WILL THESE EVEN WORK?! / ALLOTMENT GARDENING UK

[Music] [Music] [Laughter] Good morning, guys. Hope you're doing really well. My name is Emma. These are the Aotment Diaries. I would love for you to hit the subscribe button and subscribe to my a lotment channel. Um, I also vlog about my home garden in London, which a lot of you are really enjoying at the moment. And I'm planning over the autumn wintertime to add another London garden vlog to my week and take one of the a lotment vlogs out just because there will be less to do at the a lotment plot and I think there'll be more to show you in my home garden and sort of life outside of the a lotment. You know, I like to go to a lot of parks and a lot of RHS gardens. got lots of things in the pipeline for autumn winter. So, I'd love to take you along and show you all of that malarkey. So, if that sounds like your jam, do hit the subscribe button. There is lots more to come. So many of the tomatoes in here are turning red. I'm not really surprised. We have had so much sun over the last few days that it seems to have sped up the reening process. Why is that called the reening pro the process of a tomato going from green to red? The reening process. It should be called that. So, we're going to call it that. But it seems to have sped it up a little bit. And my favorite tomato. Yes, I do have a favorite tomato here. It's starting to change color. This is my favorite tomato. He has been my favorite tomato since I first discovered him here. I think it's a blesque, a blesque variety, but it seems to have mutated into this gigantical heart-shaped tomato, which is really heavy and beautiful. You can see now it is definitely starting to change color, right? Okay. I mean, that is so obvious now. I did see it before, but I don't think it was as obvious. There's another one on the vine down here, which is even further along in its color changing, reening process. Now I'm nervous. Now I'm thinking, do I leave it here and let it change color on the vine or do I pick it, put it on a window sill at home, and let it change color there? Number one, I'm worried that it won't change color. And but then I I think it will because the other one is. But the other thing I'm worried about is pests. If something gets to that before me, I'm going to cry. But at the same time, I think it's doing really well on the vine. And I have this sort of vision of me picking a ripe tomato from the vine. It's sort of what I want to do, you know? I just know the longer it's growing in here, the more chance it's got of the plant getting blight or a pest coming along and eating it or a fox breaking in or something like that. You know, I think my main question to you is what would you do? What would you do in this situation? Would you pick this and take it home or would you leave it to go red just like this one is here? What would you do in this situation? Is that actually ready to pick? That actually might be ready to pick today. I'm definitely interested in hearing your thoughts on what you would do with that tomato. But ultimately, I will sort of make the decision. And whatever that decision is, I'm going to have to live with it. And that's just the way it goes here, guys. That's just what I do. I ask for your advice and I say, "What would you do?" And then I weigh it up and then I think about it and I think, "Well, I'm going to do this." And then we all see what happens. It's the best way of gardening, guys. It's the best way to do it. Just to wait and just make your own mind up and give it a go, you know? Right. The other thing that's doing really well, flamming pumpkins. I could hug them. I could hug them. This is dream pumpkin situation going on here. Dream. Absolute dream. Look, even more more things coming off them. Oh, sorry, Bee. Sorry, Bee. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Didn't mean to disturb you. It's gone all the way over the arch. It's gone all the way up the archway. It's covering the archway. This little bit at the top here seems to be trying to get to space. I mean, it's absolutely incredible. Even though the other side isn't doing quite as well, it's still doing really well. It's I wouldn't say it's a bad bad pumpkin plant here. It's doing good. It's climbing up. We've got a couple of pumpkins developing. Amazing. Look at these bits at the top just trying to get off. It's amazing. They're trying to go up to space. So to reward them, I'm going to give them a feed. This is Oh, wrong way. This is a seaweed, a liquid seaweed feed. And pumpkins love this stuff. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] This is unfortunately how I left the sweet pea structure I took down the other day because I was so eager to get the sweet corn in the ground, I just neglected to sort it out properly. I thought it might be easier to take apart when the sweet peas have died back. And actually, I think it is. Come back. Come back. I know that I've planted sweet corn in here and I have a good feeling it's probably going to germinate at some point, but I think I sewed it to there so I could put a bean structure along the back and have beans up the structure. Got some more runner beans and some French beans and some mange too. And I think I'm just going to whack it up a structure here behind the sweet corn. And you know what? Sweet corn might not even germinate. Might not even work. So, it's not worth hanging on for them with a blank space, you know. And I've made my mind up. I'm going to whack them in. Right. Let's make the structure. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] So, it's a same concept as a sweet pea structure, but what I've done is made it thinner. So you can see the tripods, not tripods. They're like what they if they're not three on the side. Couple pods. I don't know what they'd be called, but the structure is just thinner. Um because I've only just got beans. I'm going to have one row of beans going up them. I'm going to have to decide what's going to go in the middle um for them to grow up. It might have to be twine, but we'll see if the birds leave it alone or the squirrels or whatever it was that ate the other one. Don't think it was birds that pecked it. Actually, let me show you cuz the other row of twine has been pecked or destroyed now. And a lot of you said it might not be birds. I think it's birds coming down and trying to use it to nest. Um cuz they like the little bits of twine to nest with. You guys said it could also be squirrels. So, I still had a bit of twine across these ones. I've got netting there now, which is probably better because they're not going to peck at it or break it or whatever it is. But yeah, they've sort of something has come along, whatever it is, and bitten it. And I have a feeling it's birds. So someone said birds don't birds don't cut as neatly as that. So maybe it was a squirrel or something. But I think it's definitely a creature of some sort who's trying to um to use it to nest cuz this is quite soft. I think that'd be quite good to sleep in if you got a lot of it together. Yeah, it make quite a good pillow. So on that basis, I think that's what it's for. But maybe a different type of twine. Maybe not woolen twine or whatever that's made of. Maybe like um a more plasticky twine, which I don't love, but if it stops them using it, maybe that'll be worth it. Anyway, let's go get the beans. [Music] Right. These are the beans. These are the beans. We got the dwarf dwarf French beans. You can plant these out to the end of July. We're sort of August. I think it'll be fine. We've got runnab celebration. You can plant this out to the end of July. I think it'll be fine. You know what? We're only a couple of weeks out. And these seeds, they don't know what month it is. So, we can only try. These are also an early an early variety, which basically means they'll be ready earlier than other varieties. So, they might do okay. Also got some of this mange, too, which is actually a pee. It's actually peas and it grows to 1 meter. Again, can be sewn out to the end of July. I think we'll be okay. I'm c I'm interested now because these are dwarf beans and these are mange too. And these both only grow to about a meter absolute max. Whereas these runner beans, these can grow to 10t. So 3 m. So I'm thinking maybe just runner beans. Should I just stick runner beans up it and find somewhere else for these two that's sort of they can maybe grow next to each other? I don't even know if I need support for these. You know what? I need to Google this more. I think we'll stick the runner beans up this one because they get so tall and I think we'll put the other ones somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, we just um Oh, what beautiful seeds. Aren't they gorgeous? Love them. We'll just whack them in a line along here. Let's see what happens. Really [Music] [Music] Well, I was thinking this archway for the m too and the French beans, but um it's looking a bit full. It's looking a bit full. Yeah, we got all sorts growing up here. We got a pumpkin plant. We've got some runner beans, lots of nesters at the bottom, some borage over there. I mean, this is it's growing quite slowly, but it's growing well. [Music] Oh, I can hear I can hear the birdie. Maybe we should take a pit stop for a second. And uh Oh, there he is. There he is. [Music] Oh, he just flies away so quickly. But I am trying. I'm trying. He's up here somewhere, but we just don't know where. I am trying so hard to catch that bird on camera, but he is so fast. He just came down and took one, but I didn't catch him on time. He just grabs it and then he flies off. I think he's just so nervous of me. Um, but I'm doing my best. I'm doing my best to build a rapport. Hopefully by the winter he'll trust me more cuz I'll keep feeding him and we'll just be friends. But at the moment he just thinks I'm the enemy. I'm not sure where to plant these now. It's sort of thrown me a little bit. Um I'm sort of looking around trying to envision where I could have space for them. I think there's always space for things that climb up like beans and stuff. Or is there? Or is there? That's the question, isn't it? Maybe I'll put the peas where the other peas are. So, we've got another set coming through. And then these, the only place I'm thinking for these is the bed that I've manured, which I was sort of leaving. But then, do you think maybe I should just whack them in anyway? Because otherwise, it is just an empty bed. We'll put in the peas. No. You know what? Stop it. We're going to do it. We're just going to sew them there. We're just going to plant them in and we'll just find out what happens. Right. The peas can go here. What's going on with this? Okay. Right. Let me sort the netting out. We go that way. That way. That way. I put some pea seeds along here. So, what's going on with Oh, it's two of you, right? Okay. Well, don't fight. So, when these ones are sort of getting off and going and giving me peas, these ones will be germinating and growing. That's quite a good idea. I like that. [Music] These are such weird seeds. I wasn't expecting them to look like that. Crazy. I No wonder they're so small. I should have known. Should have known just by looking at the seeds. That's not always the case. Um, I've never grown anything directly into manure before, so this will be an experiment. But I know a lot of people in the plot who do, and they do really well. So, a big spider came out of that. That was fabulous. I have always said on my vlogs not to grow into directly into manure because the manure can burn the roots of new crops. However, because the manure is on the surface, the roots won't be going into manure. It's like the top of the plants in manure. So maybe maybe it makes a difference. But I don't know. The point is I always say that don't grow directly into manure, but I've never done it until now. So, you know what? We will find out together what happens. It's always good fun to experiment and have a go. And I might also bung a few in here, though. This soil is so bad. Nothing I ever put in here. I think we tried spring onions and they did not work. I don't even get a lot of weeds growing here, which is really bad sign. But one day I'll find something that wants to grow in it. [Music] Like I'm putting tic tacs into the ground. Very, very weird. Right, there we go. We've got loads of beans in [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Sorry, greenhouse. I think I'm going to grow the rest of the runner bean celebrations over this archway just outside my greenhouse and hopefully prolong the growingness, the growing season, the growing just keep it nice and lush and alive for as long as possible, you know. Yeah, I think I'm going to do that. Why not? Let's just whack stuff in. Give it a go. With the weather being what it's being, you never know what's going to grow anymore. And like I said, seeds don't know what month it is. So, if it says so by the end of July and you're in like the first week or two of August, maybe give it a go. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the seed pack knows better, but maybe I'm right. So, there you go. Oh, my water's gone warm. Oh, right. We're going to harvest the tomatoes. I'm going to leave the big one and see what you say about it in the comments. Also, put up a Tik Tok on it, which I get sort of instant response for. So, then hopefully I will know what to do with it. Until then, I do see a lot of red that can be picked. [Music] [Music] How about that for a tomato harvest? There's so many big ones in here. Like literally so many. Probably too many tomatoes for me to get through just by eating. So, I think I'm probably going to make a pasta sauce with it. And also, it's a pasta sauce that you can freeze as well. So, you can put it in the freezer and then whenever you want to use it, you can warm it up again. And that will be probably in one of my Sunday vlogs. If it's not in this week's vlog, it will be in the next week's vlog. Um, because I sort of make them a week in advance, if you know what I mean. But yeah, I think that would be perfect for a nice pasta sauce. How delicious. Maybe with a bit of heat. I feel something like chili. Put some chili in it and a little bit of heat. Maybe the corette as well. Oh, lovely. Right, that's all from me today. I hope you've enjoyed my vlog. I will be back again on Friday. I think the weather is looking like it's going to turn again, so it won't be so sunny and bright and beautiful, which is annoying cuz I love it when it's sunny and bright and beautiful. But we do have a bit of a strenuous job to do. We are going to build the wooden archway on Friday, hopefully, if I still decide to do that. And I think put those runner beans into that archway. So, we've got some jobs, we've got some plans. Have a lovely rest of your week. I'll see you Friday. Thanks for watching, guys.