IN GO THE SUMMER BULBS / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Morning everyone, welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma, these are my allotment diaries. Ow! This is my first allotment plot going into my second year now, second spring, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to put up a playlist of all my best from last year and then I'll start putting these into playlists of months just to make my channel a bit bloody door, a bit easier to navigate, so you're welcome. That's me going out on my way to do things nobody asked for. What are you doing door? Thank you. Saw Foxy on the way here. People have been asking me about my fox at the plot because he hasn't been around for long but I did see him on the way. There he is, skulking on the pavement. That's all I could get because just round that wall there a man was feeding him what I can only describe as chicken nuggets, so we all care about foxes here apparently. I was just thinking to myself when I saw him skulking around, I did think can you imagine the joy of being a fox and then finding a place like the allotment, like your whole life you've been like avoiding cars, going through rubbish bins, trying to look for some kind of food, being shooed away by people and all of a sudden you stumble across like an allotment, like you'd be so happy wouldn't you? You'd be like oh my god what is this magical place with all this food to eat, all these squirrels, all these birds, all these vegetables, all these raised beds to take a crap in, like he must have been so happy. So it's the heat wave in the UK, that means that the weather is going up to sort of 23 degrees for three days which is amazing, it's like summer. I'm absolutely over the moon about it. I got so many messages from you guys saying Emma, slow down, relax, don't plant everything out because it's not summer yet but I'm gonna plant out my summer bulbs, I'm gonna plant out my dahlias. Here are my dahlias, they are they are beautiful looking aren't they, speckled mix, never grown these ones before, all my other ones died and I'm going to plant out my gladiolus as well and my sweet peas. So we're going to do flowers today which I'm so excited about, I think they'll survive. My technique is very much whack it in and see what happens and that's what we're going to do. Welcome to my channel guys, the whack it in method with Emma. Right let's whack them in. Look at this beautiful day guys, look at this bloody beautiful day, almost blue skies, almost. So if you remember I dag it all over, dug it all over, dag it, dug it, whatever, put some poo down, horse poo I believe, and left it. So now I'm going to dig that horse poo in and plant in my flowers really and I'm thinking for sweet peas I'm not going to use this, this little insect swing adventure playground, I'm going to use that for something else like peas or something, I'm going to make a tripod, a tripod of sweet peas. I think you know what I'm trying to say, as usual I think you know, so I'm just going to do it and hope that you do know. Last year I did just whack in my dahlias to a raised bed and then I put a little bottle over him, like a little cup, a plastic bottle and they just grew and they were fine but I was wondering why this was because everyone starts them in pots don't they? And I was thinking about why it was and I think it's because my raised bed was kind of like a pot because I put so much new compost in it and the sides are quite raised, it was almost like I was putting them into a pot to start them off and then obviously covering them but I think it will work. I'm glad the olives are under here somewhere, I think they're here, that's where they went, why is there a rock in here, plasters, hopefully these are all right, that looks all right, another one, not squishy, good sign right. What I will say is make sure you leave enough room between the flowers because that was my big mistake last year and that's not just about not allowing the flowers to actually grow but also you're setting yourself up for disease and everything because when plants are too close together they're more likely to like get diseases and stuff and like rot or whatever, like they need air flow, you need to have air flow through them so I'm going to try and make sure I do that this time. Sorry if it's noisy here, there's so many birds, can you hear them? They've all come out sun's out, birds out, all right okay, yeah you can see. I don't really know if it's better to grow gladiolus in a grid or group or in a row but from what I've seen on the allotment plot here, everybody seems to grow them in rows so I'm going to grow mine in rows this year, I'm going to try and do a long row and then another long row because that's what everyone else seems to do so I'm going to take advice from them because it looked right and mine didn't look right being in a grid so I think if it looks right sometimes it just sort of is right. Riveting advice today, riveting. Right I actually do have a bit of what I think is valuable advice for you on building a tripod or like a teepee, get your twine like this, tie three or four sticks together first like this, I'll do an example and everything, get your three towels like that, tie them together, did it not, oh god, we tied three together, now make the structure and that's how to make a teepee without like having to balance two together like I was doing before, this is an easier way of doing it so tie three together, prop it up like a tripod, they're all together and then just keep adding poles, there you go, easy, see easy, don't say you don't learn anything on this channel, it's all changing now guys, it's all changing now, fair enough it's quite an odd looking tripod because not all my sticks are the same length but I think when it's got the sweet peas up it'll look normal and what I've learned when everything's growing at your plot, no matter how wonky things are, when it's all up and growing it looks great so don't worry too much if your tripod looks like a weird upside down umbrella thing because it will do the job hopefully, if it doesn't it's crap, I don't get me wrong, if it doesn't do what it's supposed to do and it falls down you've lost it, it's rubbish, hopefully it won't, gotta admit it looks slightly weirder with the string around it especially being red string because it's the only one I've got left, twine sorry not string, twine but look at it now, just looking a little bit weirder but hopefully like I said when the sweet peas are growing it'll look all right, oh well it is what it is, right let's get these bulbs in, right gladiolus are now in, I just whacked them in, I think they'll be all right, this is a dahlia tuber by the way, it looks so weird, it's like some kind of octopus, it's got these little tentacles on it, this little stick thing needs to be like just above the ground, that's where the flowers are going to come from or the plant or whatever, this all goes under the ground okay because I thought they were so weird when I first saw them last year, I was like what is this, right dig a hole, dig a hole bigger than we need, like that okay, then to give the plant as much help as possible and lord knows that we need it going out at the end of March, we'll fill it with compost to help drainage, there it goes, this is really good compost from B&Q, it's seven quid and everything so it's like brilliant, right let's absolutely pack it with goodness, where's the alien gone, there it is, put our alien tuber in, god I can never get these things in right, right think like that, sort of spread out a bit like starfish, I think that's how it goes, there you are, like starfish, and then we'll just pack in a little bit of that, get used to the soil and then like that, okay here's my sweet peas all piled on top of each other, some of them look a little bit worse for wear but I'm going to plant all of them out and then some of them have done really really well, look at those, they're going to be really bushy plants so I'm going to get them all in, all of them because I don't expect them all to survive, somebody said why don't I grow them up my teepee over there, I did that last year and they were really hard to get to, I didn't really enjoy them as much being all the way at the back of the plot over there and also bindweed takes over that teepee so I just thought you know what, I won't put them on that this year because I want to actually get to them better and pick them better, so I'm going to do them here at this little makeshift thing, god, right same concept with digging it, putting the compost in just to add a bit of help, what's that, oh my god, what is that, what is that, I hope that's horse hair, quick bury it, oh my god that's the last thing I need for a dead body to be under here and have the old bill digging up my entire allotment plot, stuff that, stay under there mate, hopefully that's just horse hair, flipping heck, there's so many people here today because obviously it's a very nice week and everyone's on Easter holidays now except my kids, so everyone's here busy at their plot so I'm keeping my voice down, I hope the vlog was okay because of that because this is the only way I kind of feel comfortable filming them when I keep my voice down and then try and up the volume, I need to get a little microphone or something, I hope you enjoyed it, flowers are in, I hope it was nice and springy for you and enjoy the heat wave if you're in the UK and I'll see you in my next vlog guys, thanks for watching, bye!