CLEARING AN OVERGROWN ALLOTMENT PLOT / ALLOTMENT GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS

[Music] good morning everyone welcome back to my alotment Diaries I am feeling marginally better today I think when you get ill do you ever get that thing way you don't quite realize when you're feeling better and when you're not feeling better cuz you just never feel like you're going to feel the same again do you know what I mean so it's it's I find it quite hard to know when I'm feeling better but I think I am today still a little bit bunged up but um yeah definitely just overall feeling better just want to start today by sharing with you my beautiful Claus that I grew up my shed so I planted this a few months ago now I think it's a I think it's a Montana but actually you know what I thought it was a Montana but it's got purple flowers and I've got one of these in my back garden and I know it's an Autumn flowering Cletus and it's one that you cut right back down to the roots so actually I don't think it's a Montana I think it's a different type but it's absolutely stunning it's done so so well um and it's just doing exactly what I wanted it to do which is to go all up my shed so it's going to look really beautiful isn't it nice when you put a plant in the ground and it actually works and it actually doesn't die I've actually forgotten what that feels like anyway plot's still looking very overgrown so we're going to work on a few se sections today um I get a lot of questions asking how do you clear your allotment plot so if you go back in time into my videos um and I'm going to put a separate playlist up for these as well you'll know that this plot here was totally overgrown when I took it on and I worked really hard to completely clear it and put the structure in and basically start again and I think it I I show everything in great detail exactly what I did so it's a great starting place if you're not sure how to clear a plot go back look at those Vlogs and and see what I did basically cuz that's exactly what happened with mine this was just a jungle I mean it does look a bit jungly today if I'm honest with you it's not looking its best but we're going to work on that today but this video also might be quite helpful to you cuz I am going to start clearing some sections so today I am going to start with this section here under the tree as you can see it's become very very overgrown it's got lots of different weeds in here let's see if we can identify some how many weeds can identify after 5 years of an allotment plot well this is a bramble cuz it's prickly and it looks horrible so that's a bramble um we've got a lot of bindweed in here which you can see is like trying to destroy my lavender this is all bindweed this I don't know what it is but it's very pretty when it flowers but it it's it spreads like wildfire this one looks like it could potentially be borage but it actually feels quite prickly so I'm I think it's that horrible great big prickly weed that really hurts you have to wear gloves to get up so that's how we've identified that one this here this is a an ornamental grass which is starting off life very small but these these get really big and are very difficult to get out the ground these I would recommend getting rid of all of these immediately there's about as many weeds as I can actually identify there the point is they're all weeds and they need to come up oh my goodness oh what's happening to all my apples this is interesting so this apple tree I found on my new plot and um I did trim it back a little bit cuz it was a little bit overgrown but it's not doing too well now it's a really cute little apple tree it's so so cute it's small and it's kind of I just love it I wish it was standing up more though but it's it's not but the apples on it look what's happening they're sort of rotting from the bottom that's really annoying is something eating them are these being eaten by something I don't really know it could be that something like a caterpillar or worms or a slug or a snail or something like that is getting into them and eating them and to be honest if that is what is happening I don't really mind because at least a creature is eating the apples do you know what I mean at least they're they're nutritious or something if it's to do with the tree and the tree is not well that I'm a little bit more worried about um some of them seem okay some of them seem okay they they seem okay they also seem seem like a different variety I wonder if this is like a one of those trees that's like a hybrid cuz these are right bright red these are like bright red apples here and these are like slightly speckled anyway what do I know nothing nothing I'll be honest with you absolutely nothing about trees or apples or plants really I'm just here just whacking stuff in I don't know what I'm doing this apple tree's gone crazy um and all the apples are dropping over my plot I've got to clear these up before the waspies get to them [Music] [Music] one of my least favorite weeds of all time if I had to choose um would be bind weed um let me see if I can find some bind weed this is bindweed when it's in like active growth this is what the leaves look like and it's sort of long and spin ly like this you might see it dragging along the floor um or wrapping itself around stuff it has white flowers sometimes and under the ground if you find the roots they're like white and stringy um and this is the worst weed by far we call it bind weed because it quite literally binds itself to plants or to anything and it wraps itself around it um in order to dominate really and just to be the best weed do you know what I mean so an example here is um the bind weed has wrapped itself around my lovely sunflower and what it's doing basically it's trying to pull itself up off the ground so there it is here it is it's grown here it started to wrap itself up around the sunflower so that it can get all the nutrients it can get the sunlight and it stops the sunflower from being able to get all the sunlight it needs and it basically just strangles it I will try and rescue you right I've killed it now so it is dead that is an excellent start another bit look oh two of them working together they're working in cahoots to destroy the sunflower and I won't let them you horrible plant not you sunflower we love you the bind weed at that the amount of times it's binded itself my goodness look horrible [Music] my plants alone [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] right so once I pulled all of the weeds up and tried to get all the roots out I H it over this is a hoe If you didn't know um if you don't have a hoe get a hoe this is my hoe you can't have my hoe cuz we can't share hoes it's the rule you can't share a hoe um a hoe is basically it's sharp at the end like this it's like a weird looking shovel thing and then you just run it over the surface and it breaks up any of the uh the roots of the weeds so it's good to Ho over your beds every so often you just do this across the surface and it breaks up any of the smaller roots of smaller weeds it won't work on bigger weeds cuz their roots are a bit bigger but you can kind of just you can just do it before they develop into bigger weeds so this is what the space is looking like now as you can see we can actually see where the plants are all the weeds are down um looking a lot better so this is now this section has sort of been tamed and put under control again it would be very tempting for me to go around now and just try and do all the weeding in one go but you can't do that guys you have to select a section at a time if you try to do it all in one go it you will burn yourself out it will be exhausting because I'm not well I'm just doing that section today next time I'll come along I'll choose another section and I will clear that that is the best advice I can give you for clearing any allotment plot a new allotment plot an overgrown allotment plot just tackle it in sections and relax right I think next job I want to do is collect up all these Apples because what's going to happen is the Wasps are going to come over if they're not already and sit in them and as I walk past I'm going to get stung again so I always get stung also really smells not a fan of the uh the rotting Apple smell if I'm honest some people probably like that it probably reminds them of cider or something but for me it's just no thank you [Music] [Music] [Music] guys I've just spent the last like half an hour looking for my scissors if you get frustrated watching these trust me no one is more frustrated with me than me I was literally using them the other day and I just do not remember where I put them so there we go they've gone forever all I wanted to do was tie in these peas cuz I remembered that they were coming away from their structure and I just want to make sure that they're up against it a little bit so they don't blow and snap they're doing really well like they've got fantastic IC they got flowers on them they're growing really well they're very happy peas but yeah these guys are doing amazing but I just want to make sure they don't snap if we get windy day they will snap unless I come along and snap them first oh I'm sorry pleas I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry all right [Music] [Music] honestly you give them a structure to climb up do they climb up it no they just Panic oh that's annoying one of my beetroots been eaten I wonder if the rest of them will still be okay though I don't really know what's going on in here it's a bit like a jungle but basically it's supposed to be Beach root and carrot in here I can see a carrot there do we actually have a carrot can't see one can't see one oh there's lots of beetroot under here that's good oh wow that's really good I grew this from a seed you know that is crazy very exciting not many carrots though not really mentally prepared to harvest beetroot today um because I don't really know what to do with it right now I haven't thought about it beetroot is one of those things I need to think about what I'm going to do with it before I pick it um but what I have seen down here is very exciting so we're going to go and pick some of [Music] these so I have noticed that some of my tomatoes are ready to harvest I actually don't remember the variety of these this is one that I picked up as my tested tomato plant um from Bean q and I just whacked it in the ground to see if it would die or not to see if the the rest would be able to survive being outside and um it did so I left it in but I don't know what variety it is literally the worst allotment vlogger in history cuz I never know the variety of things that I grow but they're orange and they are round and they look very done so we're going to pick them and I'm going to try a couple of them today also these are doing fantastic cannot wait for these to be done please don't get blight please please please I'm begging you please do not get blight here they are looking so cool okay right we're going to pick some look at that what a be let's try it together Juicy M oh my God just spilled it all over myself all over my jeans fantastic lovely there is nothing like the fresh Taste of a tomato honestly it's just the best thing ever [Music] look one little Cherry oh my goodness are you kidding I was wondering when you were going to rock up here Rocky hi hi Rocky did you miss me when I was away been away for ages Rocky did you miss me did you miss me Rocky you didn't pull my sweet corn down did you you didn't pull my sweet corn down did you was it you was it you or was it the fox he just wouldn't do it to me just wouldn't his tail it's just like so [Music] long I just want to end the Vlog by saying a massive thank you if you have subscribed to my YouTube channel and thank you for supporting me on the ads that I take I don't take many ads but when I do take them I try to make sure I'm working with sustainable companies um companies that fit my values I just want to thank you for supporting me and supporting the ads that I put up it means a lot to me and it helps you know my family helps to pay the bills and stuff um I make a lot of content as you know I make three videos a week um which I've been pretty consistent with and I try to make them as entertaining and interesting as possible I sometimes take ads and it just pays the bills so thank you so much for supporting me with those I will see you again in my next Vlog which will be on Friday have a lovely rest of your gardening week see you Friday guys thanks for watching bye