POTTERING IN MY VEGETABLE GARDEN / JUNE 2022 / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Hello everyone, welcome back to my YouTube channel. Normally I'm at my allotment plant and today I'm in my back garden. You might be able to tell immediately by the yellow shed instead of the pink shed. I just really struggled today to get down there and to do anything productive at all. I've just been in this really weird mind like head space where I'm just really struggling to get motivated with stuff. I'm actually trying to finish writing my book at the moment, which I keep going on and on about. Basically what happened is last year I started writing it, I got a couple of publishers really interested in it and then both of them dropped out within a week of each other. Deciding that it wasn't quite for them and it wasn't quite the right time. Instead of what I should have done, which is to pick myself back up and keep going and find other publishers, I just stopped in my tracks a bit and just focused on other areas. I realised that it is something I really, really want to do and I really want to create a book. I am going to write, I'm going to finish it and I am going to publish it. Whether that's self-publishing or finding another publisher, I will find a way to get the book out there for you because I think it's going to be good. I feel really positive about it right now. I've really finalised what it's going to be and it's more of lessons from a first time allotment gardener. Stay tuned for that, anyway that was a long winded intro wasn't it? I'm in my garden and I need to do quite a bit of work on my little vegetable courtyard bit because I have been neglecting it. So I'm going to take you down there and show you what needs to be done. Maybe you can just step through the camera and do it all for me eh? I wish. So this is my little vegetable courtyard garden that I've got just outside of my house. I've shown it many many times except that now a lot of things are growing. This is my courgette plant here and I think I've got my first courgette growing on it just there which is quite exciting. So I'm going to get some really good courgettes out of him, he's looking amazing. The potatoes need emptying, this is a rosemary, the carrots are looking a little bit sad and then there's lots of other plants down here. And then up on here, look how well my strawberries have done this year. Amazing, I need to pick a lot of these today I think because otherwise they're going to start rotting and going funny. But they've done really well. And over on the other wall, over here, oh gosh, tripping over, I've got my little violas which are edible. So I'm going to make some biscuits and cakes with Tom at the weekend and pick some of these. Right, I'm not sure if you can totally see there, I think you sort of can. And basically these are my peas, they did particularly well in this fabric pot this year, they've done amazingly to be honest. But they're now finished, they're done. And that's because of the hot weather, I think peas don't really like really warm weather and obviously we've had a lot of it in the UK. So they need to come out and in their place is going to go this yellow pepper. Which has started to be eaten by all sorts of creepy crawlers and things but I think it'll be alright in there. So I'm going to stick a pepper in there and hopefully get some of those in my courtyard. So that's what we're going to do first. So what we'll basically do now is just whack in this pepper and sort of hope for the best. Because, well I mean that's all we ever really do isn't it, whack stuff in and just hope for the best. What I'll do is I'll give them a feed as well and hopefully that'll replenish the compost in this pot a little bit. Because I think you can reuse compost as long as you sort of give your plant a feed as well. Put the nutrients back in the pot basically. I can't get him out, I can't get him out, I can't get him out. That's what she said. Right, there he is, he looks healthy doesn't he and happy. I've actually got some sweet peas. Well that's not a very good example of one actually. Here, no, again, don't know what's happened to those, they've sort of stopped. Oh here's one, there you are, he's a whopper isn't he, he's a whopper. I've got a couple of sweet peas that are really big that need to go out. So I'm wondering if I could just use that, oh you can't see what I'm doing there, look. Wondering if I could use this structure somewhere in the garden, put some sweet peas out. I reckon it should go over there, in that corner there. I think it'll look good there and I think it'll fill that little space. I've got no motivation to do this whatsoever today, I'm really forcing myself to be out here but what is that thing that they say, that when you don't feel like doing something that's when you should, you really should be doing it because that's when it's going to be most useful for you mentally. I don't know if that's true with gardening. I think it's true with things like going for a run and stuff but I don't know. Anyway, I don't feel like being here so I'm going to keep going anyway. It's nice, I like that there. Little sweet peas going up here, that'd be nice. Always get a lot of questions asking me how I make these structures. This one's actually put together really well. It's just four bamboo canes and then I've just cable tied them at the top. Except that my cable tie wasn't big enough to go around all four so I've done it in twos. So those two are together and those two are together but it keeps it quite firm at the top and then at the bottom I've just basically dug them into the ground a little bit and then I'll just wrap twine around like that and then the sweet peas will grow up them and it will be like a little sweet pea teepee, like a mini one. I think that would be really nice there actually, really pretty. I'm just going to try and pull up a couple of my carrots and just see what they're doing because they're flopping all over the place. I really feel like they're almost done and ready to harvest. I don't actually have a recipe for them right now which is why I'm leaving them a bit longer than I should but I'm just going to pull a couple up and just see the kind of size I've got to work with. What are we thinking guys? Are we holding out much hope for the potted carrots? I've never grown carrots in a pot before. It's definitely been easier for pests but I'm not sure about size so let's have a look. It's orange, it's a good start isn't it? Okay, so it's not the biggest carrot I've ever grown. I was hoping a little bit bigger than that. Okay, right, let's just pull one more. I was hoping for an actual full-sized carrot. I'll pull this one, this one looks like... Oh, it's a little bit bigger. I mean when I say a little bit bigger, I mean marginally, marginally bigger. Maybe they're just not ready yet, I don't know. But I think that's what puts a lot of people off growing carrots. I know a lot of people who don't like growing root vegetables, it's because they take so long to grow and then if they don't work and don't go right, you've waited such a long time for that. But you know who will like these? Pippin. He'll be happy with this, come on. Pippi, come on then, onto your mat. Come on, come on, I've got something for you. Oh, I've got something for you, watch that. Yay, do you like it? Tommy is home from school now, Alice has got an after school club or something. But he wants to chip out the potatoes with me, which are definitely ready to be chipped out. Look at these, look at these potatoes. So a lot of people messaged me after my last potato haul, and said, haul? I mean harvest. And said that the early varieties don't normally flower, and they just kind of die off. So I think that means that these are definitely ready to chip out. And I'm excited to see how many potatoes we get. Are you Tom? Yeah. Yeah? Let's do it. No potatoes, the other hatch. Potatoes. One potato. This is the biggest potato. This one looks like a duck. So it does. It's so cute. This is a... It's like a pea, isn't it? I bet it tastes yummy though. A yummy tiny potato. Look at all these, Tom, in here. It's like digging for treasure, isn't it? Ew, there's so many of these little stems. Yeah. Get the stems off. Yeah, that's how they grow, Tom. Oh, I've got another little one. Let's just get all the little ones in the pile. Any more? We know there's going to be stem on these, so we don't need the ground, we need this. You found a little one on there, did you? Yeah, I found a teeny tiny. Teeny tiny, yeah. That seems to be the name of the game today, teeny tiny vegetables. Yep. There's quite a lot there though. I'm quite happy with that little harvest. Some of these are really, really good size as well. To be fair, I really did pack in the plants, didn't I? That's not the worst harvest that I've ever got from something. Some of them are really good size. I think where I went wrong is because this is a smaller container, I put too many plants in there basically, so the potatoes were never really going to get to a good size. They were always going to be a little bit smaller, but Tommy seems pretty happy with the harvest. Are you happy, Tom? Yeah. Yeah, I think it's pretty good, isn't it? Got a lot of potatoes. It's quite exciting pulling them up, isn't it? Yeah. I don't think they're in the ground, but they kind of are. Also, I couldn't help but notice I actually grew this in coir compost, which I know is notorious for not having very many nutrients in it. That might have stunted the growth of the potatoes, I think. I remember topping it up with compost, which is why there's compost sort of in here, but this is coir, and I don't think in hindsight that that was a very good growing material for potatoes, basically. So I think it's really good for starting seeds, but maybe not so much for actually growing plants in. Never mind. This lettuce here, which is like a pick-and-come-again lettuce, is just doing amazingly after it looked like it died a few weeks ago. I always find myself saying that, and then it miraculously comes back to life. But yeah, it looks amazing. It definitely looks like it needs to be picked, actually. I might try a little bit of it now and see what it's like. Yeah, it's really good. It's so ready to pick and eat, and it's still quite sweet and nice. I think if I leave it any longer, it might go a bit funny. But unfortunately my radishes, which are right above them, have bolted in the heat, which is a little bit annoying, because I really like radishes. But I've never seen a radish flower before. They are the sweetest little flowers I've ever seen in my life. Look at these. These are beautiful. I love them, and I bet the pollinators love them too, because they're nice and open. You can see the middle. So I'm going to leave those to flower, because I think they are stunning. Not so much this part, the dead part, but the flowers. Lovely. I've still got so much to plant out there. I've got onions that I brought home from the plot, the ones that I didn't put out there that I want to put in a pot. I was trying to actually get some onion harvest that's actually nice this year. I've got sweet peas, sunflowers, cosmos, loads of stuff basically to still go out. But like I said, I'm just not feeling 100% motivated today. I'm definitely finding that my motivation recently for everything is kind of waning a little bit. I don't know if maybe I've pushed myself too hard, and now I'm feeling the effects of that, or if it's just a seasonal thing, or if I've just got burnout or something from doing so much. Whatever the reason is, I do feel a little bit demotivated today. Is it unmotivated, or demotivated, or inmotivated? I think it can't be inmotivated. Anyway, whatever the word is, that's how I'm feeling. I'm working really hard to try and find my motivation and get back to it. I think sometimes the best way to find your motivation again, if you've lost it, is just to push through it and just keep doing it and keep turning up. That's why I got out there today, and I didn't just sort of sit around and think, no, I'll just leave it today. I actually got out and did something, and I know that no matter how little those jobs were that I did, I will feel better for doing them later on. When I actually finally get some motivation, I'll be like, well, I did something. I hope you enjoyed the vlog today. If you did, do subscribe to my YouTube channel. I've got some other ways to follow me down below. I put a blog post up today about how gardening helped me through grief, which is a bit of a personal kind of blog post. If you fancy reading that, I'll leave the link below. It's not a happy read, but it's a little bit uplifting at the end, I hope. I hope you enjoy my writing. If you do enjoy my writing on my blog, let me know, because I am still writing my book. I really hope to have that to you someday in the near future, hopefully not 10 years from now. I'll work really hard on that. I will see you in my next vlog, guys. See you on Friday. Thank you for watching. Bye.