MAKING MY OWN COMPOST / ALLOTMENT GARDENING UK

[Music] good morning the way you're waiting for me the way he's just waiting for me he's coming right over are you waiting for your food oh my gosh are you waiting for food all right it's coming I reckon if I'm careful maybe out my hand then in come on I hold my hand on this it's all right Einstein there you go I'll just leave them for you you know what I'm I'm losing my nerve anyway I want you to eat out my hand but I'm a bit scared I'm just a bit scared of you Einstein I do love you I know I can't help it I'm a human I'm a human I really thought he was going to eat out my hand then I really thought that would be the moment that Einstein finally ate out of my hand but um alas not to be I think I'm just a little bit too like nervous with them I think can sense it from me um I will keep trying hi guys how you doing welcome back to my alotment Diaries my name's Emma these are the alotment Diaries this is my allotment plot on South in South London should I say on South London in got a few little jobs to do here today one of them is going to be focusing on the compost um I am going to try and burn some stuff but it did rain last night which is a bit annoying um it wasn't sort of forecast to rain but it did so I don't know if that's going to affect anything I vividly have this memory of my dad telling me that when he was younger and he lived in partney on this estate with all these other kids they would purposely burn wet leaves to make like smoke as much smoke as they could because apparently in the 60s there was nothing else to do um but I always remember that story of my dad purposely burning wet leaves to make smoke so I'm wondering if maybe if I burn wet stuff it would just make a lot of smoke as you can hear I'm not a burning expert I don't make fire on a daily basis I am a modern human and um yeah this is going to be a fun little experiment but the first thing to do is to work on the compost because I'm utterly obsessed with it utterly obsessed with it are you okay Einstein yeah he contemplating getting some more what's going on what that all just went crazy then you know I read a really interesting piece of information really wanted to share with you today apparently it's been discovered I don't know how actually when I'm thinking about it now but it's been discovered that crows can hold a grudge against humans for up to 17 years like I have no idea who does how does somebody discover that does someone like analyze the same Crow and the crow had an issue with them for 17 years and then on year 18 it suddenly was like oh we're cool now how does somebody discover that that is mindblowing to me that somebody actually made that Discovery it's made all the national papers and stuff so it must be scientific I think I'm going to conduct my own experiment on Crows here and then I'm going to have it published in all the papers is he is he holding a grudge against me is that a grudge what kind of sound is that is that even a crow or is it Magpie serious issues going on over there serious issues [Music] beautiful [Music] so you know that I don't know much about compost really struggled with it over the last 5 years so a in here it's just been a big mystery and one thing that I do know is that you need to have a 50/50 ratio of brown stuff and green stuff and that is basically what makes compost if you want to get to like make it as simple as possible brown stuff plus green stuff equals compost obviously there's loads of stuff you can do to sort of speed it along and um I don't know make better compost and make it quicker and all the rest of it um it's something I'm just learning and I'm really enjoying learning like it's become my absolute Obsession so what I'm going to do I've just been dumping stuff on the top recently when I've been clearing the plot I'm going to turn it and mix it and make sure there's an even sort of 50/50 ratio in there I'm just s going to do it by eye there's a lot of leaves in here I think that's brown um it's lot of like dead crops in here that are brown like physically Brown I think Brown means literally Brown it's also cboard in there and then there's a few green leaves and green crops that I've just chopped down so I'm sort of hoping that's sort of 50/50 I think we'll know more when I turn it let's turn it excited for this apologies if I'm shouting at you by the way I've got my hat on and I can't really hear properly when I wear a hat what an old person thing to say my God how old do I think I am I can't hear you when I got a hat on come on Emma you're need your 30 relax okay I think I just threw a little B out then do I think the smaller you chop it up do you mind seriously so rude I think the smaller you chop it up the quicker it turns to compost I think could have made that up but it seems logical doesn't it so it must be right oh God I can't do it anymore I need a minute I need a minute that is hard work I tell you what like I've said many times if you don't want to pay for a gym membership just get an allotment make a compost heat grow some parsnips I get the best workouts of my life here I don't know if I'm just really really unfair or if that is genuinely hard work but wow that is hard work okay I'm looking at it I'm trying to think from a composting kind of profession point of view what would Monty Don think looking at this compost tape right if I was a profession Gardener like Monty Don Alan touch Marsh and I was looking at this I would probably say why is there plastic in it all right okay calm down oh just put it straight back in again do you see that right it's a little bit twine in here that's okay that's fine I think I would say it needs more Brown I think just looking at it with my eye eyes I think it needs some more brown stuff I don't know how accurate the 50/50 thing needs to be but it does look more green than brown so I've got some brown stuff up there let's go get [Music] [Music] it could this spind stuff be sort of like bind weed or something that I don't want I think it might be now I don't know if I want to risk it cuz this was very overgrown over the summer with bind weed maybe I don't want to risk it [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] yeah yeah that's looking better A lot better cool be good at this honestly don't know why I've been so scared of compost so long it's not hard so far yeah that definitely looks like a better mix of green and and brown in there so that's really good I've chopped it as much as I can but I will have to come back and do a bit more chopping another day when I get the strength in my arms back but I think for now I'm going to water it because you have to keep it wet [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] right so this entire Vlog is just turning into a compost Vlog now I don't think I'm going to have time to burn anything today unfortunately bit of a shame but I will come back and do that another day it's fine got the whole of winter um to burn all the old sticks and stuff and actually a lot of it is quite wet today so sorry to disappoint no no fire making today um but I I did just have a thought I've got this old stinging nettle feed that I made for my plants the thing is I don't think I'm going to use it again this year so I was thinking why don't I just whack that on the compost tape I don't think it can do any harm and it absolutely stinks and normally if something stinks it's quite good for the garden stinks so if I spilled this on me I'm going to cry I'm going to actually cry on camera the first time cried on camera okay it's quite light it's all right my God it smells like death it smells so bad and disgusting I just kind of got over it right hopefully that means it's really good you'll love this guys there yeah I got all the stinging NS at the btom oh my go oh my gosh the stench oh the stench like I said normally really stinky things are quite good for the Garden so the stinkier it is the better I'm going to cover it over again somebody said to cover it so we're going to cover it what I'm going to do guys is I am actually going to cover it with cardboard I just don't have any at the moment but as soon as Christmas comes I have loads of cardboard after Christmas we always have loads of cardboard so I'm going to cover the whole thing with cardboard I think get rid of this plastic stuff I don't like it and that's just to we it down there we go compost area sorted right I'm going to take off The netting over these onions that I sewed a little a while ago because they're starting to come through the netting which I don't really want them to do cuz they might get stuck I don't want them to get stuck guys so that's going to come off now we just have to see what happens all right well a lot of them have done quite well you can see look this Leaf is snapped off because of the netting which is a little bit frustrating yeah most of these are now growing which is good I mean the good thing is this bed obviously gets Sun you can see it's in the sun right now and they need sun and also I did put a load of mulch over here so it's got a really good growing material you know to grow in the thing is about onions is they don't want to sit in like a boggy wet mess cuz they will just rot it will just rot the onion so they need really free draining um compost or like growing material to go into some of them have not grown it's actually quite interesting to me that all the ones in the middle have not grown and all the ones on the outside have grown what does that mean then what can we learn from this I don't know are they just taking their time this one does have a little growing tip I put my hand there look you can see he is starting to grow and none of the others have been pulled out they are all in the soil so what's going on I'm going to pull one up so if this onion is going to grow it will have Roots underneath it so let's pull them up now look oh he is rooted down yeah he's rooted He's Got Roots he's stuck in there why are you not growing why are you taking your time in the middle none of them in the middle are growing what's wrong with you all just a really odd situation you can see the ones on the outside are growing really strongly and really just growing away ones in the middle have rooted down but they're not growing yet don't know no idea did I put leaks behind here I think I did are they still alive yeah look can you see these here these are all my leaks that I put in a little while ago they're they're growing really well fantastic they've not died they've not died at all that is brilliant I can't believe that I actually can't believe it I'm honestly so surprised cuz they were so small and spindly when I put them in I thought no they've got no chance but they're just growing away they they're so happy just goes to show guys always whack it in just whack it in I could never tell you it's something's going to work or not um someone was asking is it too late to sew um broad beans now no I don't think it is whack them in what's the worst that can happen they don't germinate they don't grow then whack them in again in the spring you know until you put something in the ground you really don't know if it's going to work or not um and nobody can really tell you for sure if it will just keep whacking it in Well Done guys well done excellent well guys I hope you've en enjoyed my little Vlog today um it just turned into just sorting out the compost tape but you know what that is one of the best jobs you can do over the Autumn time and I really hope that I've inspired you if you don't have a compost tape to make a compost tape or a compost Bay or something and just start composting cuz I tell you what you will become addicted just like I have if I do not get compost from that cuz I have followed it like by the rule book for how to make compost if I do not get compost then compost is a myth it doesn't exist okay and that's just all I can say from it like compost is just a lie it's the biggest lie we've ever been told if I don't make it from that because that there's no way that can not make compost so keep following me and I will let you know I will I will share my entire composting Journey with you I really hope that you just make some compost as well I really hope I inspire you and show you that if I can do it because I'm not a gardening expert but if I can do it you can do it you've seen me do it it that's how you do it I think I think I always have to add I think cuz I don't know anyway I will see you again on Friday have a lovely rest of your week see you Friday guys thanks for watching bye