EASIEST COMPOST EVER! / JANUARY 2023 / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Hi 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 YouTube channel if you are new to my channel and you love everything to do with gardening and allotments. Maybe you can't get there yourself right now and I'm a great person to watch because I will come here, come rain, shine or snow and yep, I said the word, snow. Because here in the UK it's about to turn really really cold again this week and I think we'll do some snow, well it said it possibly might snow. Now that is a little bit concerning because most of my tulip bulbs are already starting to come up thanks to the really really mild weather that we had right at the beginning of January and I don't just mean a few guys, I mean pretty much all of them. I mean look at this, it's like a jungle, it's like a forest of early tulip bulbs coming up and they're coming up like in bundles this year, look at this, look at this big bunch of them coming up and I think the reason is I haven't lifted these bulbs ever and they've been in for three and a half years now so this is their fourth year coming up and flowering and basically look they've just clumped themselves together because they are multiplying, that's what bulbs sort of seem to do. I mean really if you want to be really professional about it you should be lifting your tulips up and like replanting them out or mulching or dividing them and moving them about a bit because I don't know, I think there's loads of logic behind that, none of which I've ever read into or anything. I know that's what you're supposed to do, I've never done it but like I said they've never come up this early before so I've got two schools of thought. First trailer thought that I've got, whatever you call it, is just to leave them to do their thing because they're tulips, tulips like cold and they need the frost and everything to grow. I think they might just figure it out amongst themselves, you know they're plants, that's what they do right? Second trailer thought is to mulch them with an extra layer of mulch just to keep them a little bit warm and stop them from completely dying. I don't know if it's necessary though and I don't want to waste like a bag of compost on that. Viewing towards just leaving them to do their thing and hoping that tulips understand that sometimes the weather is mild in January and sometimes it snows randomly. I'm sure it has snowed randomly in April before and we've still had tulips so I'm going to leave them and then I'll let you know if mine die or not so, but you can mulch, it won't do any harm. Right, plot's looking wonderful and depressing still, just because it's grey and it's gloomy and everything's brown and there's not very much growing, got some brussel sprouts, got some tulips, that's about it really. Just looking like that, so, very inspiring isn't it? And I thought, well, nothing much is growing, nothing much is going to grow, everything's flooded, we'll do some snow, let's just sort out the jobs that we don't want to do and the job that I don't want to do and I've been putting off is compost and I flipping hate compost, I don't understand it, I've done a lot of research over the weekends, now a lot of you actually recommended some vlogs to watch and I'm going to leave them linked below, also some books to read, Charles Dowding, I've got the old Monty Don gardening handbook thing out and I've been reading about that as well, it sounds so simple doesn't it compost, it's basically your greens and your browns, you mix them together, you keep it a little bit wet, you keep it warm, you leave it to do it's thing, but for some reason it's always just looked like that. I think part of the reason is that I'm putting the wrong stuff in it, so there's a lot of brambles in here which apparently are not very good for compost, I know that now, thank you Monty, and also I think I'm pretty sure there's some bindweed in here too but I don't think it'll do too much damage if a little bit of bindweed regrows, it's obviously not ideal but it's the situation I find myself in so it is what it is. As we always say on this channel over here, it is what it is and what it is is crap, but we deal with it, we deal with whatever it is, it's what it is, that's all you can do in gardening is just deal with what you've got, so we're doing it, we're dealing with it. Right the first thing I'm going to do is empty the whole thing out, I'm going to regret saying that I know I am. Right let's empty this bad boy out, stick in there too, I don't really want any rubbish in there so I'm going to try and get rid of any rubbish that's fallen in there as well. Fallen, yeah. Okay. Right I thought I'd be able just to tip it but like most things in my life it never seems to be that simple. Right I'm starting to think, I've got to the end like the bottom bit and it's turning sludgy, I'm starting to think this might actually be compost, there's a lot of rubbish in here, I don't know where that's come from, but this is the makings of compost, this is it, this is how it's supposed to look. This is definitely something that resembles, oh look there's worms, there's a worm in there, there's a living worm in there, okay this is really good, this resembles the kind of process of compost, this is compost, right, okay this is good, basically where I've been throwing everything on it, obviously it has actually turned into some kind of compost, it's quite remarkable, that's incredible, it's actual dirt, it's compost, surely that's compost right, gosh have I actually done it and not realised, yes that does sound like something I would do. So something that I have learnt in my years on the plotch, not now, not now, something I have learnt is that there are different types of worms right, so in a compost you kind of get these smaller worms that are quite red and I believe that that is a compost worm right so it's not like an earthworm it's like a compost worm, it likes compost and I think I've got them in there, I think I've got compost worms, that's exciting right. On the quest to make my own compost I've accidentally made my own compost without meaning to or realising that I've done it, now unfortunately there's a couple of things to say about it so let's take a closer look at what I've created, oh it's exciting, right so if we take the optimistic view that this is something I've created and it is all compost and this is a heck of a lot of compost right that could possibly potentially be usable, it's probably about two or three foot deep and it's all starting to decompose, now you can see unfortunately a lot of plastic in here, it is an allotment plot and also I've noticed here there's some glass obviously from an old greenhouse, I don't know how this stuff always ends up at the back of my plot but it is an allotment plot and it just does happen so I'm just going to put that on there somewhere for now because I don't want to cut myself on it and yeah look you can still see plastic but but okay let's just get away from all the plastic because it's a rubbish allotment plot but this is all decomposing things that I have chopped up right there's little sticks in there and there's little bits of all kinds of stuff this is compost so here's a bit here that hasn't quite decomposed the same way but it's going that way you can see that it's starting to break up and turn into a compost a compost looking substance which is incredible now I thought it was all going a bit Pete Tong because all I had was all this on the top here's where it's going to get magical and here's where I've my research has come into it okay so I don't believe that that compost on the bottom is good enough to use yet and I think it's because I know it's not made up of everything it's supposed to be made up of right and I want to do a really good job this year so we're going to put a layer of cardboard on the top of that and I'm going to start layering up this is the best method that I found I seem to enjoy any kind of method of gardening where it's like layering things up because I find it easier to layer than to dig out and stuff so I've turned that compost now which somebody else said to do turn it and now we're going to put cardboard on it so I don't want to get like too overly technical because the thing that put me off about making my own compost was the idea that I thought it was really complicated and I didn't understand a word of it and just seemed like this magical elusive substance that I couldn't seem to make I'm going to keep it really really simple from all the research I've done and just explain it like this you need green and you need brown green is like say I've just dug out my crops and it's green right you chop it up that's your green okay now brown is basically brown is anything that's already died and is literally brown old leaves right fallen from a tree that go in that's brown and then we've got like some crops that have died and they're now brown that's brown and obviously good old-fashioned my favorite cardboard that's also brown that's going to help with worms as well worms love cardboard remember so they're going to love that basically I'm pretty sure compost worms love cardboard too they might have different taste buds I don't know pretty sure they'll just eat anything they're given to be honest I wouldn't get too fussy about worms and diets and stuff like that I just basically say they like cardboard that's it that's all I know about them to be honest I'm not a worm expert my knowledge starts and finishes with cardboard okay so we're going to rip it up right there's our cardboard laid on the reason I'm doing that is because people have told me to do that it's a great way of just adding another layer to it if I was going to start my whole compost heap again which I've done about four times and I just cannot do that again guys I just can't and I would probably put a layer of cardboard at the bottom and then start layering all my stuff on right next we're going to put all that stuff back on and chop it up right so we've laid out with two layers of cardboard and I will continue to layer up cardboard as I add new stuff to it everything's been chopped up everything got taken out and put back in again now it's not completely perfect a lot of things are in there that people advise me not to put in your compost for example brambles bindweed some of the biggest stumps of things I've taken out like the Brussels sprouts like stems and stalks and stuff like that so it's a few things in there that really shouldn't be in there but if I took it all out it'd take me all day it's not perfect but it's better than it was this is now the current situation of my compost I'm really happy with it to be honest it's all been sort of chopped as much as I can it's really hard work chopping stuff up and we've got layers of cardboard under there we've got another layer of like dirt and decomposed stuff and then we've got another layer of cardboard and then we've got the compost that we made before which I think we can all agree was in pretty good shape this is now looking a lot better right this looks something that like something that could turn into compost it's all been chopped up I think the key is chopping to be honest the key is to chop it anyway playing that all day it's like a sandpit for adults I think the point is that we've made a massive massive improvement on what was once an absolute disaster now looks like that I'm really happy with that I'm really really pleased and I'll continue to work on it my job at some point in the next week or two is to sow out some carrots in my polytunnel I've never sown carrots early in the year before but I've never had a polytunnel before that didn't blow away so we're gonna sow some carrots basically what I want to do first is mulch in here because I think it needs a good old mulch it didn't have very much compost in so I made these beds here as proper no dig beds I put a layer of cardboard down and then like maybe one bag of compost so it was a very very thin layer of compost I want to keep topping it up make sure it survives another year to be honest so we're going to put some compost down these are a couple of bags I brought these are blooming marvellous I've never used them before but we're going to try it now can do on you go lovely no idea what any of this stuff is by the way I didn't label anything oh I don't know label stuff um we were talking the other day how like like so much like of our food now is just covered in pesticides and stuff like so vegetables and fruit and stuff and it's something that I never used to worry about I used to think that people who worried about that had too much time on their hands um because they were like not living in the real world like oh who has time to think about pesticides being sprayed on broccoli plants but actually I find myself really worried about it now I think you know the standards of the food that you're buying in the supermarket now is just so unpredictable and you don't you really don't know what you're buying anymore um I brought a processed pizza the other day um from I think it was well I won't say who it is but it's the top supermarket in the UK and I brought it because it was Friday night I thought I'll have a a little pizza tonight we ate that pizza and I tell you I got two bites in and it had fresh fresh looking cherry tomatoes on it and I ate one of the cherry tomatoes and all I could taste was like bleach in my mouth it was like this really strong chemical taste in my mouth and I literally spat it out and I said to everyone stop eating it we're not eating this I'll throw on some pasta or something I'll make some pesto quickly um it was disgusting and this is a top supermarket a top quality looking product it wasn't cheap it was like five pound fifty for a pizza it's probably like that big maybe and I think that's the first time I ever put something in my mouth and thought oh my god what is on this what had they used on this um and it was one of those moments it's really eye-opening and really scary and you're like oh my god what is in my food I don't want to become that weird person who goes on and on about it because I'm not I promise I'm not um but food is changing guys in the supermarkets and I don't know what's going on but something is going on and you know what the best thing that you could possibly do is grow your own just grow your own but even then even then um it's not going to be completely perfect because obviously you know I'm buying compost I don't totally know what's in this pack of compost so I'm not making my own compost also you saw the amount of plastic in my compost bin so I know I am growing into microplastic as well um but I think it's a better option than buying from a supermarket right now so I'd really encourage you to grow something and just taste the difference and see you know the things that you can grow there are easy things to grow that you can grow every year and you will not have to rely on a supermarket you will not have to buy strawberries again if you grow your own strawberries because you will get hundreds so there are things that you can do but just thought I would share that with you today a bit scaremongering on a Monday guys I'm gonna love you and leave you today I hope you enjoyed my little vlog I hope you inspired you to maybe get out and try and sort out your compost heap um I'd like to say oh it's really not complicated I do still find it quite complicated I'm gonna see how it goes I hope you think I've made the right steps thank you so much if you have left me a comment advising me how to do something and it all does go in and I did use some of your advice today also I'm going to leave all the recommendations that you gave me for um people who know how to do their compost a lot better than me I'll leave them below in the description bar so you can go check them out as well we'll keep you updated as to how my compost pile comes on I hope you enjoyed the vlog today if you did do subscribe to my youtube channel and I will see you again on Wednesday see you Wednesday stay warm if you're in the UK fingers crossed for no snow see you Wednesday