LONDON ALLOTMENT PLOT TOUR- AUGUST 2024

[Music] hello guys welcome back to my lot channel so this video is going to be a little bit different from my normal videos I'm going to do a full-on August allotment plot tour I haven't really done one of these um for a very very long time I think but because it's August and everything's looking its best I thought it'd be really nice just to give you a really detailed overview of the allotment plot hopefully I can answer quite a few of your questions as well because I do get quite a lot of questions about areas of my allotment plot so hopefully this answers those so if you're interested in seeing around my allotment plot it's in South London it's actually two plots um so I have my original plot that I took on first and then my second plot that I took on quite recently actually just late last year so if you're interested in seeing around watch the video hope you enjoy the video um do subscribe to my channel if you're new I put up lots and lots of Vlogs all about my lopment plot and I will get started with the tour enjoy guys [Music] so I'm starting my tour here at the very front of my original allotment plot this used to be some uh lovely fencing there but it's become really overgrown you can see my pink shed over there let's start with the pink Shed So at the side of my shed you can see I've got this palette and I use it just for keeping sticks in it used to be a strawberry planter it didn't really work all my strawberries just dried out so now I just use it for collecting sticks in and it is quite use actually my shed was probably my first purchase for the allotment plot it's quite a big purchase it's from forest garden um and I will link it below if you'd like to take a look at it I think it's 6t X 4T I didn't want anything too big but I just wanted somewhere where I could sit down when it rains and it's a bit cold and I could store my tools in and this shed just does does the job really we've got the two windows on the front the door with the pad look and I've got a Claus now growing up the front there which is quite good we do have some drainage going on on the side but it's not very useful and it doesn't really work so we'll ignore that and the color that I've used is cernol Sweet Pea [Music] pink right here's the view as you come into my my allotment plot it's looking very nice at this time of year um we've got my main crop potatoes here which I'm harvesting as I go and as I need them and then in the bed next to it we've got some peas beetroot carrots and this lovely pea structure that I [Music] made these are my children's old plastic balls from their ball pit that they used to have that I've just put on the top um and it's to stopped me from poking my eye out as you can see very hard to do with a ball but it's also in case I need to net my peas over I can throw net over and the canes that are quite sharp and and sort of jagged at the end won't tear the net so it's got many purposes one of the biggest purpose actually is that it just looks really pretty and I just really like it you can see that we've got all of the Nerium underneath which are just looking so beautiful and lots and lots of borid which has come out which has come out all by itself and the bees absolutely love this stuff so if you see the stuff at your allotment plot come up it's fantastic just leave it alone you can actually pick the flowers and have them in a salad if you like I get a lot of questions about these archways so these were from Amazon I think they were about 12 and I've just covered the whole thing in Garden mesh and you can see that I've got all the runner beans growing up it and all sorts of things really I think I've got some French climbing beans somewhere too and then asium are also happily climbing it and it's just strong enough it holds itself up if you know what I mean there you go it was a slightly unplanned Archway this year cuz I didn't really grow as much up pit as I wanted to but you can see that what little I have grown has just become it's just gone insane it's just gone crazy and it looks [Music] stunning so you can see the way that I've designed the allotment plot it's just one great big path down the middle and then rais bed coming off the side and that's so I can get a wheelbarrow down quite easily and just sort get to everything very very easily so so that's just the way that I've designed my plot just to be as simple as possible and then we've got the raised beds here so in this one we have got some Cosmos some lettuce some cerc in there and some [Music] parsnips on the other side I've got some uh sweet corn this is the Swift variety Swift F1 I think and um it's doing okay it doesn't get very tall this variety which is the only thing about it but I do have another variety on my other plot over there which I will show you shortly but it's doing okay then we have a mini structure here with some snap peas on and some rhubarb the um daia unfortunately just sort of perished you can't win them all you can't win them all I've actually had quite a lot of fa failures this year more so than successes I would say um one of them I would call this a sort of half success half failure because I sort of didn't realize what they were when I was planting them so I put a row of sunflowers in here and I knew they were the dwarf variety but unfortunately they're like really small they're like smaller than small you see what I mean they did say dwarf variety but I really didn't think they were this small so I think these ones are like the Evening Sun ones or something and these ones are very excited I mean I they are beautiful they are the teddy bear sunflowers with all these lovely petals and we are getting multiple flowers on them but they are just so small they're so short I don't know if this is something to do with the growing season or if this is genuinely how small they're supposed to be I mean let me know in the comments because I've never grown these [Music] before so now we come to the back end of the allotment plot the back end doesn't sound very nice does it but you can see immediately it's very very shady and that is all because of these lovely trees that I have here which Overlook my entire allotment plot a lot of people often ask me if I'm planning on getting rid of all the trees and I'm just not the birds love them I love them they also give me a lot of leaf mulch as well which is very very useful in the Autumn and a free you know organic material that I can put on my beds so I'm just sort of trying to work with them instead of against them unfortunately this year here I haven't really managed to grow anything substantial in the shade here but I'm learning and I will get [Music] there so I'm going to walk you across now this little pathway that I've made connecting my original allotment plot with my brand new one which I've just made a path through the trees and it actually looks really Whimsical I love the way that it's turned out it's just beautiful so you just go through the trees down the [Music] pathway we've got more bunting up in the tree because it just looks so pretty and then here's our little pathway with our with our three new beds at the back of the plot so in this one here we've got some main crop potato it's doing very well taking care of itself really in the next bed we've got a te pee which I did try and grow some things up we do have a little bit of sweet peas coming here some of the sweet peas survived but this is just one of those failures that I was talking about this year's just been really difficult and the Slugs and snils just absolutely went to town on my sweet PTP so I just didn't get anything substantial from it unfortunately it's a bit of a shame but there we go that's just gardening life I think then we've got my other variety of corn I'm very proud of this look how tall it is it's so tall and we've got some really exciting looking cobs coming on it as [Music] well there is an apple tree on my new plot I did find it I found it buried like in between lows of weeds so I sort of rescued it and then we had this awkward area of the plot here with the tree stump so what I've actually started to do is put in some more perennial um flowering plants here which I think will attract pollinators and hopefully turn this area from looking a bit sad and neglected into looking something really [Music] beautiful so then the pathway comes around to my bigger Archway this is actually not an archway it's a poly tunnel frame so this used to be my poly tunnel unfortunately the cover got all like bashed about and torn in the storms so I took the cover off moved it to here and I've covered the entire thing with Garden mesh again and I'm just growing an array of things up it so I've got like runner beans and pumpkins and all sorts of things I'm not sure if I will get a poly tunnel again I'm not sure if it's worth it I do find them a little bit more hassle than they're worth cuz you have to make sure that you really like protect them from storms and stuff they can get damaged so easily they're also quite expensive for what they are all it is is just a little bit of frame and a bit of material that goes over the top and you know they're sort of over100 I'm not sure if they're worth it personally but if you live in a colder area maybe it would be worth it I just don't think it's worth it here personally I've had two now and they've both torn and broken in the storm so I have decided to turn it into a frame for growing things over a giant Archway and I'm loving it so far [Music] at the beginning of my poly tunnel um growing frame I have got a couple of blueberry plants and um this is their first year but they are producing blueberries now and they're looking very very nice I heard that it's always good to have more than one blueberry plant because they can sort of help to pollinate each other so I've got one here and then one just on the other side which is also doing well but not giving me as many blueberries but still the plant looks absolutely fantastic there and the front of my new allotment plot you can see is very very shady and again that is the result of all the trees that are just overlooking my allotment plot again I don't think trees are so much of a burden um I do get plenty of Sun in other areas of the plot and I think it's just about learning what likes to grow in the shade I've done my best with it this year but it's something that I'm still learning what what plants can survive really well with um quite a lot of shade you know and the answer usually is things like peas brassas potatoes those crops can kind of cope with a little bit more shade so that's what I've been trying to put into the front so we have our Brassica bed here which unfortunately has just all gone to flower this year because of the Terrible Weather that we've had but I will be replanting some more brasas for Autumn winter in here and taking some of these out but brassas are quite happy in the shade I've got another pea structure here these are snap peas these are doing really well so I'm very excited to get some of those cucumbers probably do like sun but they do seem to be growing okay at the moment they've only gone in quite recently and then behind that we've got some radish and I've also just sewn some Perpetual spinach that's all very good in the shade as well this is my little cucumber structure that I made again with the colored balls on the end [Music] can't do a tour and not mention Harry the Scarecrow I made this scarecrow it was supposed to keep birds away from my brasas cuz they kept coming down and eating um all of my brasas cuz they love things like that bird you'd never realize it um before getting an allotment plot or growing your own food but they love to strip the leaves of Brassica plants there you go there's some uh useless information it might be useful one day though but I made Harry and he's not done a great job have you Harry he's done his best but you know he's tired he's old he's getting old now so and then the last section of my allotment plot is this middle bit so I had the really big trees I mean they're absolutely beautiful I love them but they they are a little bit of a hindrance as well because I'm not entirely sure what to do with the area so what I have done is turned it into a wildlife area where all the wildlife can come and just relax and chill out take a minute just to chill you know have a drink have some food I got my bird feeding station here and I've got my little hot air balloon over there for the birds to land in not that they do but you know they might one day and then under here there is wild flowers Unfortunately they didn't come up this year but I have let it go a little bit overgrown so that they can all hide I know I have a mouse hiding in here somewhere he's quite happy so not going to chop that back too much I've also got my Wildlife Pond which definitely needs uh topping up today with water it's a very hot day but you can see this is very overgrown as well and that's on purpose it gives gives all the creatures some shade somewhere to hide and then somewhere hidden in here there is a little hedgehog house I don't know if I have a hedgehog chug in there um there's also a little log pile gosh like the GFF my little wooden house and my little log pile house um and there's the pond just next to it there so this middle area of the allotment plot has just been a bit of a challenge cuz I'm not entirely sure how to tackle it but I am getting there slowly and I think a wildlife area is just what it needs [Music] oh and how could I forget this this is my strawberry bed right in front of my uh shed and strawberries are okay with a little bit of shade as well so this is in the shade here and it's it's doing quite well I do get quite a lot of strawberries from it so that's another thing that you can plant in the shade it's looking quite disheveled and broken but hey ho it's an allotment a lot of what you see here at my allotment plot is not perfect um I'm not a big believer in making things perfect I do as good a job as I can do but ultimately you know it's about plants and I just sort of let the plants kind of take over and they can be the ones to make it look pretty as soon as things grow over wonky structures you know the structure looks a lot better anyway because you all you can see is the plants that's what I say just use the plants as your camouflage you know [Music] [Laughter] anyway I hope you've enjoyed my lotman plot tour today if you have do subscribe and if you have any questions that haven't answered just leave them Below in the comments and I will get back to you as soon as I can or I will answer them in a future video thanks so much for watching and I will see you next time see you next time guys bye