ATTACKED BY ANTS / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

So many ants Good morning everyone. Welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma. These are the allotment diaries Thank you so much for tuning in today And as if by magic since the last vlog all of my crops have come back to life again I say magic I think water and as if by someone's watered them and because that's what they really needed a water Some of my sweet corn has germinated a lot of it has not that is a real shame I'm not quite sure what's going on with my sweet corn at the moment But at least I do have some planted out already, which has done really well So at least we've got sweet corn and also noticed that I've got a couple of Jack belittles Which has started to germinate which is fantastic. One, two, three, four, five are germinating. Are you in there? Six, six are germinating. I do have Jack belittles Fantastical and all of my squashes Are doing pretty well. They're a little bit smaller than I know other peoples are right now But I'm trying very hard not to compare myself to everybody else this year. I'm trying to just enjoy the process And enjoy my plot for what it is So if you're ahead of me or you're behind me, you know what it doesn't matter this year because this year We are all about focusing on our own gardens our own allotments and our own crops and just figuring that out ourselves Comparison is the thief of joy. Is that the saying? I think that's very true to be fair It should be the saying if it's not I think it is right got some seeds to sow today Got some things to water got Einstein to feed got some weeding to do. Yeah, we've got a lot a lot going on So I think we're gonna start nice and gently today because the Sun is out. The sky is blue We're gonna go and feed the bird and check out the pond I Just while we're waiting for him because he does take a little bit of time to come down now I can see him I'm just staring straight at him and he's staring straight at me, but he's not ready to come and get some breakfast yet I don't quite know why What? Don't know I'm gonna take you around the plot and show you a few new things that have started to open and flower and because We've got quite a few new new things going on And I don't think I've sort of had time to show you around and show you what's changed and what's growing So let me take you around and just show you a few bits and bobs The pond is looking very nice. Just maybe a little bit sort of Lacking plants and that one there doesn't look like it's coming back to life. Does it the little weed one? Think it could just do with a little bit more plants just more plants basically And yes I have got the watercress reel that so many of you sent me of throwing basically Watercress into your pond and I think I will try that next week when I get to the supermarket So it just needs a little bit more sort of going on planting wise, but it's looking good. Other than that This is my iris that I planted and it's almost about to flower. It's absolutely gorgeous. Look at it I can't wait to see that flowering But I just noticed these little purple buds this morning This is a new plant and it's just lovely and then behind that there's like an allium there Which I didn't know was hiding there. So that's been a nice little surprise. I Wanted to show you an update on this bed at the back. So this is my flower bed We've got cornflowers and then some flowers behind them and look they're all doing so amazingly the slugs didn't find them Which I did say can happen when you have a new raised bed like a brand new raised bed where nothing was growing before Sometimes the slugs don't find it in the first year And I think that's exactly what's happened because these have not been touched by slugs and snails and they've just done amazingly and the sunflowers look These are just doing so great. And I think there's a oh, yeah Look, it's a couple of cosmos in there, which are a little bit small Hopefully they can catch up a little bit But the vision of this bed sort of providing a nice wall of flowers against that backdrop is Coming to life and I love it The courgettes in here that we replanted after the first batch died in the frost the freak frost that we had in May The second batch are not doing very well This one looks like it might be doing the best but the rest of them have just been eaten or just literally just died So I think we might have to start all over again with the courgettes and that's fine We're gonna sow some new seeds today There is still time and then there's a new plant that I put into my little flower bed under the apple tree here and it's starting to flower and it's just so gorgeous and I was so excited to see it flower and it's starting to and oh It's just beautiful Unfortunately, I cannot remember what it is. But if you go back in my vlogs, I'm sure you'll see You sure you'll see me mention the name of it and it's sort of got these big Long stems with all these tiny little yellow flowers and it's just beautiful and I love it It's just starting to flower and I feel like it's gonna flower for a while. It just looks like one of those plants It's gonna flower and flower again how gorgeous and Then down here. I've noticed I've got some forage coming up Which is the first time it's ever decided to grow here and a random Sunflower because I had my sunflowers here last year and so it must have self-seeded which is so funny I've never had a sunflower self-seed before until now now I have Unfortunately along the archway here. These are my runner beans These have been destroyed by slugs and snails as are my nasturtium Which have never been affected before by slugs and snails never I've never seen this kind of damage on them but this is a really good tester because my pumpkins are going to go up the archway and So it's really prepared me to make sure that I protect against slugs and snails because if they come along and Eat all of my pumpkins. I'm gonna cry. I think I'm actually going to cry. Look at that one. So sad Also slugs and snails are eating my borage, which again, I don't think they've ever done. Are they just devoid of food this year? They just not have enough food to eat this year and they're just going for crops. They don't normally go for I don't know very odd My sweet pea wall is starting to flower which is amazing news The only question is did I plant scent scented sweet peas or did I plant the perennial ones? This is the first year where I forgot to check if I was buying scented peat sweet peas Or the perennial ones the perennial ones don't smell So I think it's about time. We gave them a little sniff to see which variety I've planted I'm, not going to be too upset if it's the perennial ones because apparently they come back year after year and they're beautiful anyway But I would like the scented ones To be honest. I don't know why I didn't check It's so funny because I always always always check what i'm buying Um, especially with sweet peas and I always go on about make sure you get the scented ones if you want the smell uh Yes, they are the scented ones. Well, these ones are the scented ones. Um, so that's fantastic. So I do The bees also very happy that they're scented I think he's like what you're doing with my new flowers Yeah, these are the scented ones. So that's excellent. I don't know if the top ones are Might have grown a couple of different varieties here. So let's see if these ones because these look more like the perennial ones Um, but let's see They smell too. They don't have as strong a smell No, they do they do smell they Yeah, they smell they smell I'm guessing the perennial ones wouldn't have any kind of scent at all And that does have a scent so I do think I have grown the scented sweet peas, which is just great news because it means i'm going to have That lovely sweet pea smell all over my house all summer long, which is brilliant Right, so I think we're going to start with some weeding because some of the beds are looking a little bit overgrown Also the time that you're watching this I think we're in the middle of a heat wave I'm this is filmed the week before this is exactly one week before it's going out Um, everyone keeps asking me to put the time and date, but I will just forget to do that But just know that i'm filming these vlogs exactly one week before you watch them So it is the wednesday the week before we are not in the heat wave yet So i'm able to do all these jobs to try and prepare for the heat wave and that's where we are right now. So Going to do some weeding let's get on with it. Oh, there's einstein So I think it's safe to say that my pea and parsnip bed has been all pea and parsnip bed It's quite good, isn't it? I didn't even think of that. Um nice alliteration Pea and parsnip bed has been a little bit neglected. I haven't weeded it as much as I should have My excuses are wearing thin so I think it might be time My excuse for this bed for not weeding it was that I couldn't tell what parsnip seedling is And what a weed is because there's quite a few weeds in this bed anyway Um, and now I can see What the parsnips parsnips are the parsnips are these ones These ones here. So anything that doesn't look like that I can now pull up It's a little bit of a delicate operation not something i'm particularly enjoying but i'm doing it Do you know that it's actually one of the reasons why we grow crops in rows? It's because then we know what's coming up in that row because it's very odd that you get a line of weeds like a perfect line of weeds And then we can tell Exactly what a seedling is that we planted and a weed seedling is but that is actually one of the reasons why we logically kind of just Like sow stuff in rows And so we can sort of weed between the rows and we know exactly where things are Because it's very difficult to tell a new seedling apart from a seedling of any other plant In fact, it's almost impossible Because all plants have seed leaves They're the first two leaves that come up and they pretty much look identical on every single plant So for those first couple of leaves You won't really be able to tell any plant apart It's not until they get their true leaves which is like the third and fourth leaves that come on the plant and then those leaves kind of Look more like the plant leaves that you're used to seeing Uh, so I wonder if I can get an example here because yeah I can right so this parsnip here So this parsnip seedling here, you see this leaf here at the very beginning. This is one of the first leaves He looks like that, but then the other leaves look like this So these are the true leaves and this little one here is a seed leaf Um, I think it's called a corti corti line corti code or something Um, it doesn't matter what the technical name is. The point is it's a seed leaf And these are the true leaves so you can see that they're very similar to every other sort of plant leaf They're just very generic very round very simple Difficult to tell what plant it is with just those leaves and then when these arrive we go. Oh, it looks like a parsnip If you know what a parsnip looks like if you don't just looks like a random plant But if you did know what a parsnip looked like and he had sown them like I have you might think that's a parsnip And i've just been swamped with red ants, oh my goodness me Oh my god, I just felt a nip on my arm a really really sharp nip and I was like, oh no, is that an ant? It is we're absolutely swamped with them. Oh my gosh, there's ants everywhere. Ow Keep biting me. Oh einstein. There you are. Can you come and eat these ants, please? They're really hurting me. They're like biting me Come and help einstein Come and help Come on Are you gonna help? Do you eat ants? Do you want some ants? Oh, I don't think he eats ants and they're really like look how many ants there are my gosh So many ants Oh guys, come on There's really a whole military operation here a whole military operation going on to get rid of me They really don't want me disturbing them. Look They're not happy Right, well it looks better than it did before and I really can't wrestle with those ants anymore. Let's have a look at the peas I feel like some of these might be ready Some of them might be ready. They're supposed to get quite big. That's that's actually quite big that one Some of them are a little bit flat still so the peas haven't quite developed but this one this is nice and chunky So it's at least one or that one looks chunky too and that one. All right, let's pick a few I reward myself for all of that hard work. I've just done and wrestling the ants, right? What we'll do we'll pick one and we'll open it up and see what's going on inside. See if they might be ready Because you never really know Until you have a look at it. Oh, yeah, there's look They could probably do we're getting a little bit bigger than that. So I might actually leave them a little bit longer But I reckon I could eat those Oh my gosh, they're delicious Oh my goodness me I never managed to bring my peas home because I end up eating them on the plot Oh my gosh, amazing. I actually think they might need a little bit longer Just to get the peas a little bit bigger, but they're almost there guys almost there Let's get a couple of these things out so I think we'll get the kale out though to be fair only two of them are doing okay now because The other ones have sort of died a little bit in there Like the drought the self-inflicted drought that they were subjected to by me um, but I think we'll give them a go because I really really want kale. This is cavolo nero and I love it. I love using it in my cooking. So It's one that I really wanted to grow this year. I could start some more seeds of it actually and just give it another go but Let's whack this one out Um, and I think we'll come back and we'll whack out the sunflowers as well And then we've got lots more containers now to do some more planting and seed sowing. So Right cavolo nero out it goes Look at all in here just next to the sprouts Not the healthiest looking plants that i've ever put in but I tell you what sprouts looks the same And um, they have come back to life and they're actually doing okay, so What do I know? All right We're going to do a little bit of seed sowing in here because we've got a lot more space now And now that things have started to go out, so i'm going to do some more courgettes These are the primula f1s. I think I did do these before. I think those are the ones that have died. So We'll give them another go Um, i've got some pots here and I think i'm going to do two per pot And then pop them on or take out the weaker seedling I don't think I would need more than four courgette plants, but at this point I feel like I should be sowing a million Just trying to try and get one courgette, you know Because I feel like my courgettes are not doing very well I think I was too early to put them out basically and i've just killed them all so We'll re-sow our courgettes and there's still time to do that. I think We're only in may So that's those get those out of water Um, i'm gonna sow some more peas as well because my pea germination isn't doing great I'm wondering if it's because i've got it in this sort of rubbery um Seed tray so this seed tray is sort of one of those more sustainable eco-friendly ones, which is made of rubber instead of plastic, but unfortunately it just Rots the seeds because it it holds the water too Well, like all the moisture and it doesn't drain away. So i've only got one pea which is germinated and it is starting to rot. So It's not looking great for them. So we're going to sow some more. I am all for Um any product which sort of gets rid of plastic, you know any plastic alternative i'm all for it as long as it works If it doesn't work There's no point. It's not being more sustainable if it doesn't do the job It's supposed to do and I really just really genuinely think those rubber containers and also The ones that are made out of the egg box containers as well. Those kind of like papery ones. They just don't work I can't make my seeds grow in them And if my seeds are failing every time it's a waste of a waste of seed and a waste of time And it's just the opposite of being sustainable because I can't grow anything So i'm all for sustainability Absolutely get rid of plastic But actually I found the best way to sort of combat it is to reuse your plastic containers over and over and over again Don't buy new ones Um, and that's the way that i'm being sustainable here Anyway, I think we will come back tomorrow and finish off a few jobs I've got a few more things I want to do, but I think i'll save it for tomorrow Um when the weather is hopefully a little bit sunnier I'm aware that it's like the weather's really nice and sunny now Hopefully fingers crossed when you're watching this and you're sort of watching me walk around in a jumper In like the wind and like gray skies, but i'm sort of hoping it might be quite nice to watch that because You might be melting at the moment and feeling really hot and then watching me Walks around in a jumper might be quite comforting. So i'm sort of hoping that that's the case Anyway, I do hope you've enjoyed today's vlog. I'll be back next time. Thank you for watching. See you next time. Bye