A HUGE BRASSICA HARVEST! / ALLOTMENT GARDENING UK

[Music] [Music] Where is my Oh, it's under there. Oh my goodness. Okay. Right. Fine. We're good. We're good. We're good. Sorry about that, guys. I get so paranoid at the moment at my a lotment plot that something's been trashed or stolen. It's like I get anxiety every time I approach my a lotment, which is not the way it should be. I know. And it's not ideal and it's not okay, but it's the way it is and that's how I feel. So, I was just thinking my strim has been stolen, but it's not. It's here. It's here. How you all doing? Hello. Welcome back to my a lotment diaries. My name is Emma. Currently in my polycarbonate greenhouse. It's not been that sunny recently, but it's been very humid and warm. So, in here at the moment, it is bear with bear with 33.2° C in here at the moment. So, very humid. Are you liking the humidity though? I feel like they're liking it. But I do feel like I'm creating the perfect environment for blight. Just hoping that I can harvest loads of tomatoes before the blight does hit. Let's be honest, it's going to hit at some point. It's far too humid in here for it not to hit. In fact, let's get another window open. Talking myself into panic mode. Gosh, talking myself into a panic, right, let's try and stay calm. There's lots of tomatoes here now to be harvested. Look at that. Absolutely fantastic. half past 8 in the morning, but never too early for a tomato. Right, got to the plot today and I looked around and I was like, what a mess. What an absolute mess. Um, being a little bit hard on myself. Obviously, there's a bit of weeding to do. There's always weeding to do, isn't there? Couple of areas where I'm just a little bit unsure about. Let me show you. Right. This bed here. This What is this? What's happening in this bed? What is this? Why is one end dead and the other end alive? Look at this weird bed. This is my designated flower bed. So, I allow flowers to come up everywhere, but this is sort of the bed dedicated to them. This end looks very full, very nice. We've got lots of um what are these called? Gladioli coming up. These are sort of finished now. So, I'm wondering I might just leave them to self seed. Not sure what they were, but they're from my wild flower pack. Got some cosmos coming up there. Few uh Californian Californiaifornian poppies. Lovely. Got a dia there, which is unheard of at this time of year. Incredible. Very small, but there we go. Then this end of the bed just looks dead. What's going on with this end? Why is nothing growing in this end of it? I don't understand. Did I not put anything in here? What's that all about? It's a bed of two halves. It's a bed of two halves. One half is thriving and the other half is sort of dying off. Even the gladioli are taller on this side than they are on that side. They're really small on that side. So, that's quite telling, isn't it? That's quite telling. And if you know what that's telling us, please let me know in the comments cuz I'm not sure what it's telling me other than the fact that this Oh my gosh. What was that? Was that mouse? Is that mouse? Was that mouse? Is that a mouse? It was a shadow. It was a shadow. Sorry. I do love nature. Oh, isn't it lovely being out in nature? I think it might be telling us that the soil and the sunlight on this side is better than that side. That side's closer to the tree, but I don't know why it would make that much of a difference. I really don't know. I think I'll weed it a little bit, try and make it look a little bit more together. Um, so I can sort of see it as not an ugly mess and then think about maybe buying some perennials to go in that end. Maybe woodland loving perennials. So, thinking fox glove, blue bells for the uh I the tulips did really well, didn't they? I don't know. I'll think about it. But woodland loving plants at that end. Anyway, let's give it a bit of a tidy up. [Music] You might be thinking, "How do I know what to pull up?" The answer is, I don't. I'm just pulling up things I don't like the look of. Oh. Wow. Not all of it is successful. Oh dear. Oh no. I'm pulling all the bloody bulbs up now. I don't want to do that. Throw that back under. Get back under there, mate. Come on. Get back under. The thing is is I'm all for beds being a little bit overgrown because it's great for wildlife and stuff, but I found a lot of slugs and snails hiding in here. So, this whole bed is just like harboring criminals. So, as much as I like it to be sort of free and overgrown, when it's harboring criminals in my a lotment plot, it's not good. And it needs to go, you know, I've got an executive order to to clear the criminals out of this bed. That's just the way it has to be, guys. All right. Sometime later, and it doesn't look any better. Um, if anything, it just looks more prominent that this end is really growing well and this end is dying. It must be something to do with the trees. Maybe the roots of the trees sucking all the energy. I'm not sure. Even the cosmos is struggling. Even the dia is struggling. I mean, like I said, look at the size of the gladioli on this side compared to that side up there. Going to have to rethink this entire flower bed next year. I think I think I need more perennials in it. And I think I need more woodland loving perennials that are used to having tree roots around and tree shade. That's what I need. Oh, look who's turned up. Look who's turned out. I don't think you're going to find any today, Einstein. Don't think there's many worms in there. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Bet it's busy today, but there we go. [Music] Scissors. She found my scissors. [Music] Look how crazy my clemetus has gone on my shed. I only brought this last year and it's gone absolutely crazy. If you want a really fast growing clemetus, get the purple one. I'm not sure what it's called, but it's purple. I've got so many flower buds on it as well. None of them have opened yet. At home, I've got the same one and they've all flowered already. This one's taking its time, but I'm quite happy with that. It's gone all over the shed, all over the windows. I absolutely love it. [Music] [Music] [Music] Right. Brassacas, brassacas, brassacas, more brassacas. Great time of year to be planting out more brasacas for an early autumn kind of harvest or late autumn maybe it would be. Where are we now? July. Sort of coming into July. So it'll be like yeah a late autumn harvest. But brassacas can survive a bit of frost or a bit of cold. Not like a hard frost but a bit of cold they can survive. brought these ages ago and I putotted them on, but they're not very happy. They don't like being contained, brassacas. They want to be free. They want to be in the wild. They want to spread their wings and grow as big as they can. Can't remember what I've even got, can I? And I haven't labeled any of them. Oh, there's a caterpillar in that one. That's not good. You won't be able to see that. But on that little leaf there, there is a teeny tiny little caterpillar. And that is a cabbage white butterfly caterpillar. That's what they do. those um white butterflies that flap around and they look really beautiful and pretty. They will land on your brassacas lay caterpillars and the caterpillars will eat your entire brassaca. That squirrel. Oh my gosh, why are the animals doing this to me today? That was scary. Caterpillars will eat your entire batch of brassacas in like two days. So, you've got to protect them with nets. You've got to check them for any uh caterpillars and you got to get them off basically. So I think I've got broccoli, two different types of broccoli and uh cauliflower, I think. I think. But it's a bit of a pick a mix bed, isn't it? So Oh, Einstein's turned up cuz he knows digging will be happening. Okay, cool. What we'll do is we'll lay it out in the bed first. You see there? Sort of. Spacing is quite important with brassacas. do get quite big, but at the same time it's also sort of not equally it's not important because they can sort of push each other out the way. So sometimes it's just the more the marrier, you know. That's actually my way of planting now. More the more the marrier. That's about right, I think. Yeah. And how many more have we got? Three. Okay, cool. That's almost perfect. Almost, but not quite. One, two, three. One potato there. That's actually about right. It's about a foot, about a foot and a half between each one, which is actually that's actually the right amount of spacing. This bed didn't really listen to the spacing advice and just whacked it all in. But actually, look, they've all just done fine. Oh, look. Cauliflower. Oh, how did I not see that? Oh my goodness. I have to harvest some of this today. That's fantastic. But you can see it's all still grown very, very nicely. So, you know, spacing is important. They do get very, very big, but at the same time, if you whack in too many, it's the more the marrier. And then you just say, "Well, great. They'll they'll figure it out." They're plants. They know what they're doing, you know, better than we do. I hope. Oh, the sun's come out for planting. Excellent. [Music] Every single time I dig in this bed, I find more potatoes. I think it's had two lots of potatoes in this bed over the years, and I'm still digging them up two years later. So, you know, don't even need to plant them anymore. [Music] Another one. [Music] Look at this little handful of potatoes I've dug up. Like I said, that bed has had potatoes in for like 2 years. All different varieties. These look like um early potatoes, don't they? like an early variety. Not quite sure if they're edible. Some of them are a little bit green. Yes, little Brucey bonus little crop I've dug up. Quite interesting, isn't it? Right, they're all in the ground. They look very vulnerable and small, guys. I'm very worried about them actually. And I think we are due some rain, thank goodness, soon because it's been very dry recently. I'm going to give them a really good water and we're going to protect them. We've got to protect them from slugs, but mainly birds. So, right, let's get on with that. [Music] Right. This is blue water piping I'm putting over. Now, a lot of people always ask me this. What is it? What is it? It's blue water piping. Got it in a uh in BQ. Got it in BQ. That is where I got it. Sticking in a stick. Sticking in a stick. Yeah. sticking in a stick and then threading it over the top like that. And then it stays up and then I'll net over the top of it. That's it. It's that easy. [Music] [Music] [Music] Why is it always the one I bleed and try and film that goes wrong? What's wrong with you? Oh, does it not fit? Oh, stick's too big. Right, you're out. Right. Some netting in here. This is the netting that I used over the pumpkins. I might need both. [Music] I'm going to trap your net. You say there. Yeah, that made you fly away, didn't it? Right. Thank god for paper wire or I think I'd be having a bit of a breakdown doing this job. Blooming act. What a horrid job. Trying to get a net over water piping. Oh, what did you do today? Oh, I just tried to get a net over water piping. Is that reaching the ground? It's not even reaching the ground. I don't know what to do. I wish I could be a bird sometimes. Was that the bird? I'll take it back immediately. I don't want to be a bird. Please ignore that. Wipe that from the record. That shall be stricken from the record. Emma does not want to be a bird. Right. Okay. Are you in? Are you in? Einstein, do not come in here. It's a cage. It's a cage. It's literally a cage. Don't go in it. No. No. Einstein, no. Cuz you won't be getting out again. No. Oh god. Why does he always got to get involved? Why have you always got to get involved and everything? Right. Well, it looked great until I put the netting on it and then it all went haywire. That's always the problem with these things. They look great until suddenly they just sort of don't. Look at this guy eyeing up the new brassacas. Yeah. New restaurants opened in town, mate. Anyway, no matter. Oh, the brassacas are in. Oh, the brassacas are in the ground. They've been watered. They're in. I mean, what happens now is up to them. The other bras here did absolutely excellent. So, I'm hoping good things will come. Um, right. I need to do some watering because everything looks like it's dying cuz we haven't had any uh rain recently or not a substantial amount of rain. I need it to pour down. I need it to be torrential just for like maybe half an hour or so and everything would be watered. That'd be great. If you could just make that happen, that would be marvelous. [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] Okay. Oh, you're a bit low there. Right. going to harvest some of those brassacas today because they're looking fantabulous. Um, and I've got a bag. I've got my bag. I've got to remember to take home these loving paper bags I bring from Marks and Spencers. I bring so many of them and I end up with a big pile of them. And actually, what what I should be doing is taking something in it and then harvesting something and taking it home again. So, anyway. Okay. Right. Let's go harvest. Woohoo. Oh, yeah. And I found my scissors. I found my scissors. Right. All right, the brassasica bed is looking absolutely fantabulous, isn't it? So bursting with life. So big, so bushy. It's time to start picking it. We're going to start with the kale. Right, let's get some of this lovely kale. Look at that kale leaf. Aren't kale leaves absolutely beautiful. Does anybody put them into like flower arrangements? Cuz that would look beautiful, wouldn't it? Or would it just look weird? I don't know. Maybe it would look weird. There's a lot of white flying off these. I'm going to have to really wash them. But though there's a lot of whitefly, doesn't seem to be a lot of damage to them. So I'm sort of happy to leave the whitefly to do their thing. You know, pests are only really a problem if they're actually damaging the crop. If they're just leaving it alone and just sitting there just having a chitchat, they're fine. I was going to pull up the whole thing, but I think I might just cut it. I feel like that would be better. Look at that. Wow. Isn't that incredible? Very minimal damage as well. Very minimal. I think he just started to go over. I should have picked him maybe 2 days ago. But you know what? Oh, it smells delicious. It smells incredible. Oh, I'm so excited to get him home. That's my hand against it. It's bigger than my hand. I could probably pull off a couple of these leaves and harvest them now. But really, what I'm waiting for is that lovely cabbage in the middle. But I reckon I could steal a couple of leaves. I say steal. I'm not stealing anything. They are mine. I'm stealing from the plant. Yeah, I reckon I could take a couple of these leaves just from around. Look at all the white fly. Go away. Go away. Yeah, these be great to cook up. Just a couple from around the outside. Around the outside. Around the outside. Oh my god, the white fly. It's like a snowing. Look at that. It's like a snowing. It's snowing whitefly. Oh my god. Go away. There we go. My little brassacica harvest. Some kale, couple of seavoy cabbage, giant leaves, and of course, my first cauliflower. Lovely. Right. Well, I'll be getting all this home. Hope you've enjoyed my vlog today. Um, I'm going to be back again on Wednesday with another allotment diary installation. Installation. Installment. Installment. That's what I mean. I'm not going to be installing anything in your house, though. Let me just start this again. Thank you so much for watching. I'm going to be back again on Wednesday, so join me then for more a lotment adventures. Um, see you then. Thank you so much for watching. Bye.