I'M FINDING IT SO HARD / ALLOTMENT GARDENING UK

There you are. I think it's pretty obvious that I have struggled with my allotment plot this year. I think sometimes with gardening it's best not to think too hard about it and just do it. Good morning guys. Welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name's Emma. These are the allotment diaries. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you for subscribing. Don't come in. Don't come in bee. You'll find your way in through the door but you'll never find your way out again. We both know it. Thank you so much if you have subscribed. I got some new subscribers recently. I hope you're enjoying the content. I'm going to start mixing home and allotment a little bit more in these vlogs which is what we're going to do today hopefully. So we're starting off at the allotment plot. Also may I please say to everybody who told me to put my seedlings into trays and to water the trays so that the seedlings get watered from underneath. You are all geniuses. Thank you so so much for leaving me that tip multiple times until I finally went and bought the trays because my seedlings have survived another heat wave because of that. That tip has genuinely kept all of my new seedlings alive which means that I do have things that are going to go out for my autumn winter garden. We just had another heat wave. It's kind of coming down now the temperature but yesterday got to 36. It was very hot and sunny all day. I don't think these would have survived because I didn't come down here. There's no way I'm coming down in 36 degree heat but these would not have survived without this trick. So this little tip this is an excellent excellent tip and I know that you guys are absolutely full of these incredible tips and I do do my best to read your comments and to implement the tips that you give me. I know you don't always think that I do but I actually do and that's just one of the best ones that you've ever given me so thank you so so much. I think I'm going to start today by giving everything a bit of a feed. I don't remember the last time I fed everything. I tried to do it on a Friday but I wasn't here last Friday. I don't know if I did it in between. I can't remember. So I'm going to give them a tomato feed. So the tomatoes and the pumpkins are going to get a feed. So the pumpkins are doing pretty good. There's no damage on them which is I mean I mean a first. I'm not used to seeing pumpkins without any damage at all but obviously we've had no slugs because of the weather. They're not sort of climbing yet but they are growing more leaves and stuff so I've sort of got high hopes for them. They seem to be doing okay and getting bigger. This one here is the one that was doing the best and now seems to be the one that's doing the worst. It seems to be really struggling and I can only think this is a complete lack of watering and nutrients. Rain basically is what it needed. It really needed some rain but the leaves are starting to go yellow and that is a sign that it's really missing out on vital nutrients. It is growing a pumpkin. It needs more watering than what it's getting basically so I have to step up my game. I can hear the bird. I can hear the birdies. I think we're going to stop now and just go and feed him. See if I can film him this time without my camera falling off. What I've got it balanced on. I've got it balanced on a chair and a pot and it just sort of went forward which was so annoying but let's see if we can capture him this time. Hopefully we will. This is a good start because he's sitting waiting for me which he wasn't doing before. Yeah he's come back to waiting for me now. There you are. There you are Einstein. Hello. Oh he's definitely a new one. His feathers are still slightly ruffled around his head. Can you see? Yeah. Yeah he looks like a little baby. The camera did in fact do that thing again where it rocked forward. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Normally I do this and it works fine. Every time I try and feed the bird it doesn't work. Maybe he's a bit camera shy. I don't know. Yeah that's my new Robin. That's my little baby. I think because I used to see so many fledglings around now I'm just seeing that one. He's obviously the bravest and he's come down and now he sits and waits for me and I think because robins are incredibly territorial they actually are one of the only birds in the UK that fight each other to the death and that's how violent they are. Robins are incredibly violent creatures. But yeah I reckon he's actually fought all of the other birds all of his brothers and sisters to be the one to be the one who like gets the food. He seems to be the winner. He's my winner. So he's my new Einstein now. That's my new Einstein. They will all be called Einstein forever just because we can't we can't just have so many names for different birds guys. I'm not that crazy. I mean I'm a little bit crazy but I'm not that crazy. They can all just have the same name. Right a lot of you in the comments have said that I need to start succession sowing my dwarf french beans. I put them in maybe a few weeks ago. Some of them are germinated some of them have disappeared forever into the pits of wherever they go which seems to happen a lot when I put seeds in the ground and you can see these ones are coming up really nicely but then we sort of have a little bit of a a gap and then at the back here we've got a few coming up but then lots of gaps so actually I think sowing more is not a bad idea anyway. I do remember putting in quite a few because I didn't think that they would sort of come up. Look at the Isn't that beautiful? They're so lovely. These are the purple queen. Yeah I do remember putting in quite a few so I don't know what's happened to them whether they've been eaten whether they've just not germinated whether it's been the heat. There's no harm in popping in a few more and then at the back here I've got some of these. I've actually lost the name because I ripped the name off. I can't actually remember what the name of these is. I've really ripped it in the wrong place but they look like that. They look very exciting. I really want these ones to work so we're going to put quite a few of these in. These are very cool looking seeds. I'm actually wondering now if the birds have come down and maybe eaten them. Right I might just sort out this little area here because I actually think that this bed might be where some of my autumn crops go and you can see that all of this is these little brambles that come over from the pathway and then we've got some sort of dead crops in here so I think we need to revamp this bed. I think it's pretty obvious that I have struggled with my allotment plot this year. I've struggled on keeping up with it. I've struggled on keeping the weeds down. I've struggled on making it look and feel productive and be productive. I mean I think a lot of it is down to these heat waves that we've had and literally I think people are saying online and I We went from spring which was quite cool and the temperatures were quite low and then we went immediately into summer with these really intense heat waves and lack of rain and that's really what's done it for the gardens is that we've just had one extreme temperature after another. I'm struggling with the heat, the garden is struggling with the heat, the pond is struggling with the heat and I think and even people who have got hose pipes because I know people always say get a hose pipe then and I am going to get a hose pipe but even people with hoses are saying it's a real struggle this year to keep everything watered and just keep up with it keep up with it in general. I've also had a real lack of motivation to get down I think it's the heat I really think it's the heat because normally even if I'm going through something even if I'm going through something quite stressful at home or in my life I can still kind of cut time aside and come down here and do a big job and it makes me feel better like I always prioritize it but I haven't been doing that recently and I think it's just the only excuse I can come up with it's the heat. I just find it too difficult to do these jobs the ground is rock solid I can't dig in anything it's just really just a pain to be honest. Yeah I found a real I've really had a real lack of motivation this summer to do my garden and I'm very much banking on the autumn allotment so I'm really hoping that when we get to autumn time that's when I'll be able to kind of have my allotment moments and stuff and you know grow more down here but I'm still coming down here I'm still trying to find those magic little moments I'm still feeding the bird the birds come back now so that's really good now that gives me another kind of excuse to come down even when I'm not feeling motivated to actually garden I can come and see the bird I'm still trying to see the little positives and get the little you know moments of happiness it's like I'm kind of grasping at them at the moment but they're still there and I'm still enjoying it overall so but yeah I just wanted to put it out there because if you're feeling completely unmotivated this year if you've really struggled with your plot if your plot's looking worse than it ever has you're not alone so is mine so it's a lot of people's I think a lot of us are just really struggling this year maybe we need to start doing some rain dances right I really want to collect some parsnip seeds I've got these little seed bags I just ordered them off of amazon they're quite sweet aren't they um little paper bags they've got a little sticky thing at the back so you put your seeds in you stick it down and then it's sort of I think it's good to put them into envelopes like this like paper envelopes because they still need to breathe um whereas if you kind of lock them away in a container which I did do once they rot a lot of you did very kindly oh my gosh we've lost the seed pack right a lot of you very kindly reminded me that parsnips can be poisonous um especially the stems I think it's the it's like the little milky sap that comes out of the stem can cause blisters and swelling all over your hands so you have to be really careful when you are pulling up parsnips when you are handling parsnips or when you're disposing of the foliage of parsnips so I'm being really careful I'm going to have a glove on um but I am just collecting the seeds and then I think we might get rid of them we might just have to pull them up and put them into the compost heap but we will see so let's see how this goes seed collecting isn't something I normally do um I'm just not very confident on it and this year I'm really going to try and so let's see if we can right these are the parsnips that I have allowed to flower and you can see that I've allowed them to dry out as well I've just allowed them to do all this by the way because you know it's my plot what I say goes they are the most beautiful flowers and they've got really tall I would definitely recommend leaving some of your parsnips to flower because they are so gorgeous I'm not entirely sure how to collect these so I think what we can do oh give my hair back you is just sort of put the flower into the seed pack and then kind of shake it I've got one I've got one maybe I'll just pick the tops of the flowers off and put them into the seed pack they don't really look like parsnip seeds I think we'll just literally just take the so I'm not entirely sure what the seeds are but the tops are coming off quite easily and I'm assuming the seeds will be in there somewhere I'm not going to think too hard about it I'm just going to take the tops right these do look very much like parsnip seeds I'm just taking the tops of the flowers so I'm not going to think too hard about it I'm just going to collect the tops of the flowers I think that's right they look like parsnip seeds they must be the seeds the seeds must be in the flowers oh this guy's really liking it now maybe I'll leave them in because I think some of the insects are still really enjoying the little parsnip flowers I'll just take a few more I think sometimes with gardening it's best not to think too hard about it and just do it I mean I know the seeds are in the flowers somewhere so we'll just collect the flower heads and then technically we'll have the seeds won't we a lot of these are really dried out so I think that's a good thing as well I'm pretty sure if I just let these die down we would get parsnips here anyway because they would somehow go into the ground and grow so I just don't think it needs to be that complicated I really don't I think it's just as simple as just yeah take tops that's nice and full I think that's right I'd be surprised if it wasn't right to be honest so I'll just fold it down packet of parsnip seeds ready to plant next year I usually start them in about February so I have to keep these nice and safe and dry until Feb at least and then I will plant them out and we'll just see what happens hello Einstein who's following me around now that's another good sign that we've made friends do you know what I can smell on my allotment plot literally it's so pungent it's so strong blackberries I can smell sweet blackberries everywhere as if they've actually ripened and then gone over and you know you know that like pungent blackberry smell and you get all the wasps around it it's starting to happen already I'm filming this on the last day of July and I'm literally about to pick some blackberries I've brought an egg box down with me which I thought I'd collect them up in I'm going to wear a glove so I don't get my hands all stained we're going to go home we're going to make an apple and blackberry crumble I'm going to show you how I make it but yeah we're going to pick some blackberries at the end of July why not this is crazy but you know what I always say when life gives you global warming pick blackberries in July that's what I've always said right that is a really nice little bunch of blackberries so we're going to take these home and make a little crumble right so I'm back home from the plot had a snack cooled down a little bit we're going to throw together this apple and blackberry crumble I'm going to make it in advance so I'm going to make it now keep it in the fridge and then cook it later right so here's what we need it's actually a very simple thing to make from scratch you don't really need to buy a crumble mix because it's so easy to whack together so we've got some plain flour and then you need two different types of sugar so you need your soft light brown sugar but then you also need demerara sugar which is a little bit sort of coarser it's thicker so it will turn it into a crumble and not a paste then we need some unsorted butter some apples and of course our blackberries as well okay so for our crumble topping we need 50 grams of unsorted butter which I'm going to cube up make it a bit easier to work with then we're going to add 50 grams of the demerara sugar demerara sugar and then we're going to go in with 100 grams of plain flour right so I'm going to work this in with my hands but it's really important that you don't overwork it because what we're looking for is that bread crummy crumbly texture so if you do this too much it will turn into kind of like a dough which we don't want we want to keep it bread crummy sometimes when I make this I add in cinnamon or ground ginger which kind of gives it a little bit of heat I'm not going to do that this time because I don't want that flavour in it because it because this is going to be like a summer crumble because even though we're doing blackberries and apples it's still July so we've got to we've got to make some part of it summery and not christmassy and wintery all right that's very much looking like a crumble now as our crumble dish so we shall chop up our apples we're going to chop them let's wash these blackberries add a little bit of the brown sugar to we simply cover it over with our crumble mix and I'm going to pop this into the fridge and cover it over with some foil and I'm going to bake it later for about 25 minutes I'd say in the oven I hope you enjoyed my vlog today um I'm trying to combine a little bit more of the allotment and home life in these so you guys seemed to quite like that last week when I did it on Wednesday um so let me know what you thought this one and I will see you again when I see you thanks so much for watching guys see you next time bye