EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES / SKELETON TOMATOES / JULY 2020

Oh hi everyone, welcome to another Allotment Diaries. My name's Emma, these are my Allotment Diaries. I'm absolutely sweating. I've come down here really early today because it's supposed to be really hot today, like 27 degrees. I thought I'd come down and do a few jobs and water and all the rest of it. I've got to take my jumper off, it's half past eight in the morning, it's already like 24 degrees. I'm sweating. Oh no sign of Sid this morning, which is concerning. I'd rather know where he is, to be honest, but it seems to have done a bit of a hiding jobby. Whatever. Alright, I just won't sit in here too long. Just wanted to say a big thank you if you did fill out that completely random crazy questionnaire that I put up on YouTube. It was really helpful, lots of your answers were so so honest and I really really appreciate it because it just, it's hard to like know what I'm doing with these vlogs and stuff and it's just quite interesting to know. I don't know. Dave, my husband, works in research for Formula One and basically he read through my questionnaire and said it's just rubbish, like it's completely biased and crap but I'm not professional so. I'll just address a couple of things. A few people said that they want to see more day in the life style vlogs and I just want to put it out there now and say I'm not going to make those again. I'm done with the family vlogging, my kids don't want to be filmed anymore. They're nearly six and nine. I was never that comfortable with like being a family vlogger and putting all my family online because I think it's just too risky and I never felt 100% happy about taking advertisement with them and stuff. I had a very very challenging relationship with an agency company that I used to work for and yeah, so I'm not going to do that again. It doesn't feel right. I'm not happy with it and I don't think there's any excuse. I'm trying to take my kids off of social media as much as possible. Sometimes they pop up on a vlog, sometimes they're on an Instagram post but it's nothing like it used to be. I want to protect their privacy and that's it. Sorry. Right, yesterday I was watching on Instagram Jazzy Little People and she trimmed her tomato plants and she trimmed them like literally so they were skeletons so I tried to do the same. I'm still too scared to cut too much off the tomato plant. I'm still too like scared I'm going to kill them even though everyone else seems to have done it. It feels very strange cutting leaves off but I'll come and show you what I've done. They probably don't look any bloody different to be honest but I think they do look. They're a little bit more skeletal like. I've left a lot of them on the top because I just got scared again but you can see like the bottom is very very bare now and you can really really see the tomato fruit and I'm really hoping that the sun can get to them now and start to ripen them. These are like a funny shape some of these. Yeah they've gone a bit of a funny shape. They've gone a bit droopy like droopy boobs. I don't know if they sort of fill out or anything. These ones sort of have. I don't know what variety they are although that's the problem isn't it. These look like normal tomatoes. Actually you know what having said that I think these are just a different variety. They might not even be red. They might be yellow. I don't bloody know. And these ones these are quite round. No they're droopy still. They are droopy. Interesting. And these ones. Have I got any tomatoes on here? I don't think I've got any bloody tomatoes on this weird one. I call this tomato plant the weird one because I've never seen a tomato plant like this before. But I don't seem to have any. Maybe I have to shake it again. I don't know what's wrong with it. I'm worried about this one now. I don't think he's going to give me any. Oh hang on a minute. Hello. Hang on a second. There's a couple of tiny ones. Okay so it is going to it is going to give me fruit. Right here's a very very very tiny tiny one. Oh it's not going to focus because it's so bloody small. It's like a pumpkin shape. The camera's gone weird. It's not going to focus but it basically looks like a tiny tiny little pumpkin. I think it might be those great big beefy round ones that have got like lines around them. But yeah we'll wait and see. I mean it smells so weird don't they tomato plants. I really don't like the smell of them but I like tomatoes. So there we go. There's lots of birds around today. Just wanted to quickly say I don't know if anyone's here. So I'm talking a bit down because I don't want to think I'm a complete nutter. But my plot neighbour has got this apple tree here which is beautiful and amazing right. But all these apples keep dropping onto my plot and I don't like it because we keep getting loads of wasps on the floor which the kids don't like for obvious reasons. What is the etiquette for that? Should he be cutting it back? Should I ask him to clean them up? Should I pick some of the apples? Because he's not picking them. They're obviously they're all falling on the floor. Here it is. You can see it's an absolutely stunning apple tree but it's hanging right over my plot which I don't mind. But what I want to know is can I pick them? Would he even notice? Because he's not picking them himself and they look lovely and every time I walk past it I just want to eat one. Or should I take a cutting? Can you take a cutting from an apple tree? Or should I grow it? I don't know. Anyway, anyway. There we go. Beautiful though. Such a nice apple tree. Very jealous. My pond is looking a little bit overgrown at the moment. It's got quite a few weeds now everywhere. Everywhere including inside the pond too. But I'm aware that there's probably a lot of wildlife kind of enjoying it at the moment so I'm not gonna do anything to it. I'm gonna leave it. It's quite wild but in the autumn time when stuff starts to die down I'm gonna sort of clear it. I'm gonna think about putting some more like perennial plants here because I kind of relied on things like the poppies and the calendula and the irises to kind of provide everything and actually they've sort of died off now and I don't have enough room to replace stuff. You can see it's really really bushy everywhere so what I'm gonna do is in the autumn time I'm going to replace a lot of this with like more perennial style habitats so that it can kind of stay there all year round or whatever. Pond plant's doing really good. I haven't done a pond plant update but look some of them are just absolutely thriving despite the pond weed. This one over here is obviously doing bloody great. We've got big ones there, big one there, big one there. The flower one's died off. I don't know if that's just because it's finished and obviously the forget-me-nots have kind of died off now but that is because they have finished. But yeah it's providing quite good coverage. I probably need to continue it to about there and have all of that covered as well. That might also stop the pond weed apparently. You should have more plants in the pond to stop the pond weed. I'm going to fish out a bit of pond weed now because I am worried about my pond and I might top it up as well because it's going to be really hot so I'm going to do that now. This here is going to be my latest building project. Oh yes, brace yourselves, I'm going to try and build something again. We're getting our loft converted at the moment and the builders have found all this wood in our loft that's kind of like long and thin. Not very good for very much. I did make a frame out of some of it if you remember but it kind of fell apart. But this time I'm going to go bigger. I'm going to make like a pergola, I don't know what they're called, pergola and I'm going to put it down there. You see where the sun's hitting down there at the moment, that's where it's going to go and I'm going to grow something up it. I don't know what but it's going to be basically, it's going to, I just want a frame that's just completely covered with stuff and I want seats under it and stuff and that's what I want. I'll sort of show you a little bit because it's going to be, it's going to be an interesting build. I need a few more pieces of wood but yeah, so I have long bits like that. It's all going wrong and I'm not even bloody building it yet but yeah, I think you know what I mean, a pergola, you know. But yeah, that's going to be my next project. I just need to get a bit more wood here and then I will be building that so if anything says stay tuned, that does doesn't it. But yeah, there's always more to be done at the plot, you know. I've got loads of plans at the back and stuff but it's just now is not the right time to be starting too many big projects because I've got all this to look after at the moment and manage so I'm trying to bide my time as well. Somebody said to me on a previous vlog that Rome isn't built in a day and it doesn't need to be perfect straight away, it doesn't need to be done straight away and I'm trying to heed that advice because I'm enjoying it so bloody much and once that bit at the back is done, my whole plot is done, like do you know what I mean, like all the layout's done and I really like that bit so I sort of want to take my time a bit and make sure I've actually got stuff to do. This place has just become a complete escape for me and it's given me things that I'd never imagined it would have given me, not just like fresh food but like a purpose and somewhere to come and just something that's mine and I think I've never really had anything, I have said this before, I've never really had anything that's like mine that I can do exactly the way I want it because I've always had, you know, I had kids really young and I met Dave when I was like 19 so it's always been us or what I have to do for them and this is purely me. I don't want it to stop, I don't want to finish it, I want to take another plot on already, you know, I'm eyeing up my neighbour's plot like I wonder if I could just take that one and chop it down but... I hope you are enjoying my vlogs, thank you for the feedback you gave me, I will take it on board, I promise, I will look into it, I will adjust the vlogs accordingly, I appreciate you watching them, I appreciate all the comments that you give me even when I can't respond because I'm so bloody busy, I love it, I love making these vlogs for you, I hope you enjoy watching them, I will see you in my next one which will be on Monday, thank you for watching, bye!