EARTHING UP MAIN CROP POTATOES / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

[Music] Morning guys. Can you hear me? Incoming Emma. Incoming Emma. Can you hear me? This is the noise at the a lotment plot 95% of the time. Airplanes, drilling going on, sirens in the background, people shouting. Somebody left me a comment the other day asking why I put music in my vlogs when I'm walking around and when I'm doing gardening jobs. He said, "Why don't I just leave it as a natural track like backtrack, you know, with all the birds singing?" And it's because there are no birds singing. It's because you can't hear them most of the time that I'm here. It's normally it's normally drilling and sirens and airplanes and all sorts of background noise. So, I try to cut that out and make the vlogs calm and quiet. So, I just have to cut it all out basically and put some nice music in. But, I hope you're enjoying the music. I do work quite hard to choose the music that I put into these vlogs and create a nice relaxing vibe because that's what my a lotment plot is to me. Despite the background noise going on, despite the drilling and all of the building work and the sirens and the airplanes, um it is still a really relaxing place for me to be and I do really enjoy it here. So, I'm just trying to reflect that feeling through these vlogs. Anyway, how are you all doing? Welcome to my lotment gardening vlogs. Um, I just vlog all about my lotment plot here in South London. I also vlog about my home garden on a Sunday. So, please subscribe. All that malarkey. Um, it is 28.6° in here today. Is he smiling? No, of course he's not smiling. Of course he's not smiling. It's 55% humidity. Whatever that means, that's what it is. We're not quite sure what it means. Anyway, it it's doing well in here. Everything is doing really, really well in my greenhouse this year and it's fantastic. Tomatoes are still tomatoing. I'm still picking them quite regularly. Lots and lots of red ones for me to choose. So, it's just fantastic. But the first thing that we're going to sort out today is the pumpkin archway. And I have something very exciting to show you. Let's go. This is it, guys. This is it. It's happening. The first Jack B little pumpkin of the season has started to grow. It's very nice and big. Looking very, very happy and healthy. Can you see like the ridges on it? Not sure if you can, but it's sort of it's a mini pumpkin. It will turn orange and it's got these little ridges around it. It's just looking great. There's another little one here growing. Looking absolutely fantastic. And these are small enough to hang off the archway without causing much trouble. So if it gets particularly big, I will support it. But otherwise, it should be able to hold itself up there quite quite happily. Really growing very, very nicely over the archway. Really looking fantastic. Lots of flowers, lots of foliage, lots of pumpkins. So, as always, we shall reward our pumpkins for doing so well by giving them a liquid seaweed feed. [Music] [Music] [Music] It's pretty good. [Music] [Music] [Music] Haven't [Music] seen Einstein about for a little while. Somebody joked on my comments and said that maybe he's gone on holiday. And I think you were joking, but I'm starting to think that might be true cuz I've really just not seen him unless someone else is feeding him and he's getting better grubs somewhere else. That's a definite possibility. I mean, these robins, they're quite territorial, aren't they? So, if this he's decided this is not his territory, maybe he's gone off somewhere else. But I'll continue to feed him and I'll let you know any robin updates. I think the one I filmed the other day was a baby. I think it was a new robin. So, we'll have to see. Right, let's go and check on our potatoes. They're doing amazing. And they've got to about how high are they? Maybe 5 in tall, which is the perfect time to earth them up. So to earth them up, what we do is we take that trench that we made of dirt. And we just pull it over the plant. So this is about the size you want them to be before you earth them up. Um you can see they're probably about 5 6 in off the ground. So just starting to poke through. And now what we're going to do is cover them back over again. Leaves and all. I have sort of made some trenches. But you know what? They're actually not big enough. So what I might need to do is get a bag of compost. might need to buy a bag of compost at some point um to make sure I cover them properly, but for now this will have to do. It's not a difficult thing to do, but it does feel a little bit weird the first time you do it. And the first time I did it, I was like really weirded out by it. It just doesn't feel right to cover over plants. But what it does is it stops the potatoes from reaching the sunlight. And if potatoes hit the sun, they turn green and they're poisonous. And it also encourages more potatoes to grow. And the clue is really in the name. Earth them up. You are literally using earth to make them taller. Well, to like earth them up, you know, sort of makes sense. So, here's our lovely little potato plant. You quite literally drag earth all around him and over him. [Music] And what they'll do is they'll panic and they'll grow bigger and try and get all their leaves into the light again. [Music] [Music] There we go. It's just like you're tucking them up into bed, really. There you are. Good night. Good night. Go back to sleep. Try and grow again. There we go. It looks a bit strange, doesn't it? Looks like I'm sort of harvesting alien eggs or something under the ground. Very, very odd. But I tell you what. Oh my gosh. Has he turned up? Einstein just turned up and he just ate a worm and he flew away again. I just wasn't quick enough. Anyway, I'll probably have people in the comments saying that I could have earthed these up a lot more. And you're right, you can really really go for it and cover all the leaves. I just don't have enough soil in this. So, what I'm going to do, cuz I will earth them up more than once, probably three or four times, I will get some bags of compost and do it. Doesn't really matter what you earth them up with. You don't actually have to use earth. I think you can use things like straw, shredded paper, newspaper. It's just about covering them over and creating more of a more of an area for them to grow in, if that makes any sense. But that's what we've done. We'll earth them up again in three or four weeks time. [Music] We have a slight problem in this bed. Well, it's not really a problem. I mean, it's a good problem to have, but the problem that I'm having problem is that all of the sweet corn that I sewed here by seed has all decided to germinate. Every single one of them. You see, when I whacked the sweet corn in this bed, I wasn't actually expecting all of it to germinate. I sort of thought I might be lucky if it did germinate, but I tell you what, I've got very, very lucky this year. And every single bit of it has germinated. It's a very recognizable seedling, a sweet corn, so I can really see them coming up. And every single one of them has germinated. But of course, I've sort of put runner beans in along here now. And actually, there is a row of sweet corn coming up along where the runna beans should be coming up. So, what I have to do is move them when they get bigger. I'll sort of use it as a bit of a seed tray. So, if you ever plant crops in and then you realize it's coming up in the wrong place, treat it like you would if you're sewing it into seed trays. So when you sew it into seed trays, you can you sort of prick them out and then you move them into a pot or you put them outside. Treat treat the bed like that. So I'm going to treat it like it's a giant seed tray and just move my sweet corn along a bit and make sure it's all got room. But how amazing that I might actually get sweet corn and more runner beans this year. Why is this year so good for growing? Honestly, this is my best year ever. So, with that in mind about it being a giant seed tray, um, I've sewn all this beetroot in a bit of a clump here, and you can see it's coming up together. So, instead of sort of pricking out and chucking it away, I'm going to sort of treat it as if I've sewn it into a seed tray. And I'm going to prick them out and move them along, just using a stick. So, just taking them out the same way I would if they were in a seed tray. So, holding by the leaves, pulling the plants apart, and then I'm going to just sort of replant them with space in between. But be really careful of the roots. Same way that you would be careful if you were growing them in a greenhouse or something. That's it. I think I got them there. Excellent. I'm just taking them out and placing them along where I want them to go. And then I'll just replant them. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah. Got them. Killed one. Saved four. You're okay. Good old water and they'll be fine. Is that Einstein? Is he come back again when I'm not there? He waits for me to not be there. Oh, Einstein, come on. We're mates, remember? [Music] [Music] I better pick these tomatoes today cuz they're looking so so good. And I tell you what, I might feel like I've got too many tomatoes to eat now, but when they're gone in a couple of months time, I'm going to really miss the tomatoes. So, I'm going to spend a bit of time now before I go picking all the tomatoes and taking them all home to have for lunch. I hope you've enjoyed my vlog today. If you have, do subscribe. I will be back again on Friday where hopefully we will finish making that bleeding wooden arch thing. So, join me Friday, guys, for another DIY episode. to Emma's a lotment diaries. See you then. Thanks for watching.