WHACKING IT ALL IN! / AUGUST 2022 / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT GARDEN

Good morning everyone, welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma, these are my allotment diaries. I have come down to the plot today with both my kids again and I brought a great big box of stuff that I've sown. Now I didn't label any of it and I know you're going to be screaming at me right now saying why didn't you label any of it but the thing is is none of this should work in theory anyway so there was sort of no point. So what I mean by none of it should work anyway, what I mean by it's not going to work anyway is that it's basically stuff that I should have sown in June or May even or sometimes even April and I've just whacked it all in and just done it now and thought what the heck let's just see what happens so I'll show you sort of what I've got and what I think it is. So I think these are french beans which I've sown and they might do okay actually, they say they grew so quickly within about like five days of me planting them in these little pots so they've done really well so I'm going to whack those up that little structure I made over there. These I think are courgettes, I think, obviously way too late to be sowing courgettes but I've done it, there you go, they're alive. This I think is another pumpkin, doesn't look too healthy, that could possibly be another pumpkin, I think that one is as well and these are sunflowers, oh if I don't kill it, these are sunflowers so I don't know what happens when you sow a sunflower in August but we're going to find out guys, we're going to find out. Some of these are kikikuri and some of these are jacobee littles and two of these are courgettes, I think these are the courgettes because they're bigger. I just got in a little bit of a mood the other night and was just like I'm just going to whack a load of stuff in some pots and see what happens and because the weather is so nice I thought it would just sort of all grow really quickly and catch up, I've no idea, I've no idea, we might get part of a plant and then it might just you know hit the frost and it all dies but we're going to find out anyway so I'm going to whack in some sunflowers where my sweetcorn is and make up that bed a little bit, make it a bit bigger. My sweetcorn's doing really well and this is my second sowing, I just threw in the ground and thought I really want some sweetcorn and I threw it in sort of the beginning of August didn't I, so this is like a month's worth of growth which is just amazing so let's whack our sunflowers in here I thought. The worst thing that happened is that they won't do anything and they just won't grow and the best thing that happened is that I get really late sowing your sunflowers so it's not a win-win situation but it's definitely a win-never-mind situation. Look at the roots already, I sowed these about a week and a half ago, that's why I think it might work you know, it might work. A bit of Rocky's poo there, fantastic, oh brilliant, nice bit of cat poo, absolutely brilliant, thank you Rocky. I'm blown away by the roots already after like a week and a half of growing, absolutely blown away. The difference you get from sowing in summer from when you sow in spring is just immense. So I'm sowing my french beans, I think they're french beans, something like that, up this structure that I built for my runner beans and I'm accidentally digging up a couple of runner beans which have actually sprouted but the thing is is I've planted so many runner beans now because I've got going up my archway as well that I'm going to be overrun with runner beans so I thought okay let's mix it up a bit put a different type of bean in here as well. I think it'll work personally, I think these will grow because they are summer loving beans and I think I will get a late harvest but fingers crossed. I will dig up a couple of the beans, that's the thing, I don't know where, oh there's one, okay right so there's one so then there should be a little space here, yeah that'll do, yes that will do, that'll do nicely. I think he'll be quite happy in here actually, he's got lots of horse poo to keep him company, apparently plants like horse poo, there you go, you can have some more, have a little horse poo party, there you are mate. I am protecting all of these new little baby plants, whether they grow or not, with strulch which is the thing that I have found that works the most against lugs and snails, it is quite expensive to buy strulch and basically what it is, get some out, is this, it's like a wet straw like consistency and the thing is is they don't like slithering over it but I've just found it's been a massive help and everything that I've strulched has not been eaten so I'm going to put this around all the new plants I'm planting out in the hope that it works and I will get a great big bag of it the next year as well even though it's expensive, if it works it works, you can strulch that one, my pumpkins keep dying so we're just going to keep whacking in new ones until one grows, I mean some are growing, yeah so we need to protect those, if I just keep whacking it all in why not, why ever stop whacking stuff in, right the birds are laughing at me because they know, they know, firstly this has got some kind of leaf bug on it but this is a jack belittle and I've just put him in next to this jack belittle and maybe there'll be a bit of a direct competition between them now, he's laughing at me isn't he, what, you can only ever try these things why not just keep whacking stuff in, I've now got, I've now got three runner beans here, three jack belittles and two new jack belittles growing and I'm going to whack in some okikikuri as well, we're going to just keep whacking stuff in guys, that's what it's all about, what is that, is that findweed, that looks like findweed, that's a lot of findweed, or is that just the pumpkin roots I've just pulled up, oh who knows, who knows anymore guys, who can tell, let's get a few of kukikiri weeries in, kukikiris, never managed to grow one of these but there we go, I don't know, we're going to have some serious protecting to do in a minute Tom, I've got three at the back here that I'm planting and two at the front by the arch and start protecting, hey, stelch is very good Tom, it really works right, I've got so much growing up the arch on this side now that it cannot fail, um having said that it probably will because it's been planted out way too late, but isn't it amazing how well that side is done compared to how unwell this side is done, one of those mysteries, I am beginning to think it might be something to do with the compost that I'm using actually, and maybe I should switch brands next year and try something different, maybe I should mulch it more with manure or something, I don't know, it's very interesting to me that this pumpkin here has done well but the one next to him has not, so there we have a lovely big flower on him, you can see the bottom of him has started to struggle, actually let me go round, you can see him better, so though at the top he looks okay, you can see that the bottom he has started to go yellow and die, which is very interesting, um it could be too much water, not enough water, it could just be the soil has not got enough goodness in it, really don't know, but it's really interesting how he sort of got to there and then stumbled, whereas this one you can see has done incredible. Think of a little bit of a theme in my allotment plot this year has been me saying that things are not successful and that I've struggled and that things aren't growing well, and it's just been a bit of a running theme and I just can't seem to, I think I'm comparing my plot to last year and the year before and I constantly do that, but actually when I look around I realise how much has actually been successful, so this pumpkin here has been really successful, you saw my parsnips that I took out and there's another thing that's been super successful too, look at the size of this cauliflower, so I don't know if it's something to do with the weather and that the butterflies are just less this year, I don't know, I have seen a few of them about but maybe not as many as before, I don't know, um but they've just grown massive and when I put these in I did not expect them to grow so big, it is just an absolute beast of a plant, it's massive, absolutely, I mean here's me standing, it's massive, it's huge, now whether I get any cauliflowers from them I don't know, I can't see any cauliflowers developing at the moment, but maybe they will, I've got another one there and another two over there and I mean they're all huge, the netting has been around most of them for most of their growing period, so I'm hoping that that's helped, um again I can't see any cauliflower developing, it might be in the middle there somewhere, we just don't know, so like when I'm going around my plot saying oh it's not been successful and stuff, you know I actually, a lot of stuff has been successful, it's just not the exciting stuff is it, cauliflower's not exciting, pumpkin archway, amazingly exciting, but cauliflower, anybody really get that excited by cauliflower, well I think if this one becomes one, I think you might see me jumping for joy, you'll never have seen someone so excited over a cauliflower before, and here is another pretty major success, my tomato jungle, which is just absolutely flourishing, um all around me I'm surrounded just by incredible looking tomatoes, I cannot believe I sowed these from seed as well, that's what I'm so amazed about is that I actually managed to sow them from a seed, they're just beautiful aren't they, just lovely lovely plants, I can't believe how well they've done and I'm going to pick some today, in fact they've been so successful that I have struggled to actually keep the plants up because they've grown so big, I actually didn't know tomato plants could grow that big and strong, um so I've really struggled to keep them up this year, well I have to use the fork again I think, that was successful last time, oh I hate it when the bees get trapped in there, I know it's unconventional but it does the job and it keeps the plant up, I had no idea they could get this big, so I've sort of used all these flimsy little sticks which have just been totally like not not right for them, but that should keep it up for a bit longer, there you go my little one, right there we go, very noisy here today isn't it, I think there's a football match going on or something, um there's a great big tub of fresh tomatoes for us to take home and have on our Friday, Friday lunch I suppose, um and that was a really nice little trip to the allotment plot with the kids, they go back to school in a couple of weeks so it's nice to get here, um what I've whacked out is totally crazy, don't copy this, I'll let you know how it all grows because this is one big experiment, experiment isn't it, and that's what gardening is, just an experiment, whack stuff in all the time, you never know when it might grow, we might get a really really warm December and everything will just grow amazingly, so why not just keep whacking it all in and I'll let you know how it all grows, at the very least I've given the slugs and snails a late, a late dinner, so I hope you have a lovely gardening bank holiday weekend if you're in the UK or just a weekend anywhere else and I'll see you again on Monday, thank you so much for watching guys, bye!