SUMMER BULB PLANTING / MY SMALL LONDON GARDEN

Good morning everyone. Everyone, welcome back to my garden diaries. My name is Emma and I put up a video every week all about my home garden here in South London. I'd love you to subscribe to my channel. Um, if you haven't already, if you're loving these garden vlogs, I'm really liking filming them. I think I say this every week, but I'm just really enjoying showing little snippets of my home garden this year, which I didn't really do last year. So, it's just been nice to see like the changes and, you know, what I'm up to and like the progress that I'm making. It's a very noisy day here today. Can you hear all the background noise? We have got building work going on. We've got cars going past over there for deliveries and stuff. Um, there's building work going on in one of the houses over there. We've got airplanes going over, trains, the wind, birds. This is very typical of London. This is literally a typical day in my garden. Normally, I wouldn't film today cuz I'd be like, I'll wait for a quieter day. But actually, you know, I want this to be a bit more realistic, this vlog, and show you real life in a South London garden cuz it's never normally quiet. There's always some kind of background noise going on and that is just life. But it doesn't mean that we can't make it a little oasis, does it? Um, I'm going to start by showing you the mess in my garden just to keep it real. Let me show you the state my garden's in at the moment. I mean, it's not terrible, guys. You know, I'm being a little bit dramatic, but but basically, we had some rain this week for the first time. And I did Oh, it's the wind. I did manage to get out a couple of times, but I had to sort of run back indoors. So, things have been thrown all over the place. You can see there's like little corners here where there's just lots of rubbish sort of been collected behind stuff. The rabbit run is still out. There's a little corner here where I've been emptying pots and bulbs and stuff and just sort of gathering it in a little corner for unknown reasons to me. I don't even know why I'm doing that to be honest. This is all looking quite nice around here. Might need a bit of a tidy up. And then the table that needs a bit of a tidy up. There's a few bits of rubbish on the floor. Just keeping it very real for you today. So, the very first job of the day is going to be just to go around and tidy up the garden and just get it organized and looking nice. So, let's let's do that first. Oh, also a very quick note on my little mirror idea for the window. A lot of you said that a mirror is not a very good idea because apparently birds can fly into it. I don't think they will here if I'm honest. It's quite a small window, but actually I have decided against the mirror idea. I think what I'm going to do is put up curtains and I'm going to take this down and put the curtains up inside. And I think that will work much better. But thank you for all of your concern about the mirror cuz I hadn't even thought about birds. Right, that's a bit better. A little bit more together. I can see what I'm doing now. There's a slight problem behind me just over here. The clemetus is getting out of hand. It's the same clemetus I've got growing up my shed at the a lotment plot. It's a purple one and it's an autumn flowering one which I absolutely love because it gives color in the garden sort of August, September, October time which is just lovely. It's got beautiful purple flowers. I can't for the life of me remember the name of it, but it's just gone absolutely haywire. It's gone crazy. Same as at my a lotment. And I need some more support here. This is the uh the plant in question. this one. Now, for a long time, this little square of trellis was enough for it. Honestly, it was it was more than enough. Now, it seems to be growing all the way up here, which is fine. It's got that little bit of trellis to grow up here, but it's going into my apple tree, and it's sort of clinging on for dear life. So, what I was thinking is it needs another bit of trellis up on this fence here, and I need to train it across at the back of the apple tree, which I think would be really nice. These are raspberries coming over from my neighbor's garden which are very very pretty and I will just leave them alone and let them do their thing. But I want the clemetus behind the apple tree. Thought I might be able to tie it in. I think I'm going to have to screw it in. Okay, let's go get the drill. put the screws on the grass and now I can't find him. All right, found him. That is a really nice looking bit of trellis, isn't it? That is really smart that is. It really blends into the to the fence. I love that. Right now, we got to train our clemetus over it. So, where's those bits of string? Right. Okay. It doesn't look perfect yet, but hopefully as it starts to grow now, I'll be able to continue to train it right along this new trellis here, so it's not in the apple tree. I appreciate you probably could grow in the apple tree, but it's just a bit small, isn't it? Sort of pulling it down a bit. So, this apple tree needs to be a lot more established before I let something like a clemetus climb in it. Right, these are my brasas I brought absolutely ages ago. Look how sad they look. They need to be repotted into some lovely new pots before I'm ready to uh plant them out. I think we've got what have we got here? Broccoli, cauliflower, Romanesco, and some more broccoli. They urgently need potting on. Right, I've got this Westland Pete free multi-purpose compost with John insinners in I don't know. Anyway, it's for everything. And I thought those poor brassacas could probably do with some proper multi-purpose compost to go into. Give them a bit of a feed, bit of a boost. sometimes think it's so funny that I've made all these lovely little seating areas in the garden and I always end up sitting here on the edge of the patio. It's just like my favorite go-to place to sit. I even come and sit here with a cup of coffee. I just love sitting on the edge of the patio because it's so warm and lovely. I kind of get this like ground level view of the garden as well, which I just love. See, I'd be happy without a table or any chairs at all. Just give me a patio, you know, or a log or something and I'll just sit on that. I just Thought these poor brassacas have probably been sitting in this greenhouse watching all the rain come down thinking how are we going to get some of that water guys? Really neglected them, haven't I? Oh, the poor thing. Mind you, for like plants that have been so neglected, they are actually looking quite good, aren't they? So, not sure what that means, but means sunny. Heat. Heat. I hate these plants. I don't even remember what they are, but I absolutely hate them. I brought them for the front garden because they're supposed to do really well in the shade. Give you some nice white flowers in the autumn winter time and then go nice and green in the summer. And I just hate them. I hate the shape of them. They're just not growing the way I want them to. And obviously they become a bit neglected. So I'm going to take them out and replant these pots in this old pasta jar. These are renaculous. Is it bulbs or corns? Renaculous something. Oh gosh, they really look like spiders. I can't. I just can't. They just look like little spiders. I absolutely hate them. I'm actually scared of them. They look like spiders. I hate them. I hate them. I hate them. But hopefully they'll grow into really nice, pretty flowers. So, I've soaked them for 24 hours. Actually, I've soaked them for a little bit longer than 24 hours cuz I forgot about them. Big surprise there. But I'm going to put these into the pots. Right, look away now if you don't want to see perfectly good plants be absolutely massacred because I appreciate I could keep these and look after them, but I really just hate them. I just hate them. I might need to redo the whole thing. Do I need to redo the whole pot? Oh, blinded. Is it just uh easier just to pull the bag? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. Right. I'm not sure how many, but sort of maybe Oh, I hate them. Oh. Oh, just all of them. Oh, let's just do all of them. There's a spider that is running away from them. That says everything, guys. That says everything. No, that can't be good, can it? Or is that a good thing? I don't know. This is mint. It's been growing in my herb garden and it's just taken over. So, it needs its own pot really. So, I'm putting mint in here. Oh, smells lovely. Hey again, guys. Such a noisy day today again. What can you do? Welcome to London. Um, I have got myself a big bag of gladioli bulbs. There are 100 bulbs in here. And these aren't the dwarf gladioli I was sewing before. These are the big giant ones. Um, so the ones that I put into pots last week in my vlog, they're like mini ones. They're like dwarf a dwarf variety. So they'll only get about that big. So they're very small and they're very good for pots. These ones. These are the big ones. These are the big giant gladioli. I don't know if I'm a little bit too late putting these in because obviously it is June already, but fingers crossed we get some. We get some of them. So, I've got a hundred 100. So, power tools. We're just going to plant them everywhere. Let's go. Right. Got my bulb planter. This is a bulb planter, and it's such a time-saving device. Um, I don't have one at the a lotment, but I do use it at my in my home garden. So, I like to make life easier for myself here and then really hard for myself at the a lotment. I don't know why, but this is honestly so easy for planting bulbs with planting depth 2 to 4 in. This does actually have measurements on it, but um I can't see them because it's become so rusted. If anyone knows how to get the rust off the tools as well, please let me know in the comments because I need to de rustify most of my tools at home. I think they go that way. Do they go that way? Oh, I think they go that way with the pointy end up and the flat end down. They can always turn themselves back around if I've got it wrong. Plants are amazing amazing things. Honestly, if you plant it the wrong way, it will, fingers crossed, turn itself around, find its way to the light. So, don't worry too much. I tell myself Right. You know what? We didn't quite make 100, but I think I got a significant amount in. I must have got at least 60, 70 maybe in. What's there even over a hundred in here? I didn't even count them. I didn't even check. So, they might have just been having me on. There might not be a hundred in here, but I got a significant amount in. I might take the rest of them to the a lotment plot. Pop them all into my flower bed. Um, I'm pretty sure we're not going to get fulls size gladioli this year because it says that they flower in early summer and it practically is early summer. So, but there's no harm in getting them in now cuz I don't think they'll die. So, as long as they won't die, I'm okay with it. Okay. I did see a lot of flowers that need deadheading. One of my favorite jobs to do is to dead head flowers. You just go around, chop off all the the dead flowers. It means that they produce more flower. So, it keeps them going and you just get more and more flowers. So, it's worth doing. And I'm going to go and do that now while the sun is out. Oh, the sun. Please stay. Please stay. Do you know there's a lot of aphids about this year? And I think these ones like turn into greenfly. Um because they're all green and there are some green fly on it. So, I'm kind of just assuming that they are the greenfly aphids, but there's a lot about a lot of my plants this year have got aphids on them. So, don't know if that camera is going to pick that up, but yeah, they're all over my GM and all over my roses and over some of my cosmos as well. And there are some bugs about taking care of the problem. But I am wondering if maybe they need a little bit of help and maybe I could just spray them and just help them out a bit. So, I don't know if the bug bugs are going to be fast enough. But apparently aphids and greenfly, they suck all the goodness out of the plant and basically kill it, which you don't really want to happen, you know. I'm seeing a lot of these weird looking bugs on the uh plants and I'm assuming that they're eating the aphids and that's why they're there. But please let me know. Are they helping me? I have a feeling they're my friend. Should I just lead them to it then? Maybe I should just leave them to it. I just went crazy on this GM. I just cut everything off it. I cut it right back down. Um, so it's like a neat little bush. And I I I sort of feel like I've done the right thing. I feel like it's going to come back even stronger. I think there's something called the Chelsea chop. And I could be completely off right now, but I think around the Chelsea flower showtime, which was about a couple of weeks ago, if you chop your perennials right back, like literally chop them back like like I just have give them a really harsh haircut, I think they come back again and give you a second flowering, that could be complete rubbish. But I'm sure I've heard that on Gardeners World before. But anyway, that felt like the right thing to do because this was becoming really straggly and I have a feeling it's going to come back. But stay tuned. Stay tuned cuz I will let you know. What do you reckon, guys? Will the GM come back again? Let me know in the comments. Right. So, you guys seem to really enjoy my little cooking segment in my last um Sunday vlog. So, I thought I'd do another one. At the a lotment the other day, I picked broad beans for the first time this year. So, this these are my first broad beans of 2025. I've also got a corette, which I had to buy from a shop. In a few months time, it will be crazy to me that I had to buy corettes cuz I'm going to be inundated with them. I've got four corette plants. So, I thought we better get started with the recipe ideas. I'm going to make broad bean and corette fritters, which is one of my favorite recipes. I haven't made it for a long time and I'm not going to use a recipe. I'm just going to go for it. It's basically corette raw beans mashed up with egg, chopped mint, a little bit of flour, and then you kind of make it into little balls, flat them down, and fry them. Quite simple to make. There will be specific recipe amounts and stuff, but I don't really use it to be honest. Are you surprised? No. So, the first thing we're going to do is cook our broad beans. I'm going to cook them in their pods. So, we're going to put their pods into boiling water and then we're going to depod them after. It's the easiest way of cooking broad beans. They don't need to be cooked for very long. It's not quite boiling yet, but you know what? Stuff them in. Stuff them in. Come on. In you go. In go. This big one is not fitting. No, you're going to have to, mate. You're going to have to. That's it. All right. There we go. It's just like giving them a really hot bath. So, just a few minutes they need. And then in the meantime, what we'll do, you can't see a bleeding thing here, but we're basically we're going to grate our corette. So, now you can see me. So, we'll grate this all up. Right, there's our corette. Right, we've got to um ring it out because it'll be wet. So, I'm just going to use a a tea towel. I'm going to sort of ring it out over the sink. Okay. So, there's our coette in the bowl. I'm going to go and pick some fresh mint now. There's mint. Oh my gosh, it smells so nice. And then we depod them and they should be Oh my gosh. They should just drip all over the floor. Nice and cooked. Broad beans are in there now. Stick an egg. The recipes normally say two. But I haven't got as much as what the recipe says. So I think one egg's fine. Mixy mixy. Just enough to bring the mixture together. That's probably right. Little bit of this. And then we just gently push them down to turn them into a flat fritter. There you have it. Little plate of corette and broad bean fritters. Honestly, so delicious. Obviously, I didn't season it. I don't tend to put a lot of salt into my food and stuff, but you can season it. Um, you can have it with a nice like spicy dip or something, tomatoey dip, anything you want really. Add anything you want to it. Yeah, just nice. Just like little mini pancakes really, aren't they? Little broad bean and corette pancakes. But just a great way of using up broad beans and corette. So, do let me know if you try this. This is just, you know, realistic cooking. It's cooking with Emma. What do you expect, right? I'm going to go and eat these in the garden cuz the weather is just looking beautiful.