I NEED TO PLANT MORE FLOWERS / ALLOTMENT GARDENING UK

It's always better to have more than you think you need. Oh, they are just so beautiful. Good morning. Welcome back to the allotment garden. My name's Emma. These are my allotment garden diaries. My allotment garden diaries. I just vlog all about my allotment plot here in South London. It is cold. It is cold. The temperature is dipping. They did say that it would, and yet I am still surprised. I am still surprised to find that the weather has dipped. Last time I was here, I think I filled up one raised bed, pulled up a couple of carrots and ran back home. I feel like today will be similar. I think I'm going to have all these grand plans of doing all this work at the allotment plot and actually it is getting so cold already. I am literally shivering. I've got four layers on, four layers, four layers of clothes on and it is still quite chilly. For that reason, today is going to be as much a kind of strenuous jobs as I can to try and warm myself up. So a lot of the allotment plot needs a bit of a tidy now. And I noticed last time I was here that there's a lot of weeds coming up. There's a lot of crops that still need to be cleared away. And I think it will just look so much better and so much more manageable if I just roll my sleeves up today, though not literally because it is cold, and just get to work. That's what we're doing today. We're going to do a major allotment tidy up for the autumn time. And I think it's going to be really good. I brought with me some gloves. I've got my winter gloves today. Keep my hands nice and warm. Definitely, definitely needed today. So I think we'll get out. And oh, it's that helicopter. Okay the helicopter is slowly leaving. I'm going to get stuck straight in with this archway because I can see a few runner beans that are kind of sitting over it. I'm wondering if I can collect some of those seeds there and also this bed here unfortunately our cosmos died which is such a shame. It is such a shame because actually last year I was picking cosmos flowers in December, can you believe it, December time, but this year because they flowered so early and then we had that drought and everything and we had the heat wave, I think they've just really suffered and there's no way they're going to hold on so unfortunately. They have just died which is such a shame. I think next year I'm going to plant even more cosmos in the hope that we can keep some of it going for longer. It must have been a really mild year last year or something because to have cosmos still flowering in December is pretty crazy. To be fair saying that a lot of my nasturtium has only just started to flower so if you've watched these vlogs throughout the summertime you might have noticed all my nasturtiums were kind of dead and hadn't done anything and now look at them we're in November guys and they're literally climbing the archway. I mean this is the best thing that climbed the archway this entire year to be honest but they really really started late. And it's actually nice because I've got some really nice sort of late autumn colour, which is fantastic. Also on the way into my allotment site today I did notice that a lot of calendulas are flowering on people's plots and in fact they are going literally crazy. I've never seen so many calendulas. I think it's definitely something I need to plant next year. I love any flower that gives you colour for a really long time, right into the autumn time is like my favourite kind of flower and so nasturtiums cosmos and I think calendula I'm going to add to my flower collection next year. The good thing about the nasturtiums as well is that actually you can eat them, you can actually eat these flowers. I might actually pick a few today and take them home which seems a shame because they're finally flowering but I feel like it's their own fault for not flowering earlier but I think they'll be really nice in a salad so I'm going to pick some of these calendulas later. Let's get clearing I think. Can I see the birdie about? No birdie's not about yet so when he turns up then we'll go feed him. I don't know what this is growing up here, is this another runner bean It looks so different to the other runner beans. I have no idea. Nothing much really worked on the archway this year. It really didn't. I grew pumpkins and then I had some runner beans and literally nothing worked. Just a really bad year for the archway. So I think maybe next year I need to rethink this archway, this whole thing. I actually was thinking I might just put my sweet peas on it next year instead and have a sweet pea archway and then succession sow all the sweet peas and try the pumpkins maybe somewhere else, like on the ground. I don't know if maybe next year is the year that I finally grow my pumpkins horizontally instead of vertically, but yeah, I think I might use this for sweet peas next year. I think that might be the plan. Let's see if we can get something growing over it at last. I'm just going to try it out. Let's see if we've got any seeds in here that we can sort of use again. I've always find that runner beans, runner bean seeds are probably the most exciting ones that you can find and grow. Oh, they are just so beautiful. I mean, this makes up for not having any actual runner beans to eat. It really does. Look at those, look at the color of them. Absolutely stunning. Oh my gosh. I always say when I find runner bean seeds, because they're so beautiful, the colours are so gorgeous. I know it's not showing up on camera, but there's such a beautiful purple colour. I always say that I understand why Jack gave up the cow for some magic beans. I mean, I mean, I'd be the same. I'd be the same. They're just like... And they feel so nice as well. They just feel so smooth and fun. Oh, at least I've got loads of these to replant next year. So it wasn't all bad. God, there's just loads of them here. I definitely don't need to buy runner bean seeds again. I really don't. I better go put them in that little thing, actually. I'll keep them in this tub. Can you see them a bit better there? Let me just put them on the table and then show you. Aren't they just beautiful, beautiful seeds? There you go you see even if crops fail and they don't do what you wanted them to do one year they'll give you something they'll give you something useful and at least I've got all these lovely beans to sow next year so it wasn't wasted. Another bed that I want to clear is this one it's obviously become very overgrown and messy but I am so aware now that there are frogs. Around my allotment that might be hiding. So what I was going to do is leave in all of the nasturtiums because they look look at the size of this nasturtium leaf. That's absolutely huge, isn't it? It's almost the size of my hand. But yeah, I'm going to sort of neaten it up a bit. And also, I think there might be some more French beans in here to harvest. I'll go carefully and if I see a frog, I'll sort of stop. But obviously, it's getting a bit away from me this bed. So it really just does need some TLC. Obviously I've accidentally pulled out all the nasturtiums. I started pulling out a few of them by accident and then I thought, right, stuff it, let's pull them all out. I actually have a good idea for this bed. I'm going to collect up a load of leaves and I'm going to use the leaves to mulch over the bed and that will hopefully help the frogs if they want to come back and hide because it will create a habitat for them and also it will help my bed because it will be mulched over with some nice leaves. So let's go collect up all the leaves that we can and whack them on the bed. Einstein's just shown up. Perfect timing as usual. He's up in this tree somewhere. He seems quite happy just coming down and taking some of the worms from the pathways and stuff so I don't think I'll feed him any mealworms today. I think he needs to learn to fend for himself sometimes guys. Also look at the colour of this tree behind me and it hasn't actually started to drop many of its leaves yet so I've got all of these lovely leaves still to collect for my garden which is So, so gorgeous. Honestly, this tree, every time I come to my allotment at the moment, it's just the best tree. I just love it. I don't know if all those are just going to blow away in the wind. I mean, there was just a really big gust of wind and none of them moved. So I'm really hoping that they kind of stay put, but yeah, I've seen a lot of people at the plots do this with their beds and just cover them over with some, a lot of people just pull up old crops and then chop them up really small and just sort of do the same thing, lay them on the top. I think it just like, it's a really good way of just mulching your bed for free. But yeah, we'll give it a go this year and I'll see what happens, see if they stay put as well. Be interesting to see. Oh wow, it's a very cold day. There's no point me trying to look presentable today because I'm just going to fail. I've just been clipping my hair up with a big hair claw, getting it all out my face in that cold wind. That wind is really taking the temperature down. I think without that cold wind, it would feel pretty mild, pretty okay. But it's definitely making the temperature feel very, very chilly. I do have some spring bulbs to plant out, and I've been meaning to do this for a very long time, so today is the day we're going to do it. I don't think I have tons. I've got some of these, Tulip Marilyn. How gorgeous do they look? I think I've got some of these growing already, but I'm going to add a few more. And then do you remember that I was saying, because with my tulip display, it's very pink and mauve and purple and lilac-y, which is absolutely gorgeous, but the thing that I love the most about it is the little pops of yellow that I get on some of the tulips, and I said I want to just make sure that I still get those pops of yellow and that those tulips don't finish and the bulbs die or they've been dug up or something, so I wanted to add some more yellow bulbs, basically, yellow tulip bulbs. And I picked up these, these are Dwarf Tulip, Giuseppe Verdi, Giuseppe Verdi, and they look like this. How utterly stunning, now they're only little ones, they don't come up very high, they come up 20cm, which is quite short for a tulip, and these ones come up... 50 centimeters so that kind of shows you the difference. Obviously with my tulip bed I leave the tulips in all year round so once they finish flowering I wait for all of the foliage to die and then I cut all the foliage back but I leave the bulbs in the bed and then the tulips regrow every year but I still like to replenish the bed with fresh tulip bulbs. I'm not entirely sure how long tulip bulbs last, but I know they probably won't last forever. I expect it's two or three years. So I just like to replenish my tulip bed, and that's what we're gonna do now. So, let's go. So I've got some netting over the bed to stop the squirrels from digging it up. So I'll just take that up quickly. I've got a little cosmos flower here desperately trying to grow and a few others as well look and they've actually got bulbs on so I'll leave all the cosmos alone I did weed this bed but unfortunately I can't dig it out properly because it's covered in tulip bulbs so I find it really hard to get all the weeds out properly but I don't think they matter the tulips tend to overtake them all in the spring anyway and it just looks beautiful so we're going to sort of lie these tulips out where we want them. See, normally what I would do when I'm planting tulips in my home garden is I bunch them all up together. So all of these would be together and it creates a really nice display. But because this bed is full of tulips, I'm just going to dot them about and add to the display. And then our smaller ones, we're going to sort of put at the front. I'm taking a bit of a zigzag. That reached all the way down the front of the bed in a little zigzag pattern. I think that's quite nice, you know. So I'm just going to bury them. So with any bulb, I think I've said this before, is that a bulb coming up now? It can't be, surely. It's too early, mate. Go back to sleep. With any bulb, you plant them three times their depth, so that's the height, so it's one, two, three. That's how you know how deep to plant them. If you can't plant them that deep, because you literally just can't get into your soil that deep, what you can do is mulch over the top of them to make up the difference. So that's what I did last time, which actually means it's quite, oh it's a bulb there, it's quite easy to dig in here now. The only thing is I've got so many tulip bulbs in this bed I don't know where they all are so I've got to make sure not to dig one up by accident. I'm just digging with my fingers because the soil is so soft at the moment it's just much quicker and easier for me and they go obviously you can see this one's already sprouted but the flat end is where the roots come out and the pointy end is So in you go, mate. I'll see you in the spring. Have a nice sleep. Tulips tend to go out a little bit later than daffodils. Daffodils are kind of your first bulbs to plant out in the early autumn. So if you haven't done your daffodils yet, I would do them ASAP, like A-S-A-P. Truly. Tulips. You plant out a little bit later, so sort of late November, you can plant them right up until February and they will still give you a spring flowering. You've got plenty of time for tulips, they need the cold. Tulips really need that cold snap in order to grow, same way that kind of onions and garlics need that cold spell. So from sort of now it's tulip time. Right I am determined to harvest some bits from my allotment today. It's very very cold and I feel like I've worked very hard so I need to take something home with me. I do have some beautiful kale here. I can't remember the variety but it's that crispy kale, curly kale? Or is it called purple kale? Something like that. I literally can't remember. My brain is so cold right now. Every part of me is cold. But this kale is really good for roasting and kind of like crisping up. So you basically, you... Wash the leaves and then you dry them and then you put them into the oven with some olive oil drizzled over the top and they crisp up really nicely. You can put some sea salt over the top of them. It's gorgeous. So I think the plant is big enough now. I'm going to leave the bigger leaves because they are a little bit damaged. So I'm going to leave those and harvest the ones in the middle here, which look absolutely perfect, don't they? I'm not going to take too many from one plant because I do have quite a few plants here. So I'll just take a few leaves from each. I'll do from you and then we'll go here for some. The only thing with kale and also with things like spinach is that when you cook it, it goes really small. So actually you need more than you think you do. I don't know if you've ever cooked with spinach, but you know when you get like a whole bag of spinach from the shops and you put it into a dish and then it just sort of turns into like a tiny little ball of nothingness. It's kind of the same with kale, so you always need a little bit more than you think. Got some Savoy cabbage here growing quite nicely. It's not done yet but this looks fantastic, it's so healthy. And then I think at the end I think I've got some kale. Right I'll leave the kale because I don't think they're quite ready to pick. I'm going to pick some lettuce but I just wanted to check on this cauliflower because it is growing quite big. I actually have a cauliflower in there now which is so exciting and fantastic but I don't think it's quite big enough so I'm going to just close over the leaves. See if we can protect it a little bit. I don't want anything else to find it before I get to harvest it, but I think I'm going to give it a little bit longer. Let's grab some of this. I've been picking this on and off, and it's really, really tender and delicious. This is winter lamb lettuce. Lamb's lettuce, I think it is. I actually can't remember what variety it is. I buy so much lettuce and grow it. What I can tell you is that it's so soft and delicious and sweet and it's a lovely, lovely thing to be growing in my greenhouse. I'm going to take a bit of this for my lunch, I won't take too much because I'm worried I'm going to pick it all and it'll be gone. I want to keep as much of it as I can. Oh that looks great, that does. I am absolutely freezing. I do hope you've enjoyed the vlog today. Sorry if it's a little bit shorter than usual. It's just so cold that I can only do so much here. I'll see you again on Friday, hopefully, if the weather holds up. Have a lovely rest of your gardening week. See you then. Bye.