TIDYING THE ALLOTMENT FOR SPRING / ALLOTMENT GARDENING UK

[Music] good morning everyone welcome back to my lotman Diaries my name is Emma these are the lopment Diaries so if you're not subscribed to my channel already I would love you to hit the Subscribe button now um which lots of you are doing so hello if you are new this is my allotment plot here in South London hi Einstein Einstein has literally just turned up are you waiting nicely are you waiting for your food waiting for breakfast all right I'll just be a second he literally just turns up whenever I'm here um for food he hears me talking to the camera and he turns up straight away very sweet very well trained little birdie aren't you Einstein he's called Einstein purely because I think he's really clever and I thought who's the cleverest person that I know that comes to my I I don't know Einstein personally but I sort of know of him yeah Einstein came to mind so he's now known as Einstein as are all the Robins thought it'd be easier just to call all the Robins Einstein so we'll never get confused by which Robin is which right I've got a couple of jobs to do today um a couple of fixing jobs and a weeding job and that's all I've given myself to do today because we are due some very bad weather um today so I've come really really early in the hope that I will be able to do some work before it hits but it's going to be torrential rain really windy storm likee conditions not quite a storm here I know a lot of places in the UK had a storm not quite a storm here but sort of similar so I think we better get a wiggle on and see what we can get done right starting with you Mr birdie yes of course how could I not right I'm going try and fix that for you Einstein you have to come off it though you going have to come off it just for a second so I can s fix it yeah just Hammer this back in oh my God that did not go to plan Einstein sorry Einstein that was a big mistake right just hey I'm hitting it too hard there easy [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] right this is the bed we're going to tackle today it's actually my strawberry bed I don't know how many strawberry plants are in here it's supposed to be loads um it doesn't really seem to be what I did was I moved them from a pallet planter so all of my strawberries used to be in a pallet planter but they kept drying out they kept drying out and I couldn't keep them alive so what I've done is I've moved them into a designated bed which is just going to be for strawberries and the reason I've done that is because they really like to spread out they literally they make their own plants off of them so if I've got an example here no cuz they've all set rout but basically they send out a runner and on the end of the runner another strawberry plant grows and then that sends out another Runner and that sends out another Runner so they kind of set SE I wouldn't say they set seed what would you call it they replant themselves they they reg germinate they're like Doctor Who they re what does Doctor Who do doesn't re germinate does he does he reg germinate heinstein no that doesn't sound right well you know what regenerate he regenerates they're like Doctor Who they regenerate themselves um but they s clone themselves they don't it doesn't really matter what they do the point is they do it and they take over the bed so this is now a strawberry bed it needs weeding that's what we're going to do it just doesn't look like a very well-kept bed you know it looks sad it's been neglected which is annoying cuz I actually have done this bed up quite a few times and like looked after it and you wouldn't think that would you just going to pull up any weeds and I'm going to take off any leaves that like that cuz that's not good that is not good [Music] [Music] these have all got themselves all muddled up there's so many like so many Runners coming off they've got themselves all tangled together which I don't think is a good thing get them all off oh look what's in here it looks like there's onions in here actually that is an onion it doesn't just look like it that is an onion it's not a very good onion why is that in there then is that some kind of weird experiment that I was conducting it's another one they've not done very well what's that all about there's another one here this is one's done quite well oh not anymore no he's not done well he's rotted oh go just bloody his Skin's just came off oh my God oh my God he's just falling apart in my hand I can't even get him up oh what are you doing in my strawberry bed mate that's what I want to know what was I thinking with that this is the thing about strawberries that I'm mean guys look I've given them an entire bed to themselves and he's trying to escape it where are you going mate come on you need to get back in the bed how am I supposed to fix this when you you're in the way oh [Music] God uh I've just remembered what the onions were for I planted onions around my strawberries as a bird deterrent so that the birds would go and pull up the onions and not eat the strawberries and um I don't think it worked to be honest because the birds weren't the problem in the end it was actually the Slugs and snails so I don't think the onions did anything and I didn't even get any onions out of them so that was definitely a fail but um there are so many different little experiments that I try around the allotment and often I'll stumble across them and I just won't know what they what they are so I'm just like why are there onions in here but that is all part of the fun isn't it just trying new things um it's looking better it's not looking great but it's looking better not quite sure what happened to the strawberry bed this year cuz I really was expecting it to sort of go crazy and it hasn't I feel like I've got less strawberries now than I had last year um I don't know if it's something to do with the weather the conditions they're in if it's too wet and boggy I don't know what I'm going to do is I'm going to buy some compost mulch over the bed and then I'm probably going to get some more strawberry plants and put them in but it is definitely looking better I just wish I knew how to fix this bed like permanently oh actually I think I just have fixed it permanently I actually think that is a permanent fix where's my hammer where's my hammer actually it's not that broken it's really not that broken I think it just needs a bit of a smack like most things in life it just needs a bit of a smack that that's it that's it that yeah fixed [Music] right these brassas in this bed here they're really dead now I mean they're not just dead it's just sad to look at I feel sorry for them do you know what I mean that's how dead they are they just came to nothing this year and it's such a shame I really don't know what happened with my brasas this year but both beds failed over and over again and I planted them here quite a few times and they've always done really well they grew a bit they did grow a bit so that is a half success I'm going to say 50/50 success anyway what I'm going to do is I'm going to chop them but I'm going to leave their roots in the soil for as long as possible to add goodness to the soil I think that's just what I'm going to do um but I'm going to chop them off from the surface put them in the compost tape I get hold off a lot for like removing crops completely and actually you're supposed to leave them in the soil for as long as possible because they all do do something good you know it's all these crops they can add goodness you know so even if it doesn't grow it can do something good for your garden and that's always a positive so give it to me you w give it to me come on guys your time is up [Music] Off With Their Heads sorry guys bit dramatic [Music] [Music] all [Music] do you know I get really excited if I add anything like brassers to my compost heat because I feel like I'm making a real difference to the compost and it's adding goodness and then I get super panicky if I put weeds in cuz I'm absolutely convinced that weeds are just going to grow in there and not compost down and not give me any goodness is there any truth in that I mean I know some weeds can sort of set seed really easily and you shouldn't put them in your compost tap like for example I wouldn't compost B weed I know you probably can but this is not one to do that in because it will just grow here I just know it will just grow and take over I also wouldn't put Nerium in though I actually think I have put nost sterium in there I mean I put some potatoes in there that that have gone green and I started growing already so like it really stresses me out I don't want my compost to grow you know what I mean I want it to be compost [Music] I have to admit that is looking really good now I've got um a great big pile of horse manure in here too which I'm really hoping is just helping it's feeling good I feel like not feeling I mean looking do you know what I mean like feeling is in the slugs in here is that okay there's also you know what there is in here as well there's fungus fungus I think is really good you see on this cardboard here that white stuff it's like little fungus growing little fungus everywhere I have a feeling that's a really good thing we're just going to go with it and say it's a good thing I don't think these guys are a good thing these guys are never a good thing [Music] all thing birds have literally eaten all the bird food this one was on the floor they've literally ransacked them do they not know there's a cost of living crisis going on my goodness every single one is empty completely empty I've got a feeling this is squirrels I have a feeling this is squirrel behavior this is a squirrel if I ever did see squirrel behavior this is squirrel behavior this would be in the dictionary squirrel and under the definition eating all the bird food that is unbelievable that they've eaten all that I mean it's good cuz I did want them to eat it but I didn't think they'd eat it so fast I need to buy some more peanuts for them now I think they like peanuts [Music] [Music] right quite a lot of you have messaged to say that these little I think they're called petunias they no Prim roses these little Prim roses I've got if I dead head them they'll keep flowering for ages and ages so I'm going to dead head them but I wasn't going to do this cuz I thought I'll let them get on with it and sort it out themselves you know they're going to have to fight for their own Survival but actually I really like them and I think they're really pretty somebody else sent me a comment and said apparently all Prim roses go back to their sort of same color or something cuz I said when I brought these Prim roses it was one of like each color like they were all different colors so I really wanted lots of different colors here like lots of different color Prim roses but as time's gone on they've all just turned yellow every single one and I had like purple red um can't remember what other colors but all different colors I've got a video of me putting them in they've all gone yellow somebody says that's quite normal apparently it's normal for them just to all go yellow weird didn't plants are weird aren't they weird I find that fascinating fascinating I wish we could ask them sometimes I wish you could just ask plant like hi you're right what do you need what's going on why are you turning yellow you know and it would just tell me that's looking quite nice now deadheaded it actually it's looking more yellow [Music] right it is actually quite calm um it's a little bit chilly but it's quite calm at the moment but my weather up is still saying the storm is coming it's going to come about 11:00 and we're getting close to that time now and I don't want to be here if it starts getting really windy we've had loads of trees come down and stuff and those are flooding over the years so I don't want to be the one stuck on my lot M plot do you know what I mean though there are worse places to be stuck I would imagine anyway Friday Friday I'm going to come down I'm going to put together those two raised beds a lot of you messaged me to say that you can actually put those beds together to make a bigger bed so I'm going to sort of play around with it a little bit and see if maybe that would work I I'm thinking maybe a bigger one big raised bed might work at the back there better so I'm going to have a little look at that and Fiddle about with it and see see what we can sort of make happen um obviously the storm's coming now and it's going to be very rainy and miserable so when I get back down here I don't know but I will find an hour or so um to come down and hopefully it'll warm up again soon because it's just not pleasant doing gardening in this kind of weather but at the same time I just love it and I just want to be out here so much that I will just sort of put up with it do you know what I mean once again a huge thank you if you have purchased my allotment handbook I hope you're enjoying it um I put a lot of energy and effort into it I tried my best with that I have noticed a couple of mistakes and I do apologize for that I did the best I could with it and I do hope you sort of you know you're getting past those few couple of little spelling mistakes and just enjoying the book as a whole thank you so much if you have purchased it or purchase my planner as well I will see you again on Friday have a lovely rest of your gardening week see you Friday guys sorry I'm distracted by Einstein see you Friday bye