BACK TO BASICS AT THE ALLOTMENT / ALLOTMENT GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS

I've never eaten one but I think I could. There's a massive bird over there and I don't know what it is. Guys it's a pheasant. Where's it gone? How can a bird that big disappear? Now he's gone I can't find him now but it was massive I swear it was like a pheasant. I've never eaten one but I think I could I mean if I caught that bird I'd definitely be able to eat it. Anyway if I see him again I'll try and film him but anyway how are you all doing? Hello welcome back to my allotment diaries my name is Emma these are my allotment diaries just coming into my allotment plot for the first time since the storm. It looks okay I mean I don't know why it wouldn't look okay there's not much here so yeah it looks pretty normal it looks like it did when I left it and what I mean by that is a blooming mess. We didn't end up getting too bad of a storm here I think it we got a lot of rain not a lot of wind really and not a lot of craziness I'm not sure what they were going on about but we didn't really get it here so we were very very lucky and we just avoided the whole thing yeah look polytunnel frame is all up everything's still here not even not even the cardboard blew away none of this blew away polytunnel was still sitting there quite happily yeah everything's still here. So how are you all? I'm so sorry that I missed the upload on Monday like I said it's weather depending of whether I can get here or not um the weather was actually gorgeous yesterday but I wasn't feeling 100% and this is not the place to be if you're not feeling 100% tip top. Is that the saying tip top or tick tack? I can't remember but yeah I wasn't feeling 100% so I was like no because when you come here it's strenuous hard work and you're out in the cold and if you're feeling a little bit funny then it's just not the place to be. I'm back today and I'm feeling really good um not feeling better anyway and I really there's a couple of things that I really want to do now so I've got it in my head the jobs that I want to do which makes it easier for me when I come here because I feel more ready for it you know I feel like I know what I'm doing a little bit um thank you so much if you've left me a review for my allotment planner 2024 uh I went onto Amazon the other day and there are quite a few little reviews that you guys have been leaving me with some really really lovely comments I'm just so thankful and I'm just so grateful for all the support that you've shown me with my planner if you still haven't brought one there's still time to get one before Christmas makes a great Christmas present you can get one before the new year or you can wait till next year and grab it because let's be honest allotment planning really starts sort of in the spring time doesn't it so around end of February beginning of March is a perfect time to start planning um if you haven't done it over Christmas but yeah just wanted to add in here thank you so much if you have purchased an allotment planner for next year and I hope that you're enjoying it and I hope that you like it and the effort that I put into it um I'm loving mine and I've rearranged my plot about 100 times I keep having to rub out my plans because I'm so indecisive but um it is useful to have so anyway let's get on with some of the jobs today so one of the things that I've sort of put off on this plot and that I see every time I come in is I've noticed this is my boundary and I've left all this growing you can see it's all very overgrown still and I keep thinking to myself why haven't I chopped this down why haven't I gone right out to there I think there's a couple of reasons firstly I quite like the privacy of having something growing around here obviously I'm filming all the time and also I just like this to be my sort of personal private little space that I can grow on do you know what I mean I don't want it to be too exposed secondly um it's quite nice to have a boundary to kind of keep the wind in keep the wind in keep the wind out you know what I mean like when it gets really windy here um it's good to have something growing around the sides that kind of stops it from messing everything up too much in here so I do know that I do want stuff growing quite tall around the boundary of my allotment plot I definitely don't want to put a fence in as such I mean I have a little fence but not like a tall fence you see where all this boundary is here so what I'm thinking is I will chop it back and get rid of it but then I'm going to put in some kind of bed here with some like structures along there like for beans and stuff and I have all the beans growing up here maybe some corn flowers and stuff in the summer time and I think that will just give me the same effect really also I have to admit I am slightly confused about the boundaries of this plot still and this lady who has this lovely beautiful plot next to mine um which is so lovely and well maintained she's never here at the moment I mean obviously it's like the middle of November um but she has sort of stopped her plot there I feel like that's where she's decided the boundary is but then her plot feels quite small in comparison to mine so if I take this here that's like a lot it's like a really big space then and I feel like maybe she could have this I mean I'm happy for her to have it it's just a little bit tricky because there's no clear boundary but what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna chop it back and I'm gonna build my beds in front of it a little bit and I'm gonna I'm gonna flatten all that so when I do see her in the summertime probably in the spring to be honest um but if I see it before I will tell her you can take that little bit if you want it because I've got enough space I don't need any more space and I do feel like it's probably hers not mine so I'm going to chop it all down anyway get rid of all the weeds there and everything and start building my beds here and then using that wood over there all the wood that I've collected from this plot to start making the structures and that's what I'm going to do today it's not that cold today so I think I'm going to take off my jacket I'm not shivering you know and if I am shivering later then I'll put it back on I don't know why I said that there's no need for me to say that on the vlog but you know I'm just talking I'm just talking through my life so isn't it sometimes when I don't bring a bag I put all my keys and stuff in my coat pocket and I get really scared when I'm working on the plot that I'm gonna like lose my door keys and not be able to get home um it's a fear it's a real anxiety and yet I do nothing about it I've never changed where I put my keys I just panic every time why do I do that why don't I just put my keys somewhere safer I don't know how my mind works right beans on the boundaries that's what we want beans in the boundary so we can chop around that tree first just because we are that's where I'm starting why is Einstein always got to put himself where I'm gonna chop now I feel bad Einstein can you move please just feel a little bit like I'm chopping into her allotment plot it doesn't really feel right I think the boundary should be the there's Einstein see what Einstein is there that should be the boundary along there oh I don't know now what do you think Einstein not sure just stop chopping stuff really is that what you're saying yeah I know I know so guys about half an hour later and I'm almost through um so I've gone all the way through here I've just got that little bit there at the back to do which is quite exciting so I think I'm going to do that now get that down I think it's definitely going to let more light in doing this I'm quite excited about it actually I didn't realize what a massive difference it would make but it's definitely going to make a difference I like I said I think some of that is probably I'm going to leave it for her for her plot so I'm just going to cut it back and sort of leave it um I think I'm going to take my plot from halfway halfway through this mess basically because I think that's officially mine just feels like too much just feels like too much plot for me like it doesn't feel right so I'm just not going to take it um and then she can dig it over and have a flower bed there or something I don't know whatever she wants and yeah let's do the last bit down here this is exciting we're almost there feels quite monumental going through that bit that's the big bit oh my gosh I've never seen that bit of the allotment plot before in my life we're technically we're through look at that you can see the whole rest of the allotment plot this is amazing imagine what this is going to do for the lighting and my plot oh so good okay cool so now we just got to clear it and uh sort of make it into something that's not a mess I've just got to come back here and have a look at it oh it's so monumentous that bit monumental monumentous you know what I mean because it's really just opened out the whole back of the plot I don't know if it looks any different on camera I know the lighting's very bad today because we've got so much shade here but it really has opened up the plot I'm so excited about that right I think what we'll do we'll work it in bits as usual otherwise it's going to get very overwhelming very quickly so we're going to work on this little bit here I think let's start there let's just see if we can make sense of this the jobs will come to us we don't need to know them right away sometimes when I sort of do a job like this I find it quite hard to know what to do next like what's the next logical step I knew what number one was number one was chop it down number two sort of rake it over a little bit number three I'm sort of stuck on you know it's like a test and I've got stuck on question number three so do I skip to question 10 or do I try and figure out number three there's a lot of canes in there a lot of blackberry canes more than has been in the entire plot I want to get rid of them because they're just going to grow back and grow all over my allotment which I don't want um I also want to put a fence up here I also want to put a bed in and do a bean structure but I just think that's all too much right now I need to start one step at a time can you just see the amount of these canes coming up that's going to take me ages to dig out that's a whole job in itself and then I'm sort of looking over here and thinking okay I haven't done this bit yet so let's go back a step let's take it back a step let's go back to doing the beds and finishing the front of the plot because this is very much looking almost complete you know just a bit of a shift around and carry on doing what I was doing and this would be done so let's take it back a step just sometimes it feels like there's so much going on and there's so many different little jobs to do everywhere you know I've still got to do all that around there but yeah so let's just take it back let's just do let's just finish that bit right that's what we're going to do I don't know what the logical thing to do is by the way this is just how my brain works um yeah let's let's sort this out so guys I've been experimenting with sort of different layouts um for some of the raised beds at the front of my plot so you can see at the front here I put a great big round sheet down why have I done that well this is probably going to be a building here or a seating area or this part of the plot gets so much shade it's completely shady like all year round very hard to grow anything um like substantial um and then the front of the plot are going to be my brassicas so brassicas can handle shade very very well um so can parsnips because my parsnips are there and they're always in shade and they do great so I've got three beds here at the beginning I'm not quite happy with the layout of those I actually want to scoot them over a bit and stuff it feels like quite a lot of ground sheet but like if there's a shed here or something it's probably going to take up a lot of space um so I've got my kind of raised beds there behind that I'd like to have a sweet pea teepee and then obviously I've got my pumpkin archway there I'd like to have some beans along here to try and sort of hide a little bit from the neighbors I wasn't quite sure how to say that without sounding like I'm hiding from the neighbors but I I sort of want a bit of privacy and also a little bit of wind shelter and stuff like that um I think what I need to do is go home have a nice cup of tea and get my planner out and just start redesigning stuff again and rethinking it because when I've designed it I've just I keep forgetting how big the space is it is so big and it feels like it's a big space that doesn't feel like enough growing space do you know what I mean anyway getting ahead of myself a little bit because what I need to do is go back to basics I need to take it back a step and start designing and thinking about where things are going to go because it's getting a little bit scatty at the moment my brain's a bit scatty and then obviously I've got this bit here and the plan was to have this all out so that I could figure out that space but I think this might be the wildlife area just all in the middle but it's quite a big space isn't it for wildlife and maybe that's a good thing obviously I found the apple tree so that's going to stay I'm going to sort the apple tree out and then some of the trees are going to come down so it's still quite a lot to sort of figure out over here this space over here at the back now is amazing and that will get sunlight so I'm thinking that's a good place to grow some like sun loving crops not sure what yet but we'll think about it anyway it just feels like the space is sort of evolving and constantly changing and I'm having to adapt my plans and change with it which is fun it's exciting it's good but that's where I am right now with it so I hope you've enjoyed my little vlog today I'm going to try and get back here in the week and carry on with what I'm doing so I should have a vlog up on Friday for you if I don't I'll see you next week I'm going to do my best it depends on what the weather does and I will see you when I see you have a lovely gardening week thanks for watching bye