WHAT'S HAPPENING?! / APRIL 2021 / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Hi everyone, welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma, these are my allotment diaries. I'd love for you to subscribe, follow along. Right, I'll just get straight into it today. It's the Easter weekend and the weather is just completely different to how it's been for the past few weeks. It's cold basically and the weather's going to be dipping really low in the evenings so one of the reasons I'm here is to cover up my dailies with bottles. Not sure about the gladiolus, I might fleece them I think. I've got a bit of fleece left just in case because obviously dailies do not like the cold and it's going to be really cold. First of all I have a question for you. Something's happened and it's happened at home as well in my home garden and it's to do with my tulips. Now at home I've got about four tulip bulbs coming up, that's it. Every single one, the flower has died just as it started to open and I can see the same thing is happening here at the plot. So you can see this one here, this is how they started at home as well. If it's going to focus, that's a bit better. Oh gosh, come on. Right, you can see how it's just not looking. My focus is terrible but yeah, you can see. And then this one over here, look, you can see that's dying because the colour's drained out of it and it just looks like it's dying before it's even opened. I can't really understand it and I just have a bad feeling about these ones. I just have a really bad feeling that the same thing is going to happen to these. They just don't look as healthy as they did last year. My immediate assumption is it's something to do with the weather because the same thing is happening to my tulips at home as well in my garden. They've all opened and they've all crisped up and then just died and I can't understand it because last year these just came up beautifully. So any advice on that? Why do you think the tulips are playing up this year? Is it to do with the weather because we've had quite warm weather followed by freezing cold weather? Could it be something to do with that? Is it a lack of rain? Is it too much rain? I don't know. Leah, please help save the tulips. What's happening to them? Why is this happening? I can hear the football practice going on just over our fence because our allotment plots kind of go back on to like a football training club and it's so nice to hear people actually playing football and out and about again. It's just like the world has just been closed up and now it's starting to open again and it's just amazing. I've never been so happy to hear cheering in the background. Strawberry plants are doing okay. I need to mulch these but yeah they're all looking healthy and stuff after I replanted them all. I could just tell they're just happy. I just know. I just know but I need to mulch them. I was wondering can I mulch them with wood chip? That's another question for you today. Can I mulch strawberries with wood chip? Don't know. Would it be too acidic for them? Don't know. Right. Right. I sowed some sunflowers under here. Popping up. Oh they are popping up. Once again I'm telling a lie. They are popping up. I better water them. I don't really like sowing seeds at the allotment plot because I can never guarantee I'm going to be here to water them and if something happens at home with my kids or something and I can't get here they die but yeah I can see a sunflower. There he is. Hello. Yeah there he is. There he is. He seems quite happy. I know he'll be all right. I've just got a feeling. The others are not coming up. I dig my seeds. Are you a digger? I'm a digger. I can't stand the weight so I always dig in them but I know you shouldn't. That's not very good advice. Don't dig up your seeds but I always dig them up to see if they're growing or not. I think I need I think I need more water. You know I just had a thought about sunflower seeds. You can plant them outside in March and they'll grow fine now. They will actually grow so if they're not growing in that pot there under a glass thing it must be water. I'm not watering them enough. I know I'm not. That must be the problem. That is my detective skills on that for sure. Just thought I'd do a little salad bowl update. This is my wheelbarrow salad bowl that I made out of an old wheelbarrow. They've still got no drainage holes guys. I know I'm so sorry. I will do that this weekend. But yeah look you can see the. Will you shut up? It's weird to have those crows. They wait for me to film. Yeah the green ones are coming up which is green lettuce. Doing fantastic. Really good and in the middle my beetroot is starting to come up now too. I know this is beetroot now because I know what the seedlings look like because now I'm a gardening expert I can tell what seed is what. But yeah these are the beetroots coming up. No sign of the micro salad yet but maybe it's too bloody small. Maybe that's the clues in the name. Micro salad. Maybe the seedlings are microscopic too. Microscopic salad. What's the point? But I planted it now because the seeds were free so that's why I planted them. But yeah it's all coming up really well. So my salad bowl is a salad success. I couldn't think of another word for that. I was going to do a funny word but I couldn't think of one. Right job of the day. Most important job of the day. Let's cover up these dahlias because they're not going to like the cold. They're just not going to. They're going to be really sad and really mad at me. So I've got this box that's going to cover one of them. So one of them is going to have a really good blanket on him. You know box on him. What's going on? I've got this one here. This one here. That'll do. Just an incubation thing you know. You just got to incubate them but give them enough light still and stop the frost from settling on them. So these are really good. I need one more. I wish someone would come and sort my shed out for me because it's just a bloody disaster in here. I don't think it is necessary to cover the gladiolus but I am going to do it anyway. The reason being is that I don't think I planted them deep enough to be protected by frost and stuff and also they haven't stayed in the ground for that long. So people are people always say to me I left mine in all year round and they've been fine but I've only just put mine in to cold soil. So I'm going to cover them anyway just just to be sure really. Just give them a bit of protection. I always seem to end up doing these kinds of jobs in the wind and everything always blows away and I look like an idiot but it's not windy before I start the job and then the wind like happens. It's like nature being like playing a joke on me all the time. Mother nature's not as nice as you think she is. Right I can't tell you for certain if this is all completely necessary but it makes me feel better. I feel better about the situation knowing when the weather drops down tonight really low they're all protected under cover so it just gives me peace of mind. I'm looking at this blueberry plant. Somebody gave me this years ago and I've never had blueberries on it but I brought it to the plot when we moved house and it's starting to grow back because like many things in this plot I thought it was dead but it's not dead. I think I'm going to plant it where the broccoli is. I'm going to do that now. I'm going to plant it I think because I think it I can't see it living in this pot much longer. I don't think it likes it in here. I think it wants to be free so I'm going to set it free. I'm not quite sure how to get this out so I think that went quite well. I didn't expect the whole pot to be the plant. I thought the plant would be within a pot but it's not it's the whole pot is the plant. It's still got ericaceous soil around it so hopefully it'll sort of be all right now and this is what I was thinking of doing. Watching it with some old Christmas tree because that is acidic and as they'll rot down into the soil they'll make the soil more acidic and blueberry plants like ericaceous acidic soil so hopefully you'll be all right there now mate. It looks quite happy so that's a good sign isn't it. It's lovely out here today. It's not that quiet because I've got the football ground going on over there and the aeroplane's going over but it is just lovely to be out. It's the Easter weekend. Tommy's got football this morning which is where the kids are and Dave so I'm just here by myself for a couple of hours and it's just so lovely and it's really hard to believe that in a few months time this plot is just going to be full of life. I'm growing everything from seeds this year again. I didn't plan to do that last year. Last year was my first year on the plot and my plan if I'm honest with you was to try seeds and if they didn't work go to the garden centre and buy the plants like buy plug plants. Obviously then we had a pandemic so that couldn't happen so everything I had to grow was from seed and it was so nerve-wracking because it can be so difficult growing things from seed properly but I did it. I did it and I believed in myself and I did it. I just threw them on the ground whacked them in. That's where the whole whack it in method came from and the whole plot grew and flourished and I'm doing that again this year because I've got my confidence now and it's hard to believe it's all going to be so grown soon. It's just amazing. I'm ready for it and I just wanted to say if you're new to allotmenting you might be feeling nervous about doing everything from seeds and you might be tempted to go and buy plants but I would say have faith in yourself. Seeds want to grow. It's all they want to do in life is grow into the plant they're meant to be. Just give them a bit of soil, give them a bit of water, give them a bit of love. You know you'll be you'll really surprise yourself how much you can achieve because I am completely shocked at how much I achieved last year so just give it a go is my advice and don't worry too much. Yeah just just whack it in. Just whack it in and I'll leave the vlog there. I think that is an excellent note to leave it on. I hope you have a lovely Easter weekend and I will see you again next week with lots more videos, fingers crossed. See you then guys, bye.