PREPARING THE GARDEN FOR SPRING / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Good morning everyone, welcome back to another vlog by me. These are my allotment diaries, my name is Emma but today I will be potting around in my garden at home just because I haven't done very much in here. The kids are on half term now and it's just the perfect weather to be out in the garden. It's so lovely and sunny today and beautiful and I've got quite a few little jobs to be getting on with, things that I just want to you know tidy up and sort out and stuff before kind of the real nitty gritty growing season gets going and then I sort of lose my head and run around like a headless chicken for four months basically. I just want to say a big hello to all my new subscribers, thank you so much for choosing to subscribe to my channel. I've got so many allotment videos from the last three years that you can go back and have a look at. I've left the February and January vlogs from 2022 below in a playlist so you can have a look what I was up to this time last year. I hope you enjoy them, thank you so much for subscribing and if you are not subscribed already please hit that button, it will make my day. I got some money this weekend for my birthday, it was my birthday the weekend so me and Alice are going to go down to B&Q now and see what we can find. Right just like magic we're back from B&Q so I didn't buy a lot, I didn't really know what I wanted, well what I wanted actually was great big bags of compost but I couldn't carry that home with Alice so I just went with a couple of plants basically. I'll show you what I got, they are quite exciting. So first of all I really wanted to get a raspberry plant but I need to build the structure first and make sure I've got the room for it so I didn't get a raspberry plant but I did get a blueberry plant and I think this blueberry plant is going to go in my back garden because I've already got one at the allotment plot which doesn't do very much but I think if it's in my garden I think I'm more likely to be able to get to the blueberries before the pigeons do because you know they're all over it. It's called blueberry duke I don't know what that means, basically it's a blueberry plant and it grows blueberries so who knew that there were different types of blueberries guys, who knew? I also picked up because they had these on offer, I picked up a couple of roses for my garden. I don't have any roses and it's weird because I live in like a little Victorian cottage kind of thing so roses makes perfect sense but I don't have any so these are two for £18 and this one is the designer sunset, they're patio roses so I don't think they get massive which is good for my little garden and then I've got this one which is the pink dream which looks really beautiful so two roses and a blueberry plant, that's what I got with some of my money and then today I'm going to be sowing loads of stuff which is really weird because I just did a video saying what to sow in February and now I'm literally just going to go against it and sow flipping everything so I'm going to do my cosmos today, I've got the calabrese, calabrese which I think is like a type of broccoli plant, it looks like a broccoli plant doesn't it? I don't know why they don't just say broccoli and then I've got purple sprouting broccoli which I did on my first year and I love this stuff, this stuff's amazing doing that, found these little tiny weird carrot things, look at those they're like little round like radish carrots, so strange but I'm going to do those in a pot I think, I think they'll work in a pot and then I've got some, these are for the allotment, parsnips, brussels sprouts, these are the ones that I did last year, field basket so I don't know what that means, I've got some flowers to do as well, I'm going to do some rebecchia because I love this stuff, it's so amazing and I'm going to do some verbena, bonariensis, bonariensis, bonari, the purple one that's really tall and looks really pretty so we're going to do the verbena, so I'm going to do some seed sowing as well, I think first of all though I want to go out and have a look at the garden, I want to get outside, I want to get outside, here's my little window box here and that's my desk where I work, you can see my little potatoes there and I want to do like jazz this up because I do have some tulips coming up, I think I've got some crocus, maybe a few, I don't know what else, this is a rosemary which is just indestructible, doesn't die ever, that would survive a nuclear blast I think, they just don't die do they? I've got this ivy coming over which I really like, I don't know why it's going under there, why are you going under there? I don't think that's a good idea guys because I think you're just going to get stuck under there, can you not do that? But I brought some of these which I know are about to go out of season but I couldn't resist them, they're primula, primulas basically, this is the woodland rose, I've got the star fever, looks beautiful and I think this one is the, it's this one, woodland rose again, so I thought those would be quite nice in that little pot just to jazz it up a little bit, most of my pots out here are full of bulbs now, spring bulbs, because I just couldn't help myself, I wanted it all to be all spring bulby, this is still alive, what is it? We don't know because we didn't label it so we don't know but it could be a cabot, it could be a cauliflower, this is my little herb garden and would you believe it, I left this out right, all winter, it's all alive guys, the chives are growing back, this is thyme I think, no that's thyme, that's something else, this is sage and this is parsley and it's all just grown back, can't believe it, I don't know what that is, oh I also got some of these violas and I'm going to put those out as well, these are edible, did you know that, you can put them on salads and on like avocado on toast, they're beautiful, quite a lot of work in my garden actually over the winter time and I actually spruced it up quite a bit so when I'm coming out here now it doesn't look too bad, I'm actually not that scared by it this year which is amazing, so most of the borders have been weeded so I don't know, I really don't know but it just looks a lot better, I mean it looks quite empty I think, that's the only thing with it, the borders look a little bit empty but they do look neat and you can see that all my daffodils are starting to come up as well, this is the new border that I dug, you can see that all the daffodils are coming up at the back because they're quite old now, old daffodils come up like easy peasy, I planted a load of new tulips, I can see the cat's been walking in here, I can't see any tulips coming up and that's concerning guys because I know they're coming up everywhere else, so many things eat tulips, so many things eat tulips, like you wouldn't believe how many things eat them, things that you wouldn't expect to eat a tulip eat a tulip, like birds and mice, squirrels, foxes, cats, like everything eats tulips, they must be delicious, I really want to dig and see if I can find one, is that a slug or stone, that's a stone, oh let's play is that slug or a stone, that's my life though, is that game, oh hang on a second, hang about, hang about, hang about, that's one, it's probably a good thing isn't it, oh yes another one, hang about, here he is, hello mate, hello, looking for you, I thought you died, unfortunately the same cannot be said down here because this tulip, he's been proper dug up, he's still growing though isn't he, shall I bury him, it's all right mate, I'm here, I'm here now, that's what I get for encouraging all the wildlife into my garden, that's how they repay me, by eating all my spring bulbs, right this area down here just needs a bit of a spruce up and a clean, so I think that's where I'm going to start today, I've got my fancy cord job gloves on today, feels like spring, so I'm going for a nice bright red colour, if you're looking for these gloves I've got a link below in my description bar which will always be there, these are my favourite gardening gloves and these are the spring ones, more like summery ones because they're a bit thinner which seems perfect for today and they're super flexible, let your fingers wiggle about and stuff, they're just brilliant, I'm a massive fan, so the link's always below in my description bar if you're looking for a good pair of gardening gloves and I'm just gonna put my headphones in and get on with this now, so let's do it, it got stuck in there, so I started another compost heap with the best possible intentions, this is how it's looking so far, basically just a blooming mess, it was just so flipping cold in the wintertime, I threw everything there and I thought oh that just compost down, obviously it's not just composted down, it's sort of become like the hidden thing in my garden that I'm really ashamed of, I try and hide all the time and I think what I'm going to do is try and chop it down a bit, right I don't have any shears at home, shears are like great big scissors basically, giant scissors for the garden, I don't have any of so I'm going to basically smash it with a shovel, see if that works, from experience there's not much a pair of shears can do that smashing it with a shovel can't do faster, that's the logic we work on on this channel, I think the shovel is not going to work, what am I supposed to do with this? I'm thinking trellis, I'm thinking trellis, what I'll do, what I'll do, I'll cut all that back and I'll put some trellis up there, nice piece of trellis and that'd be like my compost area, i.e dump everything over there and hope it does something area, that's a good idea, I'll get some trellis for that I think, and this down here, this is a tree that keeps growing out of my like patio so I'm going to try and snap it off, I don't know if I'll be able to but I just don't like it, why is it so bendy? why is it so bendy? why won't you snap? bending, what the heck is that? is that why you haven't died? because you're just some rubber tree, are you a rubber tree? oh my god, oh snapped it, we did it, yes! god it's indestructible, all right that's one bit gone, that's good, that probably took what a year to grow, do you think a year? I don't know, it's dead now, right I know I said I was going to put the primrose in the in the box by the window but I think I'm going to put it in this one and this has got a few tulips and some crocus flowers coming up so I think it needs a bit more colour, let's whack them in really, let's whack them in, got to try and get them in without killing the bulbs though, all right if everybody just moves over a bit we can make room, let's move over, move over, it's all right guys he won't be here long, he'll be dead soon, that's nice, like that, just put one in here, try not to kill anything that's coming up, sort of wanted to go there but I think he's going to kill, well listen don't kill anyone when you when you're going in all right, try not to kill anyone, just ask for everyone to move out the way a little bit, come on come on, just keep your head down for a few days all right, this is a thyme from last year so it's a thyme plant, I thought, I don't know why I thought, I thought that these were annual and it would die but it looks like it's coming back again so I might just leave it and see if it comes back again, I really thought that herbs just died, I don't know are your herbs coming back because I left my herbs out literally in the snow and it had like a foot of snow on it and it's coming back so what do I know about anything, right we're going to put some violas in these so pretty, love them, right so that's the blueberry plant out and I put it in this great big pot here I think that's a good position for it, it actually says that it can thrive in any condition, sun, shade, partial shade, anything, so I'm going to put it in there, give it an ericaceous feed every now and then, sorted all my pots out, done all this here, got all my violas in, I ended up putting a couple of viola plants in here too just because I think they can all squish in and make room he's quite happy there, Alice looking quite nice now, quite springy, right coming inside now I'm getting like interrupted by my neighbours and my kids and everything like a million times which is what, can you hear my son, a happy child is a singing child, so yeah I want to sow my seeds now really but what I'm going to do is I'm going to tidy my house because it is looking a little bit of a mess, so I'm going to do that and then I'm going to start sowing some of my seeds I think, right so to sow these seeds I'm going to use coir product, I'm not very good at using coir among all the other things I'm not brilliant at but I don't really understand it, it's a bit of an alien species to me and all I've got are these big coir pads things, so they're not like the little ones that people sort of grow on Instagram, they're like the big ones, so I think what happens is you put water on them and they sort of grow and then I was just going to mash it up and use it as like a compost sort of like a soil thing, now I really don't understand it because I thought I'd just be able to mash that up but for some reason it's not mashing, oh it's got bigger, this is my whole plan, my whole plan is to smash this up so if I don't smash it up there is no plan guys, it's a bit like being a kid and trying to make a mud pie, I think it needs more water, I think it needs more water, I don't know how long I'm supposed to wait for it to have all dissolved but it feels like for the rest of my existence on this planet, the top one is just stabbing me on, I'm sick of playing these games, come on just, why are good ideas only good ideas in my head, oh joking, I just landed on my face, right if you're new to this channel welcome, yes it's always like this, no I never know what I'm doing, somehow I'm muddling along, for some reason this is a gardening channel, so then we'll just pop off, I don't like the feel of it, I don't like anything about it, okay so we'll just put this in here like this, we'll do one row, well we do want us a lot of the plants though isn't it, I'm not really going to want to look after that many plants, five, six brussels sprout plants, that sounds about right and I've just planted a million seeds, so hopefully we'll get one, oh my god are you eating the coir, don't eat coir, where are you going, where are you off to, you have to eat my roses, oh god not everything is edible Pippin, right what was that we just sowed, what was that, sprouts, oh sprouts, yeah sprouts, sprouts, sprouts, right, oh you're gonna have a, you're gonna eat the door now, fantastic, brilliant, get a rabbit everyone, that's great, oh no, oh joking, no it's going everywhere, oh they all look the same, all the seeds look the bleeding same for all the plants, right there we go, there's five million cosmos sown, fantastic, oh so good, I love sowing seeds, I wonder if that'd be warm enough out here though, I do this a lot with a lot of my seedlings because I've run out of room inside my house quite quickly, so it has to go out here, what I do is, oh my god, why do I talk to things like it's going to answer me, I don't know why I'm like this, right, I'll just put a bit cling film on it because the cling film acts as a bit of a mini greenhouse or like a propagator thing, because I was looking at them in the shops and I was like oh it's just a bit plastic over in it, I mean most of that was supposed to be sown in like April so we're way off the mark but you know who are we to listen to rules, so I don't know how interesting this vlogs is going to be, this vlogs is going to be, I've been out here most of the day though and I didn't film most of it because I was just busy getting on with it, this took me ages, I know it looks roughly the same but trust me it's not roughly the same, it's completely different, I've swept it all, I've tidied it, I've made it all neat, I've sorted things out, I've sorted this bed out as well which looks so much better now, all of this area looks a little bit neater, so I'm actually really happy with the work I did today, I picked up the camera just because I know I usually put a vlog up today and I didn't want to like leave nothing up again, but yeah let me know if you enjoyed it or not, me just pottering around in the garden and getting into a fight with stuff mainly, I mean that is pretty much what this channel is isn't it, let's be honest, if you did enjoy it today leave me a comment, leave me a like, let me know, subscribe and I will see you again on Wednesday, I'm going down to the allotment plot tomorrow with both of my kids so I'll have an allotment vlog up for you on Wednesday, enjoy, thanks for watching, bye!