UNEXPECTED FROST IN APRIL / ALLOTMENT GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS

Oh god are you all right? Is everyone alive? Literally ran to my allotment plot this morning because I did not know that we were due some frost last night and a lot of people messaged me so thank you if you're one of them who messaged me to say Emma do you know that we're going to have frost tonight and I was like no I didn't know and obviously I've left all of my potatoes completely uncovered and potatoes do not like the frost so a bit of a panic this morning ran here as fast as I could they seemed to be okay they seem to have survived it so I know they can survive a little bit of a light frost like plants aren't completely vulnerable to that but hopefully I don't think we had too bad a frost I don't even know if we did get frost and if we did it must have been very light because it was gone this morning at 6am so maybe we didn't even get one but oh my goodness my heart was pounding this morning I was like please don't die please don't die this is why I could never be a presenter on as well can you imagine this being the opening of gardeners world one Friday just Monty Don running through his garden going I forgot to cover the potatoes and we got a frost it just wouldn't happen would it right they're alive hi good morning everyone welcome back to my allotment diaries my name is Emma these are my allotment diaries I would love you to subscribe to my youtube channel if you are new um because I've got so many videos coming up just all about my allotment garden and growing my own food and I'm going to show you more of my little London garden and the food that I'm going to be growing there so it's all very exciting it's all going on right now love you to subscribe so that you do not miss out and as always a big thank you to everyone who has already subscribed uh you are amazing um I think I'm up to like 22,000 subscribers now which is just insane and if you're not following me on Instagram my Instagram handle is at Emma's allotment diaries and I'm about to hit 100,000 followers 100,000 so I cannot believe that that is just mind-blowing I think when I do hit 100,000 subscribers I'm going to have a celebration I'm going to do something I don't know what yet and it's approaching really fast but um I will think of something so if you're not following me there go and follow me on Instagram and see what I come up with when I reach 100,000 I guess I never thought it'd happen so I'm not really prepared right okay on to actual gardening stuff oh my god snow just bit me on my bum that's not the place to get bitten do you know what I mean okay so today I'm going to continue building actually you know what I'm just going to show you around because we're just chatting now there's a couple of things I'm excited about at the moment so the first one is down here that is my rhubarb which has what's that oh right I thought that was a slug for a second it's not it's part of the plant it's now got two leaves absolutely amazing I don't know what this means I don't know what it's doing everyone said it was indestructible I thought I've killed it I haven't it's indestructible you guys are right uh so there's my rhubarb plant sitting right in the way of my carrot leaves my carrots coming up I mean um so don't know might have to make a hard decision soon between rhubarb and carrots I think rhubarb might win though I think it might um and the other thing I want to show you is the blossom tree has come into bloom and this is just my favorite time of year when all the blossom comes and it covers my allotment plot and all like confetti blossom confetti it's so pretty but this tree is just gorgeous in the blossom look at it isn't it beautiful just absolutely stunning just my favorite tree ever I mean I'll just show you from back here because it is pretty spectacular look at that to come to on my allotment plot I mean I haven't been here about four days and this is what's happened I'm just going to check on my sweet corn a lot of you said that the things I thought was sweet corn are not sweet corn so thank you for that um so apparently it looks like a blade of grass coming up I don't see any blades of grass coming up nothing looks like a sweet corn nothing nothing looks like a sweet corn so no sweet corn coming up yet I think what I might do is actually plant some at home in some pots and then transplant them out transplant them or transfer them transplant I guess you can do a heart transplant so yeah okay transplant we'll go with that transplant them out um so that's what we're gonna do oh it's rocky oh rocky no I brought you some treats and I forgot to bring them with me hello I'm so sorry I forgot I brought you some cat treats but I forgot them what are you looking for what are you looking for oh okay well I'll leave you to it then um yeah no basically my food shop came and they accidentally gave me some a bag of cat treats um I didn't know what to do with them and I was like well instead of sending them back I might just keep them and give them to rocky so um I have a random bag of cat treats at home and it just felt like fate that they sent me that do you know what I mean because why why would that happen it's the universe telling me to feed rocky um so I was going to bring it but I forgot enough cat talk enough cat so it's not cat channel right it's gardening channel so I've built that one and I'm going to continue because you guys said it was a good idea and to continue so I am going to continue thank you for your advice as always apparently it doesn't matter if it looks weird as long as it works mind you right I didn't mean to do that but right somebody did say to me that brassica is quite tall in the middle I've accidentally made it bigger in the middle so I didn't mean to do that but I think yeah okay right keep going boring so hard for me so easy for everybody else and then what someone someone suggested that what I should do to keep them in place that's it why is it unsnappable are you joking me so now it sort of looks like that so because I've made it wonky in all different shapes I've had to chop up the uh the sticks that go across but that is to stop it it's to stop it from like wobbling out of place do you know what I mean I mean I didn't need it on that one because I guess that one's so small I didn't need it but anyway I mean you said it didn't matter if it looked weird looks a little bit weird now doesn't it all wonky but anyway you know it's not you like you said as long as it works against the butterflies and stuff and I can grow stuff in it hey who cares this is the net I'm going to use it is the andermatt insecto net it's a hundred percent made from natural materials it's plant-based um it biodegrades in about two years time but it's not plastic it's really good at keeping out butterflies and all kinds of other insects it also protects against frost it still lets in the wind the wind like you know airflow and the rain and stuff like that so it's very very good stuff I have got a discount code so it's from andermatt home and garden my discount code is now on the screen and you'll get 15% off your purchase it's really good stuff and there's so much of it so I'm about to see I've used some of it on this one um and it's just been fantastic been really really good and um like I said it protects against the frost as well so that's just in itself amazing um what I'm going to do is stick it over this one and see if I've got enough to cover to cover it all I reckon I might you know I might otherwise I could just use my own discount code couldn't I and get 15% off I nearly fell into it I nearly fell on it that would have been disastrous I don't think it's enough right it's not enough by a long shot basically what you want is it to be like this one you want it to reach right down to the floor and if anything have some leftover around some excess because any gap at all is going to let in the cabbage white butterflies this one they'll just fly straight under there birds everything straight under it's like a little little like tent for them it's like I've made a party tent for them they'd love it under there love it once I've planted stuff in it I mean it's okay that's not enough net so what I'm gonna have to do is order myself some more use my little discount code um and yeah cover it all up so we'll do that I think right okay let's get this net off right the dahlias that are under the little space helmets space helmets by the way are from um Amazon I just like looked up plant protection on Amazon and I found them and I just ordered them I'll try and find the link if I can and put it below but you know how terrible I am at adding links below um there's quite a few of them below now so go check them out um yeah they're starting to grow now rightly or wrongly this weekend I actually put out most of my dahlias into the garden I'm including the ones that had already grown on my windowsill so very exciting dahlias are out however I've got loads of sunflowers growing at home in pots and they haven't done very well because I don't have very much light in my house so what it's going to do is sow a few in the flower bed direct just in case those ones don't grow and then sort of protect them I just thought why not just wax them out you know always good just just to keep whacking stuff out you know something will grow maybe so obviously sunflowers are quite big plants especially if you want to grow a really big one I've never actually grown them direct before but I just thought why not just wax them in so what I'll do like literally minimal fuss breaking this up a little bit right okay it's a little hole just like that I see which of you will be my victim there's my seed I'm just gonna drop him in fill up the hole because I'll whack on some strulch firstly so that I know where it is and secondly because if it pops up the slugs won't eat them straight away then hopefully and that's it my potatoes in my compost bun is still growing um oh look this one's reached the surface and you can see that it's turned green let's have a look at this because I've always known you're never supposed to let the potato reach the sun because it will turn green and it's poisonous but I've never actually seen one because I've just never done it yeah he's sort of got green green tint to him now doesn't he green tinge yeah so he's poisonous now can't eat him so when it when I harvest these I'm gonna have to be really really careful and really check them and make sure there's no green ones but they're still growing oh and I can see my parsnip is as well parsnip still growing so someone has said that when a parsnip grows like this basically you get seeds so you get flowers and you get seeds I wonder if I should just plant him but something's enjoying eating him so I think we'll just leave him in here because he's still growing in here so there we go parsnip and potatoes it's not quite the compost advice you get given in books and stuff is it there we go that's what's happened compost bin has become a growing bed well it's not great news in the polytunnel I think this is the first time I've ever said it's not great news firstly something's flattened that I'm concerned it might have been rocky rocky been in here oh rocky you wouldn't do that to me would you so unless it's just fallen down okay it could just be that um and then I can't see any cucumbers in here I can't believe it oh no what happened oh do you think it was the frost do you think it was the frost they're dead they are dead dead dead they are dead as donuts right my first thoughts is that it's just too cold in here for cucumbers right now so I'm gonna have to start that again they haven't been eaten by slugs and snails which is a good thing because at least I know the protection that I put around worked no bleeding cucumbers is there I put them out way too early I thought I'd get away with it because it feels quite warm in here um and then I thought with the added protection of the little the little space helmet things I think I thought they'd be all right but obviously obviously not um so okay I'm gonna have to start my cucumbers again at home that's fine you still got loads of time by the way to start cucumbers I was just way ahead of the game or maybe they were too hot under there were they too hot I don't know if they were too hot too cold don't bleed no what I do know is I'm just going to start them again um right let's stake that thing because I'm on the floor anymore up you jump up you jump it's not the time for snoozing the worst structure job in history but there we go um loads of snails in here as per usual there we go this is beautiful this is a pak choi that's flowered it is just probably what's that is that blooming cauliflower or something I don't know this is just one of the most beautiful flowers I've seen in my life I'm tempted to grow this in my garden as a flower gorgeous and then all of the radishes are flowered and I've heard that you can eat the flower buds or something so I'm waiting for those very excited for those and these radishes look like they're about to flower as well this is really exciting in here and then right at the back I've got my kohlrabi look at that beaut absolute beaut and then there was another one that I think was gonna flower oh it's this one and he has flowered oh wow he's quite stunning isn't he so he's my kohlrabi that's flowered and then I've got two more here really good really good really happy okay so everything's okay in the polytunnel actually got a bit got a bit negative for a minute but it's all good not going to be putting my tomatoes out and probably until June to be honest because they're not growing very fast and I want all that to sort of finish doing what it's doing um something that I think is a really good idea to do at your allotment plot especially if you've got a new allotment plot is to look around and see where the sun falls um so today it's sort of we're getting into spring summer now right so sort of on the verge of sort of between the two and this is the time of year where the sun tends to kind of cover the middle of my plot so all of this bit the middle tends to get a lot of sun and then this end of the plot gets more shade but it gets more sun at the end of the day and that bit down there that gets sun right at the very very beginning of the day which is why I put my brassicas there because they can cope with a bit of shade this is where you want sunny things to go sunny loving crops and that is where my pumpkins are going to go over this archway which is always in the sun and I think it's just a good idea to keep an eye on where the sun is in your garden or in your allotment plot or on your patio um and just keep an eye where it moves about and then you can plan out where you're going to put your crop your crops or even just change your mind if you've got the sun wrong because if you get the sun wrong nothing grows you know it's it's all wrong really so wow it just looks so pretty here today I just want to stand and take 100 pictures so I hope you enjoyed my little allotment vlog today I hope I showed you around my plot enough and I hope you got some inspiration some ideas I hope you just enjoyed seeing seeing me working in my plot a little bit um lots of jobs to do most of my stuff at the moment is in pots at home growing um so I've got my jackbee little pumpkins my giant pumpkins I've got courgettes leeks lots of brassicas on the go uh what else do I have I've got cosmos flowers please sow cosmos flowers if you haven't sown your cosmos yet do it now because they are amazing amazing flowers so good for pollinators just dot them all around your allotment plot and all the pollinators will come running honestly they're beautiful um and I'm going to start some other stuff next week as well because we're going to be getting into May I'm going to do a what to sow in May video which is going to be coming up next week so stay tuned for that and I will see you again on Friday with another allotment vlog um I hope you enjoyed it today if you did subscribe to my channel I'll see you next time thank you so much for watching see you later bye