MAKING REAL PROGRESS ON THE PLOT! / ALLOTMENT GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS

Hello, isn't he a lovely fox? All right we're here again, we're doing it again. Are we all right Einstein? Oh he sounds happy. Oh as long as he's happy then. Birds eh? As long as you're happy Einstein. That's all that matters isn't it? Oh birds, can't live with them. I don't know if we can live without them actually. Never checked. Good morning everyone, welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name's Emma, these are my allotment diaries. I would love you to subscribe to my YouTube channel if you are new to my channel so you don't lose it, so you can come back and watch more of my fascinating adventure on my new allotment plot. I didn't take my pumpkin home yesterday so I had to take the pumpkin plant out because we got frost. In London for the first time yesterday, didn't get any frost this morning but yesterday we did and I can see as I'm walking around the plot site so many pumpkin plants have just died. So let me see if I can, what's happening? Right this is the pumpkin, this is the, that's as far as we got with it this year. This is supposed to be a giant like jack-o'-lantern one and like the giant pumpkins and this is how big we got so we didn't get that big. I think because I planted it in the same bed as the jack-o'-littles and there just wasn't enough nutrients. I always forget how hungry pumpkins are, they're very very hungry plants, they need a lot of nutrients, a lot of space, a lot of watering, just they need everything basically. This is as far as we got, I don't know if that's going to go more orange, I don't know. I'm going to take it home and put it on a sunny windowsill and see if it turns a bit more orange but that might just be an unripe pumpkin for the rest of his life. You might never make it, it's quite sad for a Wednesday isn't it? Let's keep it upbeat. I mulched over some of the beds the last time I was here and it looks so much better, I'm so glad I did that because I was sort of starting to neglect, I wouldn't say neglect but I've been worried about neglecting my old plot in favour of my new plot and mulching over the beds has made me a lot more relaxed about that so I'm happy with that. What I've done today, I've come down here, obviously because I'm here, with the intention of just working on my new plot and I think what I need to start doing, thank you so much to all your kind comments in my last video by the way, I was feeling a little bit overwhelmed with it all and I was just trying to be honest and show the realities of taking a new allotment on because if you've just taken one on, you know watching me flounce around my nice done allotment plot isn't really very motivating and so I'm trying to show you quite a realistic side of allotmenting and the realistic side is you're probably going to have a big overgrown space for a long time and that's just how it is and it is disheartening and it is really hard and even I'm finding it quite hard and disheartening sometimes. What I've decided to do is plan my trips down here so that I work on this plot one time completely and then I work on my new plot another time completely and I sort of separate them a little bit until they merge and become one. When two become one we will just flounce and the days of flouncing around in a pretty dress with a little basket, they're on the way, they are coming. That day is not today and today I'm going to work on my plot so let's do it. Welcome to the new plot it's still looking like this. One day I'll look back at these videos and go oh my goodness remember when it looked like that and now it looks like that. Now hopefully it looks a lot better in a few years time at least, maybe 10. The last time that we were here we discovered a tree. We discovered a tree and we wondered what the tree was. There is a tree under here and it has been chopped down right to the stump which is what I'm planning to do on some of that tree over there. So if these trees are listening and watching one day they will too become this, just stumps, just tree stumps and I completely understand why the tree stump has been left because it's really hard to get that out and to be honest I'd rather create something around it rather than try and remove it. One day in the future when this plot is done and it's productive and I'm working away on it I may very well come back to this and try to remove some tree stumps but that day is not today and we are nowhere near there and we have to be realistic with our allotment plot because if I try and do too much it's just nothing will get done at all. So we have to take it slow and steady. A lot of you are saying the front of the plot is now cleared, why don't you just start doing that? I am going to start doing that, that is the plan. I'm going to buy wood for it, we're going to get some wood chip, we're going to sort the front of the plot out but while I'm waiting for all that stuff, you know, I've got a book a day in where it's all going to arrive and all the rest of it, while I'm waiting I'm just going to keep clearing. That's the best thing to do. I don't want to sit still and not do anything, you know, I'm a doer, I'm a doer. We're going to clear a section of the plot, I don't know what section we're going to clear but we're going to do it today. We're just going to, so it's up to here it's sort of quite cleared, we're just going to keep going and clear it. I apologise for all the singing going on today, I think I'm in a better mood and I just need to, you know, sing. I can't tell you how many times I've had to move this pile around. Right, I put my head down and I got that done. I just basically moved all of the wood that was on this ground sheet here over to a nice neat pile over there. Here it is, so most of this wood is actually, oh hello, can I help you? Most of this wood here can actually be used again, it's really good quality, it's nice and long, it's very good quality, do you agree Mr Fox? Good quality? Oh and there's Einstein as well. Don't even think about it Mr Fox. Isn't he a lovely fox? Look at his bushy tail, I honestly, I've lived in London my whole life and I've never seen a fox with such bushy bushy tail. He's so healthy, aren't you? Someone's feeding him for sure, definitely. Anyway the wood has all been moved into a pile and I think most of it can actually be reused again which is excellent for structures and fences and all sorts of things and then over here I've got some thicker wood like big logs which I think would make a really good wildlife area, you know when you pile them up and make a bit of a bug hotel thing? Because I can't think of anything else to do immediately with them so even if it's just for like a year or so I think it'd make a great little bug hotel, I'll stack them up neatly, wildlife can hide in there, fantastic. And now we're going to get some more of these ground sheets up and hopefully it'll start making a plot look really good basically, that's what I'm hoping for. You know when I was younger I used to want to be a tree surgeon, that's all I wanted to be, I used to see them in the trees on the way to school and I used to be like I wish I could just do that all day. Now look at me, I practically am a tree surgeon now, practically am. Dream big guys, you never know it might come true. Right let's get that up. Right so there's a lot of repetitive jobs on this plot but I think we're slowly getting there. Why are you not balancing? Why not? All right yeah, thank you camera, really big and it's really rooted in. That is a monster, that ground sheet would not have killed that, that will keep coming back over and over again. I don't know what they were thinking just literally covering it, like they didn't even dig anything like that out, it's just madness to me. Look at all the ground sheets so far that I pulled up, that must have cost an absolute fortune. Somebody asked me why, why am I pulling it all up? Why don't I just grow over the top of the ground sheet and just clear the top of the ground sheet? The truth is it's plastic and I don't want to grow over plastic, like the entire plot is covered in this, even the raised beds were put on top of the ground sheet and like I don't want to grow on plastic, I want to grow into the earth, I want to grow on this allotment plot and I just, it just feels weird, it's just like you might as well grow on a patio. It just seems really strange to me and I don't like it. It feels very therapeutic getting it all off though, it's very good, please stay, don't fall. Now we're getting somewhere, now, now we're starting to look like an actual allotment plot, fantastic. Oh there's so many eggs, oh the eggs, the eggs, never prepared for the eggs. Another thing about plastic that I'm learning and remember I'm not an expert so all of this is just what I'm, I'm, the knowledge I'm acquiring from actually doing it is that under the plastic there seem to be so many slug and snail eggs, they seem to just love it, look, hundreds of them, so my experience of plastic is just not good so far. Like I say, I'm not an expert, maybe this is, maybe it does work, maybe it is eco-friendly, I don't know but my personal experience of it and pulling it all up is that it's full of bindweed, the big weeds just get through it and then you can't dig them out again because you've got plastic over the top and slugs and snails love laying their eggs under it so it's not a great, um, I don't think it's a good thing but we're collecting bindweed at the moment, that's what we're doing. What's that? Oh it's you, I wondered where you were today, did you Yeah I know, you're gonna have to learn to live together I'm afraid, yeah, just like I'm having to learn to live with you Einstein. All right let's dig this giant octopus thing out, I don't know what it is, I don't know what it's done, instead of growing up it started growing down into the ground, it's tried to get to the other side of the world, that's what it's tried to do, it's tried to find the light the other way, you're crazy you are, you know how long it will take you to get to China? Oh look we've got a new friend, got a new friend come to visit, looking for the worms are you? Are you? Not so mad now are you? No not so mad now, there's Einstein eagerly watching out for them as well. Right I sort of felt a bit of a twinge in my left knee then and I thought well I better stop because I'm very aware that if I get an injury it's sort of game over you know because I'll be out of it for a few weeks and then it's just gonna just not get done basically so I'm being really really careful if I feel even the slightest twinge or if I think oh that was too heavy that I just picked up I just stop and walk away and so far it's worked so wow wow wow wow I knew moving that those logs and starting to get more ground sheet up would make it look so much better and I was not wrong. Look at this so much better cannot believe it this is now all officially cleared and this is officially about half the plot this is half the plot that has now been cleared I can actually start putting raised beds in here, pathways, wood chip all the rest of it this half of the plot is done so just making a little mental plan of action plan of action basically you need to book in a day where Dave can rent out a van for me get all my wood down here and stuff my wood chip and everything just get it all down here so I can start building that and until then the plan's gonna be sort out the compost area neaten that up cut around it make sure that that plastic thing's up that's still stuck under the ground a bit sort that area out then that'll be done level out the ground dig it out a little bit level it down make it nice and flat because we want it flat because I want to walk on a flat surface and also I don't want any puddles and stuff like that so we're going to flatten this properly we're going to start laying these down where we want the pathways and securing them in place ready for wood chip this will need to be dug out at some point hopefully my knee will magically fix itself when I go home and I want to dig out some of these as well that is another plan of action I'd rather do this sooner rather than later because it's such a horrible job and then of course not to waste time while I'm waiting for that day where we can get all the wood and sort this bit out here I will continue chopping down the rest of the plot this is the rest of the plot to be honest it doesn't look as daunting to me anymore because it is just literally half a plot now it needs all chopping back luckily it's still got all of the ground sheets under so I'll be able to pull them all off and sort that out and then I'm going to chop all the back down chop all that down over there this is going to be a very exciting bit because this is going to open it right up and it's going to be insane I've never seen a view that way before so that's going to be very very exciting I don't know if you can really visualize what it looked like I've had to delete my footage because I've got so much footage on my um on my macbook that it's like I'm running out of storage so I haven't got the footage from it I will get it one day I'll download it again but it was just grown up to there I mean you see the back of the plot over there it was basically that the whole plot was that and it is looking so much better now right I'm going to leave it there today guys because I am absolutely exhausted I don't know how long this vlog will be but um obviously I said some of them will be shorter because I'm doing so much work uh but I've got a lot done thank you again for all of your kind words um all of your encouragement and inspiration I hope that that's what these vlogs give you uh if you've got a new allotment plot and you're struggling I hope that they give you the motivation and inspiration you need to keep going I will see you again hopefully if it doesn't rain too much because we are predicted some rain if I can get down here I will see you again on Friday if not it will be Monday but I will let you know in advance see you then guys happy gardening bye