A COLD JUNE ALLOTMENT DAY / ALLOTMENT GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS

good morning guys welcome back to my allotment Diaries my name is Emma these are the allotment Diaries welcome to June in the UK welcome to June everybody we are about a week into June now what also got like the worst building work going on all the noises everywhere there's no bird song it's windy it's cold it's starting to rain again oh it also rained for hours last night like literally nonstop rain ah hello if you ever get scared of a noise or anything at all always just say hello to it just say hello honestly it just diffuses your fear in a second it's amazing little helpful tip oh what's going on with there that's not yeah rained pretty much non-stop last night and most of this morning as well before I got here and it seems like it's just starting to rain again now but that why I've come down basically because I'm worried about the Slugs and snails and I want to make sure that my crops are protected and stuff and that everything's okay not that there's much I could do about it because the second I leave they'll all just come out again and get them all but I felt like I should just come down really and check on it or why is it why is it June why is the weather like this in June what's happening where's the sun where's the sunny days you know it's really funny I was supposed to come down today and film um I'm like doing a sponsored Instagram reel um for a brand where I'm talking all about like the best ways to water your plants and all the little tips and tricks um for getting the best out of watering and I've come down there's absolutely no way I can film it today because it is miserable like it would just be just just basically the real would just be me saying it's rained everything's been watered right okay I think what we're going to do I'm going to take my jacket off just because it's June it just feels weird to be wearing a jacket in June we're going to go on a little walkout and see what's alive and what's died no immediately changed my mind I don't know why I did that I'm going to put my jacket back on cuz it's cold so cold so here we are on the allotment plot in the middle of June what a lovely sunny day it is oh my goodness right okay so things are looking quite green I can see a lot of crops still growing this is excellent I mean look at the Brassica bed fantastic let's go take a closer look around right I'm not liking the chances of these red onions very much they're not looking they're not looking like they're getting any bigger and they're getting a bit sludgy now it might be all the rain that we're having but they don't really look like my neighbors ones his look amazing and really big and we planted them about the same time look that looks really damaged I'm not sure about the onions I think the garlic will do better brassas seem to be doing really well now they've like come into their own they've come back alive um and they're absolutely thriving these purple ones in the middle that that one there with the purple stem that's a brussel sprout and I've got loads of them and I put them all in the middle and they're doing great no idea what the rest of them are but they're all alive so who cares Harry's looking a little bit sad are you sad Harry yeah the birds don't listen to you do they it's really hard when you're trying to do your job and no one takes you seriously cheer up Harry oh sorry mate God he yeah oh never mind I have noticed that the leaks that I have direct sewed in this salad bed here salad bed um they've all started to come up were these leaks or were those spring onions no I think they were leaks but you can see the whole row is coming up which is just amazing I think the rain that we've had you know a positive spin on the rain that we've had is that the seedlings haven't dried out um so all the times that I've not been here to water the rain's been doing it for me and I think that's why they've germinated but can you see now why we sew things in rows if I hadn't sewn these in a row I might think that these were weeds and sort of end up weeding them or pulling them out but because I've sewn them in a straight Row one of the reasons that we do it there's a few reasons but it's so you can see what what's coming up and what's the weed it seems really obvious when you say it like that like you know you sew them in rows so that you know what's coming up as your crop and not weeds you know it sounds really obvious but actually it's only obvious when you've been told because when I first got my plot I used to just scatter seeds like confetti and then I wouldn't know what was coming up where um and now it just seems really obvious but that's why we sewing Rose that's one of the reasons we sewing Rose there you go right we are fast approaching the pumpkin Archway but do we have any pumpkins yes we do I think actually yes we do um yeah they're looking they're looking quite good they're all looking alive and I can't see any sort of damage on them so that is fantastic I'm noticing that a lot of my cette plants are getting very yellowy leaves um and I've tried giving it a feed to try and perk him up a little bit but it looks like some kind of fungal infection or disease uh the new leaves in the middle don't seem to be affected it could have been something to do with transplanting it out I really don't know but it's only the cett the pumpkins seem fine but the cett are kind of getting these can you see the yellowy sort of leaves on him um he's got some flowers though that's a good sign it's a very good sign I mean they're alive they're alive what more can I say they're alive um and then sweet corn and sunflowers all alive doing very well this is my first year where I'm really trying with sweet corn I really really want to get a good crop and they are doing very well sunflowers have been untouched cannot believe this cannot believe it it's amazing amazing oh there's hope yet there's hope for June there's a little bit of Blue Sky over there come on or and over there as well behind that tree come on Blue Sky hopefully by the end of this Vlog it'll be nice and sunny definitely been a struggle this year to grow anything um so I do feel quite proud of what is growing and what survived and is surviving still you know so I have to like keep positive at some point son you can do it son we all believe in you I've just noticed got my first raspberry here um this is from my um gifted plants from Roots is it's called yeah Roots um roots and they sell like fruit bushes and stuff and they gifted me a few and look at this my first raspberry and he's a beast that's a huge raspberry that's massive look at him he's so big I can't believe it I think we should it would be rude not to eat him right now wouldn't it just be rude can't even pick him he's so big come on oh perfect absolute perfection there he is absolutely perfect okay all right here we go it's a little bit sour it's a little bit sour oh that's woken me up God it's woking me up is a little bit sour I think maybe I should have waited a little bit longer but then I don't know how long it'd last to be honest with all the bugs here and the Slugs good though good it's just a bit sour so there's a couple of jobs that I really want to do today but I think the first job that we're going to do I'm going to keep it real and we're going to do some weeding um some proper hard graft weeding I think I haven't been showing you a lot of the weeding that I've been doing because I think it gets a bit repetitive and a bit bit syy syy but actually it might be good just to show you how much weeding has to happen like I want to keep things realistic for you as well because the weeds come up at this time of year like crazy so you've got to keep on top of them um so we're going to just go around weed as much as we can that helicopter's just brought blue sky I'm not joking what what is happening the last time I looked up it was cloudy miserable gray just looked like it's going to be an awful day now look within like what 5 minutes of being here 10 minutes of starting the Vlog beautiful the sun is on the way the sun is on the way [Music] hello what's that what am I doing weding little bit what are you doing waiting for your breakfast are you now close you are what's happened to your birdh housee yeah what's happened to it again again I think I might just leave the bird house now yeah I think this a it just a it [Music] so obviously you think you just saw me in those clips battling absolute I mean bind readed Mountain um I've got so much of it I mean when I got my allotment plot and I really had to clear this area I did as much work as I could in terms of like cutting it all back and trying to keep it down but obviously the areas that I've missed it's very obvious now where I've missed missed you know and what I've neglected to think would overgrow this back boundary in particular between my plot and the plot over there has become very overgrown this is where all of my sticks are all of my logs that I lied out is like a fence I obviously didn't need to do that because look we've got a little weedy fence here it'll be much easier to tackle all of that um in the Autumn winter when everything's not growing at 100 milph for [Music] this little area here in the middle of my lotman where I've got the apple tree and a slightly awkward sort of tree stump this will need a lot more weeding and looking after cuz at the moment all it is is a snail Hotel so I think snails and slugs would just love to hide in here and they're coming out and eating my daers eating my pumpkins so the idea of this area is I make it quite flowery I have some Verina in here already which is doing really well and some lavender as well but I need to start getting some more more perennial plants I'm thinking geraniums and stuff like that but the idea is that this area will be full of perennial plants that will come back year after year without me having to do very much um and attract all the pollinators in and also take care of the area a little bit make it look a bit nicer you know maybe a rose a rose would be nice to have in here my neighbor's plot has a lot of um really beautiful rose bushes right at the front of his plot which come out every year um he I don't I've never seen them do anything to them they're just gorgeous they flower he's got pink and white just lovely it'd be nice to have some roses I think [Music] because of all the wind we're having I was thinking or maybe I should tie these tie these in a little bit but I don't think they're big enough yet I think they'll just cling on themselves going the wrong way guys I'm just going to thread it through a little bit make sure it goes up here up there up there up there they're not big enough to tie in yet I think they'll be all right actually we'll just leave them to it I always um in a previous Vlog I asked why we why these exist I once asked in a previous Vlog why sunflowers exist that are really tall if they can't look after themselves cuz you have to tie them in or they will just snap like it cannot survive this kind of wind and somebody said that they've been genetically modified to grow really tall and like need human intervention so not all plants can take care of themselves some plants actually need humans to live and the tall sunflowers really do cuz they will just snap and I was like well it just seems silly doesn't it cuz plants should be able to take care of themselves but not if it's been modified by humans then it can't I don't know if that's true or not but if it is what an interesting piece of information technically this is the month I can pull up my early potatoes they've been in the ground long enough now that I should be able to pull them up and get a potato Harvest however I never know when the right time to pull potatoes up a lot of people ask me so some people say it's when the leaves start to die back other people say it's when they start to flower but really you're never going to know until you pull one of the plants up and that's the best way of knowing if your potatoes already pull one plant up and sacrifice it and see what's going on under the ground and that's what we're going to do today they have done remarkably well this year these potatoes um I'm seeing a little bit of you know what I don't even want to talk about that cuz that is just not what we think it is let's just ignore that but you can see some of the leaves are starting to go a bit yellowy starting to die back let's pull one up nobody can never really know for certain when potatoes are ready unless you pull a plant up and have a look what's going on and then I can see if they're going right if there's any problems if I need to Earth them up [Music] again come on woo oh look at these absolutely beautiful now early potatoes I think these are Rockets they're always going to be a bit smaller than your your main crop but how they're stunning they're perfect they're perfect in every way that's my seed potato that's my seed potato in the middle this potato will be squishy disgusting slimy and slippery that's the one that we planted you can't eat that one that one's for the bin the compost bin um there's one they shouldn't go very deep because they're early they don't go very deep but is that all I get from one point on then three bleeding potatoes all right okay fair enough three potatoes better than no potatoes I suppose um yeah these look absolutely fantastic and they look a really good size they look really good condition and I'm really happy with them so I think what I'll do next time I come is harvest my early potatoes that's going to be a lot of potato I thought it'd be a lot of potatoes actually if we only get three three per plant about 16 potatoes but oh well how fantastic are these though brilliant so I will harvest these next time the main crop potato are throwing up their Gorgeous Flowers I love potato flowers I think they're so beautiful they're throwing up so many lovely flowers but I don't think these will be ready just yet I'm willing to to hold on they've been earthed up really high they should be okay but I'm going to hold on a bit longer for these [Music] sorry this is a bit of a shorter Vlog today um the weather is just atrocious as you can see the sun has not come back out again and there is no blue sky so I'm going to leave the Vlog there cuz there's not much I can do when it's this windy and cold um I will see you again on Monday have a lovely gardening weekend and do try and get out and do some gardening I know it's miserable with the weather and you know but you can't control it there's nothing you can do things are still growing nature doesn't really seem to mind too much about this uh gray clouds so why should we anyway I will see you again Monday thanks for watching guys bye