WORST ALLOTMENT HARVEST EVER! / ALLOTMENT GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS

Just keep rowing, just keep going up. When you when. Yeah. Ridiculous. Six months for that. Good morning you lovely lot. Welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma, these are my allotment diaries. If allotmenting, growing your own food, being out in the garden and watching videos on outdoors and flowers and people killing their plants is your vibe, I would love for you to subscribe to my channel because I think it might be right up your street. And thank you to everyone who has subscribed. Thank you to everyone who's been leaving me comments or giving me a thumbs up on a video. It makes such a big difference to the algorithm and it recommends my YouTube videos to more and more people which is incredible. I know I'm getting quite a few new subscribers so hello, welcome, thank you so much. It all means so much to me that you're here following my journey, following my gardening journey and that we are encouraging and inspiring each other in this community that I've built. And this community has just got one step better because you can now purchase a t-shirt from me. And yes I won't stop going on about them. I love them. I've got them in every one of the women's colours. The whack it in t-shirt just spreading the allotment vibe basically. And if you don't feel comfortable wearing it because you think it's a bit of an innuendo, I completely understand. That's fine, that's cool. I will be releasing new merchandise later on in the year with a different slogan, different stuff. So if this isn't your vibe, don't worry. There'll be more stuff coming soon. And I completely understand. I'm here today. I did have some stuff to plant out. So I've got some french beans at home that are like that big which really need planting out here. But I'm not going to do that today because I've been away for a week and it still needs quite a lot of work getting it back into ship shape. And also I've got my Seed Craft subscription box. So if you a lot of you have subscribed to this as well which is incredible. Nick will be so happy. So I have a discount code below. I'll cover my address. I'm not very good at doing that. Seed Craft. And it's a seed subscription box and they basically send you seeds every month to sow on your allotment plot or in your garden. All vegetable seeds, things like that. And I have a discount code below which will get you I think 15% off your first box which is quite cool. A lot of you have signed up to it already and are really loving it. So it is a really great thing especially if you don't know what to sow or you can't be bothered to look it up like me. If you're a lazy gardener this is for you. So in this week's, in this month's box I got some swede, some arcade lettuce and some golden beetroot and also some runner beans but I think I've got enough runner beans growing at the plot so I'll keep those. But these I'm going to sow outside today. Just start whacking some more stuff in. Pumpkin update. Here we go. The first of many. Happy to report that they survived their first night on the plot. These two are very much alive. This one over here, very much alive. So they didn't just completely die straight away. They look quite happy. They seem to have survived the night. A couple of leaves have snapped because of me. My bad handling of them. Someone said to cut them off if they've snapped because slugs and snails will love them. I don't know, I might just leave them. I'm not having too much of a problem with slugs and snails right now. I feel a bit smug saying that because normally at this time of year everything's being ravaged by slugs and snails and I'm really struggling. I actually struggled more during March and April and now everything seems to be ok and the whole of May things don't seem to have been eaten so I'm actually doing ok for slugs and snails however I do have a little nifty trick up my sleeve as some of you recommended. So one of the ways that a lot of you recommended that I stop slugs and snails is to use ashes from a fire. So when you burn something you can spread the ash around and apparently they don't like going over that. Well I've just been camping and felt like the weirdest thing ever but I collected all the ash from the campfire that we had and I'm going to spread it around my pumpkins and see if it stops the slugs and snails. So far there don't seem to be any but I don't want to be an idiot and just think there's not going to be any because there might be some later so we're going to do that. Always very interested in trying out different slug and snail defences because there are just so many that people swear by. Ugh dusty. So this is the ash. Feels like I'm spreading someone's ashes around my plot though that would actually be very very good natural material so in fact when I die I want my ashes to be spread over a vegetable patch so I can come back as a radish Very interested to see if this works. You can imagine what a stress it was to get this ash home with a whole car full of camping gear. I'm sure people thought I was crazy when I was scooping it out with a dustpan and brush but you know, needs must I can imagine because slugs and snails are quite slithery and sticky going over this gets it all stuck to their bellies. I mean it's stuck to my gloves already. You know I don't know it looks weird but I guess it's good for the environment. It's natural material so I'm happy to try it So I noticed that these sweet peas are a little bit in need of, I don't know really because they seem to be clinging on ok I think what I've done is I've planted too many I've planted too many in the same place but well, you know you're here now so you might as well make the best of it guys I don't know what I can do for you I literally don't know what I can do I could probably tie you in a little bit more come here it's alright just make sure you're all tied into there just keep growing keep going up keep going up the archway you're going the wrong way I don't know where you're going these plants I do see a couple of flowers though just about to come into bloom at the top here which is exciting some of these are looking good see this is a bit of an issue because there's nothing in this bit so they're going to have to jump and this guy's doing quite a good job you're doing excellent mate, well done so once you get up there, you'll be alright guys you've just got to get past this bit and on this side it's just too many I've just planted too flipping many I didn't think they'd live they're getting little flowers on them now it's quite exciting but I planted like a million thinking I'd get about three because they'd die and I've got a million I'm thinking now where to put these seeds so I've got some beetroot, swede and lettuce I really think this bed here was supposed to be my salad-y kind of bed these look like they're almost going to be done I don't actually know when these will be done I don't even know if they've become anything it's garlic I think this is garlic, there's shallots, I don't know no idea, let's pull one up no, they didn't do nothing why did that happen? they always do this they always go like this and I think it's because my soil is just too damp it's just too boggy or I sow it at the wrong time or whatever but they always do this to me I swear to god, I will not get one watch this, six months of sowing nothing awful atrocious ridiculous can't think of any more rubbish adjectives but basically every single one absolute crap so here is my shallot harvest absolute rubbish every single one of them, rubbish, I knew these wouldn't work I knew it six months of growing for that was it worth it? no, it's crap absolute rubbish in fact, let's pull up one of the garlics I think I'd rather know I think I'd rather know now if they're all going to be crap get my hopes up oh ok oh look look I think I know what that is I think that's white rot you see the white, like the fungus I think that's what that is, I think it's white rot and I think you get that when your bed gets too boggy or something what a shame something's obviously been eating it as well so I opened that up but it really smells like garlic as well oh it is white rot, it's what it is, rot can I not remove the rot no I can't it really smells of garlic oh it smells so much like garlic it's such a shame bloody white rot six months for that for that don't ask me right now if growing your own food is worth it because right now my answer is no bloody not oh look who's turned up look who's turned up say hello Rocky oh straight in bed right can you come out there please because I'm just weeding it you've been alright hello do you want some treats it's a bird get him Rocky I don't like that noise at all do you do you want some cat treats wait a second Rocky now look what's happened because you and your impatient Rocky there you go good boy right I think what we'll do is put a row of beetroot in here I don't even know if this soil is good for germination anymore it just seems really full of rocks and things actually what I might do is make that like that so make my these are called drills I don't know why we call them drills they're basically lines in the soil right put the lines in what I might do is water that before I put the seeds in oh it's turned into a bleeding puddle drain away then drain away go on go on it's turned sludgy this might be why the garlic and onion didn't work in this bed maybe it's not very good drainage here oh it's a bit sludgy beetroot this is a golden golden beetroot so I'm guessing it's kind of like a yellow colour right oh look proper amount of beetroot seeds not five like we had in that other pack I can scatter them now like that fantastic give it a pat and then give it one more bit of water I just want to show you something that I've been doing this year that I haven't actually told you about because I wasn't sure if it would work I thought if it works it's going to be genius and I think it is working and I want to share it with you because that's what a vlog's all about sharing stuff innit when I planted out all my brassicas brassicas are doing really well by the way so if anyone's worried about the brassicas, don't be I'm a brassica expert this year and they are absolutely fine not even one little bit of damage not even one bit of damage, incredible and under here too, amazing but basically when I planted them out I had a load of extra ones, I couldn't cram any more into that bed because they do get quite big brassicas, I thought what I would do is plant them around the plot as a sort of experiment so the idea being I can have a look at the brassica and if it's been eaten by slugs and snails, that's probably an area where they're going to congregate if they haven't been eaten I could probably plant something else out there, it's probably safe and also using them as a bit of like a bait like bait for slugs and snails so they eat them and don't eat the other crops basically because they love them, so for instance and I think it has worked because look down here just planted out a bit of swede here because look, these ones have been munched, this one's fine, he's not been munched at all and then I planted a few around my cosmos because I really didn't want my cosmos oh, that's a dead flower, it's dead heading, I really didn't want my cosmos to get eaten so I planted a few around here but look, he's not been eaten and he's not been eaten I've totally lost the point of what my experiment was but I think what it was, was just seeing what gets eaten so I basically put them out and I didn't care if they got eaten or not but most of them have survived and also I'm hoping that slugs and snails like them more than the actual other crops and so they kind of eat them and leave everything else alone but they haven't eaten any of it so I'm not sure I'm not sure what the experiment proves I don't know what that means but I thought it was a good idea and I wanted to share it I don't know what it means but there we go look at these guys you're doing so well, I'm so proud of you someone made a really funny comment in my last video and basically said, Emma don't you think it's a weird coincidence that you went away for a week and then everything at your allotment did really well and survived and all grew, I think I am the biggest predator at my allotment plot forget the slugs and snails and the birds forget all that, it's me it's me, I'm the problem, hi, it's me but yeah, I hope you do enjoy the vlogs, if you do, do subscribe, give me a like, leave me a little comment below, let me know what you're getting up to in your allotment plots and I will see you again in my next vlog see you in my next vlog guys, thanks for watching, bye well that's such an idiot when I say like bye because obviously I'm not saying, like I now have to pack up and go home, it's not just like instant oh god