I FINALLY DID THIS! / ALLOTMENT GARDENING UK

Good morning guys, welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma. These are the allotment diaries. I hope you are enjoying watching them. I'm certainly enjoying coming down here and making them at the moment. Especially with the weather being so lovely. It's going to be a lovely day today. Highs of 27 degrees, sunshine, a little bit of cloud. But most importantly yesterday we had some rain and all of last night it rained. So everything has had really good water which is absolutely fantastic. Could not have asked for more. Of course nothing in here has been watered because it's the greenhouse isn't it and the rain can't really get in here. Though I do have both windows open so maybe it did get a little bit watered. Everything is doing well though. Tomatoes are still tomatoing like crazy. I think I might need to prune them. I think I might need to cut them back a little bit. I can't understand any other way that I can keep them upright because they are just monstrous, like I keep saying. And I actually think I'm worried that they're going to snap and then I'll lose all the fruit. So there's no point having an overload of fruit if it's all going to snap and die. So I'm going to look at doing that. But first of all I'm going to go and grab myself a great big wheelbarrow full of manure because I want to mulch over one of the beds. So let's head out and do that straight away. Very annoyingly this sweet pea structure which has stood for ages, for months and months, keeps falling down. It's annoying because they're actually giving me more flowers. Look at all these flowers on here, it's amazing. I really don't want to lose it at this point so I'm going to just prop it up again. Again. The amount of new flowers that I'm getting on this sweet pea plant is insane. It's just amazing. It's like it's just re-flowering from the beginning again. I've got all these lovely new buds on here. So the last thing I want it to do is fall down right now. Even look on the other side, just loads of new sweet pea flowers. Actually some of these are quite long stems so I could still pick them and these ones here, these are my favourites with a little splash of white in there. They're sort of like marbled, I love them. I'm not quite sure how to make that stay, I think I'm just going to have to hope for the best. And then over here, my poor little peas that have been planted out and all that work I did with the twine. This is birds this is, I think this is birds pecking at it. So I'm not quite sure what to do about this. So they're obviously not happy with the twine so I'm going to take the twine all off. I mean luckily they've sort of pecked it into little strips so I can reuse it. I think it's a message, they've sent me a little bird message. We don't want your twine around here so I'm going to have to look at an alternative, maybe some netting or maybe some wire, I don't know. I'm wondering if they thought it was a worm. I mean it would have been the world's longest worm, they would have thought their luck was in, you know. Look at this huge worm I found guys. Right this is the bed we're going to mulch over today, it had the second early potatoes in. I think it's going to have onions and shallots in it so I'm going to mulch it over now with the horse manure and then plant into it probably December time, which gives it around six months, just under six months for the horse manure to rot down. I think the shallots and garlics will survive that. You shouldn't really plant straight into horse manure into like brand new horse manure because it will burn the roots of new plants so it's a good idea to mulch your bed with it about six months in advance. However that horse manure has been sitting there for about a month I think and I've got all the old stuff so I reckon I'm about a month in with the rotting down process. Fingers crossed it'll be okay by December but we'll find out together, we'll find out. Right now that we've had some rain and it was a really good amount of rain that should have softened up the earth there so I'm going to dig it out because I have potatoes in. I haven't yet dug them so I'm going to have a dig and see if we find any more potatoes. Fingers crossed we do. But it wasn't the greatest crop in the world, they weren't the greatest plants so I'm not going to hold my breath. We'll find out, we'll find out. Let's stay positive, hey? Let's try and stay positive. Oh yeah, a lot of you reminded me that I need to fix my fork. I will fix this at some point until then I'm sort of stuck with it so bear with me. I know it's annoying. I'm actually getting loads, actually loads more than when I pulled them up. What an idiot I am. Wow, wow wow wow. It's like a whole new harvest of potatoes under there, like a whole new, a whole new pile of them, really good sizes as well so I wasn't expecting that to be honest. I'm never quite sure when to stop looking for them, when to stop digging. I know there's definitely more in there but I can't dig all day, do you know what I mean? It needs to come to a point, I guess it's just when you think you've got enough potatoes. Yeah, oh there's another one, there's another one. I think also if you're really bothered about getting every single potato up, probably a good idea to grow them in containers or pots because then you're guaranteed to get them all up but if you grow them in the ground I think, I think you're always going to miss some. Right, let's mulch over this bed. I don't feel like the soil is great in this bed, I mean it could be a lot to do with the weather that we've had recently, it's just been terrible but it sort of doesn't feel like it has a lot of goodness in it. You can sort of tell just by looking at it and that might have contributed to the bad growth of the potatoes. Not that they were terrible but look, it's just not holding anything, it could be to do with the drought that we've had but let's top it over with some manure, add some real goodness to it. Right, so hopefully that horse manure will add nutrients to the soil but also help the soil structure because the more natural material you put on your soil, the better the structure of the soil becomes and the more nutrients it gets. So fingers crossed, we'll just have to sit and wait now. My two least favourite things to do. Absolutely dreading this next job because I'm not quite sure what I'm doing but it is time to prune the tomato plants, just to keep them upright to be honest, just to keep them upright. I'm going to try to work one plant at a time, if I can find one plant that is, because they're all together, they're all friends and this one, this is huge, like I can't understand. Right, I might need to be a little bit ruthless with it which is what I'm dreading to be honest but for example that bit, it's just fallen on the floor and I can't get it to stand up so it's gonna have to come out. Oh god, I hate this. So I hate this bit, I don't know, it hasn't got many tomatoes on so I'll take this bit off. They've all bent everywhere, I don't know what they are, what they're doing, this is a nightmare. I really just want someone else to come in here and do this for me like at night or something when I'm, when I don't know about it. Can you hire someone to come in and just prune your tomatoes, a tomato pruner, that'd be wonderful, what a great job. Oh god, I can see that it has just got to the point where it is such a mess, I just don't know where one, one plant starts and another ends. Right, that's a stem there, it's gone that way, I don't know where it's going, it's gone though, it's gone, so we'll just say goodbye to him. Where does this go? Oh this is part of that one, right, let's see, you're part of that plant mate, I don't know what you're doing in there, you're part, you're part of him, so who are you, who are you? God guys, this is awful. Guys, I've made a plan and the plan is to remove all the leaves on the bottom of the plant and then that way it's freeing up a bit of space and I can see what's what. That seems to be a good plan so far, I really don't want to lose this stem because it's got so many tomatoes, oh let's take one off, right, what is all this, what are you? Okay, that's leaves, because I can't see what you are, all that, all that's coming off, are you this plant? Yes, now, right, who are you? The way I'm talking to them, it's the only way I can do it guys. All right, I'm drowning in tomatoes. Just had the biggest snap and I'm really hoping it was a stick and not the tomato plant, oh god, it's my favourite plant as well. I really hope that was the stick, was it the plant? Is it that? Oh god, I think it might have been the stick, I really hope it was the stick, it's my favourite plant because it's got these lovely tomatoes, it's got my great big one on there which I love, that's looking better isn't it? Look at that, I'm going to keep going like this and try and sort out this monstrosity over here now. We are getting through it, I'm just really hoping that I'm keeping the plants happy, do you know what I mean? They're not just going to keel over on me, okay, this, you're, I don't know where you're going, oh where's it going? Why are you so big? Oh my god, you can't even stand up, you're so big, why would you grow this big? This is this pot, it's so big, I don't know how to stand it up, right, I really need like a really big stick, okay, this is the stick from the bunting because it's so tall, and then where are you? Right there, so if I picture him, sorry, in here, oh god, I don't want to pop that panel out. What's wrong with the ground? Please, can you just go in the flipping ground? Yes, that's it, oh no, don't do that, god, oh my god, what is wrong with the ground in here? Right, I just had to cut a lot of that footage out because I was using very bad language, sometimes those words exist for a reason. Ah, okay, it's not in the way I want it to go in, but you know what, it's what it is, so are you gonna sit on that stick now? If you don't sit on the stick, I'm just gonna cut you down, I've had enough, I literally have had enough, I don't even want tomatoes anymore, I've decided I don't need them in my life. No, you're not gonna go in that stick, are you? I've got to here with them, and I'm literally, I've literally had enough, I've literally had enough, I don't know what to do, the stick won't go in the flipping ground anymore, what, why? Right, I just want to take a second to apologise for all of the tomato saga in the last few vlogs, you have probably been so annoyed with me, screaming at the screen, telling me to prune my tomatoes and cut them back and sort them out properly. I've finally done it, guys, I've finally done it, I just knew it would be a very stressful, tedious job, and what's the temperature today? 34.5 degrees celsius in here, so even though they say it's cooling down, it's not been my experience, guys, I don't know what the weather people are thinking. Look at this, look at this, this is a huge improvement, this is an insane improvement, and I've tried to keep as many, like, tomatoes on the plants as I can, so the only thing I've really chopped off is leaves, and then just a few stems. I have lost a few tomatoes, but not that many, and I think this is so much better. What an absolutely huge improvement is that, I'm so thrilled with it, I'm absolutely made, I'm made up with it, that was tedious, I'm sweating, I didn't enjoy it, but I am so glad that I did it, and I think the tomatoes will be happy too, please be happy. Right, I am gonna have to call it a day there, guys, I do hope that you've enjoyed watching my little allotment diary today. If there's any area of the allotment plot that I'm missing out on, that you really want to see, that I've just sort of neglected, do let me know. I just come here and do the jobs that I sort of feel I need to do, but if you're dying to see something, see how a plant's doing that I've mentioned before, just let me know in the comments, and I will be sure to talk about that plant in the next vlog, because I know it can be frustrating sometimes when I mention a plant, and then I don't go back to it, but hopefully you are enjoying these. I'm really enjoying making them still, and loving coming down to my allotment plot. The weather's looking like it's going to turn in the next few days and become quite rainy, a bit overcast, a bit more windy, so we'll see, we'll see how it goes. They say that, it doesn't, it's not always the case. Anyway, I will see you again on Friday. Have a lovely rest of your week, guys, see you Friday. Thanks for watching, bye.