GROWING FOOD FOR SLUGS! / JULY 2021 / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Morning everyone, welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma, these are my allotment diaries. I would love for you to subscribe to my channel, you can just click that button below, click the bell, be notified every time I put a new video up, follow me on Instagram, all of the above. Well I'm here today at the plot but should I have come? That is the question. The little slugs and snails have been at it again, I can't flipping believe it. We're in July and they are still decimating my crops. I just don't understand, I'm losing the will, I'm losing the will people. I'm just going to get straight out there and just show you what's been going on because this is just madness, it's just madness. You might have remembered in my last vlog I protected the remaining Brussels sprouts, I only have three left and I moved one, moved a cosmos, protected them from slugs and snails. This is what happened. So the eggshell one worked very well, we've lost one leaf, this one's all right and we've got new leaves growing in the middle, I'm happy with that, that's great. The other two what I did was I covered them because I thought that is the ultimate snail protection, is to physically cover them well. This one's all right, he's done good, he's really happy under there, that's great. But this middle one, he's gone, he's gone, he's completely gone, he's just been eating, I don't even know how they got under there, there's no sign of them, I don't know, so he's gone. I can see a few new leaves in the middle so there might still be hope for him, so I'll leave him and I'll just keep him covered I suppose. I think it must have been this tiny little hole here, they must have got through it. Oh god, completely eating it, completely eating it and that was like my ultimate protection that I thought would be completely foolproof and it turns out that the eggshells was just the best possible protection, so little buggers aren't they. Blueberries are starting to ripen now, I can see they're going significantly more blue, oh god, which is an excellent sign, so I can't wait to pick all these, these are going to be amazing. It's never grown blueberries before, this is the first year it's ever grown blueberries. So yeah, I'm really excited about these, I absolutely love blueberries and I was really excited to get them the first year and nothing happened, and the second year nothing happened, I think this is like fourth year and finally I'm getting blueberries, so this is very exciting. My scissor's gone, my scissor's gone, oh god, my scissors. You might be thinking what am I going to do about the Brussels sprout situation, nothing, I'm not going to do anything, um they can have it, don't care anymore. I just think, you know what, some of the things that I was so excited about this year, like sunflowers and rocket, stuff like that, marigolds, they've all been eaten, so all of the things I'm really excited about is sort of gone, um and but there are, there is still stuff growing, so I'm just going to get on with it and just like see the year out really. I do just feel like they're just eating everything, they're just ruining my life right now, but yeah it's just, it's just funny how everything I'm so excited about has just been eaten, it's like they know, they know what I like and they just go for that. Or I just have really good taste and so do the slugs and snails, that's probably it isn't it? I'm going to go tie in my pumpkins now, they're doing all right so far, touch wood. Well at least one thing's working how I want it to and actually it's gripping on by itself, it's using its little tendril things, what do you call them? I always call them tentacles but I know they're not called that, tendrils I think, these little things, they're actually, it's actually gripping on with it, look, it's actually doing it, it's doing it, it's doing what I wanted it to blooming do, I can't believe it, look how high it's got as well, the only thing is I'm having to manipulate it to go in the middle because I've got one there and one there and they're going to want to climb as well like his mates, but yeah look, look at that beauty, like I said at least something's growing, yeah I'm excited about this, I'm excited and I can actually see the flowers as well, look, I think this is going to be a pumpkin, I think this is going to be a pumpkin, I think I'm going to get loads of them, this is going to be a pumpkin, oh my goodness, so many pumpkins, you can see a couple of courgettes coming into their own here which is very exciting, yeah there's definitely one that I can see that's almost ready to pick, I'll go through the bushes, look at this, this down here, he's a courgette, he is, oh I'm very excited about him, oh he's been eating, oh crap, oh why are they eating him, that's annoying, I've still got loads more though, hopefully I've got some that don't get eaten, oh no buggers, there's one in there, excitement to horror in 0.2 seconds, I'm hoping that what will happen is that they'll start producing courgettes at a rate faster than what the slugs and snails can eat them and then I'll start to get some, a bit like what's happened to the strawberries, is that the slugs and snails can't keep up with them, he's laughing at me, that bird's laughing at me because he knows that that is absolute crap and that's never going to happen and I have to protect them somehow but I just don't know how to, I've just given up, like I said, I can just have them all, I'll just grow it all for the slugs and snails this year then and just be done with it, sweetcorn's doing all right though, maybe I'll get some sweetcorn, what eats that, sweetcorn fly, sweetcorn beetle, it's a bug for everything, yeah like I said sweetcorn's all doing really good, really really happy and this stuff is just amazing, look at that and this is the stuff I've planted out more recently and it's all great, it's great, it's all alive, it's all sticking up, it's pointing towards the sky and it's quite springy, that's how I know if a plant is healthy or not, it's quite springy, see what I mean, they're bouncy so they're happy and these ones are obviously happy because they're getting bigger so always a good sign, that's how you know if things are doing well, they get bigger but I've just noticed my neighbour's plot because, not here is he, no, it always looks like such a mess right and I'm not, I don't mean this horribly but it does, it's not like all neat and pretty like mine but then when it gets to about July, August it like comes to life and I look in there and go how has he got so much growing, so there's obviously a method to his madness but I just want to show you his sweetcorn quickly because it is amazing, it's just come from out of nowhere, it's just come from out of nowhere and it's all growing, look how big it is, that is sweetcorn isn't it, that's massive isn't it and look at all his potatoes, everywhere, all sprung up from out of nowhere and then over here look, all the beans, it just looked like such a mess and I don't mean that horribly but it just looks so like there's no beds or anything and now it's just all growing so it's amazing, everyone's got different methods you know and you shouldn't judge because obviously that bloody works, whatever he's doing I'm gonna take stock of and try and do next year, make it look a bit messier maybe and one of my dahlias got eaten, I hope it survives because this is quite a pretty dahlia I think but you can see like a lot of it's just been completely demolished, I hope it springs back to life, this one's good and I've got some buds on this one so I'll get some dahlias out of that one hopefully and that one looks okay as well but for some reason they really like this one, maybe I'll just sacrifice him, I don't know and look the cosmos is doing really good as well, it's very bushy since I pinched the middle out, that's doing good, all of these are fine, these are all all right and I've got another cosmos there which is really bushy so I think I will get quite a decent crop of flowers this year when they finally bloom and courgettes and sweet corn and pumpkins so it's not all bad, I think I've got some good stuff actually still growing so it's not all bad, these are my I wasn't going to plant these tomatoes dot com, I wasn't going to plant these tomatoes because I thought they had died and I wasn't going to plant them at my plots, I'm only going to sow tomatoes at home and I'm really glad that I put the tomatoes in the plot as well because the ones at home are dying, I've got them in pots and I think I haven't fed them enough and they're all wilting and dying but these ones are absolutely thriving so I'm really glad that I planted some at the plot, you should always plant more than you need, can't stress that enough because some things will die, I think they might need a little bit of help right now, now they were growing horizontally, I have managed to get them growing more straight, more vertically which is just excellent but I do think they need a bit of pruning because they are quite bushy and look what's happened to this one, it's all bushed out, the type of tomato I grew I got wrong, I thought it was one that's just got a stem and then it all grows out but I think it's one of these bushy ones and I'm going to get rid of some of the bush on this plant, it just comes out of my mouth sometimes, it just comes out, right so I'm going to try and trim them back a little bit and give them a bit of a helping hand, no idea what I'm doing by the way but I don't think you can kill them, I think if you cut plants back I think they'll always bounce back a bit, probably bushier which is not what I want but there we go, let's just do it, you can only give it a go, difficult because it's growing horizontally so it's quite difficult, I don't know if you've ever grown horizontal tomato plants before but it makes it quite difficult to know where to cut, right I've reduced my stems down to just one stem, I don't know if you can see now because of the sun and what I'm trying to do is where there are two branches like here, there's a branch going up there and there's a branch going up there and there's this thing in the middle, I'm taking them out like that, okay just to keep the energy in the actual plant, not that I think this is going to do anything to these tomatoes but you see here, see this one, it's growing diagonally, that's it, diagonally ones, they come out, off he goes, like that, it's about as technical as this channel is ever going to get I think because it's all just playing by ear and just doing what other people tell me to do but I think that's about what you need to do to tomatoes really, just keep them, just keep the branches down and I can see some flowers on it and the flowers are where the tomatoes come from believe it or not and what people tell me to do is to shake them, when you get lots of flowers on it give them a shake but obviously it's quite windy here so I think they're probably all right but yeah just give your little tomato plant a shake when you see the flowers and it helps to pollinate them all and create tomatoes, that's another little tip that I learned last year from people on this vlog so thank you if you've ever left a comment, it does go in sometimes, it does go in but unfortunately you know no one ever tells me not to grow it horizontally so you've got to really go back to basics when you're trying to tell me advice, do you know what I mean, it's not enough just to say trim the branches you know, what if it grows like that? I completely destroyed my sweet peas and I just tied them all up and they just look like a big mat of hair, well they've sort of like come back to life again, they seem quite happy with it, I think I think they actually liked it, aren't plants weird but yeah look they're all growing still at the top so you know to honour them I'm going to pick some now and just keep picking them because look how much they've done to survive, if they survive that they deserve to be picked you know what I mean, everything in my plot has to work really hard when I'm around, right yeah I'll slip the camera and I'll pick some, do you remember when I said that when you pick flowers you should put them straight into water, yeah I'm not doing that right now because though I give myself very good advice, I very seldom follow it myself so there we go, right there you go, hope you enjoyed this little vlog today, just a little show around of my allotment plot, see how it's all going, hope yours is going good too, don't get too disheartened about the snails and stuff because there's nothing you can do, I've given up with it this year to be honest but it's still fun growing it all and coming down here and weeding so enjoy your plots and I'll see you next time, bye from me and the aeroplane, bye!