EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES/ HOW NOT TO BUILD A STRAWBERRY CAGE

Good morning everyone, welcome back to my channel. So today I'm at the plot quite early, it's like nine o'clock in the morning and I have a couple of things to do today. Now yesterday for the first time since lockdown started I actually went to the garden centre and it's the first time I've been there since lockdown so it was quite scary. I was a little bit disappointed, as predicted there's not many annuals at all but as I was walking around the outside bit this guy was putting out some marigolds, like that was like the only flower that they'd actually grown from seed and I picked up two of these, so there's six in each so I've got 12 marigolds. They are French orange flame marigolds, so they look like that. I've wanted some of these in my plot, I think they're really good at deterring pests or something so I'm going to sort of dot them about but I did try to grow them from seed and they all died and then I ran out of seeds and I couldn't get my hands on any more so I'm so thrilled that they actually had some of these in the garden centre. So I'm going to plant those out today which is very exciting. Also my good friend Tom from Going Up a Lottie actually made this strawberry plant cage structure and I've got some old wood so I'm going to try and give that a go today. So those are the two things I'm going to do today. Sorry I look a complete mess, I've literally just walked here, it's like 20 degrees already, I'm knackered, I'm knackered but it's good to be here. I think the first thing I'm going to do is have a check on everything and then I'm going to build the structure. Let's build the structure. So this is the wood I got, I found it in my back garden so I think it's going to make quite a good like frame and I'll put some netting between it just like Tom did. I think it'll work but you can only try, you can only try and I think it's a good idea because I did put netting over my strawberries that somebody said that the bees won't be able to pollinate the flowers so I think this will be a better way and then the bees can still get to the flowers but the birds won't be able to get to the fruit so that's the plan. Right how do I do this? I'm going to make the structure around the whole bed because I'm predicting that the strawberries are going to take over the whole bed eventually so I'm going to make it around the whole bed. So that actually looks about right. Right now we're just going to saw them. I hate sawing. Why is it never easy? I'm sweating. It's not as easy as it looks sawing a piece of wood, it's really not. I don't know how to bloody do it. I'm just waving this thing about like I'm some kind of twat. I'm going to cut the other two bits, cut the other two bits. That was supposed to be the bloody hell right. Right there we go, there's the frame. Now I've just got to whack it together. I know you're probably supposed to screw it together but I don't have a drill so I'm going to sort of whack some nails in. I don't think it's going to, but then it's not really going to last long anyway. Nothing on this pot's going to last that long so right I'll just whack it in, I'll just whack it together, see what happens. I don't know, I don't bloody know. I don't know what the difference is between a screw and a bloody nail anyway. Oh screwing looks easier now. It's a piece of wood. Right it's sort of together now but it's a bit wobbly like it keeps moving around. Maybe that's why you have to use screws. It's only going to sit over the top of it. I'm sure it's not going to last that long. I'm going to put some netting over it now so let's do that I think. I think I'll use my staple gun. Staple gun's always a good shout. That's easy to use. The netting's going to overrun a little bit like overhang a little bit but I think it's all right. I'll cut it off a later date but it's the same. I'm using the netting that I used on the flower beds to stop Mr Fox. So I'm just gonna, you can't really see it on camera I don't think, but it's this stuff. I'm just going to sort of staple it. Staple it so yeah we'll do that. Oh shit missed the ******* thing. Right here it is the finished thing, the finished net thing. What do you think? I mean it's not as pretty as what Tom did and it's definitely not sturdy and it's probably not as good but oh god other than that I think it's all right. I don't even know if it fits. I don't even know if it fits. Right okay god I hope it bloody fits. Well of course it doesn't bloody fit does it? For ******* sakes. Of course it doesn't bloody fit. Look I measured it and everything freaking measured it. Why doesn't it fit? For god sakes. What's the matter with it? The bed must have shrunk. Now it sort of looks like it fits but it doesn't. The birds are bloody laughing at me now. Little sods. Mind you I still think it works. I don't think the birds are going to be able to get through that. So like I think, I think it still works and at least I haven't had to staple it to the bed so that I can get to stuff. I'm just so crap at DIY. I don't know how people do it. It looks so bloody easy when I watched Tom's channel. It's not easy. Not bloody easy. I'm just going to plant these marigolds now. I'm going to plant them. Do something garden-y not DIY-y. I bloody hate DIY. There you go guys. Another riveting vlog by me on the plot. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did do subscribe to my channel. Feel free to share my video around. Share it on your Facebook page. Let people know about it and I will see you back on Monday. Have a nice weekend everyone. See you later. Bye.