SEEDS TO SOW IN JUNE 2023 FOR YOUR ALLOTMENT GARDEN (AND AN EXCITING ANNOUNCEMENT!!)

Hello everyone and welcome to my very sunny London garden. In today's video I'm going to be telling you all the seeds that you can start sowing in June at your allotment garden or in your home garden. So my name is Emma, these are my allotment diaries and I talk everything to do with allotment, growing your own food. I also share my London garden here and all the flowers and things that I've got growing here so if you think this channel might be for you I would love for you to take five seconds, go below and click subscribe to my channel. I will be eternally grateful and let's get on with the video. So the month of June is here, it's sunny, it's gorgeous, the soil has warmed up and the risk of frost has pretty much gone, though do double check your local area to make sure it has gone because frost is a killer when it comes to new seedlings and plants. The absolute fact is in June you can sow pretty much anything. Anything? Yes, anything. So if you haven't yet sown something and you're desperate to grow it and you see on Instagram or you're looking on other YouTube channels and everyone's got plants this big, it is not too late to sow that plant. I'm telling you, whatever plant that is, it's not too late to sow it. You can whack it in the ground now directly and it will grow. Of course I'm going to go into a little bit more detail as to exactly what you can grow but the truth of it is, honestly, you can grow anything. You can put in carrots, radishes, leeks, cauliflower, broccoli, pumpkins, melons, anything. So it's definitely not too late in the month of June. A lot of things can be directly sown and directly sown means it goes directly into the soil, into a pot, outside. So having said all that, and that would be a very short video if I was just like, you can sow anything, that's it. I'm going to go into what I'm sowing in the month of June for my own allotment plot and I hope that it kind of inspires you to get some ideas for what you might want to grow. So towards the end of May I did sow quite a lot and a lot of things that I've sown are brassicas. Absolutely love a good brassica. Great thing to grow at an allotment plot because once you've whacked it in the ground it pretty much grows away on its own. Something that I haven't sown yet is Romanesco. Romanesco cauliflower, which is kind of a cross between a broccoli and a cauliflower. It's an absolutely gorgeous, gorgeous brassica. It tastes absolutely delicious. You can stir fry it, you can boil it, you can roast it, you can do whatever you want with it. It is honestly delicious. Really beautiful looking plant as well. I'm going to grow these today in a tray, in a seed tray, and just get them started off a bit bigger. But as I said before you can just whack these out now into your brassica bed as seeds as long as you've got enough protection. The reason I'm starting them in a tray is because I can't protect them from slugs and snails very well otherwise. So I'm going to grow them to they're probably about that tall and then I'm going to whack them out. I'm also going to grow some kohlrabi this month. I'm going to start this again in a seed tray. Same reason, slugs and snails love it. So I'm going to start this in a seed tray and this is going to go directly out into my allotment plot. So if you do follow my channel you know I've got some of this growing in my polytunnel right now and it's been growing all through the autumn winter. It looks incredible but I'm going to put this one straight outside because it is warm enough now to grow outside in the open so why not? Squashes can get sown at this time of year so if you are growing a pumpkin archway or any kind of squash, butternut squash, courgette, pumpkins, you can now sow them and what's better is that you can actually sow the seeds directly. So if all of your stuff has been eaten because I know a lot of you have messaged me and said your lovely jack belittles or baby boos have all been eaten by slugs and snails what can you do? Whack a seed in the ground now because it will grow directly in the ground. One squash that I got sent and I want to mention this company because this company is honestly incredible if you're a first time allotment plot grower. It's called Seed Craft and it's a seed subscription box service so you pay a fee up front every month and they will send you a box of seeds. You'll get a box of seeds through your letterbox every month but the thing that I love the most about this company is that the seeds that you get that month can be sown that month so he only sends you the seeds that can actually be sown in that month so if you're a newbie or you've never grown anything before or grown your own food and you're getting a little bit flustered as to what you can grow, subscribe to this subscription box and you'll you will never have to think about it yourself again. He even sends you the stuff like the winter veg and the autumn veg and he'll start sending that in July August time and you can sow that and so it's all taken care of with this it's absolutely fantastic and just a little disclaimer here I do get a free seed box by them every month just for talking about it and sharing it which I'm happy to do because I do love it. Anyway I got a seed packet from them called Winter Squash Harlequin. Harlequin? Is that what you call it? I've never grown this before in my life and I get incredibly excited when I grow something that I've never grown before. I don't know if you're the same because we get stuck in our ways don't we with growing the same things and then you grow something new and you're like this is so exciting! So I'm gonna sow this today actually very excited for that and like I said courgettes and also cucumbers can be sown at this time so you can sow these directly outside if you want to as a seed in the soil that's called direct sowing or you can put it in a little pot. I have found that cucumbers take a little while to germinate even in this weather so about two weeks ago I sowed a couple of cucumbers and it was like the second week from the end of May and they're only that big they're only that big now and this has been two weeks worth of germination. I've got two seedlings in this pot and I'm going to prick out the the one that's the strongest and grow him on but they do take a little while to grow so I think I have already mentioned in a previous video that I am growing a melon for the first time. I have absolutely no hope of this working I can't imagine a very well in the UK but apparently they do very well in polytunnels this can be sown directly at this time of year so you can whack a seed straight in the ground or you can sow in a little pot which is what I did about two and a half weeks ago this is how big it is so if you were to sow it now at the beginning of June in two and a half weeks you'd probably have something a little like that so don't lose hope with these some of the warmer loving seeds and crops they do tend to take a little bit longer to germinate wouldn't it be amazing to get a melon though incredible flower wise a few things you can sow so obviously zinnias I sowed my zinnias in a pot in the garden a little while ago you can also still sow cosmos this is my cosmos from a little while ago and it's still in pots doing quite well doing quite happy this can be planted straight outside in the garden now if you haven't sown this already you can I sowed some about a week ago to show you here they are little cosmos seedlings so again these take a little while to kind of come up once you've planted them about 10 days so don't lose hope with them they don't come up straight away but there they are there's the new seedlings and these are fine just to sow now in June I'm aware that all these seedlings are going to look exactly the same because new seedlings always look the same as each other but sunflowers can now be sown so if you haven't yet planted out your sunflowers or if you did and they all got eaten like mine did you can sow them again now it's fine and if you have already got sunflowers growing you can succession sow them so that when they're finished you can put out your next batch of sunflowers and June is a great month to sow your next batch of sunflowers so get whacking out those seeds if you haven't planted any herbs now is a great time so this is my little herb planter I've got so many different herbs growing in here I've got sage I've got thyme I've got chives I've got mint I've even got a great big curly parsley up here which is amazing and it's time to sow herbs from seed or you can buy them as little plug plants and just put them straight outside now which is really great so in this lovely planter here this is a great example of what you can actually sow directly in June now I have got oh my goodness that needs a water really badly one second trying to show you what to sow and I've literally killed everything in my garden I've sown I didn't realize how warm it was today so sorry guys please don't die may possibly have just killed all of these but it's not it's not bad because it's still time to sow directly now so these are spring onions and you can sow this seed directly now so I might just sprinkle a few more in there because I think I might have killed them I have some carrots next to them you can see that the lettuce has gone absolutely crazy I mean I need to pick so much of this also the radishes have gone crazy too and you can direct sow radish right now pretty much throughout the year though it does tend to do better in cooler weather but I reckon you could probably get away with directly sowing some now and then over here we've got parsnips you can direct sow parsnips now bed's gone absolutely crazy in the sun so it may possibly have killed all that but don't worry because there is time to direct sow it now so right now we're going to sow some things together I'm going to sow my calabrese and also some more courgettes okay so we're going to sow some of these seeds now so the first ones we're going to do are the big seeds I always find big seeds really easy now the thing to remember about where to plant your seeds is the bigger the seed is the bigger the pot is going to need so you can use pots this size or you can use bigger pots this size for things like pumpkins and the seed can go straight into them if you've got teeny tiny seeds probably probably best to use a seed tray or you can reuse I brought some labellia I brought some labellia in here and you can reuse these little plastic trays that you get from the garden center I don't know why they still sell plastic trays at garden centers to be honest but if you do buy plants and they do come in a plastic tray do reuse them this will be perfect for sowing in my calabrese I can just sprinkle a few in each section and then pick out the weaker seedlings so we'll start with a harlequin winter squash quite big seeds as you'd expect from a squash so what we're going to do is we're just going to put a couple of holes in a pot this is just multi-purpose compost in here if you're ever unsure about which way to put a seed in so does it go that way does it go that way does it go on its side always just put it on its side horizontal like that it will find its way to the surface I'm just going to fill it in and then a little bit of water so courgettes I'm going to use these little pots here I'm just going to put one courgette seed in each which is very risky really it's best to do two but I'm feeling confident and I'm running out seeds as well massive seed surely that's going to work so we'll pop them in sideways because I don't know which way it goes I've never known and I've always grown them we like to have a bit of risk in our lives there we go so for my calabrese in this bucket here this is all the soil from seedlings that didn't work and when they've died I've just thrown all the seed all the soil into this bucket so this bucket is full of soil and coir actually as well that hasn't got many nutrients in it because the plants that lived in this in the soil have already sucked all the nutrients out of it the thing is is that seeds don't need a lot of nutrients in fact they grow better in soil that doesn't have much nutrients in it and that's just because it forces them to have to try and grow bigger and find nutrients so the less nutrients are in the soil of the seeds for the seeds the more the seedling will have to send its roots out to find nutrients and the bigger root you're going to have on the plant having soil that hasn't got many nutrients in it is very good for new seedlings that's what I'm trying to say and I have filled up our labellia our labellia labellia tray with all of that soil and that will be fine for our calabrese so calabrese is a brassica which means their seeds are like little balls very very tiny very fiddly always better to put the seeds into your hand and sprinkle from there rather than sprinkle from the packet because when you do that it tends to all just come out in one big clump and when it's in your hand you can kind of pinch and sprinkle like that right that wasn't thinly at all so don't do anything like that so I also have a nifty little tip if you have sown cucumbers and they're getting quite big in a little pot like this one here is and you can see he sort of wants to hang on to something and climb and he's starting to get flowers I don't want him to get flowers yet because I want his energy to go into getting him bigger not into producing flowers and fruit so I'm going to remove the flowers so just wherever we see a flower we're going to just pinch him off off you come we appreciate the flowers but we're not ready for them yet but that will focus all of the energy into getting this plant nice and big and not producing fruit when it's too small because it won't be able to hold a fruit I mean do you think you can handle a cucumber right now because I don't and here is another little nifty trick for you are you going away on holiday anytime soon if so are you worried about how you're going to water all of your plants and in particular your pots and your planters well have no fear I have a really easy idea for you we're going to take a bottle with a nice lid on the top and we're going to take a drill I'm going to put a little hole in the top there there it is that's about as big as you want the hole to be and now we're going to go fill this bottle with water so then what you can do is put this upside down in one of the pots bury it in so that it stays upright and the water will slowly drip out and the water will very slowly drip out into your pot watering whatever's in there you can buy products that do exactly that thing but honestly if you just collect a few plastic bottles put a little hole in the top of the lid you can make them yourself and you can use a smaller bottle for a smaller pot and it yeah it just it works really really well I put some in my polytunnel as well at the allotment plot and they're doing fantastic so I'd really recommend that so thank you so much if you made it to the end of this video for my special announcement you might have seen me wearing it throughout this video um all my hair's been in the way so maybe not but I have released my own line of whack it in t-shirts a lot of you have been asking for a whack it in t-shirt or jumper for a long time I've released they're just t-shirts at the moment it's going to be limited edition guys so I'm not going to do it forever but yeah here they are they're alive they're on the site you can go and purchase one now so if you do purchase one and you have an instagram or a facebook don't forget to take a picture of yourself wearing it and tag me at emma's allotment diaries I will reshare I'd love to see you wearing them at your allotment plots they are very very comfortable t-shirts they do come up a little bit oversized so they are perfect for gardening which is the point of them I was kind of envisioning I want to whack this on and go to my allotment plot and just be able to get it all muddy and stuff so they're machine washable they're cotton they're really comfortable they come in a variety of different colors so you can go down I'm going to leave a link to the site that you can purchase these from below in the description bar I've made them for women men and children and they come in a variety of different colors so go and check them out I also have released a couple of bags as well here is the whack it in bag I thought these would be perfect for taking stuff to the allotment plot or even harvesting things I was kind of thinking of putting my potatoes in here when I harvest them I think they'd be a really good potato bag I do hope you like them let me know what you think in the comments below let me know if you're going to purchase one and yeah that's my big exciting news thank you so much for watching this video I hope it's inspired you to whack some stuff out there is no excuse now we are in June there's no more frost start whacking everything out guys I'll see you again in my next video thank you for watching bye