DON'T MAKE THESE MISTAKES! / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES / MARCH 2021

Good morning everybody, welcome to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma, these are my allotment diaries, welcome welcome. I'd love for you to subscribe to my channel, we're going into spring now, it's my first plot in the second year and I'm really excited to share it with you so do subscribe to my channel if you are new. Just dropped the kids off at school for the first time in about 10 weeks because obviously we've been on lockdown, if you weren't aware, and so now I'm free. I can come here every day after I drop them off and just potter around, do the things that I need to get done, which is really exciting, I'm really really happy about it. The kids are really happy to go back by the way, that's why I'm so cheery and happy, they were just smiling, a little bit tearful at times, but they're laughing and happy when they saw their friends, so it's all good really isn't it. I think I just saw a wood chip delivery so I'm just going to run and see because if that has just been a wood chip delivery, which I think it is, I'm the first one here to get it, so this never happens to me. I hope my wallbarrow can keep up, but I'm going to go and check if it's arrived. I don't know if I'm just really unfit now, probably, or if my wallbarrow's got a flat tyre, but I can only manage two wallbarrow loads. I'm going to go back a bit later and get some more, there's loads of it, I think they're cutting all the trees down outside this road, like cutting them all back, so there's absolutely loads of wood chip which is excellent, but I only managed to get two wallbarrow loads which is rubbish when you think of the size of my pot, which is about this much. I say about this much, it's this much exactly because this is what I'm showing you. This is all I managed to get, so I've got to tidy up the paths because they've sort of turned to mud and mush. I want a wood chip this bit again because it's all come out and gone everywhere, and also I've got my new bit at the back, the compost heap. Very very satisfying about putting new wood chip down, especially in the spring when not much is growing, because it instantly makes the pot look neater, look just nicer. I'm just so excited now for the spring and stuff, and it's just something very satisfying about this job. Look at that, nice neat wood chipped paths, so I probably need one, two, three, oh god, four, five, maybe five more wallbarrows of it. But yeah, wow, the difference that that makes, just a bit of wood chip, jeez louise, look at that. I've brought myself a few things at the weekend, I've bought things like cosmos seeds and things like that. It's going to go in my back garden at home because I don't have the room here, but I did buy myself something for the plot, and this is a treat to myself for all the homeschooling that I had to do. Look at these, these are dahlia bulbs, they are the speckled mix, they look beautiful. I got them from Wilkinson, they're three pounds. Last year I planted them in March, and I think it was a little bit early, and I remember panicking about them, so this year I'm going to plant them in April. They're going to be a cut flower, so I just want to cut as many of them as I can and keep them in little things. I loved it last year, I love my dahlias, and I'm worried that my dahlias that I've got now are dead, so I'm going to plant them as well. I've got some carrots to sow, I thought I would do that today. These are resistafly tosresis, tosresis, F1s, they are carrot fly resistant, and they are from the nant family, so I know nant, nanty carrots, nant carrots, I know they're quite easy, so I thought I would sow these and then cloche them. That's what I'm going to do now, sow something, it's amazing, it's exciting. I'm just going to do a couple of shorter rows in here, because I've got room in here, because this is where the leeks are going to go, so I've got some room. I'm not sure if carrots and leeks can really grow together, but they won't really cross over that much, because I'll pick the carrots before the leeks even know they're there. Right, carrot mistakes I made last year, number one, I didn't check if the soil was sandy enough and it didn't have enough drainage, big mistake, lots of the carrots rotted. Number two, I didn't check for rocks, if a carrot hits a rock it's going to fork, you don't want that, so I'm going to go through all this now and break it up and make sure the there's no rocks under there or anything, and then I'm going to sow the seed on top. Those are the mistakes I think I made last year with carrots. Oh, look at that rock, that got off. Get out of here rocks, I don't want your kind around here. Actually I might fork it over too, just to make sure. I just want to make sure the carrots don't hit any resistance in the ground, so that they can just sort of grow happily, you know, I don't want any more vegetables crying in my allotment plot, wishing they weren't sown. I'm sure some of them feel that way sometimes, they're like, why am I here? Why aren't you looking after me properly? Right, this is excellent, this is very healthy, there's loads of worms, look at that one, back under there you little rascal, but we'll give it a go. What the hell's that? A flying mouse? The trick of carrots as well is to spread them thinly, because they don't like to be thinned, and when you thin them you attract carrot fly, even though they say they're carrot fly resistant, I don't believe the word they say. They see an opportunity and they take it. There's carrot seeds, that's what they look like. It's quite thinly, it's not bloody thinly at all is it? Awful Emma, awful. It's not easy to get it thin, I think it's a skill you sort of have to learn over time. I certainly have not learnt it yet, but at least I know what I'm supposed to be doing, that makes a difference you know. Now you just close it up. I was thinking last night, one of the things I'm learning from having this allotment plot and gardening, because I am a bit of a first time gardener, one of the main lessons I'm learning is that nature isn't something that can be contained, and I think when I first took this plot on, I approached it with the viewpoint that I should be containing this garden, and that my job as a gardener is to keep weeds down, keep bugs away, keep slugs away, and contain everything that I want to grow and look after it, and I don't, now my viewpoint has completely changed. The sign of a good garden or a good allotment plot is how well it facilitates nature and how welcome nature is to it, because if you get the banners right, you know, nature should be welcome in your garden and it should help you, not hinder you. Yeah and I just think that's a really nice lesson to learn, it's just something that I'm taking into my second year of gardening, that I have to live in harmony with nature and I can't be against it, and I have to welcome it into my plot with open arms, which if you've watched these vlogs for a while, you'll know will be a challenge, but a challenge I'm willing to take. Right I'm going to nip back and see if I can get a couple more wheelbarrow fulls of wood chip now I've got my strength back, before I completely keel in, and I'm going to leave the vlog there, hope you enjoyed it today, I'm going to be back hopefully more regularly now, I'll try and get into a bit more of a schedule soon, and let you know about it, but until then if you hit the little bell next to subscribe, you'll be notified every time I put a new video up, I think you're emailed or something like that, so you won't miss one, and the kids are back at school, so hopefully I'll be able to get here a lot more, and I look forward to seeing you next time, thanks so much for watching guys, bye!