HARD WORK AT THE ALLOTMENT PLOT / JANUARY 2023 / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Pull you up Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma. These are my allotment diaries. They're happening It's happening right now. If you're not already subscribed to my youtube channel I would love for you to subscribe to my channel If you don't have a YouTube account It might be worth getting yourself one and if you click the little bell then every time I post a video it will Give you a notification basically, so you'll never miss one of my lovely episodes, right? We'll leave that there you join me today in this episode in the shed Which I did manage to get into this morning. So last week was very very tricky in the UK It got really really cold probably to minus four minus five in London and which meant everything was so frozen So difficult to get here and do anything and obviously I couldn't even get in my shed because the lock had frozen So today thankfully it's very warm it's warmed up a lot the sun is shining it's nice I'm gonna show you around Feels nice to be here today because it feels quite peaceful and quite warm and all the birds are singing It's all you can kind of hear which is just lovely really But because the weather has now warmed up. I've noticed a lot of weeds coming up very very quickly They are so quick those little weeds, aren't they? They just spring out of nowhere and this bed in particular They just seem to love this bed for some reason I don't really know why I guess it's nice and big for them and nice and cozy because it's got all the manure dug into It also my little tulips here Have started to come up and these ones were the ones that hadn't come up the ones at the front already had So I think these ones are definitely gonna be safe and happy you can see that the bed has all been dug over and stuff It's all like bumpy But they seem happy I've had the old fox or the old cat or some kind of animal digging in all of my beds So they've been digging in this one here. They've had a good old dig in this one He's really enjoyed himself in there. And then there's some more at that front one there It's one of the sort of dangers of like Topping your beds too early because then all the animals come and just love to dig in it and use it as a communal toilet so I mean you can't blame and they're just doing what animals do but You know what? They're like these tulips. They seem to have survived the the really intense frost We call it a hard frost When it goes really really cold like that It just means that the frost was really bad and it was like everything was really really iced over So we have hard frosts where it's like that like literally everything goes like to ice and then we have It's okay. We'll wait and then we have like a soft frost And that's just when you get like that kind of sheen over the top It melts away in the day and everything sort of perks back to life. These have definitely survived the hard frost I'm happy to say they all look really very very healthy Very very very happy and there seems to be just hundreds of them. I'm very excited about these Unfortunately, the onion doesn't seem to have survived because it's very very smushy Pull you up Yes Just as I suspected people it has rotted Absolutely rotted away That is such a shame Because he was growing so nicely now even the middle soft completely rotted Tell you what though He smells like an onion. I Always just find it so fascinating when vegetables smell like the vegetable they're supposed to be so when garlic smells like garlic Even though it hasn't worked It just has such a strong onion smell is unbelievable It's nothing like the shop-bought ones that you get this is like pure onion smell They should make a candle with that Toward a vampires or something. I don't know why you buy it But um, someone said that this little thing that I found here was a an onion dryer So I'm just gonna experiment with it quickly so a lot of you have said that this is an onion and garlic drying rack It won't throw through though so many of them Get all the spindles and put all the spindles through that seems really long-winded, isn't it? So when you said onion drying rack I kind of thought you thread the onion through and they sort of sit up like that I thought it'd look really funny, but I don't think you can do that. So I think do you just mean that I Just lay them out like that. I mean, that's a goner but Yeah, I mean it could be it could be I think I'll probably end up using it as a combination of all the different things That everyone suggested so like a compost siver A drying rack a vegetable washing station like whatever I'm ready to use at the time I think that's what I'll probably use it for. So right I want to get on with some jobs because it's such a nice day It's such nice weather and I just feel productive. So let's be productive Emma. Let's do it Tulips there. Oh crap wanted tulips there. What do I keep forgetting? We're importing stuff guys Come on, I should be better than this now I'm gonna throw a big bag of compost on this I think Blooming marvellous tell you what blooming heavy That's what it is Don't know why I haven't used a saw before to open these that is fantastic So essentially what I've just done is I've just mulched that bed So I gave it a very light weed and I sort of gave up because I realized I realized that it would probably benefit just From a big old pile of mulch on the top of it now mulch can be anything It doesn't actually have to be an organic material. So it could be like a ground sheet It could be just some cardboard that you put down on the ground. It could be manure. It could be straw could be compost I've just used a bag of shop-bought pump compost and from blooming marvellous the blooming marvellous Compost and just trying out some different brands this year to see how well my crops grow in it But basically essentially what it is is I'm topping up my raised bed my my bed my growing bed By putting a load of compost on the top Life is a winding road Don't tell you where it goes driving through days and nights One stop for traffic So, why do we mulch well firstly because it helps with weed prevention So it basically smothers out all of the sunlight. It just smothers the weeds. So it's really good for weed control Just putting a nice big Layer of mulch over the top stops the weeds coming up secondly, it's really good at water retention So you're basically putting a blanket over your raised beds or over your growing bed which helps to retain all the water which is really good for your plants and Thirdly to add some much-needed new nutrients to the soil, which hopefully Will pay off later on because your crops will get a nice big healthy Feed by having some nice new nutrients in their compost So those are the three kind of main reasons why we mulch our raised beds or growing beds I keep saying raised beds, but you might have noticed some of my raised beds have now turned into just growing beds I don't know what the opposite of a raised bed is actually I'd just call it a growing bed, but I don't know if there's an opposite of a raised bed a low bed Never heard anyone call it a low bed before but that's the most logical one in it Yeah, just thought I'd quickly elaborate because I didn't really explain it very well and why I've taken some of the boards off So you can see behind me. They used to be boards all the way around this bed. Here they are sitting there and basically They're just rubbish. They become a bit rotted and they keep falling down And also, I think they're just becoming a bit of a haven for slugs and snails Apparently they like the wood and and this wood here Unfortunately is untreated because I think it's just old scaffold boards or something. It's not a scaffold board It's a, what do you call it? The thing you walk on at home, keeps your house up. Floorboard. They're floorboards. So they're not really Treated. They're really good wood. Like they're really like original Victorian floorboards and it's a proper wood They're just basically falling down and I think they get slugs and snails like the wet wood They like to slither on it and sleep in it and stuff. So it's just basically a slug hotel. So I've just removed The slug hotel basically. Kept a little bit there That's just so I know where the path starts and kept one that side so I know where the path ends. That's it really I'm just making my way through all the beds and giving them a little bit of a weed with this Hoe. One of the best things I ever got was this hoe. It's so good for just killing the weeds Compost is looking good. Compost is looking good. It's really like composting down like it's supposed to I might add a bit to it Doesn't look so good yet Right, we're in the tunnel now. We're in the tunnel and it's looking lovely in here. Actually, it's all mulched So everything's just looking really nice and healthy. I was just in my shed and I've just found one more bulb of garlic Which I haven't planted out I think I was gonna take it home and do it but I just sort of never did and it seems a waste I don't think I'll get round to doing it at home So I was just gonna whack it in the polytunnel see how it does in here Um, I don't think it affect any tomatoes or anything. So I'll just whack it in I think, why not? It's always good just to keep whacking stuff in when you find it because you never know what's gonna work and what's not gonna work So the more you whack in the more chance you've got of something growing So what I might do is just do a couple of rows at the back there Isn't garlic weird? so garlic is actually a garlic bulb and You you plant the individual cloves and it grows into a garlic bulb, isn't that weird like when you think about it Isn't it weird? Please somebody tell me you find it weird So it goes that way is the roots and that way is the top so pointy end up flat end down I think I Think like I said, sometimes when I say things That's not the right way I'll just put them in the hole so I can see where I'm putting them. This is a whopper I wonder if the bigger clothes mean it's gonna grow into a bigger got bigger bulb Or I wonder if it just means nothing Interesting interesting make you think on this channel, don't I I do make you think I won't go garlic crazy Like I said before we're not warding off vampires at this plot anytime soon, but if there was a vampire Let's just say It would struggle to survive at my allotment right now. Let's just say that They think they're supposed to be planted that deep. But at the same time, I think they'll figure it out So I don't like to get panicky about depth and stuff Because I just think plants know what they're doing and they just grow don't they? Figure it out. I figured it out for centuries before we even walked to the planet You know before the first starfish came out the sea and grew legs You know garlic was was growing everywhere. So, you know garlic already had its life sorted out. So Who are we to come in and tell garlic how it's supposed to grow? It knows guys. It knows. I don't want to go garlic mad. So like I said, we'll just leave it at that I actually don't remember how to plant garlic. I think this is how you do it Like I said, it knows it knows Okay, great. This thing here is growing really well, isn't it? I think this is a kale. He looks beautiful gorgeous color Do you know what I came down to my plot today completely unprepared because I did not realize the weather would be this nice I didn't realize it'd be this sunny and I didn't realize I feel this good So I didn't bring very many jobs for me to do here I think what I'm gonna do next time I come is plant out my broad beans. I've been growing them in pots at home They're now about that big that tall. So I reckon they'll do all right now out out in the wild basically I think they've grown up enough So I'm gonna be doing that in my next vlog do join me if you're around on Wednesday I put these vlogs up at 5 p.m. Now UK time. Don't know where we are. Is it GMT time? I won't go there. I'm but 5 p.m. UK time and Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays, so do subscribe if you're new if you want to watch Somebody figuring out their allotment plots And let me know how you're going on your plots. Are you there yet? Are you doing jobs? Are you enjoying the sunshine and getting out here? And because if you're not you should it's definitely warming up and feeling good I'll see you next time. Thank you so much for watching guys. Bye