THE TULIPS ALL HAVE TO GO! / APRIL 2023 / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Morning everyone, welcome back to My Allotment Diaries. My name is Emma, this is My Allotment Plot and these are My Allotment Diaries. I would love for you to subscribe to my YouTube channel if you haven't already. There are some other ways to follow me below as well. I hope you all had a fab weekend. It is so beautiful today, so it's Monday morning, it's about 9 o'clock in the morning and it's so warm already in the UK. We're going to have blue skies and sun all day so I thought what better way to start the day than to come to My Allotment Plot, as usual, have a wander around, see what's going on. I wore a jumper, I'm not sure I should have, and I sort of thought my hair was looking quite cute and natural but actually I kind of feel like I'm Professor Trelawney in Harry Potter. If you know, you know. Anyway, I'm sure you can see behind me there all the tulips, they are just getting better and better, like seriously, better and better. I think I peaked too early when I showed you all the tulips because right now they're just stunning. I mean, I'll just show them, I'll just show them all again because it's my vlog and I can do that, but wow, just wow, so stunning. So my first thought when I got down here today, can you hear the birds? They're insane today. Amazing. My first thought when I got down here was that I should really start to aerate out this polytunnel because the weather's warming up now, the sun has just been shining on it and I'm worried that it's going to get, well I'm sure there's a problem from not aerating it anyway, I can't think of what it is but I know there's a problem. As I was opening up the window shutter things, I could just feel the heat hitting me through the polytunnel so if you've not opened up your polytunnel yet or aerated it a little bit, start doing it now. What I've got is these little windows, so if you haven't got a polytunnel I'll show you what they've got. They've got these little window things and you open up the plastic and it just leaves you with this protective netting which stops any like butterflies and things coming in, so still all nice and protected. I'm not going to leave the door open just yet because obviously I don't want birds and bugs and things coming in here yet and eating everything, though having said that the snails keep getting in. They're relentless those little things aren't they? Absolutely loads of them, loads of them just all around the polytunnel, just absolutely there's one right over there as well. Loads and loads of them. I bet get them actually. They're after my food. I've got to stop them. Oh they're just horrible. Oh I don't like it, I don't enjoy it. Oh god. Oh I don't like how they just stick to it. I've literally got a pot of slugs and snails, look at that. Is that going to light up? Not even the camera wants to focus on it, it's so gross. Look at that. If I was French I'd probably eat that, just down the hatch. That's what they do don't they? But I'm not French, so. No life under the dahlia domes. The dahlia domes, that is a good one. No life under the dahlia domes yet but I'll keep checking and to everyone who commented these are cornflowers, I'm so excited. Thank you for commenting they are cornflowers. I think they are cornflowers. I was watching Gardener's World last weekend and Monty was like potting on his cornflowers and they looked exactly like these things coming up. So I think they are cornflowers which is very exciting. Also my gladiolus are starting to come up now as well, I'll just show you them quick. So these are cornflowers, absolutely stunning and in these spiky things, these are my gladiolus coming up all along it, all the spiky things. Last year my gladiolus all came up really tall but none of them flowered, not one flowered and I don't know if that's because maybe the bulbs were like, do you know how they create more bulbs, they create more of themselves and then maybe it takes two years for them to flower or something, I don't know. I'm leaving them all in the ground, they're all still growing, they're obviously fine over the winter to be left in the ground because otherwise they wouldn't start growing again. I'll just have to wait and see if I'm going to get any flowers this year but that's why I've put more dahlias and cornflowers in this year because I want to make sure I have some flowers in the flower bed. Last year the flower bed was very much like a foliage bed, you know, we don't want a foliage bed, we want a flower bed. Foliage is nice, it's nice to have green stuff but I kind of want the flower at the top, do you know what I mean? It's like getting a cake with no icing, that's what it's like. Hopefully this year I will be full of cornflowers, gladiolus, dahlias all at the back and then my sweet pea archway which all the sweet peas are still alive, can you believe it? Unbelievable how these are all alive, I put it all down to strulch or the fact that the slugs and snails are just interested in my polytunnel and not interested in these here. So I'm going to listen to my own advice today and I'm always telling you guys to start weeding and just to weed little and often and then I never do it myself so today I'm actually going to do that but before I do I want to check my compost heap because as predicted, as the weather's got warmer and spring's here, I've just forgotten all about it and I haven't even looked at it so obviously if my weeds are going to go in there, I think you can put weeds in compost can't you? Yeah I think you can. But let's have a look, let's have a look what it's doing. It's been a while since we visited compost city. Are those potatoes? Something's growing in here, something is really growing in here. Are they potatoes? Are they bleeding potatoes? Am I growing potatoes in my compost bin? Are these potatoes? Am I growing potatoes? And is that parsnip? Is that bleeding parsnip? My parsnip is growing. My parsnip is growing. What are these? Let's dig one up. It's potatoes. I'm growing potatoes in my compost bin. What's going on? I think it's potatoes. I think I'm accidentally, I've thrown some old potatoes in there like for the compost heap and I think I chopped them up and I think now they're growing. What is that? God what is that? I think that's a wood lice. Oh that scared me. I know I didn't get that on camera but my God that wood lice, I think it's wood lice, just fell from the flipping sky. Are they in the tree? It just literally just fell onto my camera stand. That was terrifying. Yeah these are potatoes growing. So I dug it and this is what I found there. That's a potato. And all of that I think, yeah all of that, all of that growth is attached to it. So this is, this is potatoes growing. I don't know if I can eat these or dig them up or what but look this is all potatoes. They've just started growing in my compost. Guys, they've just started growing in my flipping compost. And then also this parsnip which I threw in because it's like half a parsnip it's been like snapped off, it's growing. It's got roots on the parsnip. The parsnip has got roots and the parsnip is growing into another parsnip. That is weird. Why is it doing that then? Because we, we grow parsnips from seeds. So why is the parsnip growing another parsnip? Someone please explain in less than two words. Don't know. So wait I'm confused. So I don't have to grow parsnip seeds, I could just put a load of parsnips in the ground and they would just grow. Is that what this is trying to tell me? We don't need parsnip seeds, we just need to put parsnips in the ground. It's got roots coming from the bottom of the parsnip. Anyway, I don't know what to do about all these potatoes. Let me know in the comments if I can eat these or not. If I can dig them up then great. I don't know. Can you grow potatoes in a compost heap? Apparently you can because I've done it by accident. Stumped. Stumped. Don't even know what to say. Stumped. Stumped for words. That's what I am right now. Stumped for words. Though now this has happened I do have a vague memory of someone telling me not to throw potatoes in there because they will grow. I don't know if that's my imagination. I've just noticed that something not good is happening to my tulips at the front of the plot here. And by not good I mean bad. But I don't know what it is. So these went in about four years ago. They have literally not been touched. I've not touched the bulbs. I've not taken them out. I've left them. They've come up every year perfectly and this year something weird is happening to them. By weird I mean I don't understand it. It seems to be happening to the ones that haven't flowered yet which are the later ones and I don't know if you can see but basically they're just dying. The leaves are just dying. What is happening? It's like they're wilting and just dying. Very strange. So if you see these ones here great. This one's even flowered. Absolutely stunning. My favourite tulips these are. And then, typical. And then look the middle. All seems to be fine sort of around the edges but it's mainly located to the middle here so what's going on? What we'll do is we'll dig one up in the middle and see if the middle solves the riddle. Oh just a little note on this. So this is not a real trowel. I do have a real trowel but I don't know where it is and last time I was here with Tommy, Tommy found it and he's hidden it from me somewhere in the allotment plot as a game. He thinks this is hilarious. He thinks it's a joke. He says that he will reveal the location of it if I buy him a bag of marshmallows. I said no. We're in a bit of a stand off at the moment so at the moment I'm just using this. I'll see how long I last until I give in to his request of marshmallows but that's my son for you. Right. Thinks he's so smart. Little entrepreneur in the making. Right. So we're going to dig one up. We'll dig one of the bad ones up. Will the middle solve the riddle? That's what I want to know. Doesn't look rotted or anything at the bottom. Looks absolutely fine at the bottom. I need to get a bulb out. Right let's inspect this then. Feels hard-ish. I guess a tiny bit of it's gone rotten but not too much. This looks healthy. This looks healthy. This looks healthy. And then we get to the top. Unhealthy. Right up to the flower. Is there a bug on it? Is it a bug? Is it a blooming tulip bug? Could this be the work of a tulip bug? Is it some kind of bug that attacks tulips? Because from what I can see the bulb and the bottom bit of the tulip look healthy. It's the top. It's coming from the top. That says to me bug. Right? That's bug. Bug bug bug. Lovely bugs. Right so guys I've done a bit of research on my phone on good old Google and it doesn't look like it's any kind of bug. It looks like it's a disease called tulip fire which is also known as Botrytis. Sounds awful. Tulip fire is perhaps the most well-known disease to affect a tulip. A fungal condition that can attack all parts of the plant. This disease is a threat to all commercially grown tulip species and cultivators. It can be present in the bulb at a time of planting or transmitted during a growing season. If not handed swiftly these spores will spread rapidly through your flower bed and possibly to your lilies. Luckily I don't have any lilies but it doesn't know that. How to treat. That's what we need. Unfortunately there is no cure. Infected plants should be disposed of immediately, not composted and beds should be monitored carefully for signs of spread. I need to get rid of him because I don't want it spreading to all my other lovely tulips. Right. They're my favourite. Why is this happening? Right ok. We better get on this. Man this hurts. This physically hurts. This is not an easy thing to do. These are my favourite tulips and these have been with me since the beginning of my allotment journey. This is pretty devastating. I'm not enjoying this at all. Not one bit. This feels horrible and also some of them are so beautiful. But I just know that once the disease takes hold it's going to take hold of all of them. I need to get rid of them. I don't want it spreading to the rest of my tulips. So I do know that but I feel like I'm getting rid of all my little mates you know. They've been with me from the start. It's just not nice. Nature can be so cruel sometimes can't it? I didn't even get to see them bloom. I didn't even get to see my favourite ones bloom. Right that's my favourite tulips and my first thing I ever planted on the allotment plot officially gone forever. I've definitely probably missed a few little bulbs and I have to pull them straight up next year when they start to grow or if I do it this year and get rid of them. I didn't compost them because obviously we don't want to spread the disease. I think Emma four years ago would probably have left them and been like oh they might be alright or just removed the ones in the middle. Now I'm a lot wiser and I know that disease is just unstoppable and because I've got so many other tulips on the plot the last thing I want is it spreading everywhere. I don't know if it already has. Let's have a little closer look at some of the leaves on this one. These all look pretty healthy. Yeah they all look ok actually. These ones are ok I think they've just been eaten. I think it might be a squirrel or something's come and eaten them but these all look fine so they're ok. And then these ones were the closest to it and I think they've survived. These are pretty aren't they? These are pretty colours. Oh what's that? Oh god is that the start of it? No that looks like a bug's eaten that. Alright we can handle bugs. Bugs are fine. You can have that one bugs. These are really pretty aren't they? Lovely colours. That was really sad and annoying but it happens. It's life on an allotment plot and nothing lasts forever. I mean they've lasted a long time those tulips and done really well year after year and now I've got all these ones so oh man I wasn't expecting to have to do that today though. That was a bit devastating. Oh god the ups and downs of allotment life. We'll end it on a high guys because we couldn't possibly leave it on such a low blow. Not on a Monday. It's Monday. We've got the whole week to go guys. We cannot end this on a low. My beautiful polytunnel is in full bloom. I didn't actually expect this. I didn't plan for this but it seems I've created a flower tent. We have got this absolutely stunning pak choi which is flowering like crazy. It is beautiful and then over here we've got our radishes which have finally flowered. Look how stunning the flowers are. I might grow these in my borders at home just because these are the kind of flowers I was looking for and these ones look they're pink. They're so stunning and beautiful and delicate and dainty and I just love them and it looks like I'm going to have lots more as well. Incredible. So beautiful. They're flowering all around here. Oh I've got a kohlrabi which has also flowered. How beautiful. What beautiful flowers. This one hopefully you won't will you? You'll give me a kohlrabi right? But you, you can flower. So technically when a plant flowers before you've managed to harvest whatever it is you're growing it's called bolting and it means that once it flowers usually the crop that you want to harvest is going to taste really bitter and horrible because the plant's now putting all it's energy into the flowers. So it's not something that you want to encourage massively like if you actually want to get harvest out of stuff then don't let it bolt. There's a couple of things that you can do to stop them from bolting. Firstly give them a drink, maybe they're just hot and they're under stress. Secondly you can cut the flowers off as soon as you see them start to throw flower shoots up, cut them off, give them a drink, cool them down a little bit and hopefully they'll be alright. Otherwise my honest advice, let them flower. Just let a few of them flower because they're absolutely stunning when they do and you will find flowers that you never knew existed in this world because nobody grows radishes for flowers, nobody grows a kohlrabi for flowers or a pak choy. So you will see flowers that people don't normally grow, don't normally see and it is honestly so rewarding and so fascinating and the wildlife, the pollinators love it. Any vegetable that flowers, they love. So always look on the bright side. So our little saying today will be always look on the bright side, no matter what happens there's always a bright side somewhere, just look for it. I hope you enjoyed my vlog today, if you did do subscribe to my YouTube channel. I'll see you again on Wednesday, hopefully the weather will stay so beautiful that we'll be able to get outside again. Have a lovely gardening week. Bye!