LOOK WHO CAME BACK!! / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Getting desperate now, we might have to start doing some rain dances. Oh you can see he's a new robin because he's a little bit scrawny. Anyway it's not very often that I discover a mystery and then solve the mystery in the same vlog. Good morning, good morning. Welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name's Emma these are the allotment diaries. Ever since I put this sort of cover up I've got like this um greenhouse cover to try and keep my greenhouse a little bit cooler. Ever since I put it up the lighting is just really bad on my face, it's like this grid of light so I don't, I can't tell you if it's doing a good job or not. I actually genuinely don't know, I can only assume it is. Sorry for the building work by the way, there seems to always be building work going on at the moment so can't be helped. I'll try and cut it out as much as I can. Yeah I can't, I can't sort of say whether this has definitely been effective or not. Everything in here is alive but then to be fair we've had years where we've had heat waves before and the tomatoes have always survived and that's mainly what I grow in here. I think there's a cucumber somewhere in here. There is a cucumber in here right at the back, it's not doing very well and it's not really doing anything. I think I planted out three or four of them and look at it, it's like a crisp Honestly and this is the only one that survived and I just sort of left it alone. I couldn't be bothered with it because I was so fixated on my tomatoes, I didn't have the mental capacity to look after a cucumber as well. It's not looking fantastic but it's okay because we've got tomatoes and the tomatoes are doing fantastic even though we are in, I think is this our fourth or fifth heat wave and I think are going into our fifth week with no rain, no rain. So considering all of that they are doing fantastic and that's the thing that I love to grow at this time of year is the tomatoes. Gosh there's loads of them, there's absolutely loads of them on this plant. Just great big bunches of them growing, great big bunches. These are the orange ones. They're looking absolutely fantastic and then got loads of these big ones here. These might be Roma tomatoes, they might be the Roma. I think they are actually, I think they're Roma. They're looking fantastic. Got some of these lovely ones down here but yeah they seem to be growing away. They're doing really well. They are doing their best to take over the world again. That seems to be their hobby. Seems to be their one true goal in life is to take over the world, tomatoes. They just, you stop pruning them and you don't, you sort of look away for like two minutes and you look back and they're like up on the ceiling of the greenhouse trying to reach space and just take over the planet. If I could hug them without killing them I would. Seedlings are alive, the seedlings are alive. Tomorrow is going to be our hottest day. I think we're getting up to 35, 36 potentially in London. I've got these trays that I'm filling with water and it's doing fantastic. Everything is staying so alive. It's amazing, it looks so healthy. And this is all my autumn winter veg, so mainly autumn. So this will go out as soon as the heat waves stop. I will pop these on and then plant them outside. My little boy came down with me the other night to water. I've been coming down sort of seven, eight o'clock at night just to give everything a bit of a drink. You have to because otherwise it will die. And I said to him, oh what do you think, what do you think of the allotment right now? And he said, oh it's a little bit overgrown mum. I was like, oh thanks, thanks Tom. I mean this is I think what four, five, fifth heat wave. Yeah it's definitely overgrown. I don't know how some people are maintaining their allotments. They are amazing for maintaining them. Mine has definitely become a bit of a weedy mess and I've made peace with that. I mean I can still see structure here. I know what I've got growing and I know what I've got planted. And I can see those beds looking okay but then I sort of see what my son sees as well. All of this messy area. It's difficult to look after an allotment at this time of year anyway because the weeds always go crazy. But when you've had heat wave after heat wave and no rain and you're really just struggling with it every single day, it's almost impossible. So if your allotment plots look messy, if they're overgrown, if you're not on top of it and you feel like it's getting away from you, you're not alone. I'm here almost every single day and because of the extreme heat I'm so limited in what I can do. I just really suffer in the heat. I'm just not very good with it. But yeah you're definitely not alone. Don't panic. It'll be okay. As soon as the weather cools down we'll all have the bug to go out and start. The bug? What bug? We don't get a bug. I mean like the gardening bug will come back and you'll want to weed it and look after it again. It's just the way it goes I'm afraid. Motivation wanes with the seasons and that is just a fact of allotment gardening. I have noticed one sort of disaster. So the cat or potentially the fox, I reckon the cat, has dug in my carrot bed which is so annoying because it's doing so so well. I've got some beetroot at the back as well. Luckily it's rooted down enough so that I can kind of cover the holes over again a little bit without disturbing the the plants. Up until now he hasn't sort of done anything in this bed and all of a sudden I turn up and he's he's dug in it and it's just really frustrating. When they poo and bury it I understand. I understand the art of digging but when they just dig for the sake of digging I don't understand why they do that. All right just hold it here with some sticks. Now that he's found it you see and he knows it's here he'll come back again and again. That's what they're like. He's found a good digging corner so he'll just keep coming back so I've got to cover it now and hopefully the rest of them will sort of survive after that little ordeal that they've had. Poor little things. Talk of the devil. Excuse me missy. I'd like to have a word with you. Honestly, like she owns the place. Excuse me. Did you dig in my carrot bed? Excuse me missy. Did you dig in my carrot bed? Excuse me. It's Einstein. You're digging my carrot bed but you leave my Einstein alone. This area here has become an overgrown mess. I'm sure you can tell. This is the tree that got chopped down and it's sort of rebelling and coming back to life but unfortunately it's blocking my pathway and I keep sort of having to push my way through it. I think I'm gonna have to chop it back today. Bird's turned up and he wants his food but also the cat's turned up so I don't want to feed the bird when the cat's here in case the cat thinks the bird is food. I don't want to be the person that feeds the bird and then the bird feeds the cat and then a fox comes and eats the cat and all the rest of it. I don't know. I don't know where that story ends but I don't want to find out. He's gonna have to wait a bit. Okay, wow. Look at the difference of that little job that I just did. It's opened up both the plots again. I've got my pathway back. That looks fantastic. Just while the sun isn't out because it's gonna get very very hot later. It's gonna get very very hot later so just while it's clouded over and a little bit cooler I thought I'd just get that job done and I feel really good for doing that. Is that the cat? Birds are really swooping around me now for their food. I might try and feed them and just see if I can protect them from the cat. There he is up in the tree. For those who are missing Einstein, he's there. I have to see if he comes down though because he's clicking at me. Are you? Gonna be big and brave. Come on then. Can you believe that the camera fell forward? Oh so annoyed. The first time we've seen Einstein in absolutely ages, I had the perfect shot of him and then the camera just went forward like that and I couldn't get around to move it. So annoying but he is back. He's back. The new Einstein is back. He's regenerated like Doctor Who. We've got a new Einstein and he is coming down and eating now so excellent. Just swooped past my head. Yeah look at him. You can see he's a new Robin because he's a little bit scrawny and his feather is a little bit ruffled. You see around his face. His feathers are a little bit kind of ruffled around his face still and around his red breast. It's like he's just started to develop his feathers but the more times that he comes down when I'm near and then he gets food and then he goes away successfully, the more confident he'll become. So all I have to do is stay near him when he comes and eats and not scare him and that's it. That's how you make friends with a bird. You just try your best not to scare them and keep feeding them. Right I better fix this structure now. These are my dwarf french beans which are all starting to come up now which is amazing because they weren't doing anything for ages and the birds have come along and they've pecked this to use for their nests. I think it's still nesting season for the birds isn't it? So they come along and they peck the end and steal my twine so I've got to fix it. Dwarf beans will grow at this time of year but not the taller ones. I don't think you've got time to put the taller ones in. I think it's just the dwarf ones that will still produce if you sow them in July. Yeah you see some of them are starting to come up now. I've got three different kinds in here. Lots of very exciting varieties but like I said the dwarf ones you can sow now from a seed. Just stick it into the ground now as a seed and you might get a harvest but I think the taller ones you're a little bit late for those. Need some help mate. Need some help. These are my compost potatoes and what I mean by that are potatoes that have just grown in my compost bin. I must have at some point thrown away a couple of old potatoes and they've sprouted into plants this year so I've got a tonne of potato plants growing in my compost bin. I think they are first earlies. That's a bit of a guess. I'm guessing from the flowers that appeared because they looked very much like my first early flowers. I'm going to pull them up now and see what's going on with them because I am also slightly concerned about blight this year because we've had the really high temperatures and then if we get rain and it remains quite humid that's kind of perfect conditions for blight to spread quite quickly and I don't want the blight to appear on these ones and then spread to my main crop and spread everywhere. I mean it will anyway you can't really stop it from spreading but I've just got a feeling that if we get rain soon and it stays humid we're all going to see a lot of blight in our gardens. Hopefully not. Hopefully I'm completely wrong but let's pull them up. Let's pull them up. Oh this is interesting. These here, these are potato fruits. They look very much like tomatoes because they are from the same family as tomatoes which I think is the deadly nightshade family. Might be wrong on that. So you cannot eat the fruit on potatoes. These are potato fruits. They look like tomatoes. They look edible. They are not. They are completely poisonous and it's just because they're from the same family as the tomato. They produce these little tomato-like fruits. Completely irrelevant to the plant. I mean if you are growing these potatoes like properly not in a compost heap it's a good idea to take them off so that you stop the energy from going into these and you put the energy into creating potatoes. But yeah I often get a lot of questions about those. Yeah completely poisonous. Do not eat them. That's what they are. I can't even figure out where they are or where they're growing from in here. They're so like windy and viney. I can't even figure out where the end of the plant is. I fear this is not going to be as satisfying as everyone wanted it to be because I think they're just growing really weirdly. Oh that's a pretty good one. I think they're first earlies. I think they are Red Duke of York. Oh yeah there's another one. Pretty good I suppose. I hope there's not any rats in here. I found the culprit. The seed potato. This must have been the potato I threw away. Look at all the little babies growing around him. Yeah I'm slightly concerned about rats being in here or mice or something. There's a lot of creepy crawlies. I'm finding it really hard to find the where it is because they're sort of spilling out everywhere. This is what I've got out of the compost heap. I'm not sure about these. I think they're Red Duke of York which is a first early but they look very pale and they're sort of a bit yellowy on one side and I'm wondering if that's their way of kind of turning green because when potatoes hit the sunlight they turn green and they turn poisonous but these have turned yellow. So I'm not sure they're the healthiest potatoes. I could maybe try and pull them out of this bit. Spilling out the bottom here. I don't know if we'll get any. Oh there they are. There's the little potatoes. Yeah again they just don't look that great. They actually look like they've been nibbled. Is that a rat that's been nibbling that? Oh my goodness is that a rat bite? No. Throw him back I think. Throw him back for the rats. Yeah not the greatest harvest in the world. I did have a feeling it wouldn't be the most sort of satisfying of harvests because the way that they were growing they were just kind of spilling out everywhere. I think it's more foliage than potatoes because there's not really much for the potato to grow in. It's mainly just old crops that I've thrown in. There's not even real compost in there yet guys. I can't make compost. I don't know how to make compost but this is what I've pulled up. So I just remembered that I've got some courgettes growing here so I'm gonna pick them before they get to the size of a small child. That's a really nice courgette size so we're gonna pick that. We're just gonna twist it from the stem. There we go. When you pick them it's a good idea to keep a little bit of the stem on so that they don't rot too quickly so you can actually keep them. That's a really good courgette size. I'm glad I managed to pick that before it got to the size of a small infant child. Right I'm gonna call it there today. I'm gonna take my little courgette home and enjoy him. Enjoy eating him. He actually looks really really delicious and a great size so I'm super happy with that. The sun is starting to come out now so it's getting really hot. It's going to get a lot hotter today so I'm cutting my losses and leaving now. We did do a little bit of weeding. We did sort out a little bit so we did get a few sort of jobs done. We also saw the bird today which was excellent. This is very typical of one of my vlogs. I know I've had an influx of new subscribers. Welcome to the channel. I hope you enjoy it. It's just me rambling on my allotment plot and just pottering about and doing a few jobs. I haven't seen a reaction to Wednesday's vlog yet because I'm filming this before it goes up but once it's up I will read your comments. Let me know if you liked the combination of kind of home life and the allotment life together. If you did I will make a few more of those vlogs kind of combining the two worlds together but I'll wait to see your reaction. Let me know what you thought of this vlog. Do you prefer me just filming at the allotment like this or do you like the combination of both places? Anyway let me know if you like a little bit more variety in the vlog or if you're happy just for me to stick with allotments. Anyway I will see you again in my home vlog on Sunday or I'll see you back at the allotment on Monday. Hopefully we get some rain. I think the north have got rain. Us down the south have yet to get rain so I will keep you updated on the rain. We may be getting desperate now. We might have to start doing some rain dances so stay tuned for that. See you when I see you guys. Thanks for watching. Bye.