GETTING CHRISTMASSY ON THE ALLOTMENT / ALLOTMENT GARDENING

[Music] give me morning everyone welcome back to my allotment Diaries my name is Emma these are the allotment Diaries I currently standing in my shed I won't dare to sit in here just because of the amount of spiders but I'm standing I'm standing and it's progress to be standing in the shed today oh gosh you have no idea how much I'm panicking being in here my heart is like racing anyway I've come down today I'm wearing my um Christmas jumper the camera's pointed a bit funny isn't it wearing my uh Christmas jumper put today in my Rocky jumper I don't know if you can still purchase these on my um my merchandise site I don't know if I maybe I took them down because it wasn't Christmas if not I might put them back up but yeah this is my Rocky pushing over the Christmas tree at Christmas jumper thought I'd wear it today just because we're in December happy December everyone also while I've just been in the shed I've just noticed that everything in here is getting very very wet um I just checked my da is and like they're soaking wet I think the rain is getting through somehow I think potentially this is not a dry shed anymore I just opened out this one and the newspaper is absolutely soggy it's so wet uh so I don't think the dailies are going to be able to stay in the shed unfortunately unless I put them in something that's waterproof hello maybe potentially I could put it in here I appreciate this is not completely proof but I think it might be better than nothing remember they're in here and remember not to like burn them so this one got wet as well that's not good they're all wet no they're going to rot if they get wet they'll rot that's the problem with the daily is more in there all right I might have to take those home already drama we've only been here for like 30 seconds there's already drama at the plot the shed is leaking right I'm going to take my coat off a thing I've already done it so that's off right I'd like to make a wreath for my door to day little Christmas wreath because it's Christmas I like to decorate my shed I thought it might be quite a fun thing to do I've never made one before so I wouldn't trust myself making it for home but I went foraging the other day um with my kids and my husband um the footage is mainly just of me but just know that my kids were there and they were loving it it's such a fun thing to do with your kids to go like foraging in a park and just find things to make Christmas decorations out of so I'm going to insert the footage here of us foraging for the things to make the Christmas wreath so so enjoy [Music] all right so we are currently foraging in nonsuch Park which is in uh Chim in I think it's South London we still in South London probably found lots of bits so far so I'm looking for things that I'll be able to tie together to make a wreath for my shed um there's lots of like Holly uh pine cones things like that it's absolutely pouring down with rain of course it blooming is of course it is look at this tree that we found guys looks like it's been I don't know I said I think it's been struck by lightning but everyone seems to disagree with me but it looks like it's been stripped I thought I'm just trying to think of a logical reason as to why half the bark would be off a tree in this way looks like it might have been hit by lightning and just stripped or maybe it's just been stripped I don't know no I'm in all shaving we just trying to figure out what's happened to this tree so if you know what's happened to this tree let me know in the comments because um we very confused by it smooth they clb it it's like it shed its skin the trees shed skins yeah I don't think [Music] so such a lovely park non such Park here in Chim it's definitely worth a visit the only thing I would say is it's a shame there's not more benches and more places to sit down because it'd be really nice just to sit down sometimes but unfortunately you know it's just not not enough [Music] benches ah what are you doing in there hey what are you doing in there should I get them for you mate no don't go in there you might get stuck first job of the day always eh always feed my little birdie are all the Fig that I foraged so we've got the pine little leaves what this from a pine tree I've got some Holly that I found some of the Holly got berries is quite nice and lots and lots of pine cones brought this little wreath from Hobbycraft and it was only about F so I thought would use this and just sort of tie everything around it now I've never done this before so I don't quite know what I'm doing so I thought we'd start with sort of using this this stuff as sort of to build it up bit I might have to cut some of it or just break it like that and then what we'll do is you know those off cuts that I got from the sweet PTP I'm just going to use those probably don't need gloves on right now it's probably better to use wire but I'm just going to use this yeah nice nice nice and then I'll trim it I'll trim it all down as well right right here's how it's looking so far I think it's pretty good actually it's quite rustic looking do you know what I mean but I'm not I'm not a natural when it comes to this kind of creative stuff I feel like I like to be a little bit more creative at Christmas if I can but um it's just about whacking it on isn't it right I need to put the Holly on now um quite sure where that should go just sort of going to whack it on and see let's just see think there's any rules to this kind of thing or there shouldn't be if there is all right so Holly want to put it right there yeah oh if I can make it curve can I tie it in so it's curved yeah I like doing this sort of thing like I said at Christmas time I think it's nice to be creative and just give things a go not be afraid of what it look like and here's a quick tip for you if you've got kids and you make something like this you can always just say your kids did it no one ever says something horrible about something a kids made normally I mean normal people don't there someone came to the plot and said oh it's a nice Reef you know and you sort of know they don't mean it I just say oh yeah my kids came and made that and they go oh it's lovely isn't it lovely people are generally nice when it comes to kids not so much when it comes to adults I can't make it curve but a bit of Holly oh that's nice see I know what I'm doing there it's like I know how to do it it's amazing and the last thing I picked up were these um pine cones but some of them have sort of got the some of them have got this long stem on it so I thought it' be quite easy to put on so that's quite good isn't it so I sort of thinking of sort of poking those in yeah they just poke in oh that is excellent that is that is Nature's way of saying do that am I yes [Music] there it [Music] is that's not bad you know that's not bad that's not bad for a complete like amateur I have no idea what I'm doing but I quite like that giving the shed a little bit of a christmy makeover I put up the Autumn Leaves as well a lot of you hate these things things that I put up but I just I love them I love decorating my shed yeah I'm not it's not too bad you know not too bad got some pine cones in it got one Berry only one Berry survived the journey here that's a bit annoying um it' be nice to have a little bow or something on the bottom but I don't have any ribbon with me um but I might bring some ribbon and just put a little red bow at the bottom but there we go Christmasy little shed [Music] right apologies guys there seems to be some uh building work going on I hope it's not too annoying and this here is my Cletus and I've just as I was doing the shed I just noticed it I've completely forgotten about it um it's an Autumn flowering one so it's got those beautiful purple flowers I can't remember what it's called I got the label on it I am someone who usually leaves the labels on Plants so I know what they are all of my perennials over there have got labels on just so I know what they are but I've taken it off this one but it's basically that purple flowering Autumn um Claus and it needs to be cut back it needs to be cut back in the winter so when it's finished flowering and it's finished doing its thing it needs to be cut back it went crazy this year I didn't plant this in until like quite late in the summer I think and it's covering most of the shed so it's a really healthy plant it obviously loves it here so we're going to cut it back to the ground got my scissors let tell you what happened to my succer cuz I don't want to get into that before Christmas right so it will just grow back um I've got one in my garden at home and it does so well at growing back I think I'm going to cut it where should I cut it too maybe I cut it to here I don't know if I want to cut it too far to the ground oh better look it up right so I just looked it up online it says to about a foot I'm going to cut it to this bit here where all of this growth is coming out of that's where I'm going to cut it too so I'm just sort going to cut along there that so about a foot high but I'm I'm going to where I can see growth like a Buds and stuff I think that's probably the safest way of doing it that's scary whenever you have to cut something right back to the ground I find it really scary cuz I feel like I'm just killing the plant but it will grow back next year with new growth hopefully please do cuz I really like C it looks dead to me it looks utterly dead my God have I just killed that are you dead no it's got green in it so it's still alive right right yeah please don't die oh God it went all up the window as well great wow it really Gro hey looks dead [Music] right so this here this little spindly thing I don't think you can even see it in shot to be honest hang on a second right so this little spindly plant down here is actually one of my blueberry plants I've got two planted at the front of the archway and they you need more than one because they need to sort of help each other I think they sort of pollinate each other and that's how you get fruit and stuff so it's good to have more than one blueberry plant however somebody told me every time we don't need your input right now we need my input honestly unable somebody told me in the comments that the reason why my blueberry plant has sort of gone bright red in the Autumn time is because it hasn't got enough acidic soil so another word for acidic soil so another word for acidic soil is ericaceous soil so they if you go to the garden center and you see all those bags of compost you might see one saying ericaceous um it B Bally means it's acidic and it's good for things like blueberries or um what else is it good for other fruit bushes however this stuff fur tree stuff so all your Christmas tree stuff um is actually quite acidic and it creates an acidic sort of soil so it's good to mulch your blueberries and fruit bushes with your old Christmas tree or if you've got any trimmings like I've got now um to mulch it with that now I don't think it would change the pH level that much I think youa need a lot of it and it's going to have to decompose and you know rot down into the soil and stuff but it's worth doing and I've got this over instead of putting it in the compost tap I'm going to mulch my blueberries with it I think it will help to chop it up a bit so sort going to do that sort of going to do that yeah that's what we're going to do brilliant it's my audition for gardeners World we're sort of going to do that there we go somebody wrote comment on one of my videos saying I don't think many people watch you for your gardening advice Emma and I was like No thank God 95% of it is absolute rubbish this is not a gardening advice Channel though is it and I keep trying to say that to people and then people watch it and ask me for advice and I'm like I don't know I'm just doing it it's more of a watch me do it and see if it works and if it works maybe try it that way that's what this channel is but that's a mouthful I can't write that on the channel page cuz it's too long Emma's allotment Diaries the channel where you just watch what she does and if it works maybe try it do so what we'll do we'll chop it up like this and just sort of scatter it around the plant maybe sort of mush it in a bit so it don't fly [Music] away h [Music] [Music] [Music] I just left my camera here walked all the way home I've just had to come all the way back to the alotment to come pick you up so thank you for watching today I left it because all of that building work's going on and I thought I'll leave it down there for a second and wait for it to stop and then I'll end the Vlog obviously I didn't come back so sorry about that not that you'd have noticed anything but I hope you enjoyed it today I will see you again on Friday everyone thanks for watching bye oh an idiot