though the weather's been a bit crap I do think things will still grow because the plot is looking very green and magical. It just all sort of looks like it's sort of coming to life like as if you know we're not having this terrible weather at all. I mean look at the The salad wheelbarrow is just looking beautiful. Right so, I don't know if you can see me there. Put a bit of wood chip under you, there we go. The pumpkins that I'm growing are miniature pumpkins so I've got Baby Boo which is a tiny tiny little white pumpkin and I've got Jack Be Little which is a tiny tiny orange pumpkin because I want to grow them up. I don't have that much space at my allotment plot and I really want to grow pumpkins but the ones I grew last year took over like three beds and spilled onto the path so I thought if I grow little ones I can still get my pumpkin fix and I can grow them up the archway better. So here are my plants, they're not too bad, they're not massive so they will be prone to slug invasion but hopefully I'll be able to protect them. One of them might be a courgette by the way because the label fell off so I might have a courgette growing up the pumpkin arch but hey ho, there we go. There they are, my little pumpkins. Some of them are smaller than others like this one here hasn't got very big but I've just got no room at home, I just need to go out, I just need to let them out really. Right that's the idea and that's the spacing. I'm giving them quite a lot of space this time I think but I wonder if these are going to be smaller plants because they're miniature pumpkins or does it not make a difference if the pumpkin's big or small? Is the pumpkin plant still big? I don't know but what I do know is that I think they'll climb better because the pumpkins are smaller so that's why I'm going to put them up the archway and I'm going to whack them in now because I can feel the rain on its way. Did you see me just yank that one back out the ground again because I think I put it the wrong way because I want to try and get the main plant growing towards the arch. I think I just heard some roots snap so I really hope that one doesn't die. Oh that's so annoying when that happens. Damn it! Right they're in but will they live? We don't know. I'm convinced I've killed that one over there because I just heard the root snap as I just roughly pulled it out. I don't know why I did that, I just panicked. They're also really really small. My For some reason this year they've just not grown to those that size. God I can't even talk. Panicking because I know the storm's coming and I bloody hate storms. That's what it is. This one looks a bit sad now. Why does he look sad? What's wrong with him? Oh please live. Please please please please please. This side has got manure and cardboard on it and this side has just literally got compost so it'll be interesting to see which one grows better. My money's on the manure and compost and I did give them a drink even though it's going to rain because pumpkins are very very hungry plants so I sort of wanted to get them settled and then what I might do is in a few days time I'll give them a seaweed feed and hope that that disperses them along a little bit but god I hope they live. I really want them to survive. Gosh where are you? So low down. I brought some eggs with me again because I just think it's a really great easy cheap way of protecting against slugs and snails so I'm just gonna wash them up in the bag I think. I won't get my hammer out today. Sorry. I've not had a lot of slug and snail attacks since I put down all those egg shells and since they had the first nibbles so I don't know if maybe they're just not bothered by my plot or to be honest there's a heck of a lot of birds. That was good timing pigeon because I'm talking about you. There's a lot of birds here so I'm just wondering if maybe the birds sit up in that tree and wait for the slugs and snails and go and eat them all. There you go. Birds are my friends. Birds are my friends after all. Maybe they're eating all the bloody frogs as well. Right well that's everything that I can do. You know I can't do any more. They're out. They're in the ground. They're protected. I've given them a drink. I'll give them a feed. That's all you can really do. It's just frustrating because I really really really want them to grow and do really well. I think I'm just panicking. But then I did last year didn't I with medallias and stuff and it all lived. Come on pumpkins. Pray for the pumpkins. I'm going to uncover my spinach now because I think it's big enough now that it needs uncovering and I can see the green through the cloche which is so exciting. Look at this guys. Because I know everyone's moaning about the rain in the UK at the moment and being like where's summer where's summer but we have such a dry flipping April that the actual the rain has stopped all the frost in London anyway and it's actually made everything grow and look at my spinach. Wow wow wow. I mean come on. Come on. It's massive and I've got a new couple of rows in between which I sowed as well which will be coming up in a couple more weeks. Look at this. This is just beautiful. You know what I'm not even going to thin it. I'm just going to leave it to do its thing. Not that into thinning. I never thinned my zinnias last year and they grew beautifully and I never thinned my beetroot last year but this year I have and also I've never thinned that chard there and actually it's in its second year now and it's done really really well. So I think I'm just going to leave this spinach to it and I'll let you know what happens with it. I'll keep you updated but it looks beautiful. So nice to see some green in the plot now. I swear I had more zinnias coming up than this. Something's happened in here. I swear I had more than this. I mean this row here look you can see how beautifully this row's doing but where are my other rows gone? Where am I? Oh no. Oh god. Look. Look at that one there. I don't know if you can see this one. That's been eaten. That's been eaten by a slug and the snail. Oh no. Oh no. That's where they've all gone. They've all been eaten I think. I had a sunflower over there and I think that's been eaten too. Yeah I think that has been eaten. I'm gonna buy some more zinnia seeds and try again because the weather's only just starting to warm up and I reckon we've got a longer season this year. That's what I reckon anyway. I'm gonna I'm gonna start again. That's annoying. Bloody slugs and snails. Right cabbage check time. I don't hold up much hope for these. God if they've got my zinnias they've got my cabbages haven't they? Okay all right not too bad not too bad. Right these are not good variants. This is not good. Let's get rid of the straw. Somebody said that straw actually when it gets wet becomes a really good place for slugs and snails to live in so I'm going to get rid of the straw. Oh that was stupid. That was stupid. All right you know what I'm not going to cry over these ones because this has been eaten but he's still got a really good leaf there and this one's been nibbled at but he's got good new growth going on. What's the weed? Going on underneath so that's okay. This one's been eaten too but again he's got he looked quite they look happy do you know what I mean? They're bouncy happy plants so I don't know. He's all right he's okay. It is truly truly truly devastating when slugs and snails come along and just completely eat one of your crops that you've worked so hard and you've done it from seed and you brought it into a seedling and then you put it outside and you've watched it grow and then a slug or snail comes along and just eats the entire crop and I've had quite a few comments and people and messages especially on Instagram saying you know that they feel like giving up and that the slugs and snails just you know they're just eating everything and they just don't know what to do and I'll just say to you just don't give up because loads of my stuff gets eaten by slugs and snails but the trick is to keep going and keep If you've already planted your sunflowers out I would very much suggest either sowing them direct in the soil now next to them or starting them again in pots at home and just having smaller sunflowers so that you get some because you've just got to keep going they can't eat everything they can't eat everything and sooner or later we'll have a heat wave and they'll all get cooked if they come out so and you might have birds like I've got helping you out secretly you know so don't give up hope is what I'm saying don't give up hope just keep going you'll get something growing I promise I hope you enjoyed this little vlog today please pray for my pumpkins I hope they don't die straight away or get eaten like everything else seems to be I just wanted to quickly show you this in my pot because I planted some spring bulbs absolutely months ago like November time we're now in May and believe it or not there are some mini little tulip things that still have not opened yet which is just quite unbelievable look at these I didn't even know I had these in here they're only just starting to open and we're in May it's just amazing I hope to see you next time do subscribe to my channel if you're new so you don't miss a video and I will see you in my next vlog thanks for watching guys