NO RAIN AT THE ALLOTMENT PLOT / ALLOTMENT GARDENING UK

Oh my god! Good morning guys, welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma, starting this vlog today in my home garden again for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there's some jobs that I need to do in here that are to do with the vegetable beds, so I thought that would be quite good to show you. Secondly, I'm sure you are all quite aware of this but we are in a drought and there is another heat wave. I've lost count of how many heat waves that we've had but it's definitely getting up there now to constant heat. Where I am here in South London, we've been on an almost constant heat alert for about five weeks, which basically means that my main job at the allotment has been watering and just keeping everything as watered and hydrated as I can, which has been basically a losing battle. But I can't really sow any more seeds out there, I can't get any new plants in the ground because they need so much attention and so much watering, I'm just not there enough to do it. So it's just really really difficult at the moment at the allotment and I've talked about my struggles, I am really struggling. I know a lot of you are as well and a lot of you commented on my video, I think it was on Monday, where I just basically let it all out and just said I'm struggling, I can't do it at the moment and that's how I continue to feel. So we are going to go to the allotment later on and basically maintain it and just deadhead some things, do some watering, make sure the seedlings are alive in the greenhouse, that's all we can really do to be honest. There is however one place where I feel slightly more confident getting seeds out and that's my home garden because I'm just able to water it multiple times a day and that's everything needs, it needs multiple waterings. I have sown some seeds into one of my raised beds, the only problem is some of them aren't coming up so I'm gonna have to sort of re-sow them. I'm not entirely sure what went wrong, I doubt they've been eaten, I think they just haven't germinated. I've got this sort of grill, this is an old shelf from a greenhouse. Oh my gosh, am I standing on the hose? Oh my god, oh no, how did I do that? Oh my god, what is it with me and this blooming hose? Honestly, oh my god, I'm gonna have to turn it off, oh my god. That was absolutely ridiculous, I don't actually know what went wrong there, I don't know what happened, I think I sat on it, I think I sat on the hose and it took the top of it off, oh my goodness. What is it with me and this blooming hose? Honestly, I don't think me and hoses mix, I don't think we work. I seem to have a real issue with hoses, just exploded all over my trousers, oh my goodness. Right, okay, where were we before we were rudely interrupted with a hose situation? We've got to stop having these hose situations. So in here we've got some spring onions which are actually coming up okay, but the lettuce has kind of disappeared. Has it been eaten? I don't think it has been eaten, you know, I can't see any signs of it being eaten. We're going to sow some more, in particular this one which is Little Gem. I'm actually going to ignore these ones and pretend they don't exist because I want to re-sow it in a zigzag. I think it would really work like that, I don't know why, I just think it'd be fun like that and I think that they sort of give each other enough space then. You don't have to sow stuff in rows, you can sow it however you want. We're sowing rows because it's sort of easier, it's easier to maintain, easier to weed, easier to pick and harvest stuff. You can be a rebel if you want. Right, I'm sowing a million now. I think before I was a little bit cautious and I actually sowed it quite thin, now I'm sowing a million. Yeah, I'm not sure what happened, I'm really not sure what happened to it. I can only assume it's something to do with this weather we're having in the heat. It all just seems to have disappeared. It's so strange because I have genuinely been watering this a lot but I suppose lettuce seeds do dry out very quickly. I mean they're very very small so maybe they have genuinely just dried out, who knows? And then this in here is Rainbow Chard. A few of them have come up, I think I planted more than these but all the ones that have come up are red which is quite annoying because I wanted them to be all different colours. It always seems to be the way whenever you plant any or sow any seeds that are sort of rainbow, one colour seems to dominate. So I'm just going to stick a few more seeds in just in the hope that we get something other than red chard. Red must be the dominant colour or something. Right, that's all that in so then what we'll do is we'll try and work this hose again. I better go turn it on. Wish me luck, hopefully it doesn't explode in my face, it probably will. There we go. Right and then this runner bean plant is sort of growing off the top of its structure so what you can do is just literally snip the top off and that will focus all the energy into producing beans and not trying to grow up to space because there's nothing for it in space but it doesn't know that, it wants to be an astronaut. All plants have a dream of being astronauts, they all want to get into space and it's up to us to crush their dream and to stop them from growing too tall. Right now we've crushed its dream, hopefully it will start to produce some beans soon. I've got a couple of flowers but not many but it has grown really well. No courgettes yet either but they are growing really big and viney. I actually think courgettes would probably grow over a structure, I've never thought that before but seeing them here, I mean this one, look at this, unless this is not a courgette and I've got completely mixed up. That is crazy, that could very easily grow up over something. The dahlias are really trying, they're really trying their best. This is the one flower and it's finished but I've got some more buds on here. I grew dahlias quite successfully on my first year of my allotment plot and I've not really ever been able to grow them successfully since. I didn't realise at the time that they were the only dahlias that I would successfully grow and even in my home garden I really struggle with them. I mean it's not doing too badly, I do have some more buds on here so hopefully I'll get some more flowers. The pond is looking good isn't it? It's doing really well in this little pot. It's so funny because I've obviously got my wildlife pond at the allotment but this is just a pot and it's just doing beautifully well. It just goes to show you don't need a big space to have all the things that I have at the allotment. I've got veg here, I've got pepper plants, I've got a pond, I've got flowers and they're just literally in a small space in pots. I mean look at these lily pads. Aren't these so cute? They're just doing so so so great. I absolutely love them. My poor pear tree is really suffering. I keep watering this but I think it gets sunburned. I think it's the sun. I actually saw something on the news this morning about how farmers are spraying their crops with sun cream basically, sun protection to stop them from burning which I think is what's happening here. The pears are just dropping off the tree and they're nowhere near done and they just look really sad. Fun fact, we've actually got a guinea pig buried under the pear tree. This pear tree is actually a tribute to our long lost guinea pig. There's just a little fun fact for you. I think I've shown you these before. These are my little bee or insect kind of fountains. So what we do is we just fill it with some water and then they can land on the rocks and get a little drink. Yes you do have to keep refilling them. Obviously they dry out quite quickly but I refill them multiple times a day and it just ensures that all the insects and the bees get a nice little drink. Guys it's looking very much like rain. I'm looking outside. The wind is picking up. There's grey clouds. It could very well rain. What do you think? Just looking outside here it very much looks like it's going to rain. I don't know I just got kind of like the vibe of rain as well with all the wind. There are quite a few people here today so if you hear me talking a little bit quieter it's because I'm surrounded by people come down to see their plots but hopefully we're all about to enjoy a shower. Some of you were wondering why that matters if I've got my greenhouse because obviously like it won't water in here but actually in a way it kind of does. Firstly the rain it does sort of help to cool down my greenhouse. I've got my windows open so some rain will get into my greenhouse as well and also it sort of rains around the edge and then it soaks under the ground and the tomatoes because they're so big now and the roots are going down so deep and they will benefit from rain even if it's not directly inside the greenhouse. It does make a huge difference. Look at these. Don't these look so so good. My tomatoes are just doing so well. They just don't care about the weather at all. They don't care. In fact the hotter it is the better they are and the happier that happier they are. I've got so many tomatoes coming. Not as many as last year but I don't think I planted these out as early as last year and that's probably why. I've been sort of comparing my plot to how it was doing this time last year and I had a lot more tomatoes but like I said I planted out my tomatoes a lot earlier last year. I was a bit later this year so it makes sense that they're taking a little bit longer but they're still producing and they look absolutely great. They're still giving me loads of tomatoes so absolutely perfect. Right I think we will see if we can feed the bird. I'm a bit later today though. I don't know if he'll be out and about but we'll go and see. He's not here. He's not here. It's because it's not the normal time. It's not the morning time. It's the afternoon and it's really feeling like rain isn't it? Can you hear like the wind? I'm sure you can hear it on the camera. Oh my goodness could this be it? Could this be rain? It's definitely looking like it. Please please rain. The thing is even if it does rain I don't feel like it's going to be enough to water everything. I'm actually going to get my watering can and do a little bit of watering just on the crops that I really need to be watered. So pumpkins, carrots. I have a lot more french beans coming up now which is very good to see. I don't think these are the new ones. I think these are the old ones that were still waiting to germinate and they seem to have just, I don't know, taken the leap of faith. That one, that's the nasturtium. So I might actually still get nasturtiums this year which is quite good because a lot of mine have dried up and died. These are looking great. These two look a little bit sad. This is just all to do with the lack of rain, lack of watering. I have planted more seeds in so hopefully we'll still get some. Tis just really looking a little bit dry at the back of the plot down here. The thing is is it was really overgrown before and because we've had this real lack of rain it's all sort of stopped growing. So that grass really should be sort of waist height now but it's not. It's all died back. So just trying to look on the bright side of this lack of rain situation. There is actually a lack of weeds. So I've told myself that every time I come down now I'm going to clear one area even if it's a very small area. I'm going to clear one area. Hopefully that will get me back on track for when the weather does finally get back to gardening weather. Weather we can actually do stuff in. So I'm going to choose one bed today and just completely clear it, sort it out. I've got a lot of stuff ready to go in for my autumn allotment. I'm not too worried. I'm clearing these beds and as soon as the weather drops and the heat waves kind of stop and the rain comes back fingers crossed it does at some point. I've got loads of stuff ready to go in the ground so I'm good to go. But we're going to start with just clearing a bed. This was my rocket and I was waiting to collect the seeds. I've actually forgotten to bring my little envelopes today but I've got an old seed craft one. So I'm just going to collect some of these seed pods. I've mentioned before but I'm trying really hard to collect seeds this year. I'm not entirely sure what the seeds are. I'll let the flowers grow over a little bit you see. So now I've just sort of got these pods but I'm assuming the seeds are in the pods. Shall we open one up and have a look? I think that was the flower. Yeah there's seeds in there. Okay right fine. So we'll just we'll collect the pods. Oh now the sun's come out as well. So where's the rain gone then? It just flies past us. The rain clouds just fly past us like they're not interested in us anymore. Come back. Come back rain clouds. Right there we go. That's what we've collected and now we'll just clear the rest. As you can see my lettuce did not survive the heat wave either. Never mind. This absolute monstrous beast needs to come out. I don't know if I'll be able to get it all out today. I might get my shears and just chop it down and then we'll have to dig it out properly another day because I think it's nestled in between these two beds now. So it's going to be quite a pain to get out. There we go look if I do nothing else productive today I have at the very least cleared one small area of my plot that was looking very overgrown and shabby and it makes me feel a lot better and just going around doing really small areas like this at a time is more manageable and I'm getting something productive done. So I've just fixed my camera. I don't know if you noticed but every time I filmed it sort of zoomed in on my face. I've just fixed it. I don't know how. Just sort of pushed a lot of buttons and then it did this again so that's good news. I still can't find my bleeding scissors and the other thing I wanted to say is the other day I must have got stung by something. I think it must have been a plant but can you see that on my arm there? That little rash. Somebody did leave a comment and say there's poison ivy on my allotment and I think maybe I brushed past it or something without realising but you have to be so so careful because it's all been so overgrown it's so much easier just to brush yourself past something and get stung. I'm going to do a little bit of deadheading on those sunflowers because all of the heads are dying and I'm hoping that they might come back and give me some more. I don't know. I don't know if they're finished or not but well actually they might actually be finished. I don't know but maybe if I deadhead them I might get a few more. You never know. Oh look yeah there's a few more buds on there. Excellent. There's some more buds looking very nice and also looking like some kind of gardening horror story on the floor with all the decapitated heads. I might leave these out for something to come and eat. I know the squirrels quite like these and the birds like them too so I might just leave them out like that. They can just come and help themselves. I should put a sign out really but I don't think it would be useful for a squirrel. This is a very well educated squirrel. I don't know if you're going to be able to see this but there's a parakeet sitting in my tree. You're definitely not going to be able to see it because he's literally the same colour as the tree. He's green. I've got another courgette down here but I don't think it's quite ready to pick yet so we're going to leave this for I think a couple more days just to get a little bit bigger. Please remind me of that guys because a couple more days can be the difference between a courgette and a marrow. Hopefully I catch it on time and then this little one here is looking almost the right size. I might just leave him another day. I might come back tomorrow and pick him because he's almost the right size for me to pick so one more day for him. No Einstein today but a parakeet. Right I don't think there's anything else I can do here other than keep watering. It looks like that rain cloud has just passed us by which is so frustrating. I think all possibility of a rain shower is gone. I was kind of hoping to get here and it would rain and I'd be jumping about in joy and just being so happy about it but it doesn't seem to be the case today. Anyway I hope you've enjoyed this vlog. I know it's a little bit different than my usual ones but like I said you know my jobs here are very limited and until those things to pick and harvest there's not too much to do other than keeping everything alive but everything does seem to be kept alive like everything's living so we're all good. We're all good. We're just coasting along until the weather decides to change. Anyway I hope your plots are going well. I will see you again when I see you. Thank you so much for watching. See you next time. Bye.