PLANTING OUT PEAS / ALLOTMENT GARDENING UK

[Music] Good Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Oh my gosh, the tomato saga continues. Can you Is there any way that you could just stay there today just while I do this little filming bit? Oh yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, tomatoes. Thank you. We got to stay on good terms with them because when they take over the world, I want to be on their side. Oh, that's some wind out there. Good morning, guys. How are you all doing? Um, how are your a lotment plots going? We are now sort of mid July, mid towards the end of July. I can't believe how quickly this growing year has gone. It's insane. Still got August for the summer months and then uh we're sort of going into the autumn and thinking about autumn crops. So now's a good time to start sewing some autumn crops, brassacas. Um I'm going to be clearing the greenhouse out and I'm going to be growing as much as I can over the autumn winter in here. A lot of people were saying that potatoes are a great thing to put in after tomatoes. Did you know, cuz I didn't know this, potatoes and tomatoes are from the same family. Like, they are related to each other. And have you ever seen those fruits that appear on potato plants? They kind of look like tomatoes. It's because they're related to tomatoes. They're potato tomatoes. Isn't that mad? They're sort of from the same family of plants, I suppose. So, putting in potatoes after tomatoes is a good idea. is an excellent idea for me because I'm going to get Christmas potatoes in here which I'm very happy about. Can you hear that wind? Right. Anyway, I'm down here today to do a few jobs. I actually did bring with me some peas. These are main crop peas. I actually can't remember the variety because I very rarely label anything that I grow. I mean, they're peas. Peas are peas, right? These are main crop peas. So, with peas, you kind of get it's kind of the same as potatoes. You get like early varieties and then you get like main crop. Um, and these are main crop peas, which I sewed a couple of weeks ago. They're sort of I mean, most of them germinated. Some of them no germination at all. I don't know what that's all about, but there's enough here to go up that structure. So, I thought I'd plant them out today. I know a lot of you are going to be wondering where Einstein is. He was here yesterday. He was here last time I was here. He was here and I filmed him on my phone, but I didn't get him on camera. So, he has been around, guys. I promise you, he's been around. Um, and then what was the other question I got? Oh, the um straw structure like nest potatoes. I haven't talked about them for ages and everyone's wondering what's going on with them. So, let me come and show you those before I forget again. 30.8° C in here. 40% humidity. How is it 30? It doesn't feel 30 today. It's probably the wind. [Applause] Gosh, your plants are gone crazy, right? We're a little bit more sheltered from the wind here. I made these out of garden mesh and then I put straw all around the outside like that to make a structure and I planted my potatoes into some compost in here. I mean, first of all, the first observation we can make is they have grown. So, this structure has worked in terms of a a potato grower. I'm hoping that what it means is that it's easier to harvest all the potatoes because I'll just need to take this whole structure up. I'm assuming it's not gone through the ground sheet into the ground. That might be a bit of a big assumption because plants sometimes just do what they want. In fact, only one of these potatoes has grown. That's one potato plant. Oh, so the others haven't really done Oh. Oh, that one's died. That's probably cuz I haven't watered it. Similar story with the other one, except it's covered in bindweed. Should we just pull these up and see what's in there? Oh, let's do it. As I'm sitting there, I am being attacked by the world's biggest corette plant. Do you remember when I was like, "These aren't growing. I don't know what to do about them." Look at it. It's an absolute beast. I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll pull this one up. And if this one's got something in it, but it's not fully developed, we'll leave the other one. And if it's rubbish, well, we'll just pull this one up first. I don't know what I'm trying to say. Right, let's get it up. You ready? You got any potatoes in here, please? It's none so far, guys. It's none so far. The night is still young. I might just replant that. The night is still young. Oh my gosh. Look at that one. Brilliant. Okay. Okay. Not great. It's all right. It's okay. It's okay. We can cope. Oh, this is not going to be a great potato harvest. I can feel it already now. Oh my gosh. See you. Oh, that's a bit of a weird potato. It's got like some growth on it. Not sure what's going on with that one. I'm not going to lie, guys. That's not a great harvest. That's not great. Um, and this one. What is going on with that potato? Have you ever seen anything like it? So, I'll I'll describe it. It's bumpy. It's got these little brown brown spldes all over it. I'm sure it's a fine potato, but is it starting to rot? Is that what's happening to it? Very very odd potato. This plant actually looks really healthy. I'm just going to put it back in. I'm just going to replant it. We'll just pretend absolutely nothing happened. We'll just put him back in. We'll just act like that didn't happen. Nothing happened. Everything's fine. And I'll water him and just see if he regrows. That's actually a really good idea if that works. [Music] Right. I did hear him, guys. I don't know if he'll turn up, but I did hear him. So, let's give it a go. There are meal worms in here. There's lots of meal worms. So, I am still giving him worms. It's just in between the seeds, which he might like better. He might like to forage. I don't know. My rabbit likes to forage. So, I don't know. My rabbit quite likes working for his food now and foraging for it. So, where is he? Pond is looking a little bit dry as well. I think we should go and get some water to top that up. [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Brilliant. The ground is softer now. I can get it in. Right. So, the ground seems to have softened a bit, which is excellent. I've just put the sticks in further. So, now this is pretty secure. Excellent. I'm going to use twine to grow my peas up this time just because I've run out of sticks. Sticks would always be my first choice. Um twine close second and then nets though I do tend to end up using a lot of nets just because they do work so well. The trick when using twine if you want it to be really tight because it will loosen over time by the way. There's nothing you can really do about that. But it's when you wrap it around the end like this. Wrap it around a few times. Don't just do one like that. Go around and it's more likely to hold for longer. But twine will lose its tightness. It's not like wire. Um it will droop over time. And that can be useful for a crop so that you don't crush it or like it doesn't cut into the crop. But most of the time it's just annoying cuz your crops fall down. it. You can just retie more or you can just tighten it. Like I said, it's not always my first choice using twine. Is that Einstein I can hear now. Yeah, it is. Let me check if he's eating his food. There he is sitting on my little structure over there. Hello. I've got you some food here and some water. Oh, here he comes. There he is. He's being a bit shy. He's not coming down. It might not be Einstein. It might be a newbird. Someone might have defeated Einstein. I don't know. Where's he gone? Have I not got him on camera anymore? No, he's gone. Where is he? Oh, there you are. It's just not behaving like Einstein. This must be an intruder. You might have fought Einstein and won this territory now, but he's a bit shy. Come on, claim your prize. Not cooperating at all today, but I'll try and get him on camera if he comes and eats. But oh, is he back again? No. Also, another quick tip. If you're using twine across like this, don't make it too high. Just sort of do a foot and then leave it because otherwise it's going to slack. It's you're going to get slack in it and it's harder to tighten when you've done it all the way to the top. And then it gives you room to sort of tie more on as and when you need it. So just just make it about a foot at a time and then start a new piece of twine for the next bit. It's much easier to tighten basically. Right, soil's still a little bit dry. It's better than it was before, but what I'm going to do is give it a really good water before I put the peas out. [Music] [Music] [Music] You can see here where I planted my beetroot and they are starting to germinate. And look, the water I've just put on the soil is like sinking into the soil a bit better this time, whereas before it was very much making pools of uh puddles on top. So I do think there is more moisture in this bed now. [Music] Look at the roots on these. These are absolutely fantastic. I didn't realize they were doing so well cuz they're quite small. But look at the root system. It's amazing. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I'm trying to keep these sweet peas flowering for as long as possible. I think I put them out in when did I put them out? March. end of March maybe. They are doing their best to go to seed. They really want to make seeds now. And I am stopping them at every hurdle. Every time I see them start to make seeds, I just snip them all off and chop the plant back. And it's working. Look at all these lovely new flowers. Somebody did leave a comment say, "Why am I not collecting the seeds?" I will collect the sweet pea. Oh, that's not seed. I will collect these, but not yet. At the moment when when you collect seeds, you need to wait for them to go brown and then they sort of rattle inside the pod. And the thing is is by the time you've left the seeds long enough to create seeds you can use. The plant's done. It's finished. You know, you you're you're throwing in the tower with the plant. I'm trying to keep it flowering for as long as possible. So that's why I'm not collecting the seeds right now. But I think after this flowering, I'll probably have to leave it, let them develop seeds, and then call it a day with it. But yeah, new flowers. I mean, what can I say? I just love them. [Music] Right. Okay. Good. I'm really glad I got that job done. So, the peas are out. Looking excellent. Potatoes growing, beachroots growing. Got a few more things to plant out over the next couple of weeks. So, I've got some carrots, some more beetroot, um some cauliflowers. Yeah, I feel very positive about the plot this year. I feel like I've had a really good growing year so far. Um and I'm hoping to continue it. like I said in the polycarbonate greenhouse because I think I think this is going to be a massive game changer for me to be honest. I'm starving. Let me just grab a tomato quickly. And then Oh, okay. You don't want me to eat you. Please, can I eat you? And then I need to see if there's any corettes to harvest cuz I've got a recipe that involves corettes. It' be nice not to um have to go and buy one. So, let's go and have a look at the corettes. That tomato was insane. Oh my goodness. Oh, there's nothing like eating a fresh tomato off the vine. It is just perfect. [Music] Okay, I've obviously neglected this corette plant. Oh, there's two. There's two. All right, let's take this one. Oh, look at the size of that corette. That's insane. Oh my goodness. It's like a marrow. Okay, there's another one underneath as well. [Music] I better pick this one now before he gets to that size. That's crazy. Look at these. Look at the size of these corettes. Do you know what? If you leave your corettes for slightly too long, they actually do turn into marrows. So, this is actually a warning for you as well. Make sure that you check on your corette plants, guys. As exciting as it is to pick a gigantic corette, they actually don't taste as good the bigger they get. So, do make sure you check on your plants and pick them before they get too big. This is probably the biggest I'd ever want it to be, but I have grown them the size of marrows before by accident, just by neglecting them. They seem to just get so big. so fast. Like you look at it and it's that big and then a day later it's that big. How amazing though. Brilliant. I can't wait to get these home. What an excellent end to the vlog today. So I will be back again on Friday. Have a lovely rest of your gardening week. See you Friday, guys. Thanks for watching. Bye.