BYE BYE FLOWER BED / NOVEMBER 2021 / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Good morning, hello, welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma, these are my allotment diaries. I would love for you to hit the subscribe button, follow my journey along. I'm putting up one video a week at the moment on Fridays and normally in spring and summer I'll be putting up two, three, four, maybe even five a week, so do follow me along. This is the allotment in November so there's not tons to do. I did see a massive pile of wood chip when I came in today and because I'm here nice and early I am going to go and collect as much of that as I can physically, I'm physically able to. So I'm going to go and do that straight away just because I'm here, it's there, whenever there's free wood chip I'm all over it. So I'm going to go and collect that now and then I will check in with you and show you what's been going on in the plot in November. My scarecrow just scared the absolute scoobies out of me, I literally nearly pooed myself, I've never been that close to pooing myself at the allotment plot before and I have come close but that scarecrow, jeez louise, I just scared the absolute poo out of me. It's not the nicest wood chip I've ever picked up, it's got a lot of leaves in it and stuff, it feels more like mulch than wood chip but I think it will do fine for the piles at the back. I think it's best to get something down to be honest because it's just looking so bad and this flowerbed needs to go now, look at it, it's just completely died. So controversially I'm not going to dig any bulbs out this year at my plot, I'm going to leave all the gladioli bulbs in and all of the dahlia bulbs in, just see what happens really. I am in zone eight in London which I think stays quite warm, not warm warm but I think it's warm enough for dahlias to live so we'll see. The nasturtiums have died, we've had two or three days of frost now so they've just had it really, they all need to come up, just dying in the frost really and really excitingly some of my onions and garlic is coming up, I don't know if you can see, no that's not it, that's not it, oh where's it gone, oh there it is, there it is, I thought it died. Yeah look there's one of them coming up which is very exciting and all my broad beans coming up, they're so happy, they just love it here. So yeah it's just all, it's all doing really well, it's all really growing, sprouts are still alive, excellent, this guy's scaring the poo out of me, not so excellent, blooming it Carrie, what are you doing to me, isn't it sad when the plot just starts to look like this and it's all dying back and it's not got very much growing and you know that nothing's really going to grow till the spring really, it just makes me feel a bit sad but there is still lots of work to do. I do need to get rid of my flower bed today, it is just, it just needs to go and I need to weed it and sort it all out so that's going to be my task of the day. I'm going to collect some calendulas first because they are looking beautiful. Found a couple of things to do with them at home online so I'm going to collect as many as I can and pull the rest up I think because I don't think they're going to live much longer. Don't want to be the bearer of bad news but you know your days are numbered guys. Sorry, well I'm apologising to bugs, I know some of you might be thinking oh why don't you just leave the calendulas in, you know they might flower, you can pick some more. The reason is because I'm not here that often anymore because it's November now, I'm sort of coming down once a week and in a week's time when we've had weeks more frost I think they're just going to be dead so I'd rather get jobs done while I'm here and able to, do you know what I mean? Right, I was just sad but the day is they've had it now, they're gone. I've got no new buds forming, they're all looking very very sad, very very dead so we're going to chop them all back. Come on guys, party's over. It's a sad job but it's also a strangely therapeutic job because I feel like I'm preparing it all for spring, I'm thinking forward so although it's sad that I'm getting rid of something that I really loved growing and I've loved looking at and picking, it's also really happy because I'm actively planning for the next season and that feels really good and productive so mixed feelings basically, that's what I'm trying to say, like a mixed mince pie. I'll cut that bit out, chuck it back, it's grooved now, it's yanking it out now, no regard for plant safety now, get out of here, I've hit my nemesis, I'm crawling. I've really got to sort my compost heap out, it's not something I'm proud of and I wouldn't want Monty Don to show up and have a look at it because I think he'd be quite mad at me. I'm disappointed, I'm disappointed in myself but I'll do that another day because that's a big bloody job. This is also a big bloody job, look at this, this is what was hiding underneath my flower bed, all these weeds, so what I'll do is I'll pull them all up, use my bag of compost down there to mulch it all and then bring the path right down here and we'll just see what that looks like in a few hours, so it won't take me ages but if we get started now we might be done by tea time so let's just do it. Luckily because the soil is so sludgy they're just coming out really quite easily but it's just because there's so flipping many of them, like they've thrown a little weed party when my back's been turned. Don't tell me I can eat them, every time, every time I pull up weeds I guarantee you someone in the comments somewhere will say you can eat them. I don't want to flipping eat them, I don't want to eat them, not going to eat them, bloody weeds, I'm not eating weeds. It's so funny because like I look at this and just think oh this is just a headache, someone else somewhere is looking at all these weeds and thinking free picamix, what are you people, bloody weeds, not eating them, not eating them. Also I can see all the birds getting into position, I'm not digging though, that's the thing, I can't dig because I've left all the bulbs in so I've got to do all this by hand, oh sorry, and all the birds they can see their worms, they can smell the worms, they're like oh here comes breakfast. I wish they'd eat weeds, why don't they eat bloody weeds, why doesn't anything eat weeds, not even slugs and snails eat weeds, what is wrong, nobody likes weeds, nobody likes weeds, except the people who see it as picamix, they do. This is just going to act as a bit of a mulch to keep the heat in, it's basically me putting a duvet cover over my gladiolo bulbs and my dahlias in a hope that they won't get frosted by it and die basically, but a nice thick layer just over where the dahlias are and the gladiolas, hopefully we'll keep them alive but we'll just have to see, I've never done this before and dahlia bulbs aren't that expensive to buy anyway so if they all die I'll just buy some more, but yeah I hope, I mean this has saved me a lot of work and I won't have to hang them all up in my shed again, which would be good because it looked really weird last time, right, well that's the reason not to do anything but you know I'm supposed to go for that, there we have it, flower bed sorted out, that was a very satisfying job, all dug out, all mulched over, all the paths done up to about there, excellent, right job done I think, oh right that's it, I've got to go home and eat before I collapse, that was really strenuous hard work but I'm really really glad I got that done, I'm making my way through the slowly getting it all sorted out, ready for next spring, ready for the winter months, looks good from here, it's looking like I'm actually looking after it now, it's looking really good, obviously all this was going to have to go soon, I'm going to have to mulch some of these beds but yeah it's looking good, I think I'm going to have to make a proper compost area down there, I'll do that actually over the winter, that can be a job for my husband, maybe some proper compost out of pallets and stuff and maybe make three of them and actually start composting properly, I think that's a good idea, right that's it, I'm so tired I can't even think how to end the vlog, I hope you enjoyed it today, if you did do subscribe to my channel, this is a massive job, I don't know how much footage I got of it but it's one of those things where it's it's a lot, gosh was that a spider, no, yeah no it's one of those things where it takes a long time and then I get home and realise I've only got like three minutes of footage but hopefully I've got enough to make a vlog, I hope you enjoyed it like I said again and again, see you next time guys, please subscribe to my channel, follow me on Instagram, all the above, see you later, bye, I need to go home.