ALLOTMENT GARDEN JOBS FOR THE SPRING / MARCH 2023

Hi everyone, welcome back to my channel and welcome to Friday. Give yourself a big pat on the back because you made it to Friday which means it is time to get out into your garden and do some gardening work over the weekend. I'm going to give you five ideas for jobs that you can do in your allotment garden or your vegetable garden over the weekend to help get it ready for the springtime. Hi my name is Emma and these are my allotment diaries. I started on my allotment plot four years ago as a complete gardening beginner and I've been sharing my journey ever since. If you're not already subscribed to this channel I would love for you to go down and hit the subscribe button. There's other ways of following me as well. Right moved inside because it's a bit quieter in here. This is my Montessori Montessora cheese plant. Cheese plant meet vlog vlog meet cheese plant. He's not very happy with me because I don't water him very much. So let's get into the jobs for the weekend. So job number one is to mulch your raised beds. I always go on about mulching your raised beds. It's such a great job to do at this time of year because you really want to add as many nutrients and goodness to the soil as you possibly can ready for your seedlings, ready for your seeds, your plants, your vegetables. The more that you mulch your raised beds now the better your crops are going to do in the future because your soil is your most important thing at your allotment plot or in your vegetable garden. It's where your plants grow from and if you don't know that maybe gardening's not for you. So what is mulch? Well mulch is any organic dead matter that you can put over the top of your raised beds. So I'm talking about organic dead plant life and any organic matter not animals like don't go and kill a bunch of squirrels and then throw those over the top of a raised bed because that's not going to help you. I'm talking about organic matter anything you put in a compost bin you can put on top of a raised bed as mulch. So straw, cardboard, compost, manure, wood chip, shredded paper, all great things to mulch your beds with. Mulch does a couple of things. So firstly it improves the quality of your soil, it adds nutrients. You know vegetables are very very hungry plants and they suck the life out of your soil. They just they just take take take that's all they do. That's why it's okay to eat them guys. So when we mulch our soil we're putting goodness back into the soil again. Secondly it's really good at water retention. So imagine you're just putting a great big blanket over your soil with a new mulch and then you're going to retain all that moisture. Thirdly it helps with the structure of your soil. So adding more organic material in it's going to help with things like drainage, it's going to break up the structure of the soil. You don't want thick gooey clay like soil. Imagine the roots of a plant they need to push through something. So if your soil's sticking together and it doesn't come apart very easily then roots are going to have a really hard time pushing through it. You can do things like grow potatoes in it or root vegetables and that will also help to break up the soil. But adding organic matter is just the best thing and then it turns into like an apple crumble style texture. So it holds its shape a little bit but if you break it up it breaks up really really easily. That's what you're looking for that delicious apple crumble style topping. So mulching our raised beds I like to do it with just a great big bag of multi-purpose compost but that's what I do. I also usually layer it up with a bit of cardboard and cardboard is really good for moisture retention. It's really great at weed control because it suppresses all the weeds. It stops it blocks out all the light and just basically smothers them so you know the little buggers die a really horrible death. And also worms really love cardboard. I don't know why but if you water your cardboard it breaks down quicker. Earthworms love it. They can't get enough of cardboard. I don't know why that's a thing but like if you were having a party for a bunch of earthworms just literally bring a load of cardboard. They'd love it. So go out this weekend and mulch as many of your raised beds as you can with whatever organic matter you can just not dead squirrels. Number two we're going to start weeding our plots now guys. Oh yes as the weather gets better and the soil warms up and believe it or not the soil is actually warming up even if you still feel cold and you're wearing a coat and a woolly hat the soil is warming up. One of the ways that you can tell that is happening is that you start to get weeds and of course the second that weeds start to grow we need to start getting rid of them. It's particularly if you are growing vegetables because weeds just suck all of the nutrients out and they're taking too much away. Vegetables are very hungry plants. We need to remove the weeds as much as possible. The best way of staying on top of weed control is to do it often. Use a hoe and just break up the smaller weeds. When weeds are tiny they're easier to get rid of so every time you go to your allotment plot now you should be spending at least 20 minutes just going around and just hoeing all of your beds over getting rid of all of those early little tiny weeds. Number three spring early spring is a great time to be sorting out any structures and fixing shed roofs and things like that. I always go up and give my shed roof a bit of maintenance because if that falls in I don't know I've had it basically. I don't know how to fix an entire roof so I find it easier just to go up there every early spring and just keep an eye on it do some maintenance put on some ground sheet where there's holes in there or anything so it doesn't leak over the summer. It's also a great idea to put up any structures so if you're going to grow pumpkins this year maybe start putting up your archways now put up your sweet pea tepees and put up your structures for your beans and your runner beans and your poly tunnels and things like that. It's a great time just to start getting things out there just make sure that you do secure it all down because we do still get quite a lot of wind and we are prone to some storms and stuff during the early spring in particular and things can blow away. I don't think they're not going to blow away and fall down because they do blow away and fall down. My poly tunnel blew away twice once it landed in an apple tree second time it just blew off my plot never saw it again so it's really important to secure these structures down. Number four start sowing some seeds. Yes it's time to sow your seeds. I have got quite a lot growing at the moment but that doesn't mean that you need to be in such a rush to grow stuff I just love it and I have a lot of time to do it but if you're if you're a little bit behind don't worry because seeds catch up so don't panic. You can also direct sow some seeds at this time of year that's a fancy term that means whack it straight outside in the ground. So things that you can direct sow right now are peas, beetroot, carrots, parsnips, broad beans all of these things can just be whacked straight into the ground outside. I would cloche it and cloche is like a material you get that's like a bit like a fleece put it over your seedlings or over your raised bed and it just protects it from the cold like from really hard frost and just helps to warm up the soil a bit. You can go around to your allotment plot and just put some fleece or some cloche over raised beds that don't have anything growing in it yet just to improve the heat in the soil improve the heat to warm up the soil ready for planting out later on so it just speeds up the process basically if you're in a bit of a hurry why not just whack on some cloche if you've got some but yes there's some stuff you can start whacking straight outside in the ground some other stuff you need to be starting in pots at home either on a windowsill or in a greenhouse or in a cold frame something like that most things survive at this time of year plants are stronger than we give them credit for just start sowing stuff whacking it out see what grows what doesn't I saved my parsnips too early and they all came up so there you go also don't forget to start protecting seedlings from things like slugs and snail invasion at this time of year they start to waken and come out it starts to get warmer and so that's when they come out and they're hungry and the most delicious thing to them is a brand new row of like brand new seedlings they just they can't get enough of it honestly um so just start to protect them early don't think they're going to be safe for a little bit don't think oh I haven't seen any around so I'll just whack out some stuff and leave it because they will be gone by morning they will come out and eat it all and it will break your heart that's my advice to any new allotment people always think of the danger think of the worst thing that can happen and prepare for it early that's the only way you get any crops these days and number five because I always end with a point like this is to stop and enjoy your space this is something that as gardeners we just do not do enough I particularly do not do it enough I think with a garden I always see the work that needs to be done and sometimes I forget just to stop slow down and have a look and just enjoy the process of everything growing spring goes so quickly then we're into summer then suddenly it's autumn and then the growing year's all over and I haven't even sat down and had to cut a cup of tea I think also we live in a society now where we're always in a rush we're always running around one of the great things about growing your own vegetables is that it forces you to be patient it's something that's really hard actually to get out of the habit of of like trying to rush and trying to always be one step ahead I think like we're all so goal driven aren't we and we're always looking to the future and we're setting goals and targets and we're trying to reach those targets slow down enjoy the process your gardening is your garden is happening right now spring is happening now the tulips are coming up they'll bloom when they're ready so just enjoy the greenery coming up now and wait for it and be patient and I'm sort of talking to myself here more than I'm talking to you I'm not preaching I'm kind of trying to get this message into my own head as well because I agree it's so difficult to do that sometimes but we have to try if you enjoyed this video do subscribe leave me a comment below let me know some of the jobs that you're getting up to this weekend we can all help each other out in this community I'll see you again on Monday have a lovely weekend do some jobs but also make some time to sit down with a cup of and just take a look at your garden and enjoy it as well see you next time guys thanks for watching bye