IT'S FINALLY FIXED! / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES / JANUARY 2021

Good morning guys, I already know what I want my thumbnail picture to be for this video so I'm going to do that first before I forget and if you don't know what a thumbnail is, it's the little picture you see when you see my video on YouTube. This is what my thumbnail is going to be today. Oh we're doing that at the plot but yes my wheelbarrow is fixed. It's finally fixed, Dave went to B&Q, he got the longest bolt he could get, we've fixed the wheel, fingers crossed it stays on and I'm going to go and get some whatever's there, hopefully wood chip. I don't think wood chip would be there, I think it's probably going to be manure but I'm going to get some of that to mulch my beds so yes. On that note, it's just started to absolutely pour down with rain so that's great news. I have some more exciting news as well, I have two more bits of exciting news. This is just an excellent day isn't it? Number one, my shed's so dark, I need to get a little light for it I think, all right I'll film it out here actually I think, hang on. Right, exciting news number one, I've got a new fork! It's just a B&Q one, it's the Verve range I think, B&Q Verve range, it's not like the best fork in the world but it feels pretty goddamn good compared to my other one which has got two spindles missing so excellent, great surprise by Dave, he just went and brought it for me. I think when he came to the plot he realised what a state I was in and decided to actually help me out, I think he didn't realise. Anyway, second piece of exciting news, I dragged the kids down here yesterday with me and we talked about Christmas trees so this is like the stem of it, I don't know if you can hear me because it's really windy and I've got two bags of like leaves so I'm going to mulch some of the beds with that now, that's what I'm going to do first. Watch this, it's amazing how much easier things feel when you've got proper tools to actually use, that is just like going through butter, that is amazing, I'm so happy. I love you new fork, I'd kiss you if you weren't covered in dirt. Right I'm going to dig it over to get rid of the weeds and then mulch it with the Christmas tree stuff. I just want to show you, sorry it's so noisy here today, I don't know what's going on, I just want to show you, this is bindweed, this is what I'm finding on my plot and I had this on my plot from when I first got my plot, it can look white like that and then when you get a really big bit it looks like that and that's like the stem of it that you've really got to get out. This fork is just going through like butter so I can get a lot of the bindweed out so I'm just going to pick a lot of the bindweed out first. Oh the weather is not happy today, the weather is frightful today but the plot is so delightful and since there's no place to go because of lockdown, let it bloody snow. The soil here is just fabulous, there's so many worms in it, look at it, beautiful soil, it really is. Excellent mulching if I do say so myself. I contemplated just chopping this up and putting it straight in my compost but last year when I got my plot for the first time I did see a few people using their Christmas tree this way to sort of mulch a bed, stop weeds and just keep the soil nice and warm and whatever, I don't really know but anyway that's what I've done. So it sort of looks like that now, it just looks like a Christmas tree has sort of like laid down and died in here but you know they're laughing at me again, the crows they always laugh at me when I do stuff like this because they know it's wrong, they know it's not right but it's what I've done so that's what we've done. I'll do the opposite bed because these beds here, they're like friends because they have the archway so they tend to grow the same thing so I need them to be kind of like friends so I need to do the same to each of them so that they stay friends and they don't become enemies and then grow one side and not the other. Anyway it's all in my head but the point is I'm going to do the other one as well, terrible vlogging. I don't know if it's right but it's what we've done. And then the idea is this thing here, it's quite a nice long stick thing, again I don't know if you can hear me because of the wind, it's quite a nice long stick thing and I think it's quite good for like structure building. I love structure building, it's the best part of having an allotment in my opinion, structure building but yeah what do you think? I could do something with it, I don't know. Right so my turmoil at the moment of the plot is these bloody broccoli because they've frozen a couple of times now and I don't know guys, they're like wilting, what's that all about, what are they doing now, what's the matter with them? You guys said they would come back to life and I don't believe you anymore, you're all talking rubbish because look, look, they're wilting. This is not a good sign I don't think, I don't know, I've never grown it before. Could be the best sign ever, could be like the best crop in the world but I don't know but it doesn't look like it to me. Let's check the actual broccoli, yeah see that's doing really well, that just looks beautiful doesn't it, oh I can't believe it's purple, I didn't even know I planted purple broccoli. What grows grows, do you know what I mean? Yeah this is the one I'm concerned with, there's another one in here, there's another one in here, I didn't even know I had one there, look that's a different one isn't it, I don't understand where that other one's come from. I haven't ever noticed this broccoli growing before, this is weird, should I take it out do you think? Is it squishing them all? I think I'll leave it because it was an unexpected broccoli, I've got to give it a chance you know, I don't want to be that person that just like takes his life away for no reason but that's weird, I didn't know I had one there, I thought I had three, I've got one, two, I've got five, they all look like the same bloody plant, oh well there we go, I've got more broccoli than I thought, that's good news. The other thing, sorry that was wonky, the other thing I want to check is my watering, guttering thing, I didn't check this this morning, I forgot, I forgot we did it, yeah look you can see, I don't know if that's going to do anything like that, does it have to be up a bit? I don't know how to make it stay, it's just one of the great mysteries of life I think, but we do have water in there now which I think is a good thing, it's a good thing, it's going to rain today or it's raining now so I'm going to be able to see if that works or not. Generally I think the mechanism works but it's just about waiting and actually seeing if it works because you can, you never know, I don't know, here actually if I put a long screw in, I'll show you the problem, the problem is that in the wind this bit falls down like that, so if I could get like a screw in here, a really long one that would block it from going down, that might work, but other than that I mean the mechanism is what it is, you know, water goes down there, it goes down there, it goes down there and it goes into there, it's not always good to over complicate these things, do you know what I mean, sometimes things can just be simple and if it works it works, like you guys said, if it works it works. I'm just going to turn my sweet peas around because you can see they're starting to grow towards the lights, they're bending over like that, right, towards the light, the thing to do is to turn them around so they're not facing the light and then they will sort of move and if you keep doing that eventually they'll sort of hopefully go straight, when the weather's better you can put them outside and they'll go straight or whatever. I love it when I try and sound like I know what I'm bloody doing. I hope you're all well, we are in tier four in London I think, which basically means that all of our primary schools have closed, so my kids are now going to be home for the foreseeable future. Where I am in London, our borough is quite high in cases, so it's likely that the schools are going to be closed for some time, which is necessary but frustrating because I'm rubbish at homeschooling and I'm very concerned about my kids and it's stressing me out, so I'm going to get here every day in the morning and I'm going to come about... door just flew at me! I'm going to get here every morning before school time so that I can get a little bit of anxiety out of my body before I have to teach my unruly children, that's the idea anyway, but I hope you're doing well wherever you are. I can't bloody wait for spring now. I'm just walking around this plot and I just can't wait for the spring. I'm just looking at the patches and the raised beds and I'm like imagining all the flowers up and the pumpkin patch back and the sunflowers and stuff and it's just, I just can't wait, but at the same time I can because it's just the best time, like spring is the best time when you're planning it all, so I hope you're getting to a plot and planning it and whatever. Thank you if you're a new subscriber, I've got quite a few recently, not sure why, but there we go, hello, it's good to have you here. If you are new around here, I'd love for you to subscribe, check back some of my old videos and you'll see where the direction I'm going with the plot for this year. Hope you're all well and I'll see you next time. Thanks for watching guys, bye!