ALLOTMENT PLOT TOUR MARCH 2021 / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Good morning everyone, welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma, I've just heard someone come in the gate so I'm sort of hiding in my shed now. Welcome to my allotment diaries, I'd love you to subscribe to my channel if you're new. It's my first allotment plot, it's my second year doing it and we're in March now. We're at the end of March so things are kind of really pushing along quite quickly so we need to get going now guys, we need to get going. Not that I'm panicking you or anything but I'm panicking so I sort of feel like you should be panicking too. No I'm kidding, it's been so lovely recently, it's been like 15-16 degrees which by British standard is kind of like summer so it's been summer basically. It's a beautiful day today, still cutting the trees down, don't know what they're doing. I'm just going to check on some things around the plot first and then I'm going to sort out some sunflowers because we need to start sunflowers if we're going to have any chance of beating last year's record which I don't know what it was because I didn't He's bloody back again, I know he's back, I know it's him, bloody fox is back again because look what he's done in this bed. He's walked all through it, all through it. It's like he waits for me to sort my beds out and then he just comes and has a little party in there or something, I don't know. I'm just going to check he hasn't buried anything because foxes like to bury things apparently, not poo, they don't bury their poo like cats do. Interesting things that they find, they like bury them, they're so weird. I did once in my back garden find a bird, a dead bird buried in one of my flower beds and that was a fox, so that's what they're like you see, it's what they do, they save things. He's not buried anything today but you have to look out for that because once one did bury a dead bird so just warning you. I'm going to check on my carrots to see if they've come up yet, like I said they take bloody ages carrots so I doubt it but I might get lucky, I don't know if we've got rocks on it though, yeah what's that rock doing on it? That's not going to help anything. Oh my god, we've got carrots. Oh yes, hello little carrot babies. We've got some carrot babies, we've got some carrot babies coming up, this is so exciting. They're doing really well. Oh I don't think the camera's going to pick it up but these are definitely carrot babies, I can tell now because I'm a gardening expert now. I'm not an amateur like I used to be but I can tell these are carrot babies and they're all in the line. See how this one's folded over, they're all in the line in the rows so I know they're carrots. That's why it's quite important to plant things in neat rows because then you sort of have an idea of what's your crop and what's the weed. See I am a gardening expert now. Yeah this is exciting. Carrots coming up, they'll take months to be ready though, they'll be ready in about four months so I have to keep an eye on them and then plant another couple of rows so that I get a succession of carrots because last year I sort of picked them and then that was it. So I must remember to do that. Hello, hello, hello. Get back in your blanket. Right this is excellent, two minutes into the video and we already have carrots. Look at my purple sprouting broccoli, it's gone crazy. It's actually producing more than I can actually eat at the moment but what a beautiful bloody plant is this. This is just, I mean it's so pretty. It's almost just like flowers isn't it, it's just like a it's like having flowers in your garden because it's such a vibrant pop of purple colour. It's absolutely glorious, I'm just, oh I just love it but like I said look how much broccoli I'm getting on it now, it's just covered in it. How amazing, how well they're doing. I literally just whacked them in, whacked some poles in there, you know put some bottles over them while they grew and then away they've gone. Easy. Here we have the garlic that I whacked in in I think November, December time, actually December I whacked this in. Did nothing to prepare the bed as you would imagine from me now. It's wet soil, it's got like moss growing on it, it's complete clay. You see how it just sticks together like that, it's absolute atrocious soil but here they are, quite happy, yeah really strong, bustling, happy. I don't really know how to describe garlic, I'm not sure what personality garlic would have as a plant, sort of regimented and soldier like I imagine with a slight twang, slight twang, what does that mean? I don't know, I'm talking rubbish now but yeah they're looking really really healthy plants. Very very happy I think. Bird's nice tonight, oh look at the robin, oh look, the robin's sitting there watching me. I think you know why that is, you know what I just did to that bed when I just put my hands through it to see if Foxy had done anything and now I think he can smell worms, no he can't. That talking crap, he was just sitting there staring at me like a stalker. Right okay, I don't know anything about wildlife apparently so just ignore all that. Do you remember when I hacked back this chard and I literally just attacked it with a pair of kitchen scissors? Well it did the job because it's all growing back stronger and it looks beautiful. All these new leaves in the middle just look so healthy and the colours all come back again, look at that yellow in there. Look at that, that's beautiful isn't it? Oh look, new wheat. Oi, oi, oi, what are you doing on there? Oh you little bugger, come on. Oh what's he doing on there? He can bugger off. It's always on the plants you don't suspect and you don't check. Can't be time for slugs and snails already is it? Already? Finally just hit spring, give me a break. I haven't done much pond talk recently just because I'm just letting it be, I'm just letting it do its thing you know, i.e. I don't know what to do with it but it seems all right. The water seems particularly clear at the moment, I don't really know why because last year it was full of like this algae stuff like the whole year and I did a lot to try and get rid of it. I put hay in there which is supposed to kill algae in ponds or whatever that stuff is that grows, I say algae I don't know what it bloody is, the green stuff that grows in the water that you don't want. I'm not sure if you'll be able to see it but the water is really really really clear this year, it's almost like drinking water. There's a lot of pond coverage on it now but there's no frogs spawn. Someone asked me why I want frogs in my pond and if it's for a reason to do with like eating slugs or something and I think frogs do eat slugs and snails and flies and things like that, all the things that I don't like but that's not really the reason I want frogs in my pond. I want frogs in my pond because I just like frogs. I think they're really interesting creatures, I'm a bit scared of them but I just think they're all right and I just think as a species I'd probably get on with them so I'm just sort of quite happy to share my space with them but they don't seem to want to come here and because I can't attract them I think I want them more because I can't understand. I'm taking it a bit personally that they don't like my pond so that's sort of why I want them because I can't get them so I want them. Do you know what I mean? I think they'd like my pond personally, I've done a great job on it but you know like I said you can do all this for nature and for plants but at the end of the day it's up to them. You know you can't control them Robin's come back again, he's over there now let me see if I can zoom in, come on camera there he is. Right I don't know if you can see me here properly I'm going to sow some sunflowers today because I really like sunflowers I really like them, I think they're really good for bees as well they attract a lot of bees and I just really like them as a plant so I'm going to sow them and grow them and that's all I have to say but the seeds I'm using are sunflower seeds from last year's sunflowers and I've never grown any like grown sunflowers from sunflowers. Obviously I have every year but not sunflowers that I've grown previously and then taken the seeds from so oh you know what they look great oh at last these seeds actually look like what I think they're supposed to look like so that's a really great great great start they look like sunflower seeds exactly like them brilliant right good I've got my compost here so I'm just going to get on and sow a load of sunflowers and I'm going to stick them under that glass thing to germinate quicker see if we can get some giant sunflowers I think they're giant ones that's what I've written sunflowers big ones just in case anyone actually asks me how do you sow a sunflower seed you just you get a pot you whack in some compost and then you get a seed and you just whack the seed in and then you just throw on some more compost like that smack it down a bit water it and let it grow it's that easy no one needs a tutorial on this it's literally that easy I'm just doing one seed per pot and because I'm feeling really confident today feeling really cocky and confident I just got a good feeling about these seeds I've hit 6 000 subscribers on youtube and now I'm feeling like a gardening expert so hopefully it'll all change and I'll just know what I'm doing now imagine it was that simple that's what I'm going to do today I hope you enjoyed the video if you did subscribe to my channel lots of you already have it's so nice to have so many new subscribers it makes me a bit nervous actually because I honestly don't know what I'm doing but maybe that's why you like me I don't know anyway next time I'm going to be sowing my parsnips I'm going to be sorting out another raised bed and maybe maybe if you're lucky trying to make a new structure so that should be interesting and I will see you in my next vlog guys thanks so much for watching see you next time bye