APRIL ON THE ALLOTMENT PLOT / APRIL 2022 / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Good morning everyone, welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma, these are my allotment diaries and I would love for you to subscribe to my youtube channel and there's some other ways to follow me down below as well if you fancy taking a look. Isn't it cold? Isn't it cold? I think that's what everyone in the UK right now is saying. Isn't it cold? Last week we had highs of like 21 degrees, this week it's plummeted down to 2 minus 1, I think it was last night. We were predicted some snow today, it has turned to rain on the weather forecast. I don't know which is worse to be honest, snow or rain. At least snow will create some kind of insulation coverage over things, believe it or not that does happen, I've read. Rain will just soak everything and probably freeze it all overnight so I don't know what's worse. Right now who cares? Yeah it's really felt like a bit of a shock coming back here but so much exciting stuff because so much stuff is growing like seriously so much stuff is growing and I just can't wait to take you out there and show you everything so let's get out there and let's do a little plot update basically because it's exciting, it is still you know April, it's still April, wow we're in April. Come on sun, give us some sun. So obviously this has to be my first point of call when I show you the plot because I've already shown you them but my tulips over here have all bloomed and they are blooming gorgeous. Don't ask me the names of them, I don't know, when I buy things like tulips I just go into Wilko's or somewhere or B&Q and I just pick up a few packs of colours alike so this one here is like a red and a yellow, it's got like red and yellow stripes, there you go focus, there it is and then the one that I chose with it is these yellow ones and basically I brought two packs and I just put them all in together because I thought the colours went together. Absolutely stunning, I can't believe that they've all bloomed, just gorgeous. Usually when I show my tulips I get a lot of questions asking what I do to make them so lovely and beautiful, the answer is nothing, I'm not sure how surprised you'll be to hear that, that it's nothing. I just whacked the bulbs in in October, November time a couple of years ago and they just keep coming back every year. What I do do is when the petals start to die back and look really awful, I snip off the flower head and then I allow the green foliage to die down itself and don't touch it until it's completely gone and the reason I do that is because, well firstly what will happen underneath the flower is when the flower starts to die back you'll get this big sort of bulge at the bottom here and it's trying to create seeds so you snip that off basically and get rid of it because you don't want the plant to be making seeds and then all the foliage dies down and all the goodness goes into the bulb feeding the bulb for next year and then basically they just keep coming back every year. I don't dig them up, I just leave them there, I put a bit of a mulch over them and they just come back and when they do start to get shabby I'll just move them, I'll just dig them up and move them somewhere and that's it, they're that easy. Beautiful though aren't they, so beautiful. Just to do a really quick kind of comparison and make my channel a bit sciencey, why not, the tulips at the front of the plot which went in before those ones, about a year before, they are not completely up yet, they're always later for some reason. Starting to come up though, starting to come up and really beautiful, these are actually my favourite coloured tulips. I've planted two different types here, so these sort of rich purple ones come up first, they tend to come up first and then after that I tend to get these lighter pale pink ones and they come up just after these ones and I get a little bit of time when they're both out together and then they all just die. It's sort of like a really fleeting like couple of weeks maybe, not even that, where they're both out together and they look so beautiful together and then both of them die at the same time and that's what happens every year and I love them but you can see they're getting a little bit shabby and they're not quite looking as nice as the other ones down there so I might have to dig these up maybe this year, maybe next year, I don't know, I don't know to be honest but aren't they lovely plants, I love tulips and I can never pick them, I never pick them because I just love them too much and I just can't bear to lose any of them so I just leave them to grow and do their thing and enjoy them here. This is the other thing that I was super super super excited to show you because this is my brand new raised bed that I made, I've done a video on that, I'll link it below of how I made this bed and I sowed some parsnips in here really really early in February I think, they're all starting to come up, I can't flipping believe it, can you believe it, they're all growing I did them in two rows and what I did was I put some sticks so I knew where the rows were and they're all coming up so let's play spot the parsnip, this is a parsnip this might be grass to be honest but look here's a parsnip and then over here look there's a load more parsnips, I don't know how much you're going to be able to see in this but the whole row is coming up and the whole row over here is coming up too and I can't flipping believe it I can't believe it, what are these things from the tree? Get off, my weird little caterpillar things, yeah look parsnip, parsnip, oh my goodness, there is just no greater feeling than whacking something out in the ground way before you think you really should be whacking it in the ground and then a few weeks later forgetting about it and then coming back to it a few weeks later and it's actually growing like it's actually growing and then actually being able to recognize the grass seed compared to the parsnip seed I don't know why I find this so joyous and so exciting but I really really do I just I love this this is just the best bit of gardening it's just when the seeds start to sprout after that it's basically just a job of maintenance but this this is it this is the best bit so yeah I'm absolutely chuffed I really hope that they do grow into something hopefully a parsnip but you know even just like a bit taller would be great oh my god and the turnips are growing as well really really well I can't believe that these are growing I've never grown turnips before so this is really exciting in my last vlog I did on the turnips there was a snail sitting right by them and I didn't notice there was a snail and somebody pointed it out and anyway the snail ate half my crop so I've protected him now with this slug pellet stuff like a natural slug pellet stuff not killer stuff yeah they're doing really good look at these look at these little turnips these are the natural slug like wool pellet things and you basically you you water them and then they don't like crawling over them but you can see I've got some slug damage on some of them but the majority of them I think are all right and I mean you can't get that many turnips can you I'm gonna have to thin them at some point so I think I've probably got enough here to actually have a decent crop of turnips I really do I can't believe it I can't believe I'm saying that in April I think also there's something about the ground that's just been like wet because it's just rained and then all the greenery just stands out doesn't it against the brown and it's just such a beautiful sight I could just stare at them all day what's wrong with me I love them I've actually decided to plant out my second pot of mange too which is my contingency pot and the reason I have is because I came down this morning and I was just a little bit concerned at the state of the peas now they're not dead per se but they're not as good as the ones that I've got going at home and because I've got a comparison because I'm growing them in a pot at home I know how healthy they're supposed to look and these don't really like I said not dead not dead but sort of like a bit limp and lifeless I don't know some of them are doing better than others these are doing quite good so I definitely need to tie them in soon so I'll bring my twine with me next time I come but yeah I think maybe I could just plant some more as a contingency plan might whack two in at a time actually let's do that I've got double chance of living now I've doubled my odds by planting two in or maybe I've I don't know halved them I don't know we'll find out we'll find out there we go I'll tie them in somebody said I didn't know peas are supposed to grow horizontally they're not they're supposed to grow vertically I will tie them in they were just a bit too little at the time when I planted them and so I didn't have any I was going to like stretch them over too much but what I'll do next time is because they're starting to grow now I will just tie them in and just make sure they don't go flying off I'm not going to fleece them it's quite controversial isn't it I'm not going to fleece them I'm going to trust that the peas are strong enough to survive a little bit cold and a little bit of frost I like to put a lot of faith in my plants and if they let me down they don't hear the end of it as you know but I do think peas are quite strong I think they can survive a little bit of frost so I'm just going to give them that chance really to prove themselves to me and hopefully be bigger stronger plants because of it sometimes they've got to go through something you know this garlic's doing really well this is the garlic I got from the seed craft really happy I've never seen garlic so happy at my allotment plot before I don't think my plot does well with garlic for some reason maybe it's too boggy here or something I really don't know but it's doing good over here I've got my onions and my garlic which I brought from Wilko's or somewhere like that and this is doing really good as well actually it seems okay I won't pull it out anytime soon let's just say that it's all looking really good maybe it's because I mulched the bed and this is a no-dig bed as well I don't know if you can tell by the soil quality here but this is a no-dig and it just there's no weeds coming through okay other than that one over there but on the whole it's very weed free I'm really happy with my no-dig beds actually and in comparison so this is a no-dig bed here and this is a dig bed and you can see all the weeds compared to this where I've just got little weeds in the corners obviously where I haven't done the cardboard over to the corners but yeah like I said I don't have much to go on at the moment but from what I'm seeing I think no dig, no diggity is a go really I think it's doing good yeah I'm not seeing many weeds on the beds that are no dig so I'll keep you informed though and the last thing I wanted to show you today was my pond because we haven't done a pond update in a while some people are asking about my pond so let's go have a look at the pond so my wildlife pond is one of the first things that I dug here it's one of the first things I did when I got my allotment plot because I had a rental garden and I wasn't allowed a pond and I really wanted one it's done really well over the years but I've got no frogs in it but it's a really good pond it's very clear, the water's clear I've got these water irises coming up now the plants seem really happy in it and the whole pond is just such a nice area to look at so these are the water irises my neighbours gave me last year they didn't do very much but this year they've really rooted they're really strong now and they're really happy and they're coming up I'm excited to see those bloom and then I've got my reeds and things in here which again are really happy but look at the clarity of the water it's really clear now I need to clear some of this this has gone a little bit crazy this plant in here I don't know what it is but there's no pond weed yet and it's all looking very healthy and happy and these are like little yellow flowers these will be and they spread everywhere some of this stuff is natural I haven't planted it, it's just appeared but I love that I'm really happy with it actually and if there are frogs here they're very good hiders because I've spent hours staring at this pond and I've not seen one of them so either they're like camouflaged I mean to be honest I could have been staring right at one I probably wouldn't even recognise it so I don't know maybe there are frogs maybe I'm looking at a frog right now and I just don't know that it's a frog but anyway I can't see any bleeding frogs but I still love my pond I love it so there we go even though it is quite a cold miserable day and I'm a bit bummed that the temperature has dropped so significantly in the space of like three days everything's still growing at the plot and the plot is so looking alive and it's looking alive with spring which is really exciting so oh Robin's back there he is can you see him? seeing the worms that I've been digging up as I've dug up for the peas but anyway everything's looking alive and springy and it's just making me feel so happy even though the weather's gone a bit crap but the weather will perk up again just protect your stuff if it's outside I'm gonna go in the shed I'm freezing if you have planted anything outside too early and you're panicking now just fleece it bubble wrap is a really good thing to put around your plants too put pots over it like you know those big bottles juice bottles and stuff that you cut in half and you can just put one of those over it and create a mini greenhouse just protect it as best you can when I first started on this plot I stuck all my dahlias out in March and they all survived so it is possible to keep things alive and yeah just enjoy spring the weather will change soon and it'll be all lovely again I hope you enjoyed the vlog today if you did leave me a comment below sorry I'm a little bit rushed for talking it's so bloody cold out here I can't wait to get home and have a cup of tea so that's what I'm gonna do now and you should do the same have a lovely weekend everyone and I will see you again on Monday see you Monday bye