EVERYTHING IS GROWING / JULY 2021 / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Hi everyone, welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma, these are my allotment diaries, I'd love you to follow along, subscribe to my channel, there's lots of vlogs on my allotment and I'm trying to start doing some more cooking vlogs, I'm not sure how the last one went down yet because I haven't uploaded it, but I'm sure you had lots of laughs trying to watch me make a courgette chocolate cake, which did taste delicious by the way, so it's not, you know, it didn't completely fail. I'm here today, it's such a nicer day in the UK, well in London it is anyway, I think west of the country we're still having quite a big heat wave, but here I've woken up and it's so much fresher. I think the temperature is like 18 at the moment and it's like 10 o'clock in the morning, so it's really, it's really cooled down, which means I can get here and do a few bits and bobs and stuff at the plot. Now somebody, quite a few of you have recommended slug and snail defences for quite some time, and yesterday I did go to pan land and I managed to get myself some of these, which are like scouring pads, and apparently slugs and snails do not like to crawl across this because it's quite rough for their little bellies, quite sensitive little creatures really, slugs and snails aren't they? So the idea is to cut a hole in the middle and a slit and sort of put them around my plants and the slugs and snails won't want to go across them and it'll sort of protect the I'm going to give it a go. I've brought six and I'm going to use them for my brussel sprouts and see if they work. So a lot of you have recommended this, today is the day I'm going to try it. I'll try anything now, like literally anything. If someone said you need to get flue powder from a mountain in Quebec, I'd be like, I've booked flights to Quebec and then we're going to go get the flue powder. That's how desperate I'm getting. Just wanted to quickly show you, my first cosmos flower at the plot has blossomed and it is glorious. It is a double-headed, a double flower headed one, which means it just has more petals because I do love cosmos but I do miss the amount of petals that things like dahlias have. I'm a petal lover basically and this is just the perfect cosmos for petal lovers. Look at that, it's just stunning, beautiful. So if you're a petal lover, get the double-headed cosmos because you still get this bouncy effect where it's sort of floating, which is what people like about cosmos I think, well that's what I like about them, but then you get all the lovely petals, gorgeous. Right brussels aren't looking too bad, I mean they're definitely going to survive if I protect them now because some of them are getting nibbled now, especially the ones in the middle. They seem to like getting to the middle and my slug defences are, oh my god, I just, I'm not enjoying this, do you know what I mean? I'm just not enjoying it, it's disgusting. So it'd be nice to have a, they can hear me because of the wind, oh god, it'd be nice to have a more humane way of getting rid of them. I think it's like that, I think. The ground is flat I suppose. I think that's it, I think that's the idea and they don't want to slither over this. I think it helps that the ground is flat around it because this is my way of planting so nothing's ever bloody flat, it's all bumpy. I'm guessing it sort of helps if the ground's a bit flat, yeah like that, I think that's right. Oh I'll do them all, can't help to try, I mean like I said I'll try anything so let's just keep going. I've got one winning sprout at the moment and one that's died, um the winning one is the one that I've had under this box. Like I said, ultimate protection and this is what it does for you. Look at him, he's absolutely beautiful. I put a scouring pad around him now because I have noticed a little bit of damage and not too much but I just thought I'd better protect him because he's like, he's the one that's going to give me sprouts, you know, I've got all my hopes on him. If I was a betting person I would put my money on him and so he's gonna stay under there and the rest of them I've just done the scouring pads so hopefully it'll work. It would be nice to find another humane way of killing the slugs because I'm really not deterring the slugs, not killing the slugs, that's what I mean because I really don't enjoy killing them, you know, I really don't and it's disgusting as well to throw away a big pot of slugs every time and also Dave's figuring out that his beer's going missing so I've got to sort of come up with another way now. I'll keep you updated and let you know if these work. So here's another idea that somebody told me because I did notice something's been eating my carrots as they've been emerging and I can only think it's slugs and snails because they're everywhere and also I saw slug slime everywhere so I assume it's the slugs and snails that get into my carrots now which is quite frustrating because they take ages to grow. Somebody suggested why don't you just put out the empty beer bottles and it will attract the slugs and the snails, you know, the slugs into the beer bottles because you don't have to kill them, you just have to contain them and then throw them away. So I've laid down a couple of beer bottles on my carrot patch and I've got no slugs in there at all, none. Let's see this one, no, none, none at all, no slugs in there but they have also, they've eaten more of my carrots. So I think because they've managed to get out the beer bottles what I've essentially created is a slug pub and then a kebab shop right next to it. So they've gone into the beer bottles, drunk the beer, got merry and happy, come out and thought hey kebab time and eaten my whole row of carrots. So that's what I've essentially created there is a slug night, night time fun area with bars and kebab shops galore. So it didn't work, it was a nice idea and I do like the idea of not killing them but capturing them but it didn't work and there's a lot of happy slugs around my plot at the moment, very merry, merry slugs. My tomato plants looking really really happy now, they seem to have just come to life. I think it was probably the sun that they've had because they are warm loving plants and they've just gone away, they're just so happy. I've got tomatoes growing on them now which is amazing. There they are, little tomatoes, oh it's not going to focus, there it is, can you see them? Oh they just look lovely and the plants, look how happy they are, just happy happy plants. I can't really see anything wrong with them, I can't see any early blight, I can't see anything that's going to cause me problems, they're doing really well. Oh look, see this here, this is something I need to take off because it's growing in the middle, we just pinch it off and see this one here, this is a diagonal one, so we just take them off, like I said any diagonal things always take off, but other than that I mean look they're thriving, they're really happy plants, which is always a surprise for my plot, can you tell the surprise in my voice? Something's just doing well on its own. I want to show you the ones that I've stuck in the ground, if you remember right I put a couple of cut-offs into the ground to see what they would do, I can't believe it, one of them's growing, look at this, he's come back to life, some of his leaves are looking really, really, really happy, and the top one, look this is the one that's died, and these are the ones that are alive, so I think he's got roots under there, actually you know what I can just about see a root, now I can't, telling a lie that's slug juice, but yeah and they're doing great, great, this one's just died, but I'm still going to leave him for a little bit because he might come back to life. A lot of you got in touch with me and said that the best way to do this is to cut off the lower leaves and then stick it in a jar of water until you see the roots and then put it in the ground, but I wanted to do an experiment and just literally, literally take it back to bare basics, if I cut off a bit from the bottom of the plant, stuck it in the soil, would it grow? And the answer is yes, one out two times, so 50%, you've got 50%, this is a terrible experiment, this is not, I should not be running the country as a scientist, I'd be the worst scientist ever, but on an experiment of two plants, one has taken, you now have a 50% chance of your tomato plant taking root if you stick it straight in the soil, that's the experiment, those are the results, you're welcome. But yeah I am, I am quite surprised, I am very excited that this could possibly be a tomato plant because look I've already got flowers on it, I could just have extra tomatoes here, it's amazing, but yeah, happy plants. The last time I picked my courgette plants was three days ago, three days, and I picked every single courgette on the plant, three days ago, I just want to make that really clear right now because I'm about to pick some more, and I don't think you're going to believe me that it's only been three days, but I promise you it's been three days, let's try and make it straight, what will we find in the jungle today? Let's have a look, oh god, oh not another one, another one, three days, oh my god I can see a monster in there, no, that one was big, wow, I mean I knew you were going to get a lot of courgettes but my goodness, I did not, I just did not expect so many, what am I supposed to do with all these? The good news is the world will never ever go hungry because we could just plant a million courgette plants and we'd be fed for the rest of our lives, so there's never going to be a courgette shortage in the world which is a good thing, but on the other side, what am I supposed to do with all these? My freezer is full of frozen ones, what am I supposed to do with that? It's massive, I'll come up with something, don't worry, I'll come up with inventive recipes. Potatoes have started to grow and they've got green shoots coming up out of the ground, I can't believe it, I didn't think anything would happen to these things, I thought they'd be dead forever and that was it, but look, see that there, that's attached to a potato, that is, and this over here, that's attached to a potato and I can see some over there, that's potato that is, that's exactly where I planted them and I can just tell, I can just tell because I'm that good now, I can't believe it. I don't think I have to bury them again just yet, I think I'll wait for the foliage to get a little bit bigger and then I bury them again and then they grow again, then I bury them again and you just keep doing it for a while, I don't even know how long for because I just didn't expect them to grow, this is amazing, this is brilliant news. Wow, I can't believe they're growing, I think the idea is to keep potatoes away from the sun, so I might cover them up a little bit then, I'm getting a bit worried that they might go poison, I don't want to be the person who eats a poisoned potato. The pond is getting a little bit unruly, I do love it, I do love it and these beautiful purple flowers all around it are beautiful but it's getting a little bit too congested, so I'm going to sort of clear it a little bit I think, that's going to be my task today, so I'll get clearing. The way I tackled the pond this year was just to allow it to go a bit wild and then cut it back as and when needed and that's very much how I see my role on the plot now, is as like more of a caretaker, like it's not my job to dictate which plant you know does better than the others and stuff, it's just my job to keep everyone in check and just make sure that everyone's getting a fair chance and I think that's a nicer way of looking at any garden really, is just to see yourself as more of a caretaker, you're just looking after it and just keeping the peace and stopping any walls from breaking out and that's really just the best that you can do. Right here we go, I think this looks a bit better, just looks a bit neater, you can actually see the pond now which is great. I've just given it all a bit of a haircut and anything I have cut back over there I've left on the floor so creatures can get out. The pond is just looking a bit nicer, these are lovely irises, these are beautiful, they have already flowered unfortunately but they were stunning so I'm going to leave those, these are great as well. I've had to pull back some of the stuff in here as well which I've left under that little thing there so that creatures can crawl back in if they have to, if there are any creatures we don't know, we don't know, but yeah all this needed just to be pulled out, it all died and everything. I just wanted to show you this plant behind me that I found because it's dead right but it's stunning, it's such a beautiful, I don't know what it is but it must be prettier in death because I didn't even notice it when it was alive. How funny is that though, it's pretty and now it's dead. These must be the seed pods, this beautiful, beautiful, beautiful plant, I absolutely love it and it's dead and it's just gorgeous. It is nice that my way of gardening has kind of changed since I've been at the plot, I am a lot more likely to allow weeds to come up and I take stock of nature a bit more and wildlife and I facilitate for it more and that's really nice. I hope you enjoyed the vlog today, if you did do subscribe to my channel and I'll see you in my next vlog. Thanks for watching, bye!