EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES / APRIL 2020 / THE TREE

Morning everyone, welcome back to my allotment diaries. If you're new around here my name is Emma, subscribe to my channel for lots more riveting content on the allotment. I had a thought last night, I just feel like this tree is gonna give me way too much shade over here when it fills out, so I thought I'd trim it back a bit. It's actually a lot harder than I thought it would be, so now I've got to like take all the things off this, but I've got some really nice thick trunks now to use as like a structure. I say that, but like that was supposed to be a structure, those black things are supposed to be a structure, now these are supposed to be a structure, like they just don't ever seem to be built, but I'm gonna just take all the flimsy sticks off this and see what I can use it for. I don't know if I've done any anything to the tree to be honest. It just, it's gonna fill out a lot and I'm just gonna have a lot of shade this year I think, and I've just got to sort of work around it, but I thought I'd give it a go anyway, maybe I'll do that every year, we'll see. Right, all right, I'm getting some really good sticks out of this actually, don't know if you can see, but look these are really good sturdy sticks for growing things up, so that's really useful because I've just brought my box of sunflowers here today because they, sorry, I brought my sunflowers here today because they are outgrowing their pots, so I thought I'd try and plant them out. These are quite good supports for them, so that's useful. I've got quite a way to go and it is starting to rain, so I might just turn you off for a bit and get with it. Right, my blinking neighbour's turned up too. She's never here, I wonder how many bottles she'll put down today. Oh God, right, I'm gonna keep going with that before it pisses down with rain. I've decided to absolutely piss it down with rain out of ******* nowhere, so it's pouring of rain. I have managed to collect these sticks which are really strong, really good quality, and they're the straightest ones that I could find. I've also got some really thick long branches, but I have no idea what to do with those, so I think my neighbour's hired a gardener to cut back her plot, which is so weird, so weird. There's like a gardener working here, which is just very, very odd. How do you do that? So I might see if the rain stops, if it doesn't I'll take you home with me and show you what I've sowed in April, because I haven't showed you any of my seeds at home at the moment, other than my lovely sunflowers. Let me show you my sunflowers. I carried them the whole way here in a box, and that one's held up by a pencil, but it's not doing very well at the moment. Yeah, they need to go in the ground really, because they were just getting too big. Yeah, I think they're gonna go here. Oh God, bloody rain. It's really bloody raining now. That guy's not coming back, not in the rain. He doesn't look like somebody who's gonna work in the rain. Not everyone's as crazy as me. That's the sunflowers in, which is excellent. I'm probably gonna have to stake them now, because, you know. It feels good getting sunflowers in, because obviously it's a really sunny, summery plant, so that feels excellent. I've got some of the tree down. What is that noise? What is that noise? It's like rain dripping in my shed. Okay, that's all I can do here, because obviously it's pissing down with rain. Look at this rain. Where's this come from then, eh? Bloody hell, I've left a ladder out there as well. Oh well. Oh well. Right, I might stake them, tie them in, bring you home, and show you what I've sown in April. What's growing at home, so I'll do that. Right, I'm back home now. So, it's actually the next day, because I've washed my hair, obviously. I'm gonna show you what I've planted, what I've sowed at home, basically. So, over here I have re-potted. Sorry about the mess everywhere, by the way. It's just been lunchtime, and I can't be bothered. I've just re-potted my cucumbers. So, one, two, three cucumbers. This one is doing particularly well. I've never grown cucumber before, but I have grown a load of courgettes before, like nearly every year. But cucumbers are a new one for me, so I'm quite excited. But I think I'm not gonna get these out till sort of June, if I can help it. And then here I've got some peppers. These are bell peppers. I've re-potted these as well, because they were getting a bit big. Some of them are doing really well. I can't remember what varieties they all are now, because I've kind of mixed them all up. But I know that I've got, like, the yellow peppers and then the red and green peppers. But, yeah, can't remember what the hell they all are. But, yeah, they're doing really well. I re-potted them. Normally, when I re-pot stuff, they die, and these didn't. So, I'm really impressed. I'm very impressed with this one as well. He's doing great. And the other seeds are upstairs. Basically, this side of the house is the south house, like, so I get more sun through these windows. So, all my plants have to be at windows on this side of the house. So, up here, these are my tomatoes. How amazing are they doing? I've never sown tomatoes from seed before. Some of them are just... I'm so super impressed. Again, there's about four or five varieties here, and I cannot remember which is which. But I have got a really big tomato bed planned for the plot. So, these are all going to go there. These are the pumpkins that I sowed at the weekend with Tommy. Tommy loves growing pumpkins. They're the most exciting thing to grow, aren't they? So, we've got two per pot, and they've just come up really quickly. I really wasn't expecting them to germinate and grow this big this quickly. So, I might have to re-pot them into their own pots. They're going to go out kind of in maybe two, three weeks' time, give them a little bit longer, and they're going to go over that big trellis archway that I've got. But maybe not all of them. I don't know. Right, and these are sweet peas. This is my second batch of sweet peas. The first batch did not work at all. So, I tried again. Somebody said that basically I didn't fill the compost up to the top of the toilet roll, so the seeds weren't getting enough light. So, I've done that this time. Somebody else told me to pinch out the tops, which I always do that. And look, you can already see where I pinched the top out on this one. It's already got a side shoot growing, and so has this one as well. So, these are going to go around. You know the kids' teepee thing that I made, whatever it's called? I'm going to sow those around there and have them go up there, and then I might sow some more directly into the soil in a different bed and grow sweet peas for picking. And then these sweet peas will kind of be for the kids to kind of just have pretty stuff around their already growing teepee. So, that's what I've sown at home. That's what I've got on the go at the moment. Everything's doing really well at the moment. I'm quite pleasantly surprised. I have a few more things. I'm going to plant some sweet corn in toilet rolls at home as well, just in case the ones that I planted out at the plot do die. And I'm also going to plant some rocket. I'm going to start rocket at home and plant that out. And what else have I got? Broccoli. I'm going to start some broccoli as well when the seeds finally arrive. So, yeah, I'm going to have broccoli going as well. And I have no idea how I'm going to get all this to the plot because I have to walk there at the moment, but that will be fun. And, yeah, that's what I've got growing in April. So, I hope you enjoyed the vlog. If you did, do subscribe to my channel. And I will be back again on Monday. I think I might have a cheeky little sneaky video going up on Saturday, but that's just a second channel trailer that I've decided to make. But, yeah, I will be back Monday, Wednesday, and Friday next week, 10 a.m. London time. See you then. Stay safe, stay well. Bye, everyone.