LET'S GROW A PUMPKIN / EPISODE TWO / POTTING ON

Hi everyone and welcome back to My Allotment Diaries. My name is Emma and this is my second episode of Let's Grow a Pumpkin. Hello my name is Emma and last year at My Allotment Plot I grew the most incredible pumpkin archway. This year during my new YouTube series Let's Grow a Pumpkin I'm going to be sharing everything I know about growing your very own pumpkin archway so hopefully you can follow along at home and do the same. A lot of you out there have been asking for my second Let's Grow a Pumpkin episode for you because you are all growing along at home and I've seen your amazing pumpkins. I'm using the hashtag Let's Grow a Pumpkin and then I'll be able to share it and see how you're doing. A lot of your pumpkins are a lot bigger than mine and you're asking if they are ready to go out just now. I am putting one of my pumpkins out today and I'm probably going to put the rest out mid-May which means that a lot of them are now going to need potting on. I thought I'd show you how a couple of my pumpkins are doing. So these here are my pattypams, they're about this big as you can see doing pretty good I think. I've also got a baby boo which is looking very happy there and a kikikuri, never grown this one before but he's looking pretty happy and I have my jacoby littles which are arguably the smallest of the pumpkins that I'm growing right now but they've germinated and they've turned into plants so we'll take that as a bonus won't we. So I'm going to pot some of these on today. You might notice that some of them are getting yellow leaves like this one here and the roots are coming through the bottom and that basically means that they're just outgrowing their pots really, they're outgrowing their space and they need a bigger pot, more nutrients, new compost and a bigger pot so their roots can grow so I can actually water them properly. That's what we're going to do today. So when you're repotting you don't want to use a pot that's massively bigger than the pot that it's already in so here's my original pot here and you can see I can fit that one inside that one so that's probably quite a good little repotting size and you just want to basically repot them so they've got a little bit more room and top up all their nutrients in here. So first thing we're going to do is fill this with compost, just using normal multi-purpose peat-free compost. This, that's what they're going to be going into so they need to get used to it now. Fill it about that much. So we're going to repot the patty pan first. Here's my patty pans. That's what we're going to do. I'm going to just loosen the soil so we're loosening the plant from the pot. There we go. Now one of the reasons why we over sow when we sow anything is because there's always a risk of killing it before it actually gets a chance to get going and repotting stuff is when I'm terrified that I'm going to kill it so that's why I planted more than I need. So I've actually got four baby boos and I actually only need two. I only need these patty pans. I only need two patty pans but I've actually got four so we'll just see which ones live which ones don't and any that do live that I don't need I'm just going to give away to people So we'll give them a water pretty sharpish after I'm potting them on this usually sort of helps them a little bit stops them from dying straight away give them an instant drink hopefully they will live they're going to go back inside these two until they get a bit bigger and stronger and the way that I know whether it's worked and if I've killed them or if they're still living is that there'll be new growth so I'll gosh that's just dripped all over me really good drainage though look at this that's really what you want to see when you water is the water coming straight out the bottom that means you've got excellent drainage and I'll just have to make sure I really keep these watered but yeah hopefully I'll get some new growth so these aren't going anywhere near the outside until I've got new growth and they continue to grow big and strong and that's my patty pans done so now we'll just repot the rest. I know a lot of you out there were saying some of the comments that I've got anyway is that I've sown my pumpkins too early and that they're going to be massive too quickly there are a couple of reasons why I've sown my pumpkins so early number one because I'm terrified they're going to die and if they do die I want time to be able to sow them again because I really really want a pumpkin arch and secondly because the slugs and snails are so problematic where I am that the bigger and stronger I can get the pumpkin before it goes out the more chance it's got of surviving a slug or snail attack and it doesn't seem to matter how many defenses I put around my pumpkins they manage to get there and eat some of it so the bigger they are the more chance they've got of defending themselves and that's why I sow them early if you've got a greenhouse or something this is ideal I mean these will be great in a greenhouse but I don't they have to grow on my windowsill and I just survive with it for a little bit with massive plants everywhere right there we are pumpkins all potted on now just gotta find space for them in my house all except for my jack belittles and there's a reason for that so I have decided to grow one of my jack belittle pumpkins in my vegetable courtyard garden which is this which is not very much space at all and I want to prove to you that you can grow a pumpkin even in quite a small confined space now it is important to remember that pumpkin plants are massive it doesn't matter if you're growing a little like baby boo pumpkins or a giant like jack-o'-lantern the plants are massive basically the leaves are like jungle leaves so you do need to have quite a lot of vertical space at the very least so I've got this fence tunnel behind me here and that's where I'm going to let the pumpkin climb but you also need a very big pot this is the pot that I've got here it is absolutely massive it's a 50 centimetre pot um I'll show you the label in a minute for reference but this is it compared to my head it's massive what a beaut so here's the label just in case you're after one yourselves it's clever pots 50 centimetre round pot from Wilko's it was about six pounds for this massive pot and this is just going to hold one jack belittle plant that's how big they are it's very deep as well and at the I put in a little layer not that not that um high up but just a little bit of rocks at the bottom and this is going to help with drainage so the water can drain through and drain out because I do not want my pumpkin sitting in water they will not like that and I've got it on a pot stand at the bottom like that so it's raised from the ground and I'm just going to make sure the pot's positioned right because once I fill this with compost I'm never going to be able to move it again right so I'm just going to use good old multi-purpose compost um peat free of course and I just get this one from b&q the reason I get it is number one there's a b&q at the end of my street so it's so easy to pick up and number two I've never had a problem with it a lot of people always email when I use this and say that they've always had a problem with this compost I haven't and I think that's the thing you just got to find what works for you so we're going to fill him up now fill you up mate use a bit of an educated guess on my knowledge of what I know about pumpkin plants and how that might translate to growing it in a pot and I'm going to say pumpkins are very hungry hungry plants that means that they suck up a lot of nutrients from the ground and they need a lot of water so if it's in a pot kind of using my logic here I think it's going to need regular feeding when it gets growing so I use something like a liquid seaweed feed um but you could probably use tomato feed as well and it would probably be fine because the pot is going to run out of nutrients pretty quickly and the roots have got nowhere else to go so I'm just going to keep feeding it basically and keep it watered so it's now filled to the top with peat free multi-purpose compost I'm actually going to mix a little bit of coir in here as well coir product the coir product is peat free it's made from the husk of coconuts um and it doesn't hold that many nutrients but what it does hold is moisture and um it just retains a lot a lot of moisture most of my seedlings that I've started with this have not dried out which is amazing um and I'm going to mix it in because like I said pumpkins are very thirsty it's in a pot and it's going to need more moisture so I'm just going to mix a little bit in not too much because they are hungry plants too I'm hoping by keeping this on the top when the plant's quite young it's just going to keep it nice and moist we'll see anyway I'll let you know how it goes as always gardening is one big experiment isn't it all right pumpkins want to grow in one direction so if you want it to grow up something you have to make sure it's growing in that direction otherwise you'll never be able to turn it round you'll snap the stem and everything so here's my pumpkin plant you see where the smaller leaf is that's not the way it wants to grow it's that way it's the bigger leaf it's naturally going that way and so that's the way I'm going to plant it and then it's going to climb that way I don't know if that explains it I'll look it up and see if I can find a better solution the good thing is is that when it's very young I've still got time to turn it around so if I'm completely wrong I can still spin him and he's in a pot as well so that was completely unhelpful in every way I do actually think it's the first leaf the first real leaf that appears is um the way it grows I think it's this way because that's the first real leaf what I'm going to do is I'm going to plant him in the middle of the pot because he's going to need a lot of room so we're just going to dig a little hole like this oh it's lovely new compost isn't it isn't it fun in he goes in you go mate so if you are in the UK or anywhere where there's still a risk of frost I know that we're actually due some frost overnight this week so he's going to need protecting because he's not going to be frost resistant you can use this stuff which is like a fleece it's like your granny's old neck curtains um and you can just wrap that over him or around him or what have you and just keep him safe from that or you can do what I'm gonna do and get an old plastic bottle coming off keep the lid off and then do this and it's just your own little mini greenhouse the other thing it's going to need straight away and do not scrimp on this and do not think you can get away with it because you cannot usually I use crushed up eggshells I left a load on the side to dry out overnight and my husband's throwing them all away and I can't find them in the bin so I'm going to resort to dangerous measures salt don't judge me too hard I have gone two or three years the allotment plot being completely animal friendly eco-friendly and the slugs and snails just ate everything last year I barely got any produce at all and so this year it really is an all-out war um and I just see it as I am part of nature they're part of nature and we're going to battle with each other and that's just it um but anyway I hope this video has been slightly helpful on what you should be doing next with your pumpkins good luck if you are growing a pumpkin arch keep hashtagging let's grow a pumpkin and I'll keep sharing and seeing and giving advice wherever I can and don't forget that you can grow them in pots this is my first time growing it in a pot so I will let you know how I get on and I'll I'll just be inventive with my tips and tricks and things I'm going to put trellis up by the way if you're wondering where it's going to go um trellis on the fence when it gets bigger I hope you enjoyed the video subscribe to my channel and I will be back in a week with some more allotment vlogs so I'll see you then guys thanks for watching bye