EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES / CATERPILLARS / AUGUST 2020

Hi everyone, welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma, I'd love for you to subscribe to my channel if you're new. I'm at the plot today, it's my first ever August allotment diary. The end of August last year, 2019, was when I first took on this plot, so it's almost been an entire year. I think I took it on the 29th of August, so yeah this is like a million miles away from what it was just literally one year ago. It kind of feels like autumn now, it's really weird, but we've had this massive heatwave. It was 37 degrees on Friday and we're due like 34-35 degrees this week and the plot just seems to have died, like died down to like an autumn looking plot. So my pumpkins are going orange and sunflowers are kind of almost finished and some of them are just starting to bloom, but it feels like, I can't explain it, but it feels very autumn autumnal here at the moment, so but that's quite exciting. I'm gonna pick some flowers today, I'm also gonna make a sign for my plot because I realized that I don't have a sign saying what number plot I am, so brought some paint with me, brought some a paintbrush with me and stuff, so I'm gonna try and do that too. I'm just gonna show you my pumpkins because I was pretty excited when I got here this morning and I found that the pumpkin has changed colour. Having said that, isn't too early for pumpkins to be orange? Like I always associate pumpkins about Halloween, like October time, don't know, like orange in August, very weird. Anyway, let me show you them. Look at this that I found hiding in my pumpkin patch. Oh yes, it's proper going orange isn't it? That is so amazing. Possibly the most exciting thing that I've seen in my plot so far is this pumpkin turning orange. It's just bloody beautiful isn't it? Look at it, amazing. And then we got this one in here in the sling, he's starting to go orange too, which is good. He's just about holding up in that sling actually, fingers crossed. And then this giant one down here, he's starting to go orange too. He's massive isn't he? Flipping massive. Oh God. Now in this one here, he's starting to go orange. When they go orange I think they're done growing, so hopefully it won't get any bigger because I don't know what I'll do with a bigger one. About as big as I can manage I think. Right, these are the broccoli, they're doing really well now actually, not too worried about them anymore. Some of them have been eaten by slugs but I don't know, they don't seem that bothered to be honest, they seem to be taking it in their stride which is great. The only thing is, the only thing is, I haven't got a net to put over them, so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna look for caterpillar eggs in case one of those butterfly things have laid eggs in it. So Monty Don said on Gardeners World you can just check them, so that's what I'm gonna do. I'm just gonna like physically check them because I don't have a net, so I'm gonna look and see if I can find any eggs under the leaves. Probably not the best way of doing it, but it's the way I'm gonna do it. There we go, right, I can't see any eggs, apparently they're like really bright colour so I'd see them, but I can't see any. I can see a bit more slug damage than I thought, so I might have to, I might have to ram up the slug defences a little bit. I might try one of those beer trap things, which I didn't really want to do because I don't really like to kill things. It seems like a really horrible way to die, do you know what I mean? Like drowning in beer, but I might have to give it a go because I think they're just gonna eat them all. I think it's this big one over here, that one. That looks weird, doesn't it? That one there, that's the one I'm worried about. I think the slugs really like that one. Having just said all that, I think I've just found some bloody caterpillars. Shit, I think these caterpillars are eating them. They're really small though, I didn't think caterpillars were that small. I thought caterpillars were massive. Oh, there he is in there. I think this is going to focus to save his life. Oh, there's one there. Oh shit, there are caterpillars, they're tiny though. I didn't think they were that small. I thought they'd be massive. Why did I think they'd be massive? That is a bloody caterpillar, isn't it? There, that's a bloody caterpillar. It's yellow, it's a yellow caterpillar. That's a cabbage one, isn't it? Oh, God. That's not good, is it? That's not bloody good. I don't want another bindweed invasion in my shed. I don't want to come back. And it's all at the front as well, actually, come to think of it. I literally haven't even noticed this. But right now I'm going to pick some flowers because it's Sunday and I just want to do fun jobs. That's what I said. I can't believe the pumpkin. I'm standing here and all you can see out the plot is just orange. It's just amazing. I've mentioned before that I'm actually picking quite a few flowers now. Every time I come down here, I'm picking more and more flowers. I thought I'd share a few tips that I've learned along the way. First of all, when you pick a flower, the second you pick it, it starts to die. So get it into water ASAP. Don't put it in a basket. Get any kind of container with water. Stick it straight into water straight away. Secondly, don't let leaves go into the water because it will contaminate the water and kill the flower quicker. So what you want to do is remove any leaves that are going to be in the water. Anything above the water can stain. It looks quite pretty sometimes with a bit of foliage at the top of it. But anything under the water, no leaves. Secondly, when you re-cut the flower, cut it at a diagonal like that. What it does is it exposes more of the stem, which means that more water gets absorbed into the flower. Those are the only tips I've got so far. I'm sure I will have more tips because I am just picking so many flowers. I'm not very good at arranging them, but I don't think it really matters because nature does that for you. But yeah, those are the tips I've learnt about picking flowers and keeping them at their best for as long as you can. I hope you enjoyed the vlog today. If you did, subscribe to my channel and I will see you again on Wednesday. Bye!