NEW ALLOTMENT PLOT PROGRESS / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Good morning everyone, welcome back to my allotment diaries. You might wonder why I'm not ever in my shed doing these uh intros and it's because it's full of spiders um I just can't go in there. I'm actually contemplating buying a new shed and just burning that one and using the wood. I'm not even joking there's not even a laugh at the end of that. They have just taken it over so that's a battle for another day I think. How you all doing? So I actually came down here yesterday, the weather was beautiful, it was so sunny and gorgeous and quite warm actually and today it looks rainy and miserable and grey uh but I didn't film anything yesterday. I brought my kids down with me and I tell you what, my kids have never done so much work on the allotment plot before. Like I was honestly so blown away by the amount of work they put in. They weeded most of the beds on my original plot, they really helped me out with my new plot. We stayed here for a good like two hours yesterday doing work and I'm so impressed with the amount of effort they put in. So um had a bit of a wobble for the last few days. I had a comment on my last video and you might have seen it uh you might see me talk about it on Instagram. Someone just basically told me to hurry up, I should be going a bit quicker and I think it hit home a little bit just because it's something I am quite anxious about and I am quite vulnerable about um it's my speed. I can only go at one speed, it's just me, it's just me here, there's no one else. I haven't got a team of people helping me and um contrary to what the commenter thought I don't actually have seven or eight hours every day to spend here. You know I only get like two hours at a time, maybe twice a week, three times a week if I'm lucky. That's all I get. I have a life outside the allotment, believe it or not. I've got two kids, a family, a part-time job, I've got a rabbit. Get a rabbit and then get back to me. But seriously I do, I don't get as much time here as I'd like to. Today I've got a little bit longer which is really good so I think it just got to me a little bit and it made me think oh gosh am I really not going fast enough but I'm going to show you the plot now and I'm going to put a couple of pictures on the side of what the plot looked like about four weeks ago and hopefully it'll motivate me and also help to remind you of like how far I've come and remind me of how far I've come you know. So here is the allotment plot now today as it stands and on the screen now I'm going to put a few pictures up of just what the plot looked like just like literally four weeks ago and I think you'll agree it's just such a big improvement. I know most of you can see that and I know, I know that most of your comments are very very supportive and I'm so thankful and a lot of you can see the work that's gone into it. I try and show you as much as I can on these vlogs but I'm also trying to make it realistic. I think there's a tendency sometimes with allotment you know like with online content to sort of show you the before and after straight away and actually it's not instantaneous with an allotment plot and a lot of people give it up and I sort of want to be the the person that inspires you to keep going even when you see everyone's looking perfect you know I want to inspire you and motivate you keep going it it doesn't happen overnight takes time and I have to remind myself that sometimes right there's a couple of things that I want to do today I actually want to do quite a lot today but I don't know how much I'm actually going to realistically be able to get done I do need to find some wood chip and I've emailed my local council to see when the next wood chip delivery is but I don't think they'll get back but if you know a company around south London that will deliver wood chip for free please let me know I have emailed a few no one's got back just yet they might get back there's still there's still time time will not run out time is infinite but yeah I need some wood chip basically so if you know anyone give me some recommendations south London is where I am free would be great I'm willing to pay a delivery charge maybe a little bit I don't know just let me know right I keep saying right like I'm gonna get started I haven't actually decided what I'm gonna do give me a minute right it's quite a long intro but I'm gonna I'm gonna start I'm gonna start by continuing the job that I was continuing with last time and I'm not going to film it because I'm just going to put my head down and do it when I get on to the next job which will be more exciting I'll come back to you but I'm just going to keep trying to clear as much of the plot as I can because I need to have it cleared it's so uneven I need to dig the whole thing over and like even it flatten it all out um otherwise the plot will be a nightmare for a long time so let's do that right I'll check in in a bit as you've probably been able to see from that I have been making some big changes so I did manage to clear a bit of the back um took me ages and now I'm putting together some raised beds basically so we've got one nice long one here to be honest I found this wood um so so I don't know what they are I think they're probably decking boards and just old bits of timber and stuff and you know how I keep saying I want to like grow in like raised beds and stuff well they're not really raised beds a raised bed you would have to raise up off the ground and then fill with compost right to the top I just don't have the money or the compost to do that basically so what I'm using the wood for is just as a marker and then as soon as like the plot sorts itself out and everything settles I tend to take the wood off because slugs and snails hide in it so when I say raised beds what I actually mean is I just need like something in the soil to know where the beds are and where the path is basically this is just how I did it first time so why change the habit of a lifetime you know so we've got two in here at the front and then in the middle of the plot what I want to do is have my polytunnel there basically um to grow all the pumpkins over so I'm thinking what I'm thinking is move some of that out the way bring the polytunnel over and start leveling around it sometimes when you've got a good idea the best thing to do or when sometimes when you've got a big idea the best thing to do is put the big thing in and work around it everything else to sort yourself out you know just start big and then work your way backwards I think that's the best thing to do right now enough of this working small so what we're going to do is go grab the polytunnel bring it over I just say that we'll just go grab the polytunnel oh yeah just just pick it up with one hand all right here we go now we'll find out how well I secured it into the ground to be honest I think probably not very well all right let's just grab the polytunnel she says let's just whack that in what I've done is I've actually done a bleeding good job of it and I've actually dug it into the ground so I'm gonna have to undig it I didn't ever think I would be undigging it but here I am undigging it so I did a blooming good job didn't I typical all right let's watch some more digging on my no dig plot that's quotation marks no dig why is there a carrot I think I'm just absolutely exhausted but that was probably the funniest thing I've ever found on my human plot why is there a carrot oh my god put that in my pocket and then I'll forget about it and later on I'll put my hand in my pocket and go why is there a carrot in my pocket why is there a carrot oh god so many questions did I even put carrots in there I don't know I've just stood in a puddle and it's gone over my wally look at my sock look at that that's allotment life that is that's not instagram life that's allotment life why did I stand on that what wally why am I like this in my head this is going to take two seconds it's going to be very bloody easy in reality it's not yep I just did it I just put my hand in my pocket and thought why is there a carrot in my pocket I just did it it's been like two seconds and I just did it I didn't think of the logistics of getting it to the other plot but we're just going to go for it now there's no going back now there is there is every chance to go back but we're not going to I don't know how to do it and other people here and they're watching me and they're staring at me and don't know what I'm doing maybe I should roll it should I roll it can someone please come and tell me what to do I look like a right idiot oh my god why am I doing this there's so many people here and they're all just stopped what they're doing and they're just watching I can't stop now I'm gonna roll it does this look weird when I roll it it's so embarrassing so we made it there it's there the only thing is I can't remember where the sun hits I think the sun's further back so I might have to wait to clear further back before I put it because pumpkins need sun like a lot of sun and I think the first two thirds of the plot is shade so here's a little overview of what we've done today we've built a couple of raised beds we started putting this down that needs to be wood chipped we've moved the polytunnel there and we have cleared a little bit more of the back though to be honest it kind of looks the same but I promise you it has been cleared a bit more anyway I think that's a job for another day I've done quite a lot today I don't know how much I have of this actual vlog to show you but hopefully enough to make a vlog and it will be up on Friday so happy Friday everyone because I'm just not going to have time to edit this for today keep going I think is just the answer just keep going just keep swimming just keep swimming and I'll see you all again on Monday have a lovely gardening weekend goodbye