AN EXPLANATION AND EARLY POTATO HARVEST! / ALLOTMENT GARDENING UK

[Music] [Music] Good morning everyone. Welcome back to my a lotment diaries. My name is Emma. These are my a lotment diaries. Just general diaries of what I get up to dayto-day on my a lotment plot here in South London. I have two a lotment plots which I've sort of joined together and um I've had them for about 6 years. This week has been one of those weeks where I've really needed my a lotment plot cuz it just it's my happy place. It just makes me feel happy and I hope that watching these vlogs makes you feel happy. I know a lot of you really look forward to them now, which is why I continue to make them and put the work in so that you can get some enjoyment from them. Especially this week because we are having a bit of a heat wave um if you are in South London or if you're I think in America as well. A lot of America is having a a super heat wave and also Europe, Southern Europe. So if you're having a crazy heat wave like we are, maybe you can't get down to your a lotment or into your garden, I'm here for you. I'm sweating it out for us so that I can show you some beautiful images of the garden. Hopefully keep you going a little bit. But yeah, it's it's a mega I'm sweating. Somebody told me off saying sweating. I'm supposed to say persspiring. I'm persspiring. Um I am perspiring like a tap and it's 20 8 in the morning. I've come down super early today. I can't even go in the greenhouse yet. I've I've opened the door and I'm I'm airing it out. I'm airing it out as best I can. I will venture in there later. I can't even put foot in there. When I opened it up, it was like a sauna. It was like heat hit me like standing at the back of a double double-decker bus. You know when you're crossing the road and you're behind a bus and the exhaust is like But I tell you what is enjoying the heat. My pumpkin archway. Look at that. Look at those beauties. They are really climbing this year. I can't believe the difference. Look at this. Look at this. I can't believe it. Last year they did like pretty much nothing. They just didn't get up there at all. And this year it's just crazy the difference. So all four of the pumpkins on each side of the archway, total of eight. Yep, I can do basic maths. Um they're all jackby littles. And you can see that they're starting to cling on themselves. I always say this that when they're small sometimes you have to tie them in because it gets windy and they might snap and they don't quite know where they're going. As soon as they get going like this, they hold on themselves. This is a good example here. If it Let me focus. Will you let me focus? This here, this is these are tendrils. You see, they're sort of twisty and bendy and it's wrapping itself around the garden mesh and it's coming off of the pumpkin. That's how it holds on itself. That's how it holds it grips on and it pulls itself up the archway. There's another bit there at the top. You see how he's holding on all by himself. And plants that have tendrils coming off them like that, they're climbing plants. they can all climb. It's like a it's like a survival mechanism to pour themselves up over everything else so they get more sunlight. So any plant that's got a tendril like that can normally climb. Um but the smaller varieties of pumpkins are great to put over an archway cuz it doesn't snap the archway under the weight. Let's check the other side. Yeah, again they're doing really well. They're doing really well. To be honest, I only need a couple of plants to get going and then it will cover the whole archway and I'll get loads of pumpkins. You get about 8 to 10 pumpkins per plant to let you know. But you know what? They really do need a water. I just need to take another second in the shade. I've just got in the sun for literally like 2 seconds and I'm I'm so hot. And that's the theme of the video today. Right. I think I'm going to start by giving everything a really good drink. Going to have to venture into the greenhouse to do this. have to run. Oh my god, it's so hot. 38 38 Nope. Not doing it. Nope. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] Part of me just wants to throw that whole wheelbarrow of water over one of my beds and just completely soak it. But um it's for the pond. It's for the pond. Think of the birds. Whenever I do that now, I always remember, do you remember the first time I filled that pond up after it had dried out and Einstein straight away went in and started having a bird bath and just getting it all over his feathers? Yeah, I'm just reminded how much they rely on the water source that I've got here and um to stop being lazy and to keep filling it up. Okay, we're getting there with the watering. I think I need watering in a minute. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] Just noticed that my clemetus here behind me has flowered. Look at that. All over my shed. Last time I was here, it just had loads of buds and none of them had opened. Oh, it's just beautiful. It's just beautiful. It's obviously really, really happy here because I only planted it in I think last year, maybe in the springtime, and this year it's gone crazy. So, if you're looking for a clemetus or a climbing plant to cover a fence or cover something really quickly, go for a clemetus. Find this purple one. Wish I knew what it was called for you, but I always forget the names of things. But it's the purple one. Here [Music] you are. Where are you? Here you are. Yeah. [Music] Hello. He's very good at hiding because everything's all grown. All the foliage has come out. So, I can hardly ever see him. Can't quite see where he is. And all of a sudden, he turns up right in front of my face. Scares me. I can hear him. I know that you guys get really upset if There he is. He is here. He is here. See, you guys get upset if you don't see Einstein in a vlog, but he doesn't always come anymore. He's He's busy with other things. He's got other friends. He's got life outside of me, you know. When he appears, I will film him. Um, these sweet peas have gone over. You can see gone over. I always use that expression. What I mean is they're past their best and they're starting to produce a lot of seed. These are the seed pods of the sweet peas. These are not what you want to see. When you see these, it's a bad sign because it means they're going to stop producing flowers, which is not ideal. However, I feel like there's more life in them yet. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to take the seed seed pods off and I'm going to reduce the whole plant down by half and I'm going to see if they come back again because somebody on Instagram did this and they got a fresh batch of sweet peas. Ow. Hit myself with scissors. Then they got a whole new batch of sweet peas and it was amazing and I was just like, I wonder if my plants will do that. We're going to be quite brutal. We're going to be quite brutal. I think you've got to be brutal because I'm guessing that sort of the plant's energy is now put into making all these seed pods and what we want to do is take the plant right back. So, it's got nothing to do and it gets bored. It just gets bored and it's like, oh, I don't know what to do now. You know, it's Saturday. Got nowhere to be. Got no seeds to produce. And then it goes, well, I might as well start again then and just start the process over again. And I'm assuming that that's sort of their thought process. Oh, I'm being so brutal with this. [Music] I mean, the worst that will happen is this plant will be finished. It just won't come back again. But I don't think it will anyway cuz it's made too many uh too many seed pods now to come back. So, we might as well try it. Come seed pods. Off you go. Off you go. We don't want any seeds. No. No. No. Right, call me crazy, guys, and I'm sure you will, and I'm sure you do, but I feel like this could flower again now. I feel like I've given it a new lease of life. That's what I've taken off of it. I've basically reduced all the plants by about half, which you can see cuz it's no longer spilling over. And I've taken all of the seed pods off. And I have a feeling this might throw up some new shoots. Look, it's got new growth, a little bit of new growth in the middle there and stuff. And I think it could flower again. I'm going to keep you updated on this and let you know if we get a new batch of sweet peas. [Music] Right. Early potatoes are looking very sad. Very, very, very sad. I've got a good mind just to pull them all out and be done with them and maybe put in some main crop or something because I don't think it's quite I don't think it's that late to put in a main crop of potatoes. But the problem with them is it could be one of two things. Number one, it could be a disease which is worst case scenario. That's where my brain always goes automatically. Worst case scenario or it could just be that I haven't watered them enough. This could be a lack of water or like I said it could be disease. I don't know which one it is. I feel like they're all looking very, very sad. And I don't feel like they're going to survive much longer. They do die back naturally when they're ready to harvest, but at the same time, we pulled a couple up literally just a few days ago and um they were really small and they weren't ready. It was very clear they weren't completely ready. Now, you can pull potatoes up early, guys. It's never too early. You'll just get smaller potatoes. You won't get the biggest crop that you'll get. you won't get the biggest crop possible, but um you can pull them up a bit earlier. As soon as they've got potatoes and the potatoes aren't green, they're potatoes. You can just have them. So really, there's not masses of rules. I mean, if you want to wait until the absolute peak optimum time, yeah, it's when they throw out flowers or it's when they all the foliage dies back and that will give you the optimum harvest. But if you want to pull them up earlier and get a few new potatoes, you can do that. It's okay. There's no potato police out there, guys. They're not going to arrest you for putting up a potato plant a little bit early, so don't worry about that. What to do? What to do? What to do? What would you do in this situation? What would you do? I think I'm going to pull them up. Yeah, I think I'm going to pull them up. Right. I think technically you're supposed to dig them, not pull them, but I'm going to pull them because it's more fun. It's my a lotment. My potatoes. My potatoes. My rules. Right. Let's see what we get then. Okay. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh excellent. Oh, they're brilliant. They are brilliant. Oh wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Right. We'll put the plants to the side and I'll dig over the bed when I pull them all up. Always such good fun pulling up your potatoes, isn't it? Right. What's lurking under the ground here? Oh god, that made a weird sound. That did. A potatoes, potatoes, potatoes. Really good sizes, actually. Really nice. Really good. Actually, super super happy with the size of those. Let's do a little bit of a hand dig first. Oh yeah, there's one. Lovely. [Applause] Wow, look at that whopper. Some really big ones in here. This is excellent. Wow. Brilliant. [Music] [Music] [Music] Right, this is what I got for my early potato crop. You know what? I'm super happy with that. They're not the biggest potatoes in the world, but they're not supposed to be as earies. They're sort of like new potatoes or salad potatoes. They also don't keep very well, so they don't store very well. Uh new like early potatoes, your main crop potatoes, they're the best for storing. So if you want to grow potatoes to store and use like over the next few months, main crop is your friend. Early potatoes and second earies. They don't store brilliantly. So you have to sort of eat them pretty quickly. Luckily, I have quite a few recipes that I want to try with these this week. Got a nice potato salad. Got some crushed roasted potatoes. Yeah, got loads of ideas for these. You'll probably see them in my Sunday vlog actually cuz I do a lot of cooking in that one now. But these are fantastic. So, these are what I've pulled up with my hands. Now, I'm going to dig over the bed with a fork and see what ones I've missed. [Music] [Music] see anyone. [Music] The ground is actually really tough to dig in. This is really hard. I can't actually get the fork very far in. It's actually really tough. So, right, the ground is just too hard to dig in. I've been trying for a little bit, but with it being nearly 30°, I think I'm doing more harm to myself than good. So, what I'm going to do, all the potatoes that are left in that bed are under the ground, so I know they're not going to go green or anything. We're due rain at the end of this week. When it's rained and softened the ground a little bit, I'll come back and I'll dig over that whole bed before I plant my main crop out. Get as many potatoes out as I can. I think that's the right thing to do. And for now, actually got tons and tons of these. So, Oh, they're so cold. Oh, I a new invention. Potato cooler. Oh, that is nice. Oh, cuz they've been under the ground. Oh, I need to go under the ground. Maybe I should dig a little bunker here. Oh, that is lovely. Oh, that is really nice. Oh, thank you, potatoes. Genuinely thrilled with that. Genuinely thrilled. I'm not trying to feed a family of 10. You know, there's only four of us. That' be a nice potato salad and some roasted some roasted crushed potatoes be nice as well where you sort of roast them and then you crush them and then you roast them again. They're super nice. They are. Yeah. Lovely. [Laughter] 37.9° C in my in my greenhouse. Um 38° that is 38. Not quite sure why I'm in here. Really smells of tomatoes in here. Probably something to do with the fact that I'm growing tomatoes in here. Don't you think Einstein just flew past the greenhouse? Um, haven't seen him today. I expect it's just too blooming hot and he's probably somewhere else. He's a very sensible little birdie. I'm melting. Melting. I'm not sure why I'm in here to be honest. Let's go outside. Why are we in here? I'm dying in here. Yeah, I'm going to leave the vlog there cuz it's just getting hotter and hotter. It's supposed to get up to like 35 36° today, which is not really a healthy weather to be gardening in. It's the weather to be sitting in the garden drinking lemonade and relaxing, to be honest. So, you guys might have seen that I turned comments off this week. I'm going to put them back on again for this video and then forwards. But um just needed a bit of a break from them to be honest and I won't go into it too much because I like to keep this a positive space as much as I can. Also a realistic space though. I mean it is my a lotment diaries and not every day is rosy. I like to get the balance right between it being realistic and also being quite positive and you know happy because it's my happy place and I want to get that across in the vlogs. Sometimes the comments can be a bit much. I find that so weird to say because it's an a lotment vlog. This is an a lotment channel. It's just me in my garden mcking about and just trying to grow stuff. Like I don't know why I anger so many people sometimes. It's it's quite shocking to me. And as far as the sponsorship goes, I won't apologize for taking on a couple of sponsorships. They're usually less than 90 seconds of the video. My videos are normally up to 20 minutes long. I make four videos a week, up to 20 minutes, sometimes slightly longer, sometimes slightly shorter. The integrations of sponsorships will be 90 seconds or less. They do not ruin the video. The adverts that are put on are dictated by YouTube. If you do not want to see adverts on YouTube, subscribe to YouTube Premium and you will not see adverts. It's the same as any streaming service. You get Amazon Prime, you have to watch adverts. You get Netflix, you can watch it with adverts or without. It's the same thing. This is a streaming site. It's made it's content made by members of the public, not TV production crews, and that's the only difference of it. So, if you do not enjoy the adverts, subscribe to YouTube Premium. Pay a little bit of money every month. You won't see any adverts. Anyway, that's why I turn comments off this week. I just needed a bit of a breather. I just needed a bit of a break. I've really worked really hard recently putting these videos up. But, I hope that sort of explains why I turn comments off. I know you guys love the community, so I will put them back on. And yeah, I've rambled enough now. So, I will see you again. So, I will see you again in my Sunday vlog, which is a home gardening vlog, um, which I'm really enjoying making at the moment. Or I will see you again here on Monday. See you then, guys. Thank you for watching. Bye.