AMAZING CARROT HARVEST!! / JULY 2021 / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Good morning everyone, welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma, these are my allotment diaries. I'd love for you to subscribe to my channel, follow along, look back at my old videos, see the progress I've made so far. I hope you're all doing really well, it's sunny today for the first time in ages so I expect the plot's going to really fill up today because a lot of people only come when the sun is out. Not me, I'm a little bit more weathered than that, I like to come rain or shine like an idiot because there's not that much to do in the rain really, there's not much that I've been able to do but now that the sun's out, I'm hoping to get some stuff done today. I brought something with me which is really exciting, I've seen some damage that I need to show you and hopefully I've got some more crops to pick as well. So it's finally here, we're actually in July, can you actually believe we're in July? I know I've been moaning a lot about the weather here in the UK because it's been really cold and rainy and somebody pulled me up on it who's in Canada right now and said they're having like a massive heat wave and it's funny because I think this time last year we had quite a big heat wave didn't we and I remember it being really difficult to water the plot and I guess you just forget, it's so easy to forget so hopefully that helps you out a bit in Canada, probably not, just to know that it will pass because it will pass and just stay safe and it's just weird weather really isn't it, it's global warming doing its thing so we've just got to try and adapt to it as best we can because you know what can we do about it really, you can do your bit but unless the government's act we're all screwed so best just to get on with your own plot and just try and make it work for you really, that's what I say. We've got some problems with the brussels sprouts, I planted five and I can only count three, I've only got three left so it seems that they've not just been nibbled they've been completely demolished so I've only got three plants now, one, two, three, completely demolished I mean they haven't even just nibbled like I said they've just completely, they've just gone and actually it looks like quite a lot of my rocket has just disappeared as well so obviously they do like rocket too, it's my own bloody fault for not protecting them but it's a little bit disheartening so I am going to protect them now, I might move this one to the middle, I think three brussel plants will be enough to give me enough brussel sprouts, as usual with everything I grow in this plot I'm not looking for a massive massive harvest I'm just looking for like to feed my family and even just to get a few for Christmas dinner would be nice so I'm going to dig that one up move him to the middle and then protect them sort of I think stating the obvious really but anything that you dig up and transplant that's any plant at all when you've moved it water it because they can all sulk for a little while so just water it and that'll it'll be all right hopefully. I've gone for a bit of a combination approach I've got the plastic things over two of them and I don't have another one so I've gone for the eggshells as well and just made it really dense I don't know what else to do to be honest they've just been roofless this year the slugs and snails they're still eating my sunflowers and they're like four foot tall and they're still going for them so it's just it's just been a nightmare and I just think just keep going with it and just hope you get some crops because if I just get three brussel sprouts it's all right that is sort of why I planted five I did expect two to get nibbled out I didn't expect them to get completely blooming demolished they're roofless hoping this might be enough I'll show you the sunflowers because they've like notice it's four foot tall now about I would say and they're still being eaten by slugs and snails like really badly look at the leaf damage on these these are massive I can see the flowers here in middle so I do hope it does flower but yeah look look and I mean this is massive you know and this one's even smaller he's been damaged as well but it's I've never seen this kind of amount of damage on a plant this big because normally it's the little ones are after and by the time we get around to this stage they've sort of left it alone but not this year not this year um these are my other sunflowers that have just been through absolute hell these are doing a little bit better just wondering if it's just because it's there underneath the tree yeah like I say I'm wondering if it's just because these ones are underneath the tree and the birds like to swoop down and eat any slugs and snails so maybe planting them under the tree was a good good idea in the end because I've sort of got some natural predators sitting there waiting for them I've got something a bit exciting to plant today and I know it's not going to work because everyone tells me you can't grow this stuff in the UK but I managed to grow it in pots so I'm going to plant it out anyway and it's called okra and it's um you sort of eat it with curry it's like these little green vegetables or fruits I don't know what they are um but yeah I just found the seeds in my drawer and I thought I'd just stick them in some pots and they've all germinated really well um slugs got a couple at home so bloody slugs yeah I thought I would just whack them out in the plot I've got a little bit of space at the front here and I just thought what the heck I mean if they grow amazing great if they don't grow so what I'll just plant something else so I thought we'd just whack them in and just see what happens um a bit of an experiment I seem to have quite a lot of space this year because the slugs and snails have sort of got to everything so I might as well use it this bed is quite sunny I get quite a lot of sun in this I think it's most likely the weather the crazy weather that has just made these carrots panic and bolt which means that they start to develop flowers and when they start to develop flowers all of their energy goes into the flower and not the carrot I could keep chopping them off but they're all doing it now so I just think because we've had this strange kind of weather we've had it cold it's been really rainy now it's really warm with the sun they've just panicked and bolted so I'm just going to get these ones up I have another couple of rows behind it which I planted a couple of weeks after these ones as like a continuation sewing I can't remember what name is for it um there's a proper professional name for it but basically it just means you keep getting carrots all the time um and I'm going to re-sew these rows like I said and just keep this as a carrot bed really for this this year so these are the two rows at the front and you can see they're starting to bolt and flower and want to become beautiful carrot flowers and then behind you can see I've got two rows there which are um about three weeks behind I would say um so they'll be ready in a few weeks so I'm going to pick these ones it's exciting this is the exciting hope I get some nice carrots he's all right oh look at that one he's a beauty where's the rest of them beautiful wow some of them are truly spectacular this is the best I've ever grown carrots in my life I've never had carrots as straight as this one this is this is like the winner this is the winning carrot I can't wait to eat him he is amazing um some of them not quite so good and some of them just seem to have sort of like stopped growing like this one like where's the rest of him but most of them pretty impressive um I'm absolutely thrilled I've never grown carrots like this before and I'm just so excited to try them um I think everyone's going to be really impressed with my little carrot harvest so what variety was that carrot let me go because I think we're on to something here I think I've cracked the carrot last year I grew I grew nance nance early nance or something and um they weren't half as good as that and this year I've grown real carrots um ah here we go they're called tos rhesus f1 resistor fly I'm going to hold it up because I don't know how to pronounce that properly tos um and they're carrot fly resistant um they are a nance type but they're a type of nance and they're longer um they did just worked really really well for me so I think these are my carrots these are the carrots I'm going to buy forever now so I better save this vlog because I'll forget what they're called when the packet runs out but yeah definitely these are just the ever can you tell how happy I am I'm like smiling from ear to ear when I'm picking those carrots it's just the best feeling ever to know that I've grown that from a seed when it was really blooming cold by the way as well and I didn't really want to be here and now I get my reward and it's just priceless can't buy them well you can buy them you can buy them in the shop and probably be a bit bigger as well but you can't buy the happiness that comes with picking your own look at these here are parsnips I think I sowed some parsnips here and I think they're starting to grow now I've only got a few but I think that's what they are and actually I've heard they're really really difficult to grow so even just having a few I think is quite amazing um but yeah I think that's what they are I've never grown them before so I didn't really know what I was looking for um but I think that's what these are I think these little things coming up I think these are parsnips so I've only got let me see one two three four five six seven seven of them out of a pack of about 40 but like I said I've heard they're notoriously difficult to grow and that they hardly ever germinate and if they are you know I'm really happy with five I think that's amazing um but it also means that this is going to be free soon this bed I've got two sticks in here of something that I've sown and whatever it is has not come up I don't think that was for parsnips because it's in the middle did I sow radishes or something and they've all been eaten and maybe possibly they look like they've been nibbled on whatever that is possibly I sowed radishes I might try that again actually I'm gonna have a dig and see if anything's underneath here you shouldn't do this really but I don't know what it bleeding is so there's a parsnip growing under there I want to know about it you know oh yeah there's parsnip yes it's a parsnip it's a very tiny parsnip that that is a parsnip it's not parsnip fly probably is yeah just in there can you see that little white bit that is a parsnip there are don't tell me I'm way ahead of you there's a parsnip fly and if you expose a bit the parsnip before it's right the parsnip fly will come along and eat the whole thing yeah yeah I've heard it all before bug for everything that's pretty cool isn't it I've got some parsnips growing amazing