EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES / PRICKING OUT COSMOS / MAY 2020

Good morning everybody, hello everybody I should say. Welcome to my channel. I say good morning because I always put these up in the morning but I'm aware you might not watch them in the morning. So hello, welcome back to my channel. My name is Emma, this is my allotment diary. I'm documenting my first ever allotment plot. I'm based in South London and it's May. Everything is growing so incredibly fast at the moment, I can't keep up with it. I've been away from the plot for two days because we've been trying to sort out our garden at home and I've just got back here and my god there's colour, there's growth, everything is just like absolutely blooming. So I will show you around in a minute. I brought some hay with me today or straw to put around the strawberries because I think very soon we are going to get some strawberries. So I brought this great big bale of straw with me to protect the strawberry bed. I also brought some more pots that I found in our garden because we're kind of renovating our garden at the moment and there's lots like of crap in the garden but I did find some really nice little pots. So I'm going to see if the Cosmos needs potting on. I don't know if it will yet but I'm going to have a little look and see if that needs doing. My shed is an absolute bloody pigsty, it's like it's just embarrassing in here at the moment to be honest. I really need to clean it. Also I wanted to show you these lovely gardening gloves that I picked up from our local gardening centre. How pretty are these? They're just so beautiful aren't they? I don't want to get them dirty because they're so nice and yeah right let's show you around. Alice is actually lying on the grass at the moment which is just filling my heart with so much joy because I sowed that grass seed for her to like relax on and stuff. It's so nice to see her on it. I'll show you, it's so cute. Sunflowers are amazing, coming up so tall, amazing. They've just sort of done so well, I don't really know why to be honest. They've just sort of grown, I don't know, I don't know. Peas are amazing, they're right up here now. Look they're on to this level now which is amazing and yeah there's just peas hanging everywhere at the moment. I'm just waiting for these ones to ripen a bit more I think before I pick them because I've been picking a few of them a little bit too soon but yeah they are amazing. The peas have just just flown away, just done so so well so I'm really happy with the peas and the ones behind me, the ones behind me too are really good. Loads hanging on here. Birds don't seem interested in them really, nothing seems to have pecked at it so that's quite good and also the snails and slugs seem to have buggered off for a bit. Maybe that's the hot weather we've been having now, maybe they sort of don't venture out and I don't really care, the point is they haven't been here so that's good. The lettuce that I just scattered, I mean look at it, it's beautiful. I didn't even do anything to that, I just literally just scattered it and it's just grown. Chard is beautiful isn't it? This is a really really beautiful thing to grow because look in there, look at the colours in there. Look I've got pink, yellow and red together, that is bloody beautiful. Absolutely love chard, it's gorgeous. Look at the stems, oh what's that? Bugger off. Beetroot's doing really well, so under this one here I've got a white one, under that one I've got a pink one, a pinky purpley one. I've got like rainbow beetroot because I can't grow anything that's not a rainbow and yeah they're all coming up really well. I've got some more here that haven't come up yet but I've got my fingers crossed. You might be happy to hear all my tomatoes are still alive which is always a good thing. I don't think it's appreciating the wind really but it's gonna have to just sort of suck it up because what can I do? Actually I could make a little wind break couldn't I? Like with netting and just protect it from the wind a bit. I could do that couldn't I Ali? I might do that actually. Right this is the idea, I'd use that netting as a bit of a wind break. I think that works, it just gives it a little bit of um a little bit of protection from the wind without blocking the sun. Here's the wind, is it protecting them? A little bit I think, a little bit. I don't know, maybe it needs some protection on the side. As long as the wind comes in this direction. Flipping heck, it worked. Why is it wet? Oh no, shit, pegs come undone. Damn it, almost worked, almost worked. Maybe I'll just peg it with a few more pegs. Flipping heck, one of my ideas is actually a good bloody idea, I can't believe this. Flipping heck, we're gonna have thousands of strawberries you know. Look at all these, look at this one, that's a big one. Look at this, bloody hundreds of them, hundreds of them. I'd better get some straw on them. Stop the bindweed, that'd be good. Bloody bindweed. Oh it's got too hot and it's flowered, that's what happens. I'm not sure if you just heard from my random moanings, but the rocket has bolted and started flowering. I've just pulled most of them out I think, but I've got a feeling, here's one, I don't know if you can see that, but that's a flower, it's a bloody flower. Oh flipping heck, it's definitely flowered. I've got a feeling that if rocket flowers, bloody bindweed again, if rocket flowers it's kind of done, it's over. Yeah look, everything's flowering, it's all flowering. Oh shit, I'm not sure where I've heard that or read that or seen that, but I've got a feeling that when your rocket starts to flower it's going to taste disgusting and the crop's kind of done, which is a real shame. I might just take some home and try it. I think it's got too hot, it's got too hot and the plant has been under stress and then it's just flowered. That's what happens when you don't look after your plants, they go to seed because they think they're going to die, stupid things. Didn't you know I'd be back on Monday? Christ sakes, didn't you know I'd be back? Stupid rocket. Looks like rocket, smells like rocket. Oh let's bloody eat some. Oh I suppose there's only one way to really tell if it's gone to shit, is to eat it. Tastes amazing. Bloody love rocket. I didn't think it was anywhere near ready to harvest but looking at it now, I don't know why I thought that. Look at it, it physically looks like rocket. I don't know why I didn't think that was ready when it actually looks like what it's supposed to look like. Flipping strawberry cage is broken isn't it? It's all the nails have come out of it, look at it now. Oh it looks ridiculous for god's sake, for god's sakes. It's even bloody worse now. Pumpkins look great, really massive and bushy but I don't know how to get them to grow up this. Maybe you're right guys, maybe they won't but I'm going to try because that was my plant. So I'm going to sort of, I don't know really, start tying it on. Who knows, maybe it'll be a pumpkin arch and you'll all be going, how does she do it? Probably not but we'll try. There's a pumpkin there, just underneath this one. Yeah that's another little pumpkin just there, there he is. I don't know if I should be tying them up here now, I don't know if I should just give it, give it a chance or not. Now I'm going to stick with the plan, I'm going to try, I'm going to try and grow it up. How hard can it be to make a pumpkin grow, pumpkin grow up? Come on, tell me what to do, I'll be the boss. I'm in charge of you guys and you're going to grow up this freaking arch, all right? Right I have a feeling these cosmos are ready to pot on because they've got little leaves in the middle now so they've got true leaves, some of them are starting to die which is not good and yet the roots are going right down to the bottom. Oh I don't know if you can see anything, so sorry, but yeah I think they're ready to pot on. All right it might shock you to hear I've never done this before, so that's how it's going to go down. What we're going to do, we're going to try and prick one of these out using this straw like a spade thing at the end. All right let's not talk about it, let's just do it, let's just bloody kill them, hopefully not, but I'm not that optimistic about this, this feels like complicated. All right hold the leaves, not the stem, don't pull it, no don't pull it, don't pull it, don't pull it, don't pull it, that's the stem. I wish someone else could come and do this sort of thing for me. All right that's the first one done, please don't die. I've never done this before so I don't know if I'm doing it right but I think that's what you do. Right there they all are, fingers crossed, fingers crossed guys. Most of them look okay, this one is the one that I'm concerned with because it looks like it's already died and I've only just repotted it, but the others are looking quite good so we'll see. Right guys I'm going to leave it there today, I'm covered in mud. I hope you enjoyed the vlog, if you did do subscribe to my channel and I will see you in my next vlog which will be on Wednesday. Do feel free to get in touch with me on Instagram, I will link my, I'll leave my Instagram link below so you can click on to it but it's obviously better to access on a mobile phone, I don't know why I said that because I just did, but yeah, hope you enjoyed the vlog and see you in my next video guys, goodbye, bloody door.