BACK AT THE ALLOTMENT PLOT! / JANUARY 2023 / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Good morning everyone, happy new year because this is my first video of 2023. If you are new to my channel and I have had quite a few new subscribers over the Christmas period where I wasn't posting very much, my name is Emma, this is my allotment plot. These are my allotment diaries, I'm based in South London and I am going into my fourth year on my allotment plot. That doesn't make me an expert, don't think that because I'm going into my fourth year I know any more than I did going into my first year. I mean I probably know a little bit more but I'm definitely far off from being any kind of expert. Last year was probably my worst growing year so far on the allotment plot just because I don't know, I think I cut a lot of corners and we just had very difficult conditions didn't we? We had that massive heat wave, we had lots of storms, we had the driest spring on record ever. Anyway it was a difficult year so I didn't manage to grow what I wanted to last year and like as much as I wanted to. I'm really hoping that 2023 is going to be the year that I improve. I think you're always improving though aren't you? It doesn't matter how many failures you make, I think you're always improving. So I aim to improve more in 2023, that is my resolution, that is my only goal is to grow a little bit more, to improve, to feel more confident, that's it. Talking like a true loser. Right, hope you've all been well, hope you had a lovely new year and a lovely Christmas if you celebrate it. I'm happy to be back, a lot of you have got new allotment plots and I know because you're always getting in touch with me on Instagram and on TikTok, I'm on TikTok now as well and I'll leave the links to those below if you want to follow me on Instagram, TikTok, I've got a blog as well, you can come follow along. A lot of you are telling me that you've got new allotment plots so congratulations! I have got a playlist below now which will give you all the tips and advice, it's all of my old videos of how to's and things like that, things that I've learnt basically, mistakes that I've made so I hope that'd be helpful. We're going to kick off the year with a little allotment plot tour I thought and just take stock of it, it's a great time of year just to come down in January and just take stock of your allotment and see where you want to go and how it's looking right now, especially if you've been away for Christmas like I was. So let's go and take a little look, let's see what we're dealing with. It's a very grey cloudy day on the allotment plot, looks a little bit miserable but we're in a good mood because we're here, we're outside, we're getting some fresh air. This is a little overview of my plot, you can see the areas, the troublesome areas where everything just seems to have overgrown a little bit. The front of the plot is looking pretty good and that's because I actually worked hard before Christmas kind of getting this into shape so I've re-mulched it, weeded it and started to fill some of the beds with some new compost and mulch and manure and stuff like that which is great. This bed here also looking okay but then it's as we kind of get to the middle, I don't think we did the middle of the plot did we when we were working through the bed so I can't remember doing the middle so maybe that's the problem but over here all just going to look, I mean it doesn't look much now, I know it doesn't look like the worst kind of mess at an allotment plot that I've ever seen and I'm sure you've seen worse as well but when the summer gets going, when the spring gets going and this all starts to grow if I don't do something about it now it's going to be weed, weeds, weeds galore basically. Has the potential to be very very very unmanageable so I need to sort this out before the spring gets going and then scoot you around. I'm going to sort this area this year, this area of my plot is a little bit neglected and abandoned so this is the area I'm going to sort out. So I still have sprouts growing and I did this on purpose so I harvested some for my Christmas dinner and they were delicious by the way, like the best sprouts I've ever tasted, they were all different sizes but it didn't matter, what I did was I parboiled them so I just boiled them until they were a little bit soft and then I cut them in half and put them in the oven with some honey and roasted them for about half an hour, less than that I think 20 minutes or so until they went nice and brown and crispy and they were just lovely, really really good but I did leave a few to harvest in January just so I would have something to harvest however they do look a bit sad now, I'm not sure if they are harvestable, this one is tiny, there's always a tiny one isn't there, there's always a teeny tiny crop that I've seen to grow, yeah these they look okay they look like they've gone over a little bit but I think they're probably still edible and a little trick that I learnt, so I just said about the fact that some of them are different sizes, you can see on this one here the ones on the top are kind of smaller than the ones maybe on the bottom and it's just because they're growing at different rates, something that you can do is you can chop the top of the plant off when it gets growing and they will all develop at the same time, you'll sort of stop new ones from growing or something so you can see particularly on this plant here the sprouts at the top are smaller than the sprouts at the bottom so just chopping the top off, chopping this bit off will just mean that they all develop at the same rate but I didn't bother with that, I didn't bother, the other thing you can do is just harvest individual sprouts, our friends the crows are back, individual sprouts as and when they're done and then let the others grow and develop and they might even grow more I don't know, hi guys happy new year, but yeah that's just sort of personal preference up to you, I personally didn't mind them being different size I thought it was quite funny and also it felt really homegrown as well which is quite nice, I like them to be a little bit imperfect but tasted great so what does it really matter and then underneath the sprouts my onions are still growing, a lot of you said to leave them, I was going to harvest them before Christmas, I left them, this is what they're doing now guys, really happy, healthy, super healthy, I mean probably the healthiest onions I've ever grown in my in my life and then there's lots over there too, not quite as healthy as the other side but these ones are okay, this one's all right, look at him, he's quite happy but yeah they're sort of growing and then underneath them my tulips are growing so we'll have to harvest these before the tulips get going otherwise we're gonna have sort of tulips and onions, not quite sure what kind of display that will give me really, right so that's that bed and that bed's doing pretty good so I might harvest some sprouts today actually and then here is my old strawberry bed which I actually mulched over with some manure before Christmas, so this has had manure in it now for about a month and as you can see it's not rotted down massively has it, I mean look I just got lumps and lumps of horse poo in here so I don't really know what like when I can grow into it to be honest, all right stop touching the horse poo, anyway I'm gonna mulch this over with some compost, shop-bought compost that I've got and see how that goes and all my strawberries obviously are not in here anymore, my strawberries are all in here which is my new little planter I made and I basically screwed it into the side of my shed, I made it out of a pallet and I've just put all of my strawberry plants in here and they're looking a bit like ratty and dying and brown but you just pull off the brown leaves and they come back to life, strawberries are so like indestructible, they're amazing plants and I think I put them in originally in like February, I just waxed them out and they all just survived, they're very very like, they're like weeds, strawberries are, they spread like weeds, they survive like weeds, they are not like um they're not fussy plants, I'll just tidy them up a bit, literally look, look how rough I'm being with them, just pulling off any of the brown leaves and any weeds that have developed around around them, strawberries are their own story of hope all in themselves because even when things look really dire for them and like they're on their last legs, somehow they survive, they are the survivalists of the allotment world, they are a story of hope and how you can overcome anything even me, even me and if a plant can survive me, it can survive anything, I'll tell you that, there you go, we're dancing, we're having a good time, gardening in January people, it's good, I've not even got a coat on, what is going on? Right that's them sorted and they will survive that, that massacre that I've just given them, so they're going to be fine now and that's them done moving on oh you stink, right pumpkin arch is moving this year, it's not moving far, it's moving down a bed because I've done pumpkins in the same bed for three years in a row now and you're not supposed to do that, you're supposed to do something, excuse me, called crop rotation which is where you move your crops about every year and the reason you do that is to give them new nutrients and and give them a new lease of life but also to stop spreading any diseases in the soil so you're supposed to move your crops about and I've done my pumpkins there like I said three years so it's moving from this bed to this bed basically to go across there but I'm not going to do it today because I don't want to break the whole thing and have it all fly down, it seems pretty secure at the moment so we'll leave that just for a little bit and this bed has been mulched before Christmas so that is great, over here I think I planted some tulips but where where are they and are they even growing, oh yes I see them, oh yes tulip, oh yes another one, oh great they're all coming up, oh move leaves move, success, so we have tulip bulbs coming up there I think I planted some more here I don't know if they're coming up or not let's have a look got the tulip bulbs but ah there there he is fantastic yes can't believe it all right maybe just one but it's okay it's good it's all good oh look it's another one oh there's another one it's another one, signs of spring on the horizon already happy happy days and then this bed here I planted my shallots and my garlic and they're all coming up too, all I need to do is just not come here and everything just does well it's like it just hates me and but yeah look these are all my shallots doing so so good and then this is my garlic again growing really well however however let's not get ahead of ourselves because this is usually what happens and then at some point in the next month they just die and I don't know why I've got to this point many times before they're not going to massively get my hopes up but it is looking good so we'll leave it at that I think why is there a peg in the tree why is there a peg in the tree so many questions as you can see that's what I look like on the allotment plot nine times out of ten so if you're worried about looking like a fool just watch these videos you ain't got nothing on me I'll tell you that right so that was all from some structure what I'm going to try and do is clear that area but I don't really know how to go about it so what I'm going to do is just get stuck in and just do it you know just do it let's do it you can't just do that you can't just get stuck in because you need to know what you're doing um it's what I've just learned from that so what I really want to do is dig it over and then cover it yeah I think I can do that this is a nightmare to dig in because it's just so undiggable um you know when something's just really undiggable do I have to dig that over to cover it what I want to do is cover it in weed membrane and then put wood chip over it do I have to dig it or can I just cover it will it just die or is it not strong enough to just die let me know in the heartache what I'm going to do for now start putting my I'm just going to put a bit of it over and show you what my plan is basically this is the plan so the question to you in the comments is if I just cover this whole area in this black weed membrane stuff like that right and I cover the whole area and I would chip it over do I have to bother digging all that grass out because that looks horrible to dig out doesn't it I have a feeling it'd be okay but will it or will it just all seep underneath because the roots will still be there um right let me know anyway we'll go onward with the tour I got a bit distracted by that bit because I just want to know what I'm going to do with it I think just chop it back basically and tidy it this is my flower bed and I left my what they're called gladiolites in there over winter over Christmas and they've just but I think that's a good thing because I think what that means is that they fed the bulb underneath and it should just yeah look it just pulls up without pulling the bowl bulb up now that's when I think you're supposed to take them out you know like daffodils and stuff like that um and you're always like oh when do I like when do I kill them well you just wait until you can pull them like that and the bulb doesn't come up and then you know that they fed all the goodness and look underneath lo and behold life new life already coming through the soil oh isn't it exciting new life oh wow look at you guys please don't die and then obviously we have this area here at the back um this this has got a covering over it so I really hope that will sort of be all right and easier to do I want to cut all that back that's obviously not from my plots from there plot but at the same time it's coming onto my plot so I want to cut all that back going to sort this area out here my neighbors have got a lovely new fence up so what I want to do is clear all that as well and get some weed membrane down or some kind of ground sheet and then put wood chip there to try and stop those weeds going over into their plot is the plan anyway um I will have to dig that out because there's loads of like um it's not even basically uh compost heap is an blooming disaster just don't talk to me about compost I can't do it I just can't do it um I don't know how to do compost I keep trying keeps dying keeps just turning into that so I don't know what's going on and then my polytunnel didn't blow away hallelujah it didn't blow away I can't open it I'm going in it we're going in it and basically um I've got all this compost here which I brought the weekend and I made my husband lug up here I've gone for different brands this year so I'm not going for the B&Q stuff the reason being I haven't had a problem with the B&Q compost as such but I've never tried anything else so I have nothing to compare it to does that make sense so even though things have grown I thought I wonder if things will grow better in different compost so I've gone for um and I asked on Instagram for your advice on this I've got the Westland brand um peat-free multi-purpose compost obviously it's got this as well a lot of people said John Innes or Inns um and this had it added so I thought all right we'll get that too um and then I've also got Silver Grow which is the multi-purpose peat-free compost and I also went for Blooming Marvelous which is under here somewhere so got three different brands to try out this year which is quite exciting um in terms of the polytunnel things are still growing I don't know if they'll grow into anything um but it's nice to see a bit green anyway this day is just basically my taking stock day my my figuring it all out my what's growing what's died what needs doing day so I'll go home now and from this inspection I will formulate a plan and then I'll try and carry the plan out and then the plan will go out the window and we'll end up with what we end up with so thank you for watching do subscribe if you're new and let's get going with the 2023 growing season oh god spider see you next time guys thanks for watching bye