MAKING A SIMPLE BEAN STRUCTURE / ALLOTMENT GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS

Morning guys, welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma, these are my allotment diaries. So if being on an allotment plot, growing your own food, killing a load of plants and spraying stuff with antibacterial spray or whatever the hell it is I put on my plants is your vibe, these vlogs might be for you. And if so, do subscribe to my channel because you'll be missing out on all the fun. We have a lot of successes here and quite a few failures as well. And I try to show that it's okay if your allotment plot does not look picture perfect and if there are weeds growing and if it's getting on top of you and if stuff just keeps dying or getting eaten. It's all fine, that's what happens to mine. And I like to show you the reality of having an allotment plot. So do subscribe to my channel if that sounds like it's up your street. Though a little disclaimer, you do not need to have an allotment plot to subscribe to my channel. You can just like watching it or like gardening and that's it. Oh guys, I've got here today and I've got a plan in mind of what I want to do. And I had it in my mind all night. I was thinking about it. Great, brilliant plan. I've got here and I feel like I wanna do more. I feel like I'm gonna make more work for myself because actually, well I'll explain, I'll explain. So I brought these with me to the plot today. These are French beans. Look how well they've done. I've started them in here because I have a problem with mice at my plot who like to eat the beans when they're in the ground and also slugs and snails and stuff. So I just thought I'd just start some off in this module that I had and they've done really well. So they're ready to plant out now. I was going to put them where the pumpkins are. Somebody also said that this looks like either a bum or a pair of boobs. I didn't see that, but now that's all I can see now. So thanks for that. Definitely not intentional, but there we go. So I was gonna put the French beans around the pumpkin plants and have them winding through. I think I might do a couple like that, but there's quite a few. It's like all of them germinated and I don't like to waste them. So what I was thinking is I might need to build another structure. Oh man. I just think, I don't know if I've got any wood. Let's have a look first, actually. Right, with any luck, I won't be able to find any wood and we can put this mad idea to bed. Well, these pieces of wood could work. So I was thinking of making it at the back of the broad bean bed, because I think there might be enough room there. Oh yes we're gonna do it. Why do I do this to myself? Right there's one in. I might cut this one just a little bit to make it straight. So we'll cut it. Hey guys look at that sawing. It's insane. I swear the second I stop filming things go really well and I'm not an idiot. I don't know what it is about this camera but it makes me an idiot. Look at this sawing. That is the best cut I've ever made on any piece of wood ever and it's literally just gonna go in the ground. That's so annoying. And look at the other bit. Look at that. Look at that. And all that's happening is it's gonna go in the ground. I might frame that other bit. That's my best work yet. Who needs the gym? So in order to balance this stick along the top here I can't just tie it because it'll slide down. What I've done is I've screwed a couple of screws in to the wood so I've got one there and you can see that the wood is just like balancing on top of it and then I've tied it to it and that just means that the wood's got something to hold on to a little bit more sturdier. I mean I say sturdier. That's not sturdy. I wouldn't make like a kid swing out of that because your kid will die you know. That'd be a death swing. Don't don't trust any of my structures for swinging on but in order to hold a few beans up it might be all right. I hope they're not too heavy these plants. They were heavy to carry here so I don't know. Right now we've got to do the string netting thing but I'm hoping I've got some netting instead because can't bother to do all that again. Nope can't find any bleeding netting anywhere so looks like I haven't got any more nets to fall over. Squirrel. So I'm gonna have to do the bleeding spring string thing again. Spring? String? Oh okay. Why am I doing this to myself? Why? I was just supposed to pop down here today and just do a couple of jobs and go home but I'm gonna be here all day now. I didn't say I drilled these in like you know correctly. I just sort of did that. And then that's got something to rest on there. There you go. This is for the bottom one guys. I haven't explained what I'm doing. This is the bottom one. Right okay. Then what we do, because you can see that the strings are all flippy floppy, I'm going to tie them to the bottom one nice and tightly. Right the new bean structure built. Not as secure as the other one but I think it'll be okay. It's summer. They're summer beans you know. Let's have faith guys. As you can see I've tied it all onto the bottom here to keep it nice and straight and I'll just plant the row of beans along the bottom. It's that easy to make a structure. It's that easy. So you don't have to faff around with all this stuff. Just whack a few bits of wood together and I think in my opinion it always looks better when you use like natural wood and stuff that you find around your plot. So don't go out and buy all these expensive bean structures. You know I actually think it looks a lot better when it's natural and I've got that one down there too. I don't know if you can see it on camera it's a bit dark down there but yeah all of my structures at the plot at the moment, most of them, most of them are natural. Obviously I've got my archway covered in plastic and chicken wire but other than that it's all natural guys. Oh still filming. Also went out and got myself a new bag of this which is the slugless stuff by Andermatt and I've got a discount code below for this. I'm not sure if it still works but anyway even if it doesn't it's quite reasonable and yeah I think it's worked. I think it's worked on a lot of my brassicas over there so I'm hoping it's going to work on these. I think it's better just to put down something rather than nothing so let's whack this on. Open it because it's all eco-friendly packaging. It's like sewn up with like string so you'd think it'd be quite easy to open but obviously I've lost my scissors again because when do I ever have scissors and I can't tear it. I just have gardeners open stuff. Right here we go. It basically looks like rabbit food. That's a bit like what the food looks like I give Pippin but it's like these little pellets of natural stuff and then when it gets wet it creates like a barrier that they can't get over so we'll stick it on. It looks a bit weird when you put it on but it dries and it does sort of create a bit of a like a stroke like barrier. I can't really explain it. So yeah they recommend that you water it but then it takes I think it's like a day or like 24 hours or something for it to turn into that consistency so until then your plants are on their own really. So it's not doing it yet it takes like I said 24 hours but it sort of breaks up. Anyway hopefully they'll be all right but there they are. There's the French beans out. I've actually got a load more so they're going to go around the archway now. Right I think I'm gonna have to go under the net. I hate nets. I'm in the net. Oh god there's a bloody spider in it. Why? All the places. Move the ash over. Have you ever planted anything while under a net before? That's a good question isn't it? Leave me a comment below. Have you ever planted something while being trapped in a net? Because I have officially. That's actually two plants there but I might just move them together. Oh it's a spider it's not a fly. I'm yelling now and there's loads of people here and they probably see me under the net. See me under the net and they think oh god what is that girl doing now? She's sitting under a net screaming at spiders. Right come out. The ash back. Leave me in the net. Right that's the French beans planted out which is what I wanted to do today. I actually had a load of other jobs to do but I don't know if I've got time now. I have just noticed however that my Californian poppy has started to flower. I know some people say they're a weed. I just don't think so and along with the pink next to him. If I come back look you can see I've got the orange and the pink and then more pink down there and I've got purple around my pond and all the yellow buttercups. Oh and he is as well. He's flowering too. Oh he's so lovely and look at my rhubarb guys. I actually have a plant that's actually amazing and look how everything's standing up now the sun's come out as well. Everything's just really happy. It just looks really happy and I'm so glad that I planted so many flowers because I think it's going to look so beautiful and hopefully attract loads of pollinators in which is the point. Obviously got my cornflower sweet peas. Oh beautiful. You know what I didn't check though? I didn't check if I have any broad beans growing yet. Let's have a look. These are taking ages this year because last year I already had like five harvests. It's got lots of flowers on which is excellent. I can't see any broad beans just yet. I can't. Oh look I can see the beginning of some. Oh yeah I can. Oh yeah I can. They're at the bottom. Oh I'm such a donut. They're at the bottom. There they are. There he is broad bean. Oh thank goodness you're growing. I wasn't sure if you were going to give me any broad beans guys. I'm going to be honest. I did start to doubt you. Oh yeah look there they are. There they are. Okay cool. I was thinking for a minute these aren't giving me any broad beans at all. What's happening? Sweetcorn's growing really well. Runner beans are growing up the structure sort of. Actually let me help him out. He sort of doesn't know where it's going does he? It's this way mate. That's it. You've got to wrap around like that. Just pretend you're bindweed. Are you bindweed? Is that bindweed? No it's not. Right well I think what we'll do is give everything a little bit of a water, a bit of a drink. It's going to be very hot over the next few days so let's give it all a drink. Oh oh surprise surprise that was a bleeding net. Didn't I tell you I always get trapped in nets? It's because me and my blundering idiotness I just leave them all. Look at that I could have impaled me. I just leave them around the plot to trip on. Look there's a perfectly good bleeding net there. God's sakes. There needs to be an allotment safety handbook and I need to read it. Can someone please write it? Rule number one do not leave nets around the allotment plot. You will forget they're there. Weeds will grow over it and you'll get trapped in a net. I tell you what until I had an allotment plot I'd never been trapped in a net in my life. Since having the plot multiple times have I been trapped in a net. You'd never believe it. Right there was one more job that I really wanted to do today um that doesn't really feel like a gardening job but at the same time kind of makes my soul happy so I feel like that's good enough you know and it's actually I brought some more of this stuff this um what's it called sunflower garland and I want to put it around my shed because it's summer now and we need summer stuff and I've still got my autumn stuff around the shed so and it's all from Amazon it's only like I think it's £9.99 you get like loads of it like loads of it um and I just love it I love decorating my shed for the different seasons obviously it's good for my Instagram too I'm not gonna lie nice to look pretty um yeah so I'm gonna stick this up so we've got to take the old one down put the new one up I need to redo my staple gun thing because I've run out of staples I don't remember how to do this staple thing something to do with that ah okay I've got staples here I don't know which way the staples are supposed to go I think maybe fixed it haha I mean it really needs a good old tidy up the shed's in absolute state again but the thing we're going to start with is this because this is obviously the most important thing isn't it let's make a really good Instagram before and after in one second it's a little video of like before and after can I really be bothered to do that though yeah I can be bothered to do it let's do it you know who I feel like up here that Christmas film Griswold's family vacation every time I staple something I think I'm going to staple my closed bit or something get stuck up here forever I'm sure there's a neighbor staring at me right now holding his breath terrified thinking what the hell is she doing now it's good totally pointless but good I like that I'm happy I can't get down there we go like I said totally pointless but it makes me happy and it makes me think of summer it's just been irrationally bothering me a bit that it's still been autumn up there and it's actually like June now um but yeah anyway that's the end of my vlog today hope you enjoyed my vlog today hope it's inspired you to get out and get growing get whacking some stuff in the ground great time of year just to whack as much as you can in so you know there should be no stopping you right now just go and whack it in don't keep asking me if it's too late to sow it it's not too late whack it in it could grow you know I've grown stuff when you're not supposed to grow it before and it's grown I sowed a courgette plant in August and it grew and I got courgettes in October so just whack it in is my advice and I will see you again in my next vlog see you next time guys thanks for watching bye