IT'S ALL DIED! / ALLOTMENT GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS / MAY 2023

They're all under here. Good morning everyone, welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma, these are my allotment diaries and I've come to the allotment plot dressed as Legolas today. Much to my kids delight because I actually look like this on the school run. But it's fine, it's fine. Basically these are a few new bamboo canes just for supporting some of my crops that I'm going to be planting out today, so that's quite exciting. I didn't come to my allotment over the bank holiday weekend just because I didn't, basically. It was really nice weather, I was home with the kids, it was a coronation weekend and we just didn't get a chance to come down here, even though I had planned it, but we didn't get here. Unfortunately a lot of stuff seems to have been eaten. I was just walking through, I've just noticed it's really hot today. God, it's lovely. I didn't know it'd be this warm. Yeah, unfortunately as I was walking through a lot of stuff has been eaten and I'm really really gutted about it, so I'm going to show you what's been eaten. I think the thing that I'm most gutted about and I'm most angry with the blooming slugs and snails for, and I'm sure it's slugs over snails, is my parsnips and my carrots guys. No! The little buggers have been down this row and they've eaten, they've decapitated loads of them. It's so annoying because this whole row was absolutely full of parsnips and now I've just got a few dotted in between which I'm just gutted about and then my row of carrots, I mean forget it, there's a few growing that obviously were too small for them but all the ones that got bigger, gone. Just gone. I mean I'd be lying if I said I wasn't absolutely gutted. The thing is right, every year I start really optimistic that everything's going to grow and I'm going to somehow be able to deter the slugs and snails and every year they get to stuff and it's so annoying because they have been growing since February only to be eaten by slugs. I mean that wasn't the plan, you know? And then obviously, oh my god, they're literally in here. Look, the enemy is literally in here. You guys have just destroyed everything, I hate you. I'm sorry but I do, I do, I just hate you. Why did you do it? Hmm? Why? Literally caught them in the act. So these are my courgettes, as you can see, this one's been completely eaten. I don't know if he might come back, who knows? That one's completely gone. Despite all of this protection from the birds and all of these natural slug pellets, just didn't matter. I think what they were doing was climbing up the side of the net and then like lowering it down onto the plant. I feel like the more protection you put in sometimes, the more ingenious slugs and snails get, you know? They just think outside the box. Very clever species, really annoying. And then over here, my giant pumpkins that I put out, gone. Gone, just eaten. It's the whole bleeding thing, just eaten, look at that. Oh, so gutted and then that one over there is just completely gone. I'm gutted, I'm absolutely devastated about that, it's so annoying. I mean it's not too late to sow more but then if I couldn't protect them using all of that, then I just, I don't think I've got much hope of protecting them, do you know what I mean? It's so exhausting having everything eaten like that and I know it's just nature doing its thing and stuff but my god, the frustration, just, I feel genuinely devastated and I haven't even checked on these brassicas and I really, really hope they haven't got to these. I really do and it looks like they haven't. Oh thank goodness, oh thank goodness guys, thank goodness for you, I was about to have a mental breakdown. I've just found them all underneath this board, they're all under here, oh my goodness, hundreds of them. I'm just going to take, oh my gosh, that was the seat, that was the seat. I'm just going to take a moment here to be absolutely gutted, I'm not going to cry, I'm not going to cry, oh no but seriously the amount of times that I've cried over losing crops like that because I become so emotionally invested in my little crops and I also feel really anxious now that nothing's going to grow, do you get that as well? So if anything it's like the courgettes have now been completely eaten and the big pumpkins, I'm going to have to re-sow them all but I feel really like scared to put anything else out now because I'm like, it's going to get eaten. Luckily I think I've got some more, I've got more parsnip seeds so we're going to whack in some more parsnips, not sure if I've got any carrot seeds here with me but we're going to whack in more parsnips because I really wanted parsnips. I was really happy that they were growing oh my god and I've just found a pack of carrot seeds so we're going to re-sow all that and pretend that didn't happen. One of the things that slugs and snails absolutely love is lots of places to hide in, so some people do it on purpose, they put out planks of wood which is what I've done down there to try and attract them and catch them and then move them on before they get to your because they love anywhere to hide like that's dark, wet, usually made of wood, wood chip, weeds so keeping things away from your raised beds or away from your growing beds is a really good idea like weeds, keeping them low, keeping them chopped down because it's the perfect hiding place for them to sit in and wait to attack. So I'm just going around now, I'm just making sure that all the weeds around my beds are kept down, kept under control, lots of other reasons why I want to do that as well but slugs and snails is a big one. I think, thinking about it now logically because this is my fourth year of growing, I think I am being too small with what I'm planting out so planting out two courgettes and expecting them both to live is probably not a good idea, what I need to be doing is planting out 10 courgettes and hoping that two survive because I used to say in my first year on the plot and this is where my phrase whack it in came from because I used to say just whack it in, just whack in as much as you can because most of it will die so just keep whacking stuff in and something will live and I think I've somewhere along the way I've kind of lost that, like I don't follow my own advice anymore, it's really funny the more I learn about gardening the less I follow my own instincts and the more I start following all the practicalities in the books and actually my instinct is to whack in as much as I can and just keep throwing more and more crops in knowing that 80% will die and 20% will live and I think that's what I'm going to go forward with basically is just whack it in keep whacking it in just keep throwing as much in as you can and something will live and if it doesn't we're all we're all just screwed time to check on the sweet corn has it grown has it not grown oh yes it is it is growing yes it's growing it's growing runner beans as well runner beans as well and then here look look runner bean runner bean it's a runner bean oh has that one been eaten has that one been eaten oh my god the slugs are relentless aren't they there's a runner bean I tell you what I've never been more tempted to buy killer slug pellets than I have this year so far I just want to kill them all I know it's not their fault and I know I can't blame them but my god I want to kill them so much I think I'll cover these back up just until the rest of them germinate in case we get some colder weather so what I wanted to do today was put out my sunflowers now I'm absolutely terrified they're going to be eaten there's no way they're going to survive in this plot of death but I brought them anyway so I've got to put them out now because they're getting too big for their pots so I've got four sunflowers and they're really giant ones I mean they're supposed to be giant ones I don't think they'll get giant I don't think they'll get a chance to live but there they are so I'm going to put two in this bed here which is going to be my pumpkin bed and then I'm going to put two somewhere else but where else where else can I put them I was sort of thinking maybe in a broad bean in a broad bean bed maybe just at the back maybe if I hide them between the broad beans the slugs won't get them so the beauty of sunflowers is you can actually plant them quite deep you can plant them up to their first leaves oh hi rocky now why haven't you been helping me with my slugs and snails hmm why haven't you been helping me with my slug and snail problem yeah I've got real problem with them rocks that's my hole that's my hole that's not your hole I'm not digging your poo hole no no no no no no no right cat's busy where was I oh yeah um so sunflowers can be planted quite deep they can be planted up to their first leaves I think not that it matters because they'll be dead by morning yeah come on Emma think positively right whack them in like that so you see it's up to its first leaves sort of like that so obviously sunflowers grow to be quite tall plants if they survive and so they need to go quite deep down to keep them secure and keep them upright so what we're going to do is we're going to stake them with these canes it's always good to stake your plants the second oh no rocky rocky you're so clumsy for a cat use up all your nine lives you are it's always good to stake your plant the second it goes in because you're less likely to break all the roots and disturb the roots aren't you rocky yes rocky agrees right push that in quite deep like that why am I teaching you you're the cat I'm not trying to teach you anything where did you put my scissors rocky oh there they are sitting on them so like I was saying before what we'll do is tie it in with a bit of twine this is to encourage it to grow upwards and to stop it from swaying about and snapping in the wind but we're not going to tie it too tightly because if we forget to loosen this what will happen is as the stem grows bigger it will make ridges in it it will grow sort of around that and then that will end up killing the plant because it will let disease in and stuff so we're going to tie it we're not going to tie it too tight so I've got some leeway in there just in case I forget to loosen it too like too early basically that's what we're going to do right rocky no because you've just killed it no rocky rocky rocky no no come on bloody cat no no no not on that not on that anything else rocky anything you're so annoying let's dig this in digging it in now really deep and then we'll just stretch him up and hope for the best that's all we've really got now sunflowers do tend to sulk and what I mean by sulk is they look dead um they really don't like being moved they don't like being prodded and poked and watered they don't like anything sunflowers hate everything so they sulk you can see how the leaves are starting to go a little bit floppy and limp it just looks like it's given up it's having a sulk it just doesn't want to grow anymore it's like nah you've moved me out of my pot I'm not happy now but that will come back to life it will it will get used to it I have to get on with it and this is the same because it's this is what they do when you plant them out they'll be okay have faith I'm afraid it might be time to clear the polytunnel it's getting a little bit overgrown in here and I do have my tomatoes almost ready to go out so it might be time just to start clearing it a bit look you can actually see that's the radish at the end that's the radish at the end just there that's what I should have eaten but I didn't and then that happened look at that one it's massive glimy why didn't I eat these such a beautiful colour so look at this little party look at this little slug and snail party going on my goodness you're all in here you know if you had someone that you really disliked on an allotment plot you could just go to their plot and just literally vomit with with snails that would be awful wouldn't it wouldn't that be awful um I'm just going to dispose of these nicely I'm just going to put them in the abandoned plot next door I think I was another one there god everywhere big horrible things right there's my polytunnel all cleared pretty much ready for tomatoes tomatoes I'm just going to dot around wherever I can fit them I've also got cucumber and also very excitingly brought some melon seeds from being cute yesterday so I'm going to sow some melons I doubt they'll work I don't know I've never even attempted a melon so I'm going to try growing a melon this year why not let's do something new everything in here though that I've left looks pretty good yeah my kohlrabi is doing really well really excited about this I've never seen this before in the flesh and um yeah really excited to try that and try some recipes with them too if they survive a bit longer please fingers crossed I mean I am pretty devastated to come here today and find that loads of my crops have just been completely munched to death by slugs and snails especially my parsnips and my carrots which were doing so well I was so proud of them and then my courgettes and my giant pumpkins I don't hold out much hope for the sunflowers I'm definitely going to go home today and sow some more I think like I said before one of the best things you can do is just keep whacking stuff in um and keep re-sowing stuff so succession sowing to put it very simply is once you've sown something in a few weeks time so it again just so that you have a continuous crop but in the terms in terms of like having an allotment plot I would say succession sowing is more about continually having more things growing to replace things that have been eaten or died because honestly if you don't do that you're not going to have very much growing at all in your allotment because it's just a fact of life that you know this is 20 minutes from my house I can't be here all the time every day I can't come down here multiple times a day it's not like it's my back garden so to combat that I'm just going to have to grow 10 times everything that I want um so if I want one radish I'm going to have to sow a million if I want one row carrots I'm going to have to put in 12 rows of carrots you know I think that's the only way really to get around it and that's what I did in my first year here I just kept whacking stuff in that's where the phrase came from whack it in hope you enjoyed my little vlog today if you did do subscribe to my youtube channel I'll be back again on Friday have a lovely rest of your gardening week see you later guys bye