THE DEAD HEDGE IS UP! / ALLOTMENT GARDENING UK

Morning guys, Emma here. Welcome back to my allotment diaries. Um, happy Friday. Today is the day that I start to build my, oh my gosh, you scared me so much. Where did you come from? These animals just creeping up on me. Oh, it looks a bit sad. Cheer up, mate. Might never happen. Anyway, today is the day. Stop, stop. Today is the day that I start to build my dead hedge at the back of my allotment. So I've started to clear it in sections, but as I'm clearing it, I think it might be a good idea to start building it as well at the same time. So I've just stopped here. That dog can hear you. It can smell you. It's coming for you. Thought I'd just stop here because they've done a fantastic one here at the back, um, at the entrance to the allotment plots and it looks so good. So I'm just going to sort of have a nosy around it. Double check what I'm doing. You better run. That dog's coming. And then just see how I can replicate it. I think I can. We'll give it a good go. So pretty standard, I think. I really don't think it's rocket science. We've got the larger, the larger logs have been sort of cut to the same length and then put into the ground. I'm guessing they're in the ground quite deep actually because they're very, very secure. And then all the smaller things are put through, but I can see they sort of weaved them in. Can you see how they sort of weaved them in and out between those larger logs? And these are really in quite secure. So they must be in quite deep. The only thing they've done is dug them into the ground. There's nothing else here. It's literally just been dug into the ground. So I think I can do this guys. I really do. I have a lot of high hopes for my fence. Good morning. What a miserable, miserable day today is. Oh my gosh. What a miserable day. It is a grey, drizzly, dark, dank. Dank is dank a word? Dank should be a word. Dank would describe today perfectly. Dank. Getting the hair back because I'm in business today. We're going to start building that fence. Like I keep saying, I'm just saying it over and over to motivate myself. I think I might take my jacket off as well because it's not, it's not that cold. It's sort of cold, but I feel like I'm going to be doing a lot of work. So I like to be a little bit free in the upper body, you know, get my wiggles up like this. Oh dear. You know what's even sadder about today? It's actually not even Friday for me. It's Monday. I'm filming this on a Monday, um, because it rained so much last week. I couldn't get down here to film for Friday. So I'm filming for Friday on a Monday. So not only is it dank, grey, cloudy, drizzly, miserable, dark, it's also bleeding Monday. So I'm just, it's just not great, is it? It's just not great. What's wrong with Monday? What's right with Monday? That's what I want to know. Anyway, seeing as there's not tons to do here, I'm really glad that I've got a project on the go because it really is motivating me to get down here. And the thing is is it's not even the end of January yet. So we've got plenty of time before the spring. I haven't sown my chilies and peppers yet. I'm going to do that this weekend. So if you watch this Sunday's vlog, you will see me planting, sowing my chilies and peppers at home. So I haven't even started sowing yet, which is amazing. So I just feel like we've got all this lovely time and I don't want to waste it. I don't want to waste it. Shall we start feeding the birds? I can really hear them today. That's the beautiful thing about January. That's why you've got to get in the garden in January because the birds are so noisy. They're so loud. It's just lovely. Right, let's go feed the bird and then we'll get on with the big job of the day. There's loads of you. Oh, they're surrounding me. What does that mean? I'm not a robbing guys. Just remember that. You don't need to fight me to the death. I'm a human. Your frenemy's over there. I'm keeping, I'm keeping an eye on him. Where did he go? I feel like I'm trying to keep the peace with all the robins. There's four of them. There's one on my compost thing. Oh, he's gone now. Where's he gone? Oh, he's on my beetroot. There's one in the tree. There's one over there on the fence and there's one sitting up on the archway and they're all sort of taking it in terms of getting some food. I feel like I'm, I'm keeping the peace. I'm like the UN on the plot and the peacekeeper got to stop them all from fighting. Yeah, you can go now. Come on. Right. Let's go and investigate the back of the plot. Then what did we do last time? Cause I've completely forgotten. I feel like these two are going to have a fight. I do feel like we've made some good progress last time with this area here. What I might do then is start building my dead hedge here. Um, might need to clear a little bit more here before I can get going. So these canes here I'm thinking, so I might pull that up. This I think is just going to stay forever because there's just so many spiders in it. I can't see them today, but I know they're in there and I just can't do it. I just can't. The only other idea I had was to try and get it into the wheelbarrow somehow and wheelbarrow it off to the pond. Actually, I've just tried it. It's not as heavy anymore. I think I might be able to do that. That's actually a good idea. Where's the wheelbarrow? Okay. Look, apologies if I freak out. I don't like spiders. I've never liked them. Having an allotment plot has not changed that fact. I've tried. I've tried to make peace with them. I hate them. They freak me out. I'm trying my best. It's not stopping me. Do you know what I mean? It's not, it's not stopping me. I'm still here and I'm still trying. It's not physically stopping me and I feel like that's quite a good achievement. So don't be too hard on me if I start screaming. Okay. I hope the neighbors will also not, not be so hard on me. Right. You're freaking out. Okay. Actually, that's a good idea. Oh my God. Oh my God. I can't stop there. I didn't really want to put it upside down. Oh, is this flammable? What on earth is it? Flammable liquid. What on earth was that? Oh my goodness. Right. We need to get rid of this ASAP. Right. Well that is a lot of rocks for my pond. I'm very, very happy with that. And the pond, by the way, the pond situation, the situation is, yes, it was probably me that broke it. Yes, I have got the new liner and I'm going to fix it next week. Um, so we will just have to redo the whole pond again, which is fine. Lesson learned. And hopefully next time it'd be even stronger than ever. So it won't happen again. Hopefully. Fingers crossed. Right. So if we clear this section over here and then I think I've got plenty of room to start making it. So let's, um, I think there's a ground sheet down here. That's my ground sheet, but I think there's another one. Yeah, there is another one. Has it done anything? Has it? What's the point of it? I don't understand what the point of putting these ground sheets down was. They weren't going to maintain it. Oh my God. It goes really far back. Where does it go? Is it there? No. This is all ground sheet. You know what, actually, let's give it a rake. Hang on a second. I've got an idea. If we clear the ground sheet at the top of it. Yeah, there's a ground sheet right here. The bindweed has been growing over the top of the ground sheet. Like through it and then over the top of it. So it's not worked, is it? I'm wondering if I need to pull it up or not. Cause actually I get these weeds up. I can just keep it under control. Can't I? I can't get the bloody weeds up. It's going to be another one of those vlogs where I'm not sure how much I'm filming versus how much I'm doing. Cause I'm doing a lot. I don't think I'm filming a lot, but this is where we are so far. So I've made a slight change to it. I'd made them quite far apart and now I'm making them closer together. So the fence will be narrower. I don't have quite as many sticks as they do at the front of the allotment plot. So I don't think I'll be able to fill up a really big one. And I'm not planning on getting any more sticks anytime soon. Do you know what I mean? I don't prune my trees very often. And when I do, it's only a couple of branches. Whereas I think because that's like a woodland, like a mini, what is it? A woods? A wood? A little wildlife area. They're going to have lots and lots of sticks like continuously to fill it up. So I'm not, so I've made them a bit thinner. I've also not cut them down. So some of them are quite tall. Some of them are shorter. I don't think it really matters as long as it looks good. I'm putting the taller ones at the back, shorter ones at the front. A little bit of aesthetic there, a little bit of design choice. I'm sure the mini beasts will appreciate that, as will the robins. And I certainly will. So that's what we've done so far. If I can avoid cutting any of this wood, I will avoid it. I think it's so much easier just to stick it in the ground as is. But this is, let me show you where we are. Right, it looks a little bit odd at the moment. I do appreciate that. It does look like I'm starting some kind of strange cult in the forest. Bear with it, bear with it. I'm going to start putting the sticks in it now, just mainly just to get them off my plot and to start making the fence. I think it's going to work. But let's just fill it up and just see if it looks any better than that. And then just for reference, this is how thin I've made it. So you can see it's not, it's not as wide as it was. It was sort of right out there where that spade is. But now I've sort of narrowed it a little bit and I think it looks better like this. So let's fill her up. So. What you are supposed to do, I think, is weave the sticks in and out like we saw on the the real one, the proper one. A lot of my sticks are too short for that, so I'm having to lay them on the ground. But I do have a couple that are long. As it starts to get to the top, I'll start to weave them like this. Where's that one gone? This one, this one's long enough. This all goes in there. So we sort of weave it round like that. That's better. And that's how they're supposed to go. I just don't, I just can't do it with all of them, because I don't have the, it's not long enough. So I don't know how effective it will be without the weaving effect, but I can only sort of do what I can do with what I've got, you know? So we'll just keep going. It looks all right. Oh my gosh, look at that. That is fantastic. I've got a little bit more of the weaving effect going on now. I'm using some longer ones and that looks absolutely fantastic. It actually looks like the start of an actual fence. You see how I've weaved the top ones? Oh, it looks fantastic. Brilliant. Oh, I'm so absolutely chuffed with that. I'm over the moon with it. I was a little bit worried when I started putting in those smaller sticks that it wasn't going to look right or I was going to do it wrong. But actually, it's really looking like the beginning of a fence, the way it's weaving together. I think it's brilliant. I'm thrilled with it. I'm absolutely thrilled with it. It's so easy to do. It really is so easy. It is as easy as putting in sort of your your verticals and then weaving in your horizontals. That's it. That's it. There's no big mystery around it. It's honestly the easiest thing. I don't want to use all my sticks on this section because I want to have I mean, it doesn't have to go behind the polycarbonate greenhouse because I'm not going to see it there. I want to clear behind the greenhouse, but I kind of want this fence to go where I can see it because I think it's a really nice little backdrop to my plot and it will hide all of this. I just think it's really nice. I can't keep going yet because I'll have to get in there to sort of clear it. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to start clearing behind the greenhouse. Another very messy, messy job. But yeah, I want to keep going today a little bit longer because I don't know what the weather's going to do. Sometimes things catch me out the corner of my eye and I think, is it a person? Is it an animal or is it a bird? It's another fun game that I play here by myself. Is it an animal, person or a bird? Am I about to be murdered, pecked to death or chased by a fox? Right. OK, we're going to clear behind here. I feel in the mood to keep going with this now, so I'm going to try and clear it down to ground level and dig things out. That's where we'll probably get to. I reckon what I'll do behind here is probably put that ground sheet down and wood chip it and not make the... I don't need the fence to go across here because I'm just not going to see it. But I do need it to be cleared. So that's what I'm going to do. And then behind me, there's also another horrible area, but hopefully that will be fence as well. So we'll work on that after. I think the greenhouse is more pressing. Right, I think that's pretty good for clearing. I might dig it out a little bit more than that. But what I'll do when it's done is put ground sheet down. In fact, I've got some ground sheets put down now. Let's stick it down now. You can see it, what it would be like. I know what you're probably thinking. I've just had a huge rant about ground sheet and how much I hate it. And then I've just put ground sheet down. Most of the plot is recycled ground sheet because that's just what I found. But I think behind the greenhouse, it really needs it. The difference is I won't just leave the ground sheet here. I will top it up with wood chip and keep on top of the weeding. But this is the best way that I can find to stop all of that overgrowth from going over the back of my greenhouse. Look how much better that looks. Look how much better it is. Fantastic. And all that growth was going right up over the back of the greenhouse, blocking all that light. And actually, there's plenty of room here for light to hit my greenhouse. That just looks fantastic. And then this side of my greenhouse, obviously, is a complete mess. But I have a slight dilemma. I have a moral dilemma on this side because this in here is very, very clearly a fox's den. It's sort of smooth in the middle and it's like it's clear he's been sleeping in there. It's very, very clear. Obviously, it is far from ideal to have a fox's den on your allotment plot. But where does the fox go then? It might have a family this year or something. And what am I going to do? Just like evict him from his den? It's a real dilemma because I love the animals around here and the foxes especially. You know, I love the foxes. I'm always looking after them, but I don't want them digging on my allotment plot up and stuff. And obviously, I want I want this to be a nice plot. I don't want to have the issue of the fox. But it seems like I might have the issue of the fox now if I don't remove his den. I don't want to remove his den. I don't think I'm going to. I think the practical thing to do is to remove it. But my heart is just saying, no, just leave it. He has every right to be here as much as I do. So I'm going to try and live alongside him this year and just sort of look on the positives. I mean, these are blackberry canes, so I will get blackberries on them this year. That's a positive. Also, it does give me quite a lot of privacy, which I quite like. So that's another positive. So I'm just sort of going to try and take the positives. I am really, really happy of what I'm achieving at the back of the plot here. I think it's going to look fantastic this year, and I'm really happy that I'm working on it. I sort of didn't quite plan to, but then it sort of just happened. That looks absolutely great. And when I get another one next to it there and another one the other side, that's going to look fantastic. And then there is room in front of it that potentially I could grow something. Right, I think I'm going to leave it there today, believe it or not. I'm absolutely covered in mud. I feel like I did so much. I have no idea how much I filmed. So if the next few vlogs are just a little bit shorter, just bear with me. It's because I'm doing nitty gritty jobs like that. They're not pretty. They're not nice to film. I can't do loads of really cool camera angles and make it look beautiful. But you know what? It's realistic and it's hard work and it's the realistic side of allotment life. So I like showing you that because I think it's important to keep it real on this plot and not just keep showing me, you know, flouncing about in a beautiful dress, watering the flowers, because actually there's a lot of nitty gritty, dirty, hard work that goes into that before you get to that stage, which is what I try and show you on this channel. So I hope you are enjoying these vlogs. If you are, do subscribe. There will be lots more coming as we get into the growing season in the next few weeks. Thank you so much for tuning in today. Have a lovely weekend. I'll see you on Sunday or back at the plot on Monday. Bye.