FEELING LIKE SPRING IN LONDON / EMMA'S SUNDAY DIARIES

Good morning everyone. Welcome back to my Sunday diaries. Oh, there goes the drains. Lovely. Having to figure out where to start this vlog today because it is so sunny and if I stand too far there, I just get beams of light on my face, but it's amazing. I'm not complaining. It's blue skies all day, sun, so I thought I would do a day in the life kind of vlog today for you. We're about to head out first thing in the morning, go get coffee, go walk around Mordenhall Park. I have taken you there before, but we'll see what plants are out, what flowers, how it's looking now. It's changing all the time. I have a feeling some of the daffodils might be blooming as well, which is nice because I've seen quite a few blooming around my area, so fingers crossed. Also going to have a look around the garden centre there, see if there's any perennials that I can put into one of the areas of my allotment plot, which is under the apple tree and I'm trying to fill it up with perennial plants so that every single year, instead of having to put annuals in, it kind of just flowers and blooms on its own and all I have to do is mulch it. That would be ideal because I just want an area where it just comes back every year without me having to worry about it so much and kind of like looks after itself. So that's the plan for that and I'll have a look. This is a good time of year to look for perennials. Usually they are a little bit cheaper than they are in the summertime because they're not flowering, so if you just look at the pictures you'll see what it looks like when it flowers and hopefully get it for a little bit less than you would in the summer. It's very peaceful today as well. I don't know if you can hear, but the birds are just chirping away, so I'm very excited to get out and about. Let's go out and soak up that sunshine. That's all I have to say right now to be honest, so yeah, let's go. All the dahlias are coming out now. This is quite a nice collection, isn't it? This one might be nice for my pots, bees and butterfly collection. I think we might have to grab that one. I'm looking for Einstein now. These are really pretty, aren't they? I love these. This one is cute with the umbrella. Einstein can stay dry. Oh, it's a millworm feeder. Bird nesting wool. Oh, it's wool, so they will collect this and then go and make their nests. That's quite funny, isn't it? This is sort of what all the plants at the moment here look like. They sort of look like that, all the perennials, so you need to look at the picture. This is an Echinacea, which is really, really pretty, herbaceous perennial, and right now it's going to look like that. They're actually not as cheap as I thought they would be at this stage, but you can see they're starting to grow. We're starting to get some green in there, which is exciting. I quite like these. These are, I'm not going to be able to pronounce that, but they look really, really pretty and they look like they give me quite a lot of structure throughout the year as well because obviously it's February and they are nice and green. That's sort of what I'm looking for right now, just plants that are going to sort of sit in that area under the apple tree and look nice, but then flower later on. Oh, look at the sun. The sun's come out. I know that these ones spread like wildfire, so maybe I need it a little bit more contained. Maybe one of these. These look nice. These are Anemones. Look at the pink puff one. That looks really, really nice. That might be pretty, or maybe this one might be better for the pollinators. These are £10. I think I might stick one of these in and see how it does. At the front, they always put all their things that are flowering already, so you can buy ones that are already in flower. So let's have a look what they've got. It's actually very, very cold out today, hence the big coat. We're on our way home now. Well, we're about to go home and I will show you what I picked up when I get back. Look at that sky over there. That doesn't look real. That's insane. Look at the colour of the blue. That is a really nice blue sky. Right, let me show you what we went for. So I really don't know where to put you, by the way. The sun is just, I mean, it's amazing, but I just don't know where to put the camera. I hope you can see me here. I think you sort of can. So we went for two plants, and that's all I could really find, because I only want to buy things that I really love at the moment. So we went with the Anemone, which is the Hybrida Pamina. So it's the one that was more open, because I think it'll be better for pollinators, because they can get to the centre of the flower better. It looks like this at the moment, but it will get very, very big, and it says that it likes full sun or partial shade, which is perfect for under the apple tree. So we went with this one. I also did go for this, because I thought the structure of it was so nice. I really don't know how to pronounce this one. There's the label, if you're interested. It likes full sun, so I'm going to have to put it a little bit towards the archway a bit more, where it will get full sun, basically. And it flowers from June to August, so I think that will be really nice. So those are the two plants, and these will go into my allotment plot, by the way. I'm not sure if I said that. Under the apple tree, around that little wildlife area, just to add more perennials to it. And then I also did pick up the butterfly and bee mix collection of bulbs. You get 35 bulbs in here, which I think is great, and these are going to go in my pots in the back of the garden. I'm kind of aware that I'm not going to be able to get out in the garden as much this year, so I think by using bulbs, they're kind of quite self-sufficient bulbs. They sort of take care of themselves, as long as you keep them nice and watered. What do we have in here? We have gladiolus, anemone, dahlia, and a liatris, which I've never heard of, but I should get some kind of flower from May onwards, all summer long, which should be really nice. And the front, those are all the varieties that I've got, so I'm really excited about those. I might plant some of those today, actually. In fact, maybe we should plant some today. Let's put the gardening gloves on and let's go. Right, I do have a lot of pots, and a lot of these pots do have things in, but I think what we can do is stick the bulbs in between everything and have even more colour in the pots. Particularly the pots that have got spring bulbs in, so this has got tulips coming up, because as soon as tulips are finished, I kind of want something else to take over, so if I put those bulbs strategically around the tulips, I think that would work. I'm going to get my pots that have got spring bulbs in, and I'm going to put the summer bulbs in those ones, I think. These are some of the ugliest bulbs I've ever seen. I've genuinely never seen these before. They look so weird. That looks like something that I would just find in the dirt and then just discard. And this one's already got some green on it, so I know that it's sort of alive, but it's so funny how such ugly things can become such beautiful flowers. It's like ugly ducklings, aren't they? So crazy, and thank goodness, thank goodness this one's already grown, because I actually genuinely wouldn't know which way to plant it. So I'm very glad it's got some green. Right, I'm just placing them on the top where I think I sort of want them, and then we shall bury them, as is the idea with bulbs. And then hopefully these pots will kind of take care of themselves, so I don't have to worry about them, and give me longer lasting colour, which would be ideal. Right, that looks good to me. Right, let's get them back in their places. I have a dahlia. That looks pretty good to me. It's far too cold to put a dahlia outside in a pot or in the ground. The ones that I've left out this year I've mulched over really heavily, but I'm going to put it in a plastic pot and then keep it in my mini greenhouse, and hope it survives. Which it might not at this time of year, to be honest, but I'm going to give it a go. Put him in like that. In fact, you know what we could do, and this is just me thinking on the spot, we could put that over him. It's already got holes pierced in it, and that would be a bit of extra warmth. I think that's quite a good idea, and we'll pop him in the greenhouse. Let's do it. Got quite a few little bits in here now. I don't know if he'll survive. I think it still might be too cold for a dahlia, and I do need to water it as well. I haven't done that yet. Yeah, I will remember, but I think the plastic bag might just help to swing it and keep him nice and warm. I might start some peas. I'm not sure if I'm going to grow peas in my garden or not, but I am going to have them at the allotment, and I've sown some there, but I'm slightly worried that they're not going to germinate. I don't know why. So, I'm sowing the same variety that I sowed at the allotment plot, and the variety is called Terrain, and it's a really good early pea variety, and all of my seeds have fallen out. I've got two different packs of them in here, so we're going to sow one per square on the module. So just stick our finger in to make a little hole, and stick in the pea. You could do two per module if you want to, but I'm just feeling really lucky with them. I tend to get really good germination with peas. In fact, scrap that. What we'll do is we'll just stick a couple in to a few of them. The thing is with peas, I don't think they really mind being planted out together, because I tend to grow them and then just plant them out in clumps, and they tend to do OK, so maybe you could just put more than one in each module, come to think of it. It's always just a bit of an experiment, isn't it? I always say with seeds, just whack them in. Don't think too hard about them, don't get too worried. There's a lot of rules and advice on seeds, but they know what they're doing better than we do. Just whack them in and just hope for the best. I have to be really careful not to get ahead of myself today, because it is still February, and honestly, I just want to go to the garden centre, buy everything and plant it outside, because how gorgeous is this weather? We've sown our peas, we've put all the spring, all the summer bulbs out, we've mulched that over. That's pretty much all we can do. I really can't be doing too many jobs, so we'll call it a day there in the garden, and I might just come out and have my lunch out here or something. Just try to soak up the sun without doing too much gardening, because it's all just going to get covered in snow next week. I think we are due some snow, or at least some wintry showers, which is not ideal, so I'm really having to rein myself in today, and it is killing me. Right, I'm going to do a little bit of baking now. Has the sun gone in? No, it's sort of peeping behind a cloud at the moment. I'm going to do a little bit of baking. I'm going to make something that I don't make a lot, actually, and I don't think I've ever made on this channel, and that is biscuits. I'm going to make some sugar biscuits, which basically just mean normal, plain biscuits, but we're going to make them into some heart shapes and some flower shapes, because it is actually technically Valentine's Day today. Just as the sun goes in, and it's nice and dark in my kitchen, perfect. Still collecting all the eggshells. Oh gosh, I can't open it now. All the eggshells that I've been using, and then what I'm going to do is crush these up and then put them into the oven for a little bit to really dry them out, make them go really crispy, and then I'm going to use them as slug and snail defence. I'm really doing it properly this year. Normally, I'll just get an old eggshell, crush it up and put it around a plant, and it doesn't work, so this time I'm going to proper crush them up, put them in the oven, dry them out, and really go for it, and see once and for all if the eggshells actually do work, because I'm not convinced they work, but I really want them to. How cute is that tin? My favourite tin. Okay, so now, worst ripping anyone has ever done. Put our dough onto the baking parchment. It's going to be quite sticky. So what we're going to do is put another piece of baking parchment over the top. Oh my gosh, they're already pre-done. These are already pre-cut, and I didn't realise. Oh, genius. And then we'll put it in the fridge just for half an hour. So, biscuits are in the oven. I just wanted to really quickly talk to you about my house bunny, Pippin. A couple of weeks ago, I told you about a problem he had with some kind of clumpy poo on his bum. I have now managed to get it off, and after looking online about what it could be, it seems it's a diet problem. He has been eating way too much, like way too many pellets, and rabbit pellets are not really good for rabbits. They're supposed to have kind of like a fresh hay diet, and then some fresh sort of food, like herbs and lettuces and stuff. Not so much the pellets, and I think we've overdone it a little bit, so I have changed up his diet. We have noticed a big improvement with him in so many ways. He seems a lot happier. But I thought I'd show you sort of what I'm feeding him, just in case you're interested. So let's make the rabbits dinner. Feed my rabbit with me. Firstly, this is his bowl. This is a Lightning McQueen bowl that used to be my son's breakfast bowl when he was little. Rabbits are actually so fussy about what they eat out of, so I used to have like a ceramic rabbit bowl that I bought from a pet shop, and he hated it. And I realised that it's because it gets too cold, like the material, whereas because this is plastic, I don't think it gets as cold. So he just likes eating out of it, and he doesn't always flip it over. He sort of flips it up like that, and then eats out the bowl. So rabbits are very fussy creatures, if you didn't know. Right, he mainly eats herbs. Herbs have got so much goodness in for rabbits, and for us as well, of course. So I like to mix it up a bit, and make it a little bit of a meal for him, so it's all exciting. He's got some curly parsley here, so you can have the rest of that. Then we've got his favourite, which is flat-leaf parsley. Right, we've got a little bit of dill. He quite likes this, and I guess it's got quite a fun texture, dill. So just tear that up. Got a little bit of sage. Just put a little bit of the sage in, and just tear it up a little bit. There we go, add a little bit of flavour. This smells absolutely incredible. Can't believe it's for a rabbit. And then today, I've got a little bit of celery, just a tiny bit on the side. And then I'll show you how many pellets he has. So he used to have a lot more. He used to have, like, a tablespoon. I'd say that's just under a tablespoon now. And then he has about half of that in the morning. That's sort of what I give him in the morning, and in the afternoon, that much. And I'm just trying to wean him off of pellets completely. But obviously, I can't just take them away from him because he loves them. But that is the rabbit's dinner. So let's go see if he approves of my fussy little bunny. Right, Pippi, got your dinner here. You hungry? He's, like, always, always, always hungry. Here you go. What do you think of that? What do you think of that dinner? There we go. That's what I said. Flips the bowl up, and that's how he eats. Right, I've got some ready-made buttercream. And I've got a little bit of red food dye, red food coloring. So I was going to try and make some sort of pinky icing because they are hearts, so why not? This has been in the fridge as well, so I feel like it might need to melt a little bit before I can put it on the biscuits. Or maybe not, actually. Maybe it will be fine. I feel like we'll start small. Oh, no, it's okay. It's okay. Oh, my gosh, a little bit goes a long way, guys. Oh, yeah, that is perfect. Look at that. How did I get the right color straight away? That looks like a strawberry ice cream color. That is lovely. I feel like it might need sprinkles. Why not? Whack it all on, I say. These are very rustic. I appreciate that. And decorated like a small child would decorate biscuits. But I actually think they're quite charming. And I like them. Ta-da. Look how lovely they look. Like a small child has decorated them, but lovely. Thank you so much for keeping me company today. I hope you've enjoyed my little vlog. I quite enjoy filming these ones where it's just sort of one day and what I do in a day. It feels very relaxed, very chill, and I don't have to think too much about what I'm doing because I'm just filming my day. So I hope you enjoy watching them. I will be back again on the allotment plot tomorrow. Or you can join me again here in my home garden next Sunday at 9am. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you when I see you. Bye.