I GOT STUNG / SOWING PARSNIPS / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Morning everyone, welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma, these are my allotment diaries. I'd love for you to subscribe if you're new and I just vlog about my allotment plot basically, that's what this whole channel's about. I've just got here this morning, I'm not feeling 100% today, I've got spots on my face where I've had to wear a mask, dropping them at school and everything. I'm just feeling a bit stressed and anxious really. So I just want to come here and just sit for a little bit this morning because there's just something incredibly calming about this time of year and by this time of year I mean March when it's spring, the weather's getting better, the daffodils are out but there's not tons and tons and tons growing and it just feels really calm. It's almost like you're waiting for things to get going but you're kind of in no rush as well, you feel kind of, it's like a really calm before the storm kind of feeling at the plot at the moment and I just want to enjoy it this year because last year I got a bit carried away and I just started planting everything too early and stressing over things growing and stuff so this year I'm just sort of ready to enjoy it and just try and take a step back sometimes and just, I don't know, take it all in I guess. My neighbour seems to be growing something, a kind of unusual tree. He seems to have discovered how to grow cds on his tree so look at that. I can only assume this is some kind of new age way of getting rid of birds and deflecting them, maybe they don't like cds, maybe they've got bad taste in music, but yeah he's just got cds all over his tree. I don't know what kind they are, mortal combat, well they're like gaming, maybe birds like games, I don't know. Using my new expert gardening knowledge, I can only assume that the backs of these like reflect light and deflect birds away because the power of light deflects them away. Just some kind of deflection technique, birds don't like light apparently so there we go. Maybe I should put some torches on my plot to deflect the birds away. I don't really have a problem with birds though, like my purple broccoli is just doing amazingly and the birds don't seem to care about it. I covered it for ages but I didn't really need to because for some reason they ain't bothered. Loads of it. Right I've got this new bed down here that I need to dig out. I don't feel like doing it today, I'm just not in the mood for digging. Sometimes I am and I find it really therapeutic and sometimes I'm like no stuff that, I'm not doing that and today I'm like stuff that. But this is the bed, it's not very big, it will need to be done at some point. I don't think it's going to be too hard because it's got grass over it so I sort of feel like that's easy, I don't know why. But yeah so it's not a massive bed and I don't even know what's going to go in it yet. I was thinking of having another archway over here and growing the sweet peas over there or something like that. Like I said I don't feel like it today, I'm just not in the mood. I think what I'm going to do is a really nice job first. I'm going to get rid of this bunting on my shed and put up some spring bunting which is not really a proper allotment job but sort of at the same time it feels like it is because lots of people have bunted up. So bunting is that we call it bunting. So this is going, this is my autumn shed so I'm going to turn it into a spring shed now. Spring bunting, I thought this might be nice to stick up so I'm going to stick this up now. Someone's over there watching me, people always say do people stare at me when I do this? Yes they do, yes it's really awkward, yes I'm going to keep doing it. So there's your answer. Look how naked my shed looks without anything up, it's like a naked shed. There we go, my shed is all ready for spring. We've got spring bunting on it which I think looks quite nice. I don't know if that's at all helpful for you but there we go. I do like changing my shed up for different seasons, it just gets me in the mood for them and so I'll keep this for autumn and it'll go back up in the autumn. I'll put it down there, I really need to sort my shed out. I know I say that every time but my god, my god, I need to sort my shed out. Can someone please come and just tidy it for me, please. Right I'm going to sow my parsnips today. I didn't do these last year but I absolutely love them and I'm trying to stick with my new rule of well the old rule that I didn't stick with which is grow what you eat and I love eating parsnips so I'm going to grow these. Now these take flipping forever to be ready so I put them in the ground in March, they're not going to be ready till October, November, December time so I need to choose somewhere in the plot that is like happy, they're going to be happy just to sit and stay and not get in my way basically so I've chosen here. So I'm going to prepare this bed a bit by making it less messy and then I'm going to sow parsnips. I'm quite master of the art of wheelbarrow pushing it, I have to say that's a whole skill in itself. Right let's rake it over. Stay with me. Oh I just got stung by stinging nettles. Just put my hand on a great big patch of freaking stinging nettles. Oxley parsnips better be bloody worth it. I'm bloody killing myself to sow these bloody parsnips. Okay let's just get the bloody seeds in the bloody ground. All right parsnips are sowing a countless F1, which means to me they're just parsnips. See if I can place them. That's easy. Look at that skill. When I put these little sticks in I always feel like it looks like little graves that I've made. You sort of mean like that's the headstone and then sort of like I've made a grave. It's quite funny amuses me anyway. Right okay that's the parsnips done and sown. Good I feel good. I really think my dahlia bulbs have just had it. My what do you call them, tubers. I really think this has had it. It's welded, it's rotted, it's completely had it so I'm going to chuck this one. I think my gladioli bulbs are okay and I have brought some new dahlia bulbs, tubers sorry, so I will plant those and my gladiolis next time I think. But I think this one, this has had it. This is dead. That's as dead as a dead thing can be. Oh god it's got juice coming out of it. It's like an alien species, like a gone-off pear. That's what it's like right. That's a shame but that's a lesson learnt you see. My dahlias did really well last year but unfortunately I just didn't store them properly so that's a lesson learnt. So my next vlog I will be planting my summer bulbs, gladiolis and the new dahlias as well and then covering them. Do remember I'm in London so I'm in the southeast so my last frost day is the end of March which means that I can plant things out like that and just protect them so that's what I'm going to do next time. But if you're further north probably best to check when your frost date, your last frost date is and plant things out after that. Almost sounds like I know what I'm talking about. But yes I will be doing flowers next time so do subscribe if you're new make sure you click the little bell down below so you don't miss my next video and I will see you next time when we'll be planting flowers. Have a lovely week, see you later, bye. I still don't know how to end these things so I'll just say goodbye.