EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES / HELP THE TOMATOES! / JUNE 2020

Oh guys I've had an absolute disaster. I think sunflowers died. I'm sure that's going to die now. Oh this is annoying. I've got to stake it as quickly as I can. I don't think he's snapped though. I've just checked the stem and I don't think it's snapped. I think it's just bent. So you can see the top bit's bent where he's been lying down for a couple of days but it doesn't look like there's been any damage down there so fingers crossed he lives. Oh Jesus Christ. What a disaster. Hello everyone. Welcome to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma. These are my allotment diaries. This is my first allotment plot as you can probably tell. I'm having a bit of a disaster because I just can't get here every day now. I can't get as much as I want to so every time I come here there is some kind of disaster that I've got to avert which is just it's kind of heartbreaking in a way because I feel like I've worked so hard and then this whole I've got to be home for homeschooling and I've got other commitments now that have come out of nowhere from the bloody pandemic so it's like it's just getting a little bit neglected. Anyway I'm here and I'm saving it. Now I did notice that there's been a new wood chip delivery. I've ordered something and I ordered this thing in March and it's just arrived in June so bear with me. My bloody wheelbarrow has been broken for months and I ordered these nuts to fix it and I believe this is the nut that I needed. I ordered it as I said in March. It's only just arrived. If this is not the right size I give up. I give up. Right this had wire around it because someone suggested I try some wire around it. It sort of worked but I wouldn't want to try and carry a load of wood chip in it if you know what I mean. Okay oh god please fit please bloody fit. Please fit. I'm joking. I've been waiting months for these. Bloody fit. Is that the only size I've got? Oh for christ. I've got hundreds of them. Hundreds of them. All the wrong freaking size. Joking me. I'll stuff it. I'm gonna put the wire back around it and see if I can go and get see if I can go and get one. I've re-tied it with the uh wire. It looks pretty sturdy. I'm gonna go for it because not many people are here so if it collapses and everything goes everywhere I sort of feel like not many people are gonna see. So I'm gonna go and I'm gonna go for it. Wish me luck. I'll let you know when I get back if I made it. It held up surprisingly well. So I got three. It doesn't look like enough now. Three wheelbarrow fulls which is about that. That but call me lazy but I'm sweating. I'm sweating. Everyone's arriving now. My wheelbarrow sounds like it's dying so I'm stopping there. I'm stopping there. What I'll do is I'll come back tomorrow morning and get three more wheelbarrow fulls as long as it's still there. I think it will be to be honest. Um so yeah. I hope the bird catches the worm. Early allotment catches the wood chip. That's what I say. Right let's spread it out. Oh my god. I need to jump in my pond for a bit and have a swim with the frogs. There's no frogs though. No bloody frogs. Where are all the flipping frogs guys? I don't really understand where all the wood chip has gone because I only walk on it unless Fox is taking it for his lair. I don't know. Do foxes have lairs? Maybe he's got a wood chip lair. Maybe he keeps it nice because it's another allotment. I don't know. I'm talking shit. Right let's just rake it. Where's my broken rake? It's not going to be anywhere near enough. Bloody hell. The wood chip is not just about it looking good. You know we've actually, it's a practical reason for it as well. We've had so much rain and um you can imagine if this was just all mud or even grass it would just, I'd be going up and down the path and it would just be getting muddy and slodgy and it just wouldn't be easy to get to all my produce and stuff so it looks nice with wood chip but there is a practical reason behind why I'm doing it as well um and I obviously need a lot more so I think every day I'm going to fill it all up around here and everything. Every day I'll come now I'll just try and get a few wheelbarrow fulls of wood chip. Look how much my grass has grown down there. It's like covering the wheelbarrow. It's amazing how quickly that grass has grown. Another reason why I wanted grass is I know it really helps with compost heaps so I'll have to cut it in. Not today, not today. These cosmos flowers that I um took out. Why is there bindweed on that one? Where the hell is that coming from? It's coming from the ground. Um yeah I took these you know I picked these out and did them all properly like you're supposed to. They're doing really really well. They're really happy. I'm wondering actually because I know these get quite big they can grow up to like sort of four foot. I'm wondering if I should take a few home with me for my garden now that I've actually got a garden because otherwise this is a lot. I don't really know where they're going to go. I can see here a few of my cabbages are starting to germinate which is amazing. These have taken a long time these cabbages. I wonder if it needs covering a little bit. Yeah these are taking quite some time to germinate um but yeah that's good that they're actually working. That's excellent. I can see that something's been eating my peas. This looks like the work of birds or squirrels. Bear heads or squirrels. Look they've had a right little feast in here. To be honest they can have ones that I'm putting into the ground are being left alone um and a couple of the new ones that I put in in the last vlog have actually already started to grow and germinate so it's amazing. But yeah the ones in the ground are being largely left alone so to be honest you know if they want the ones in there then that's fine because then they're leaving these ones alone so I'm quite happy with that to be honest. That's fine they can have those. Something's been digging in here and I can see you're probably not going to be able to see this but I can see sort of paw prints where something's been walking around this bed. Um they don't seem to have dug the seeds out as such which is quite good but when I dug it out I did say you know I'm making a bit of a toilet here for a fox or a cat or a squirrel and I am and I have. That's what I've made. Very good at making toilets for animals unintentionally of course. My tomatoes don't look very happy guys. I'm getting worried. Look on the back of this one. What is that? And this? Is something eating it? That one looks okay. That one looks okay. Maybe I should pull the ones out that look a bit funny. Oh crap this has gone all brown and blotchy. What do you think that is? Maybe I'll give them a feed or something. Oh this one's done it too. Look look at that. What is that? What is going on with my tomatoes guys? What should I do? Should I pull the ones out that've got brown on the leaves or should I just leave them? Oh I don't know what to do. Oh my god what the hell is that? I might give them a seaweed feed. I'll give them a seaweed feed. See if they need that actually. Let's do that. Tips it all out around it. Oh god absolutely stinks as well. I hope you enjoyed the vlog today. Please let me know what's going on with my tomatoes because I'm having an absolute panic attack with them. I will see you in my next vlog guys. Thanks for watching. See you next time.