HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BEFORE?! / ALLOTMENT GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS

It's the sort of thing you know happens but you don't normally see it. Good morning guys, welcome back to my allotment diaries. I just realised that I say good morning every time and I actually actually upload these at like five o'clock in the afternoon so good afternoon everyone. It's the morning for me, it's the afternoon for you. Welcome back to my allotment diaries. If you're new here, if you're loving my allotment diaries, my videos that I'm putting up, I'd love for you to subscribe to my YouTube channel. Just go below and hit the subscribe button which so many people are right now and I'm so grateful. So thank you and welcome if you are new. So my name is Emma, this is my allotment plot. It's in South London, it is 135 square metres and I have a few raised beds. I've got a polytunnel, a pink shed and I just try and whack in as much stuff as I can and hopefully it grows. That's it, there's not much to it, I just like to show you the reality of having an allotment plot and try and keep things as real as I can because I think sometimes on YouTube or you know if you watch things like Gardeners World on TV, everything's very proper, everything's done perfectly. I know from experience that when I first started out and I was watching all those things and watching other YouTubers, sometimes I felt like well my garden doesn't look anything like that or I did that and all of my stuff died and no one shows all the stuff dying so I started to put up videos where I basically showed all of my failures as well as my successes and showed that it's not going to be perfect every time and sometimes stuff's just going to die and you don't know why, like plants are mysterious creatures and sometimes you do everything right and they still blimmin die. Why? We don't know, we don't know but that's what happens so hopefully that's why you're here, that's what you're enjoying and that's the kind of message that I'm trying to get out there, just whack it in. What else can you really do? It is another warm sticky warm day in London, it's about a 25 minute walk to my allotment plot and I do it at like a leisurely pace and stuff but sometimes it can be a little bit, oh my god, 25 minutes here, 25 minutes back, I mean it's really good exercise and I love it but in this heat sometimes it can be a little bit difficult to do. Everything's looking amazing, everything's looking great so what we're going to do today, I was thinking about this all night because it's something I haven't done yet, we're actually going to feed some of the plants. I'm terrible at feeding my plants, are you? It's the one thing I forget, I remember to water but when it comes to feeding them I'm like just scatterbrained. So I've got some tomato feed, this is really good for obviously tomatoes but you can also use it on other things, you can use it on potatoes, pumpkins, I don't know why they call it tomato feed, it literally goes on everything. It's basically just very to sum it up, sum it up in a whack it in style, there are three different, I don't know if they're elements or chemicals, we're going to call them elements because I feel like they're elements. There are three different elements that you need to put on your plants to feed them, that's nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, that's what your plants need. Now tomato feed has all three, it's got all three of them in one, it's like a three in one shampoo conditioner and shampoo conditioner and something else, you know what I mean, like it's like it's like buying it all in one, it's like washing powder, you buy washing powder and fabric softener in one, it does the whole job so you can whack that on anything. If you use something like a liquid seaweed feed, which I usually put on my pumpkins but I don't have any left, that is purely nitrogen. You can also use stinging nettle stuff, so this is my stinging nettle stuff that I made, absolutely reeks, but basically you put a load of stinging nettles into a container, fill it with water, turns into a feed in about three weeks time, that is very heavy in nitrogen as well, or you can use pond weed, you can use your pond weed, you can put it into a tub, you can put water over it, you can feed your plants with that, again high in nitrogen, but potassium and what's the other one I said, I always want to say petroleum but I know it's not petroleum, don't put that on your plants, you'll catch them, they'll explode, it will explode, what is it, phosphorus and potassium, phosphorus and potassium, I don't know where you get those from other than tomato feed, so maybe just whack that on everything, anyway that's what we're going to do first, so let's do that. Where's my little mate, there you are, come on then, that's it, right you sit there. Tank that I always get my water from, that is rainwater collected from the sky, which is the best kind of water you can put on your plants because it hasn't got any chemicals in it, not that I know of anyway, I don't know, maybe it has, I don't know, but it's basically the best stuff to put on your plants, so that's what I use when my little water thing runs out. Right, so the first thing I'm going to feed is my pumpkin plants and what I want to put on my pumpkins is purely nitrogen, so the different elements, and stick with me here guys, stick with me because there is logic to this sort of madness, each of these elements does a different thing to your plants and helps your plants in a different way. Did you get that worm, did you get that worm, oh it's got the worm, this bird is eating a worm, look in front of us, oh my goodness, have you ever seen this before, I've never seen this before, oh it's got the worm, he's got it, you've got it mate, that's it, yes that is it, is he going to eat it or is he just going to, oh gosh, birds are scary right, oh wait, that whole worm just swallowed him whole, you're an animal, I've just witnessed murder, I've just witnessed an actual murder in nature, I don't know what to do, there's no point reporting it because it was a bird eating a worm, but I feel like reporting it to the worm police or something, blimey, I've never seen a bird eat a worm before, in all the years that I've been in an allotment plot, that is the weirdest thing I've ever seen, it's the sort of thing you know happens but you don't normally see it, crazy, right anyway, where was I, oh yeah nitrogen, I want to put nitrogen on my pumpkins because nitrogen feeds the leaves and makes all the leafy growth, so I want more leaves on my pumpkins, I'm going to put nitrogen, what I've got is stinging nettles, so this is the stinging nettle feed that I made, I basically crushed up a load of stinging nettles, put it in here, filled it with water and left it for about probably about five or six weeks now, it's been sitting there, it absolutely reeks, we need to dilute it, so what we've got here is a watering can with two gallons of water, I don't know how much to dilute it by, I'm just going to pour a bit in, hope for the best, that's what we do on this channel, we hope for the best, actually green, right that seemed about right and I say that with absolutely no authority or education, that is literally just me pouring it in and going that looks right, I don't know why it looks right, but it's right, in my mind that's right, right we're going to feed the pumpkins with that, let's see if it stinks, it's probably enough, yeah it stinks, it stinks, so the tomatoes are going to get the actual tomato feed, so I sort of roughly know how much it needs, I think it's two of these, pretty sure that's what I did last time, but to be honest no one measures, everyone just does that, I don't believe anyone who properly measures it out, it doesn't make a difference, just whack it on, and if it does make a difference it makes a very marginal difference because mine all survive, you guys are unbelievable, you're anyone who's stuck in here, you're just an idiot, the door is open, just go out the door, just go out the massive door behind you, look at mole, stressed, stuck, confused, turn around, whole door is open, not as smart as creatures in the animal world are you? So tomatoes seem all right, they seem okay, I could start pulling off the little suckers, that bit there is a sucker, I could start faffing about with them but I don't really want to because like I said in the other one I just find tomatoes a bit boring at the moment, this one's gone yellow, no idea why, but I think the feed will probably do him a bit of good, to be honest I'm more interested in my cucumbers this year, they've survived the night, I know they've been a bit munched but they have sort of survived the night, this one's done really well, I'm more interested in seeing those grow this year, like I'd like to have a few tomatoes but I'm a little bit tomatoed out, it just doesn't inspire me this year to grow tomatoes again, I've done it for four years now, it's a bit boring, I want to grow cucumbers and other things, I'm interested in this kohlrabi though, in fact there's two kohlrabis that look about done, so this one snapped unfortunately in the night, so I think I better pick him today, otherwise he might get all infected, he looks done and then this one definitely looks done, look at the size of him, he looks incredible, so I'm definitely going to pick him, I also think my garlic's ready to pick, should we pull up the garlic, oh let's just do it, let's just do it, we had such a good time doing it the other day didn't we, let's pull up the rest of the garlic and then what I'm going to try and do, you can't come down here because the door's over there, stop being so ridiculous guys, what I'm going to do is try and plait my garlic which is going to be a laugh, but yeah I'm excited, right let's pull this up, hopefully it'll be all right in here because I've never grown garlic this far down my plot before, oh it looks teeny tiny, teeny tiny, maybe it's not done yet, feels done, it wasn't the mega garlic I was after, let's try this one, this one looks definitely done, covered in white rot, covered in white rot, well let's get him out then because he shouldn't be in there, this is not as exciting as the other day, now teeny tiny, no probably white rot too, not every harvest is successful, you know it happens, that's rotted through, that's rotted, now look at that white rot, rotted, I've got so lucky with that last garlic, I've got so lucky, I really just don't think that garlic does well on my plot, that one might be okay, he's okay, scale of one to ten, five, yeah I don't think these are any good to be honest, so they might just have to go straight into the compost, I think most of them have got white rot and the ones that haven't, they don't really smell like garlic, I can't explain it, they just smell a bit off, so I think I'm gonna have to put them into compost, I've just remembered if something's got a disease like blight or white rot, don't compost it because you're going to get it in your compost and spread it around your plot, I don't know what I'm thinking, I'll have to take these home and throw them away somewhere, that would have been a rookie mistake doing that, I remember that now, oh my goodness, you must have been screaming at the screen then, I do apologise, sometimes I do remember, don't worry. This is a prime example of why weeding around your raised beds is so important, because the snails and the slugs can just hide, they're all just hiding in the growth, so you've got to clear it to get rid of them, go and eat all that bindweed, off you go. Oh yeah, I've just remembered somebody in the comments said that I can pinch out the top of my runner beans if they get too tall and they'll stop growing and start developing beans, so let's pinch them out, this is the one that's got a little bit too big for his boots because he's growing over the structure, I really thought I'd made this big enough but apparently not, I'm going to pinch him there, I think we should pinch him at new growth, right I used two hands and I pinched him, so I pinched that off, so that's gone, that's out of there, it's gone, so now hopefully, just stop growing now mate, that is the right height for you, just stop, and then if you look at the bottom, down here, look I'm starting to get little red flowers, little flowers on them, so I'm going to get runner beans, it's so exciting, they're all just going upstream like I envisioned, this is amazing, how fantastic. Right so we're going to pick and harvest some things now, so I'm going to pick some broad beans and I'm going to harvest some sweet peas as well, sweet peas you've got to keep picking and it's been a few days and I've got loads now, so I'm going to pick them all and take them home and broad beans are going absolutely insanely crazy, so if you've never seen or eaten broad beans before, because before I got an allotment plot I'd never eaten a broad bean before, I never brought a broad bean before, just didn't, just wasn't one of my regular fruit and veg that I brought, you know, this is the bean pod, you don't eat the pod, you can cook them in the pod, so if you boil a pan of water and just put these in, the beans inside will cook and then you take the beans out, or you can take the beans out first, I'll show you what the beans look like, those are the little beans, little beans inside, I'm pretty sure you can eat them raw, yeah they're good, they're really nice, so you can eat them raw apparently, I mean I'm doing it, if I can't do it I won't upload this because I'll be dead, I mean most allotment plots have these lovely plants because they are something you can put in the ground over the winter and I think us gardeners we get a bit impatient, that's why a lot of us grow broad beans I think, that's why I grow them, I whack them all in because I want something growing in the winter time, very hardy, very easy to grow, very simple, give you a massive harvest, grow broad beans basically, that's all I have to say on broad beans, I didn't realise I had such an opinion on broad beans, all right let's pick them up, the amount of time I've had to run from a bee trying to get these, I've had to prise it from its blooming buzzing hands, very aggressive around here these bees, is that robin making that noise, that it's in danger, is it me, is it me, am I the danger, am I the predator, he's rocky about, I think it's me, what have I done, I've just remembered I was going to harvest that giant kohlrabi wasn't I, he can't stay any longer because he's just too big, he's too big for his boots, needs to go, so let's pick him, he's going to be exciting to pick I think, oh my gosh look at you, you are an absolute beaut, oh god, there he is, look at that, wow that's pretty impressive isn't it, it's like a ball, amazing, right I'm going to take him home and cook with him, so I will let you know in my next vlog how he tasted and what I did with him and hopefully I'll be able to show a bit maybe in my Friday vlog I think, so stay tuned for that, I hope you enjoyed the vlog today and I'll see you next time, thanks for watching guys, bye.