MY BEST PARSNIP HARVEST EVER!! / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Oh my gosh! Merry Christmas Mr. Fox. There he is, getting his grub. I was so close, I've never screamed at my plot before but that is the closest I've ever come. Well good morning everyone, welcome back to my allotment diaries and to what I believe will be the last allotment vlog of the year because it's Christmas next week and then I've got quite busy time over Christmas so I'm probably not gonna film again until January so this will be my last vlog before Christmas so it's only fitting that today's vlog is going to be all about harvesting my Christmas veg. Not that there's much here to be honest, it's all been a bit neglected this year and my Christmas veg didn't grow as well as I sort of envisioned it would grow so I did have tons to pick but I thought it'd be a nice way to sort of end and wrap up the year on the allotment plot really. I have come to some slightly bad news. It seems the squirrels have really had enough of this. I don't know what their problem is, I really don't. I don't know what to do about that situation. They've had it in for that since the day I got it. I mean to be fair it was not secured very well to that branch there it was just like a nail which I know isn't ideal but they've really just had an issue with this from the day I got it and if they just stayed off of it you know it would have been fine with just Einstein. Fortunately it's not is it? Anyway just while I'm here because I know Einstein will turn up I'm gonna get him some more food in it and then I can just watch him and make sure that they don't you know come by. Look at the state of that. Look at the state of my shed. That's a job for next year I think guys. I don't even want to think about this. I don't even want to deal with that right now. There you are. Oh god there's so many of them. Oh I touched it. I need your little dry worm things. I'll just put it there. Right so I'm going to harvest my sprouts in this beautiful little basket here but I'm going to take them home in a plastic sprout bag because that is realistic allotment life. I can't take it home in a little basket because they'll all just fall out and I look like a bit of a nutter walking down the street with that. What is it the 1920s? So I'm gonna put them in my my lovely little sprout bag that I got from Sainsbury's I think. It's quite nice isn't it? Yeah I'll make it look all aesthetically pretty and stuff for TikTok or whatever and then I'll just stuff them in the plastic bag and that is the reality. Oh is that Einstein? I think that might be Einstein. Let's see if he's getting his food. I'm worried about him now. Oh look he's singing a lovely little song. Oh you're welcome Einstein. There he is getting his grub. Lovely. It's so nice when they're grateful isn't it? It just makes it all worth it when they're grateful. Right so I might pop back over the Christmas then and just feed Einstein. He's in a really sing-songy mood today as well. We're gonna start we're gonna start by harvesting the sprouts. Now I was thinking about the sprouts on the way here and I think I've actually got quite a lot of sprouts when I'm thinking about it. I mean if you look every single one of these is absolutely filled to the brim with sprouts which is absolutely incredible but there's only four of us for Christmas dinner this year. It's just literally our immediate family. So I'm thinking of just picking off enough sprouts for Christmas dinner and then coming back and picking them over sort of January because I think they'll last a bit longer and that way I won't waste them. So I think that's what I'm going to do. I'm just going to pick what I need. So I am just sort of picking off the ones that I think are quite a good size and then I'll just leave the rest on there and I think they'll be fine if you just leave them on there. So I think I started growing these in about April May time and the thing is of sprouts is I've never been very good at growing them from a seed so these are not from seed. These are plug plants. I got them when they were about that tall and they seem to just do fine. I've grown them for two years now from plug plants and every time I've ever tried to do it from a seed they've always died or been eaten really quickly. So either I'm growing the wrong variety from seed or they just don't like growing from seed on my plot for some reason. It's funny because some crops are just like that. Some crops I'd do really well from seed and some crops just fail miserably and I have to buy plug plants. So I don't think either way is like cheating or anything. I think whatever works works and then you get a harvest at the end so I'm not complaining. Look who I just found in my neighbour's garden over there. It's Mr. Foxy. He's come to say goodbye as well. Oh he's gonna pop out. There he is. Oh he's beautiful isn't he? It's a bit scary but he's beautiful. Oh gosh he's coming quite close. All the animals have come to say Merry Christmas today haven't you guys? Oh is that feathers all on the floor there? He might have caught his Christmas dinner. Did you catch your Christmas dinner early? Oh dear. Merry Christmas Mr. Fox. Merry Christmas. Does he like mealworms then do you think? Oi, leave Einstein alone. No fighting, not while I'm here. There you are, I fed the fox. Got some lovely, lovely mealworms to eat there. Maybe it's the fox that's been knocking it off. Maybe I've been blaming the squirrels and really it's you. Maybe you like them. Oh sorry I didn't have a bowl for you. Right so where were we? Sprout City. So what I've done is I've collected up enough sprouts for I think what will make a good Christmas dinner. So sorry I'm being distracted by the fox because he seems to be coming nearer and nearer to where I am. He just gets so confident the second that like you feed him. Any animal really. The second that you feed them they just feel so safe. Don't they? Which is actually quite nice. Anyway I got to feed the foxy today that was nice. So here we are in Sprout City. So this is how much I've collected. I think it's a really good amount actually for Christmas dinner. That will do us, that will do us nicely. I can always pop back over Christmas and pick a few more if we need them but they look really nice. A little bit small, not gonna lie, a little bit smaller than what you get in a shop but I'm pretty sure they will be absolutely bursting with sprout flavour. If you like sprouts that might sound amazing, if you don't that might sound absolutely hideous. The other thing I wanted is one of the sprout tops, the top of the sprouts and unfortunately the pigeons have massacred them. This one seems to be a little bit more intact. I might be able to harvest him or I was looking at this one down here too. He looks quite nice. I think this tall one, I think this tall one. Now there is a thing about chopping off the top of a sprout so you can eat this. This is a giant sprout. If I was to do that you know it's a giant sprout at the top and it's really bursting with flavour. It's absolutely lovely to eat. I think if you chop the top of a sprout off and I might be wrong it stunts the growth of the rest of the sprouts. I'm sure I read that somewhere there's a trick to getting all your sprouts to grow to the same size and the trick is to chop the top off and then all the sprouts remain at the same size instead of like some getting bigger and some getting smaller but I might be wrong on that. That might be utter rubbish. I don't know, I just don't know. What I do know is I'm going to chop the top of that one off so I'll be able to let you know I guess. Though I have taken most of the sprouts off of that plant. Anyway I think we all know after this year on the plot that I'm not an expert. I'm making it up as I go, figuring it out. The best way to do it I think. Are there any slugs on here? I say asking the slugs as if they will respond. We're going to chop him here. That should come off quite nicely. Yeah nice. I'll just make sure there's no slugs on it because I don't want to take them home. I've already told you about the incident a few months ago where I brought something home and it had slugs on and then the slug got loose in the fridge. My husband was not happy. Neither was I to be honest but you know, what can you do? Right, let's put that in there. A little bit less pretty with that in there now but there we go. There's our basket of sprouts and a sprout top for Christmas. Boom. There he is, getting his grub. The next thing we're harvesting is probably my favourite thing ever which is the parsnips. I don't think they've done as well this year as they have other years but I'm still excited to pull them up. It's a great experience for everyone involved. I will need some gloves for this one though. Can I just say here really quickly because it's the last vlog of the year, thank you so much to everyone who has supported the cool job gardening gloves that I go on and on and on about. They say that they have had so many orders this year thanks to my recommendations on this channel and a lot of you who buy their gloves are often sending me messages saying how good quality the gloves are and they really truly are. So they've sent me these ones this time which have got quite a good grip on them, really super grippy which I love. They also do winter gloves and I brought you them just to show. Some nice winter gloves here and they've got like non-slip stuff on the fingers which are quite useful, probably not great for gardening but really good for like just wearing in the cold I suppose. But I'm going to stick on the gardening gloves and yeah as always there is a discount code in my description box, EMMAGLOVE is the discount code and you can get a discount if you do decide to buy some over the winter. I would recommend, I've been recommending for a long time, they are fantastic. So let's pull up the parsnips. I am excited, I do love parsnips. Do not let the top foliage deceive you, there are parsnips under there somewhere. I don't know how many there's going to be, I don't know how good they're going to be but there are some under there. The bed is falling apart and I am in the middle of turning it into a strawberry patch which I think will do really well here and sort of look after itself. So these need to come out basically. Right, best thing to use is a fork. I don't have one because I broke it and I've broken every single fork I've ever owned here so hopefully over Christmas, fingers crossed, there will be new tools coming my way. Oh yeah I have to say as well, do you remember in my last vlog I said that my spade is broken? Well I actually forgot I have another one. I have this one which is not broken and this is what I'm gonna have to use today. Now it's not ideal to use a spade to get parsnips out so I'm gonna be super super careful when I take them out the ground but yeah I do have a working spade, how silly. This is the issue with using a shovel or a spade, you just snap them. Completely unintentional but I've just completely snapped him so that's not that's not ideal. I'm gonna have to go a bit slower I think, be a little bit more careful. It's so difficult to get out parsnips, they're the hardest thing to get out. There is a trick of pushing it and then pulling it but I think that's never worked for me because I can't push it enough. I really find it hard to push it and pull it enough to do that trick and then I don't want to pull on the foliage too much because that breaks and then I get in a right panic. What's that? That's parsnip. Of course it is. God blimey that really smells like parsnip. Oh yeah I think I've done enough to get him up now. Come on then. Oh he's weird, oh he's very weird. There he is, yes. Okay not bad, fantastic. Oh look he's all in one piece. Unbelievable. Oh my gosh. I was so close to this I've never screamed at my plot before but that is the closest I've ever come. Look at the flipping size of this one. This is the biggest one and it's all in one piece, it's all in one piece. I can't believe it. My heart is pounding through my chest right now. I can't tell you how much I love pulling up parsnips. That was absolutely thrilling. My heart can't cope with this. I'm absolutely out of breath now. Amazing. Oh it's just the best job ever. I always leave it to the end of the year for this reason. It's just so much fun. Right we've got to locate the next one. It is, it is. Come on. Right you can. Oh okay he's good, he's not bad. So much joy from one vegetable. Exciting. Right, are you a big one? Are you a big one? Oh, this is another big one. Oh gosh. I'm going to get a scream, I know I am. Just loosen the soil a bit. Come on. Right I've got another little dinky. I think I've got it. Oh gosh, oh gosh look at the size of him. Look, look at that, look at that. It's so big. How did I grow that from a seed? Right I think we've just got a couple more left now. So, so surprising. I wasn't expecting them to be that big because they didn't, they didn't look like they'd done that well. But I guess looks can be very, very deceiving. Oh yeah it's a big one there. Oh yes that's a big one. Nobody else in my life can appreciate the excitement of pulling up parsnips except you guys. I just want to thank you for being here, being part of this, part of my excitement. Right. Wow. I snapped a little bit of him off the end, but what a whopper. Whoa whopper. Wow. Ah there's the last ones. Little dinky, little dinky ones. Yeah cute, lovely. I think that's all of them. Right let's have a little look at that harvest. I wasn't expecting this. That's why I reacted the way that I did. I just seriously wasn't expecting such massive parsnips because you saw what they looked like. They looked a little bit flippy floppy all over the place. Just a little tip, make sure you are wearing gloves when you handle them, when you pulled them up because the foliage can bring you out in a rash apparently. So just be really careful. Right, really funny because the first one that I pulled up I thought was massive and then a few of them did just get bigger which is amazing. So I think this one might be the winner. Look at the size of him. Look at the size and also I actually got him up in one piece which is very rare for me and to do that with a shovel, that's some serious skill. So that's fantastic. That's the one that I thought was massive at the beginning. Ha he's nothing, he's nothing compared to this one. Look at the size of him. Absolutely incredible and then we got this one which I accidentally snapped at the bottom which is a bit annoying but then we got we got the main bit of him which is fantastic. Some smaller ones which I would say these are sort of the size of the ones that you would get in the shops. So if you get a bag of parsnips they're probably around that size. So the fact that I got you know absolute whoppers is incredible. These were sown in February from seed and harvested in December as you're watching now which is absolutely amazing. So there we go the parsnip harvest of 2023 is complete and I could not be more thrilled with what I got that was so worth it. And that concludes my vlog and the last vlog of 2023. So thank you so much for your support this year, thank you for supporting my vlogs, thank you for enjoying them and commenting and liking them, thank you for following me, thank you for buying a planner, thank you for buying some of my merchandise and thank you for being so supportive whenever I put up an advertisement. All these things give me a little bit of money and allow me to do this for a living and I am very very grateful. Have a lovely wonderful Christmas, enjoy your plots or take a break whichever you want to do. I will be back again here in January with new videos getting my plots ready for the the springtime, lots and lots of work to do, lots of growing, lots of seed sowing, lots of very exciting times to come. So thank you so much if you subscribe to my channel this year it means so much to me. Have a wonderful Christmas and I will see you again in 2024. See you next year guys, bye!