GETTING IT ALL DONE! / ALLOTMENT GARDENING UK

Good morning everyone. Welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma. These are my allotment diaries, what I'm getting up to on a day to day basis on my allotment plot here in South London. So, um, I've only been here once over the weekend. I popped in for about an hour. No, not an hour. What am I saying? It's a lie. Starting out this vlog with a lie. I popped here for about literally three and a half minutes, um, just to pick up all of the rubbish that was in my shed and take it to the dump. We actually had quite a lot of stuff to get rid of from our back garden at home. So by the time we got here, we were exhausted, like honestly exhausted. And I sort of tried to grab as much of it as I could, um, threw it in the van, took it all to the dump. It feels quite good, but I'm hoping that the shed is quite empty now because honestly I was drained by the end of that day. Like we had bags and bags of rocks and soil, like disgusting soil that we couldn't grow anything in from our garden that we had to take to the dump. And it was so heavy. It just took so long and I'm not complaining because I'm so happy we got it done and it's gone. And the garden is going to be beautiful this year because I'm going to really, really work on my home garden as well as the allotment plot. But I do hope we did enough. So this is the moment of truth. Hoping it's pretty empty in there, but genuinely can't remember. Can't remember. Okay. I thought we forgot one bag. All right. Okay. That's okay. I forgot one bag. I thought I'd left one bag there. I really do think I had. That's quite annoying, but okay. It's just one. Okay. You know what? There's one bag, excuse the tripod sort of like flung in there. One bag. Um, I think all the stuff I need, this all this on here is what I wanted to keep. And I've got some shelving, which I'm going to bring down this week and put up here. And then hopefully the shed will be more organized. I just need it to be like organized enough so that I can actually get stuff and see stuff. But like, I'm not going to lie. My shed is not my favorite place in the world anymore. It's full of spiders, full of cobwebs. Obviously I've got a mouse living in here. A lot of you commented and said, there's never just one. There's always more than one. I actually do know that because I have a Victorian terrace and when we moved into it, there were like a family of mice. So we had to sort of ask them very firmly to leave and I'll leave it at that. Um, yeah, it just needs to be to the point where I can walk in here, grab what I need, get out and actually see it and it not all get lost and fall apart. But I think it's going to get there. I'm quite confident with it. Okay. Right. I'm going to start today because it's not the nicest day in the world. It is a little bit grizzly today and a little bit sort of, um, overcast, but it's not that cold. I'm going to start by sowing some seeds in my greenhouse. And so I need to get some supplies to do that. Where should I put my coat? I might just throw it on the floor. That's not draping is it? Right. Okay. What I need is pots and trays and things. I think I've got them here somewhere. This is what I mean. It needs to be just to the point where I could just sort of grab it without screaming of a spider or anything. Oh Christ, is there going to be a spider in there? No, they're good. They're good pots. I've had those pots. Um, who else do I need? Could I please have, not you, what's that? Um, can I please have you? Nope, changed my mind. I don't want you cause there's a great big spider web in there. Even though there's no spider, I won't have you actually. What I'll do is I'll just have some more pots please. Thank you. Okay. Let's get the heck out of here. I just find it really, really stressful to be in there full stop, full stop. Let's go to the greenhouse. It's just lighter in there and just makes me feel happier in there. Right. It is 8.8 degrees Celsius in here and hot and humid. No. High and humid. Helium. Is that helium? I don't know what that means, but he doesn't look too happy about it, does he? Oh my goodness. Look, the cosmos has started to germinate. This is so exciting. How odd that, oh no, these are different types, aren't they? These are the big ones and these are the candy floss red, the little ones. Yeah. Okay. Right. These are taking a bit longer. Hurry up guys. Come on. Your friends are doing it. Okay. Brought down some of these. These are giant sunflowers. They were sitting on my window at home. You can see they have become a bit leggy, but I think they will be okay. Going to repot those today. These are my shallots and onions. I think I might sow a few more though. They are all starting to germinate now. They just seem really happy in here. I've actually got another camping table at home that I found that I might bring down here just for this year. Then what I'm going to do is invest in some proper shelving just so I can actually grow stuff properly. I want to do it properly this year. I will also secure the greenhouse down, but we haven't had too much wind and nothing has happened to it. I feel that we're okay. If I get a spider in here any second, I'm going to scream. I just hate them guys. I just don't like them. I just don't enjoy being around them. I don't mind them existing. Don't get me wrong. Spiders are welcome to coexist in this world with me, but just stay out of my way. Just stay away from me. That's all I ask. I'm going to start by repotting the sunflowers. Let's do that first. It's actually so nice to have another job to do away from the outside of the allotment. Does that make any sense? I must start that sentence again. It's actually so nice to have something different to do here at the allotment, like actually sowing some seeds. Normally this I'll do at home off camera, but now I'll show you what I'm doing. I really like that. It's nice to have something more relaxing to do when I first get here. It's calming. All right, so what we'll do, we're just going to literally squeeze the bottom and sort of pull it. I really want to make him loose. When I pull him out, you're supposed to pull him by the leaves, but to be honest, if I do it gently enough, I've got him. There's my little roots and my little sunflower friend, and then what we do, let's get our new pot, make a nice big little well in the middle, stick him in, stick him in, in you go, press him in. That is, you're going to be on new home for a little bit, and hopefully, because it's nice and bright in here, he won't stay leggy. He'll sort of grow nicely now, but when seedlings do get leggy, they are sort of, it just means they're not going to be strong enough outside. You can sort of counteract it. So if you've got seedlings growing on a windowsill and they're sort of going leggy like this, you can do a couple of things. Firstly, you can keep turning the tray round so that they kind of don't grow like that, like wonky. So you keep just turning your tray round to point the sun every day. Otherwise what you can do, and to be fair, this hasn't ever really worked for me, but this is a valid tip and you can find it everywhere. You run your hands over the seedlings like this, as if it's windy, and what you can do is you can trick your seedlings into thinking it's windy, and actually they do have enough light and everything's fine, and sometimes that can make them grow straight. That's never worked for me, but that is a piece of gardening advice that I've heard before, and I do try and do it, but ultimately, you know, they need enough light. So, oh god, there's a spider in there. No spider in there. Cool, all right, no spiders in there, excellent. So I've brought a couple of other seeds to sow today. First one I'm going to do, first thing we're going to sow is melon. Never grown a melon before, but I've got a greenhouse now, so I just thought I might actually try and grow melons in giant pots. I might get some pots or something. This is called the MAF1 melon. So what I'm going to do, I've just got a couple of pots here. I'm going to sow four seeds, if I've got four seeds. Yeah, I've got four seeds. I'm going to sow four, and I'm going to pick out two. I'm going to keep sort of two plants, basically, so I'm sowing four to keep two. And the other thing is going to be these. I call them snap dragons, but they're actually called anteranum. That one. Basically, snap dragons, all in different colours. I did grow these one year, and they did absolutely fantastically. And I was just like, why have I not done those again? So now I've got greenhouse, I'm going to do them. I remember these being teeny, teeny, tiny little seeds. So what we're going to do, push all that down. Oh gosh, they're the smallest seeds I've ever seen in my life. Oh my, they're the smallest seeds I've ever seen in my flipping life. These are not my favourite. These are really supposed to be scattered over a big tray, but you know what? This is all we've got. Oh, this is impossible. No, I'll never see them again. I just can't understand how this would create anything. This is just... Well, I mean, they're in there, so... really well for me. Whenever I sow parsnips in February, they do great. They're amazing. It's a great time to sow parsnips, honestly. I would have expected them to have done something by now. It's been about six weeks since I planted them, and I do think they've sort of just disappeared into nothingness, which sometimes does happen when you plant seeds. Sometimes you put seeds down, you never hear from them again, you know? It's like a first date. Every time you sow a seed, it's like a first date. You've just got hope and hope that they call again. Many times they don't. I can't see anything that resembles a parsnip. Now, I sowed parsnip gladiators in here, which are my favourite type of parsnip to sow. I've got parsnip guernsey here. I might just whack some of these down as well. The worst that will happen is that they both germinate, and I end up with two different types of parsnip. I don't think that's such a bad thing. It's like a parsnip picker mix. Everything is a picker mix this year for my allotment, isn't it? Right, there could be any number of reasons why the parsnips haven't germinated. They could just be sitting there waiting. I'll try and do it sort of off the lines that I've already done, just in case. I also did have a cat walk through here, so I'm wondering if he just maybe disturbed them all, I don't know. Once again, if you're sowing seeds, it's always easier to put them in your hand, in that hand maybe, and then pinch them to sow. It just gives you more control. Most likely they'll all germinate now, the old ones and the new ones, all together. The old ones will feel threatened that they're being replaced, and they'll suddenly grow. It's a bit of a day for sort of doing bitty jobs. Do you know what I mean by that? Like, sort of just bits and bobs that I haven't quite finished. I sort of feel like finishing today, so I'm going to put the netting around the other end of the sweet peas. These ones are doing really well. These are the shop-bought ones though, so all the ones that I sowed have died, by the way. Not done very well at all, whereas the shop-bought ones are absolutely fantastic. I think I might buy some more, just get them supported a bit more. A crow! It's a crow. Yeah, it is. It's just there. What is it about my allotment that they seem to love so much? I don't see them on any other allotment. Right, there's one there. There's one also up there. This is terrifying. What do they want? Why do they keep coming for my plot? Go somewhere else. Yeah, look, you can see these are the shop-bought ones, and then over here, these are my ones. These are the ones that I sowed from a seed and planted outside, dead, alive. So I think the shop-bought ones are just excellent, and they're so healthy and bushy, and yeah, they're just doing really well, so I'm sort of just going to leave them to do their thing. In front of that, I've got some leeks. These little blades of grass, these are actually leeks, and these are doing really well. I can't believe it. That's a weed. Let's get that out. Come on, out you come. You shouldn't be in there. Yeah, these are doing great. I sowed these absolutely ages ago, doing absolutely amazing, so I'm going to leave these in, obviously, and next to that, we've got the onions. I don't know how these are doing, though, having said that. Look at that. That one's doing amazing. It's so upright and bright green. Oh yeah, fantastic. So not looking too bad. Pond is looking a little bit worse away, a little bit shabby, isn't it? That's how I describe it, a little bit shabby, and it's sort of letting the side down, because that side of the allotment now is really neat. I've really worked at this end of it, and the pond is letting it down big time, so I might just spend a little bit of time sort of just weeding it. I obviously do want the pond to be a little bit overgrown, because I know it's good for wildlife, but I don't want it to get too out of control again, because it often gets out of control. What I've done is I have planted some shrubs around it, so I've got this little one here, which I'm not sure I like. I think it's a little conifer. It's not doing very well there, but these ones are doing really good. That one's doing really well, and that gives it the sort of coverage that I want. I've also got spring bulbs. I've got some tulips over there. These are irises, and then there's also more tulips and things around there, and then we've got the pond plants. I don't know what to do about this one. This is looking very messy. Maybe what I'll do is just try and sort of strip the dead bits out of it or something. I don't know. Maybe I need to cut them. Yeah, that sort of looks like it was the right thing to do, I think, and then there's lots of growth behind it, so I've got quite a lot of plants in here. I think that's sorrel, like water sorrel or something, and then I've got the forget-me-nots in here that are like going in the water, obviously, but yeah, it's looking quite nice. I think the idea is that 75% of your pond is supposed to be grown over like this, so hopefully that will spread out a little bit, and the pond is looking quite nice. All right, what an absolutely lovely start to the week. Just really calm today here, just really lovely and calm. It's quiet, it's a little bit chilly, but we've repotted some seeds, I've sown some seeds, done a bit of weeding, just taking care of the plot, fed Einstein. It's just felt like a really nice day and nothing crazy happened, which is always a bonus. It doesn't often happen here. Usually there's some kind of drama going on, but not today. I think I'm going to spend the rest of this week, I think I'm going to fix up the pumpkin archway because it really needs sorting out now, sort out that whole area there. I'm also going to turn the compost, so turn it from one bay to another bay. It's been six months now and I think it just needs completely turning into the other bay, so we'll do that. Yeah, just lots of nice allotment jobs. I hope you're enjoying your plots at the moment, or your gardens. I'm also working on my home garden and I am going to put up some vlogs showing you the progress going on there, what I'm doing, what's happening, because there's quite a big sort of garden renovation going on at the moment, and I'm doing it all myself with the help of my husband, but we're not getting people in to do it. I've never ever got anyone in to do the garden, just because, you know, honestly our house needs so much work that all our money goes on looking after our old Victorian Terrace house, and we don't have any money left for the garden, so I've always just had to do it myself, but I do enjoy it and I like playing about with it. So there will be some home gardening vlogs coming up soon, and yeah, that's it. I will see you on Wednesday. Have a lovely rest of your gardening week. See you Wednesday, guys. Thanks for watching. Bye!