GROWING PEAS IN A GUTTER! / MARCH 2023 / ALLOTMENT GARDENING

Lovely, look at that! Not today! Good morning, welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma, these are my allotment diaries. If you are brand new around here I'd love for you to subscribe to my channel, it makes such a big difference. When I see my subscribers going up I know that I'm doing the right thing, I'm putting out content that you like, so I would just love for you to subscribe and then you won't miss anything. So hit the subscribe button! I feel so awkward saying that even now after all these years of doing it. Hello, how are you doing? Thank you so much for all your comments on my last video. The netting has been taken off of my little structure that I made and a lot of you were suggesting these clips from Poundland I think, to hold the netting in place and I'm going to have a look at that. And I think that Poundland do quite good gardening stuff, don't they? They do have quite reasonable gardening stuff, so I'm going to have a little look in there. Anyway, everything's still standing, it is a bit drizzly and rainy today and I do have a job I need to do, but I need to explain a little bit about it first because it's going to seem a little bit odd really, unless I explain it. Such a contrast, this is spring in the UK all over. One day it's sunny and lovely and the next day it's grey and drizzly. It is starting to rain a bit now and it's really annoying because I do have a job that I really want to do and get on with, and that is put in some peas. Now my actual peas that I've grown haven't germinated yet, so I went to B&Q and brought some and the reason I brought some is because, if you didn't know, I actually write for a gardening magazine called Kitchen Garden Magazine and my latest article is out now. It's all about pumpkins and my pumpkin archway and how to grow it. There's a really great analogy in there about a hippopotamus chasing you up a tree, so if you haven't read it yet, go and grab it and have a read if you feel like it. It's quite a good one, I'm quite proud of it, but my next article that I'm writing now is gardening hacks. So we tried the old hoops as a structure for netting and that worked quite well. The next hack that I want to try is the old growing your peas in a piece of drain pipe or guttering and then transferring it into the ground, but the thing is I didn't plant my peas in a guttering, I went and brought them from B&Q, so we're going to have to fake it a little bit, but I know you can grow peas in a guttering, you can grow you can grow anything in anything as long as it's got drainage holes, I always say that, as long as it holds soil and you can put drainage holes in it, you can grow in it. I do have a piece of guttering up here, so I know you can already grow in it. What I want to do is see how easy it is to transfer the peas from a piece of guttering into the ground, if it's as easy as what they say. Here's the guttering I was thinking of using, it's stuck to my shed though. I wonder if there's any more lying about? Look at all this, this is all at the side of our allotment plot, terrible isn't it? Terrible. It is London, so it is a bit of a dumping site, people tend to just litter, what's it called? Fly tipping? Why's it called fly tipping? There's no flies, but yeah they fly tip everywhere and it's bad because obviously it's a horrible thing to do, but it's also, sometimes it works in my favour because I can save stuff and then repurpose it. I'm like a Womble, the Womble of the plot. Right, I obviously didn't get a screwdriver, so I'm gonna have to use scissors again to unscrew that guttering. Is there no more guttering in here? Really? Really? Just that, but that's not big enough. Okay right, we're gonna have to unscrew it. I know you're thinking it's a lot of effort just for an article, but you know I take my job very seriously. It's obviously not going to unscrew with a pair of blooming scissors is it? Of course it's not. I found a drill though, this might work. If it goes backwards, I don't know if it goes backwards. I think it does, yeah I think it does. Lovely, hey look at that. I just got that out with a drill, an actual drill. Oh I just lost the screws, oh crap, oh all the screws. I should have collected them, why didn't you tell me to collect them? What's the point of you just sitting there not saying anything? Okay that's fine. So it's gonna be quite a good, oh gosh sorry, so it's gonna be quite a good little experiment I think. I think this will be interesting to watch because I've never done it before. I know it's a massive hack, we've now got our piece of guttering, now we just need the space for the peas. I'm thinking here, so I did have that teepee ready for peas but I do think it's too small, I think it'd be better used somewhere else. So we're going to get rid of that, there we go. I'll still use it but I'll just use it somewhere else as something else. Why are nets so fiddly? I've said it before, I'll say it again, why are nets so fiddly? So what I've done is I've used this netting and then I've pegged it down with these things, you just push it in like that and it pulls it quite tight, doesn't need to be massively tight it's only for peas and then that's sort of my structure for peas, so that's done. Right it's already peeing it down now so I thought I'd come in the shed for a minute, wait for it to die down a bit and show you the peas that we're going to be planting. So these are pea early onward, so they are the ones that I've sown at home, it's just the ones that I've sown at home, the first bunch got eaten by slugs and the second bunch is like that tall so it's not ready to go out yet. These are two pound, brilliant, so good, such good value for money, you get so many in here. Yeah so we'll just give it a go really and just whack them in. I'm going to try the guttering thing, like I said so many people advised me to sow your peas in guttering and I know that there's a couple of other YouTubers who swear by it as well who I watch and so I just want to give it a go and see see if it works. That's what we're going to be doing and then I've got to take some pictures of myself doing it for the magazine so I've got this great big camera here, that's what I use to take photos for the magazine, I just have it on manual, no on auto, I don't know what I'm doing but the photos always come out nice on that so that's what I'm doing. Oh has it stopped? Has it stopped? And just to let you know the only reason I'm stopping when it rains too hard is because I can't film it otherwise I'd still be out there in the rain doing it because I'm a Londoner and if we stopped doing everything we do because of a little bit of rain we wouldn't do anything, we wouldn't have a country. Obviously if you were going to grow peas in this you'd have to put drainage holes in the bottom of it so that the water drains but you know this is all for show, this is just to try it, this is just to trial and error it. I don't like using gloves for this, I can't feel what I'm doing. Right they're in, they're in, so this is the first thing I've done at my plot that I've faked, I've never faked anything at my allotment plot before, I'm not gonna lie I've thought about it, I've definitely put a lot of pressure on myself with these vlogs to get things right and have things growing but like last year I was so tempted just to buy a load of plug plants or like just fake it all but I didn't, I didn't, it's all very real what you see, this is how it is, this is it, it's happening you know, so this is the first thing I've faked. I say faked, I mean the actual experiment is real you know, so it's not technically cheating though I guess it kind of is, anyway we're doing it for this magazine piece so if you buy it you'll know, you'll know that this one was a little bit, a little bit dodge. Right, right I've just done all the photos for Kitchen Garden magazine, I think they turned out okay, me just basically smiling and looking all profesh and now we're going to get on with it and see, oh god, if it works, so let's dig a trench first, I think what we've got to do is dig a trench, here we go, useless, look at that, right we're just going to get on and plant them in now because I think poor peas are just like what is this woman doing to me, why is she doing this, why did you buy me woman, why couldn't I go to a normal person's garden, right come on, you can all be planted in now, I know, I know it didn't work, relax, don't blame me, blame all the other gardeners that tell me it's you know, that's how you do it, it's obviously not, is it? You know thinking about it now, too late as usual, I should have planted them on the other side of the netting so that I wouldn't have to walk on the bed or lean across the bed to pick them, that's just silly isn't it, oh well, you know what, it is what it is and we've done what we've done and what we've done is that, so at least the peas be happy and hopefully they'll grow and be quite happy there, they look all right you know, now I've just got a load more peas at home that I've already sown that are coming up too but no matter, I mean you can't have too many peas, so that hack was a little bit, I don't know, I think it probably didn't work because I didn't actually sow my peas into the guttering so they were kind of like hanging on and and flopping all over the place, maybe if you sowed them in the guttering and then did it, it would work a bit better but well you know, I'm just trying it out and those are my findings, so there you go, right I ran out of time the other day to show you a few things that are growing that I'm really excited about, I thought you might be interested in seeing it too and if not, goodbye, see you next week, but yeah I'm going to show you a few of the things that are growing, so this bed has become my current pride and joy, there's always a bed at the plot where I just think you're my favourite bed and then it dies and then something else becomes my favourite bed, but at the moment it's this one, it's this one guys, because under here we have got all the parsnips coming up really really well, so beautifully, I don't know what these are, caterpillar tree things, we don't really want those in there, but yeah all the parsnips coming up well and then all the carrots as well, can you see all the carrots coming up, absolutely amazing, they're just doing so well, I can't believe it, parsnips and carrots in the same bed, we're doing it, and also to all of those asking about my rhubarb potato, it's doing something, it's growing, it's turning into something, I don't know what's happening to it, but it's doing something, a lot of you said it was indestructible and it's got like this thing on the top of it now which looks like it's sort of growing, so I mean it's doing something in there, it's not completely you know just a dead potato, I mean it's doing something, this is fantastic, so we're just leaving it alone, we're leaving it alone and one day I'll open it up and be surprised and there'll be like rhubarb there, so we'll keep this all covered just because we still might get some frost and also I don't know it's just my favourite bed at the moment, so I want to keep it you know alive, yeah that's doing really well, and then over here where I scattered all of those lettuce seeds, they're all still growing really nicely and no slugs and snails seem to have got to them so far, I think it's probably because we planted so many, but also I've got some strulch down here as well which has probably helped, as you can see it's not in any kind of logical line or anything, but all in this bed these are all lettuce seeds all coming up and I'm quite happy just to let this go a bit crazy with lettuce, I did this one year and it was really nice actually, just loads of nice bright vibrant green in the bed and you can just sort of pick it and eat it when you want, so really happy with all that, then down the end here we've got what are they called again raspberry raspberry canes, I always call them raspberry sticks because when I put them in they did just look like sticks, now they look like they're growing sticks, sticks with a bit of life, now these are I think autumn, autumn fruiting raspberries, so I probably won't get any this year, in fact I definitely won't get any this year, because they produce their fruit on last year's growth and obviously last year's growth is just a stick, so this is this year's growth, next year that will be raspberry growth, so they're a little bit more complicated than summer fruiting raspberries, I think the summer ones you just cut back to the ground when they finish, but autumn fruiting ones you have to sort of very carefully trim back and stuff, so that's going to be interesting, it's going to be an education that is, sweet peas are all still alive at this archway, haven't done anything and then let's go in the polytunnel because it's starting to rain again, again, this is just a happy happy place with lots of happy things growing, this is just happiness in here, this corner in particular like I said I could take a picture of that for a postcode, oh look at this guy, look at this geezer, how do you get in here, no I don't think so mate, not today, not today, not today, it'll be all right, don't worry about him, he's fine, they can fly, didn't you know they could fly, they can fly, this pak choy here is going to seed, which means it's going to flower and isn't it stunning, such a beautiful plant, I can't bring myself to pick it or anything so I'm leaving it and then in here you can see we've got the flowering buds, I'm so excited to see what the flowers look like and then down here we've got all of our radish coming up, we've got our garlic, we've got whatever that thing is and then over here we've still got all of our kohlrabi getting bigger and bigger and happier and happier, so exciting, we've still got living leeks, they still look like grass but they are still alive, yeah it's just so nice in here, so this year in my polytunnel I'm going to have my tomatoes along one side and then I'm going to have cucumbers on the other side, tomatoes and cucumbers are actually something in the UK that is really hard to buy at the moment, so in the supermarket where I am they never have tomatoes in because I think they had all that problem with the weather last year and nothing's grown basically to be imported, so I'm going to be growing a lot of my own cucumbers and tomatoes this year, all I've done so far guys is put the seeds in the pots and they've started to grow at home, that's it, I will obviously do videos on tomatoes and cucumbers as and when I start to get them out but that's not going to be for a little while because they love warm weather, not this, not this, well I'm sure they'd like the rain but not cold really, we're waiting for it to warm up a bit, there's more in here, there's more, brought his little babies with him, no, no, just no, no, no, you cannot eat my stuff it's been alive for so long, bugger off, surely these slugs and snails know how hard I worked trying to grow stuff at this plot and all they care about is their tummies, all they care about is staying alive, it's so unfair, so selfish, why can't they just let me eat my own stuff, why don't they eat weeds that's what I want to know, why don't they love dandelions, opened their palate a little bit broadened their palate a little bit you know and tried the weeds, they'd have a feast every night grass, why don't they like grass, so much grass around, they could just eat grass so I'm actually going to end this vlog by asking for some advice from you, it's very rare that I actually out, I actually physically ask you for advice, I normally get given advice which is so helpful but I really need some right now, so I brought myself about 25 dahlia tubers which are all sitting in a box at home, they're all very very healthy, I've been checking them over I don't know whether it's best because I'm in south London so it's good, it gets quite warm here like quite early on, I've never had a problem with dahlias before, I've just planted them straight outside sort of end of April, beginning of May and they've done fine but should I be potting them up now and letting them grow a little bit before I put them out or is it best can I just whack them outside later on and what would you do as a gardener because I usually whack them outside, usually they've been fine, last year they were a little bit funny because of the colder weather that we had, this year I have a feeling we're going to have warmer weather but what would you do, would you pot them up first and let them grow and I'll just line them up on my window still at home or would you just wait until the weather warms up and plant them straight outside, so I'd love to know your opinions on that and your advice of what you would do bearing in mind that I'm in south London so south of England where it is, it gets warmer earlier basically and yeah I hope you enjoyed the vlog today, I hope it was a little bit educational, a little bit informative, a little bit fun, if you did do subscribe to my channel and I will see you again on Friday, see you Friday guys, thanks for watching, bye!