SORTING OUT THE COMPOST BEFORE THE AUTUMN! / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

[Music] Good morning guys. Welcome back to my lotment diaries. My name is Emma. These are the a lotment diaries. I do not know how many times I have said that over the last 5 years. My goodness. I hope you are still enjoying my a lotment diaries. I know so many of you have commented to say that you are really enjoying my Sunday home London garden diaries and that just makes me so happy because I genuinely love filming them. I'm just having so much fun playing around with filming different days and then putting them together. And those are kind of the vlogs that I enjoy watching. I enjoy watching like um Jess at plot 37. I know lots of you follow her, but I love the way that her vlogs are very varied. So like she'll take you down to the park and then we'll go to the a lotment and then she comes home and she shows you her harvest and then she does some cooking and like there's a lot of chitchat in it. And those are kind of my favorite vlogs. But because I make three a lotment vlogs a week, it's just not possible for me to cram all of that in to these vlogs. So, these vlogs are very much a day in the life on the a lotment plot. It's just what I do in the plot. So, it's so nice to like be able to share a bit more with you on Sundays. And I'm so happy that so many of you enjoy it, too. Anyway, it is a lovely sunny day here today. I cannot believe it. We've got sun. We've got some sun. Feel like I haven't seen the sun in ages. 20 What's it saying today? 27.9°. Is he smiling? Don't be silly. No, he's not smiling, but it's 27.9 degrees. So, about 28° in the greenhouse. How you all doing, guys? Lots and lots of red tomatoes all around the place. Fantastic. Have to harvest those today. I think I say that every time I come down here, but I really need to pick them today. The very first job, though, unfortunately, it's the same job again. Um, my carrot bed on the other plot has been dug in by a fox. saw those pesky foxes this morning. They were hopping around like crazy. That's what foxes do. Hop around, galloping around, trespassing, whatever it is foxes do. Um, but the point is they've dug in my bed again despite the net. So, the net is not working. The wire thing I've got over the other one is working great. So, I've got some more carrot seed. Oh, did I just drop a load of carrot seed then? No, surely not. No, it's just the dirt on the top. Okay. Oh my god. I thought I just threw them all away. That' be it. Carrots over. So, we're going to reso them and rethink about our plan of protecting them from Foxy. [Music] Right. Oh, dear Foxy, what have you been up to? That's so annoying cuz some of the carrots have actually germinated. How frustrating. As you might be able to see, or maybe not so clearly on the camera, but there are footprints everywhere in here, which means he has sort of been walking around and digging. And you can see why. The net just flat flattens straight down onto it. So, that's not very good protection, is it? We need something firmer, more rigid, something he steps on and it doesn't break. Right. And what that other protection is going to be, I have absolutely no idea at this moment in time. So what we will start with resoing those carrot seeds. So we will get some water and water over the bed first. It's not that dry, but it's sort of not that wet. [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] Right. So, we're resigning the carrots of the Amsterdam forcing three. Quick and easy to grow. haven't proved that easy so far, but I don't think that's the seed's problem. I think that's the fox's fault. So, racking my brain now trying to think of something to protect this bed with. I really don't know. Right, we'll just scatter again. It's like we did before. Little horror. Now he turns up when I start scattering carrot seeds. Eh, you're a little horror you are. Are you after these seeds? He thinks, "Oh, that's a lot nicer than those horrible worm worms you got me. I don't like those worms. I'd like some carrot seeds, please." No, Einstein. No. Right. We're just going to shimmy them in. Though, this is not as easy as I thought. How about boards like planks of wood? Because I have a feeling that until carrot seeds germinate, they don't need light. What they actually need is darkness. So, if I cover it over with something like planks of wood, the fox won't be able to get on it. And also the seeds can germinate under there. As soon as they've germinated, I'll take it off and I might have to just put netting over and hope for the best. But yeah, let's do let's do planks of wood. I think that's a good idea. That's one. Will it reach? Oh, go on. Go on. You can do it. Oh, I don't really want it to go onto the carrots. That's better. [Music] [Music] Can't see the bird anymore. But you know what? I think we should feed him because he did turn up. So, let's give him some worms as a treat. Come on. I don't think he'll come straight away, so we'll have to revisit him. Um, but I'm just going to do a bit of watering while we're waiting. [Music] [Music] So, the compost situation isn't great. It isn't great, guys. I started really good with it. You remember if you remember at the beginning of the year I made these compost bays out of pallets and I was working so hard at making really good quality compost. I was chopping it up. I was putting the right things in. I was watering it regularly, turning it. I was doing too much to it if anything. And then summer happened and I started getting busy with stuff and just like I predicted, I mean at least I predicted it. I know myself. It sort of got away from me. So today I'm going to try and get back on top of the compost to make future me happy. kept saying I'm going to put it off to the autumn time, but I have a feeling future me is going to be very cross at present me who will become past me. Do you know what I mean? So, we're going to start by giving it a good old chop. [Music] Is that compost? What? This might just be in my head, but I feel like I can see the beginnings of like compost at the bottom. I feel like it is doing the thing it's supposed to do, which is to make me bloom in compost. That is doing it at the bottom where I've turned it. Oh no, I've got more potatoes in here. That's not going to be That's not going to be good. Look at that. It's really breaking down like compost. It's just all this stuff on the top. It just needs chopping up, I think. suddenly feel slightly more motivated and confident to do this now. Feel like it's actually working, you know? [Music] It's like the hard work suddenly seems worth it. You know, it's worth the effort. Right now that that's been chopped down quite a lot, I'm going to go and get some horse manure. We get so much free horse manure here and I do not utilize it the way I should. So, I'm going to go and get a great big wheelbarrow full and dump it in there. And I think that will really help. It will help to add nutrients. It help with the structure. It'll just help, I think. So, let's go and get some horse poo. Woohoo. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Okay. Okay, it is looking considerably better than it was when I first got here today, which is like success. Um, I don't think I need to worry about watering it cuz we are due quite a lot of rain over the next few days, but I'll keep an eye on it. And if we don't get rain, I'll throw some water over it as well. But I think that's good. I think it's right. I would cover it, but my cover is on the other bay. Believe it or not, this bay is completely covered. It's got ground sheet and it's got like a plastic thing in there, but the the potatoes have still managed to grow through. Aren't they fantastic potatoes? They have done so, so well. They're huge. I've never seen potatoes this big in my life. Ever. I think really all that's in here is some compost that I'd made and some horse manure. So, that's all I've grown the the potatoes into. Horse poo basically. You guys are probably desperate for me to pick these now and see what's lurking underneath the compost bin, but I'm going to hold on a little bit longer because they're doing so incredibly well. They haven't died back yet. They have started to flower, but they're not all flowering. I've only got like a few. And the pollinators absolutely love these flowers. So, I don't want to pull them up yet. They are kind of miscellaneous. You know, they are miscellaneous potatoes. I didn't intentionally plant these, so they feel like a bit of a bonus. So, I'm happy to sort of leave them to do their thing. And then hopefully I'll get my compost bay back. Also, this here, this is a potato fruit. It's like a potato tomato. Remember I said potatoes and tomatoes are from the same family. And sometimes potatoes produce these like tomato looking fruits. And that's it. That is a potato fruit. I think they're both from um the nightshade, the deadly nightshade family. You can't eat these though. These are poisonous. You cannot eat potato fruit. So if you see them growing on your plant, probably a good idea just to pick them and take them off just because you don't want the energy of the plant to be be going into growing something you can't eat. So it's it's using energy to grow that potato fruit. So just take it off, throw it in the compost. You can't eat it. The potato plant, you know, you're not going to take seeds and potatoes, are you? I mean, maybe you will. Maybe if you want to try growing potato seeds, go for it. But other than that, they are pretty useless. So in my opinion, if you see them, take them off and just take the energy of the plant away from making them. Put it into the potatoes under the ground. Yeah. So weird. You'd never think that potatoes and tomatoes are like related. They're like cousins. Isn't that weird? Ah, it looks like Einstein might have had a fleeting visit while we were busy with the compost. Didn't quite manage to catch him on camera, but it looks like he might have had a go at those worms. [Music] What an absolutely gorgeous day. It genuinely wasn't expecting it to be this nice. And I've worn a cardigan. How silly of me. Mind you, there is a breeze. And I am sort of all right in it. So, I think it's just in here. What is it now? Let's check the temperature. 30.4° C. 30.4. So, holiday weather. Holiday weather all the time in here. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited for the autumn winter, especially when it's colder and maybe we get some rain and I can still come to my a lotment and potter about in here. I'm so so happy with that. I'm so excited. Genuinely considering getting another greenhouse. This one that I got here, it's polycarbonate, which means that it's like plastic. It's got like I don't know if it's plastic or if it's there's a name for it. Oh, polycarbonate. It's polycarbonate. That's what it is. It's like a metal frame with polycarbonate um panels in which are like corrugated so they let the light in but they're not see-through. And I got it from debenhams.com. Such a random store, I know. But I typed in green houses and it just came up on my Google search and they always sell them at a discount. And I think this one would have been about 750. So £750, but I got it for under£300 which I think is absolutely insane as a discount. But then I don't know if it's worth 750 if you can get it for 300. Do you know what I mean? It's one of those you have to kind of weigh up. I mean to me it's worth it. To me it's worth £750. To me it's this is worth £2,000. I just wouldn't be able to buy it. But it's worth a lot to me because I love it and I enjoy it. Um genuinely considering getting another one and maybe growing like tomatoes in this one and then oberine and melons in the other one. Yeah. Just think of the possibilities guys. think of the possibilities having two green houses or am I just being greedy? Am I just being greedy? Anyway, I'm going to check on a couple of things to see if they're growing and then we're going to do a little bit of harvesting before we go. And that's the plan for the rest of the day. But first, I'm going to have a drink cuz it is sputtering. [Music] Main crop potatoes have come up. This is what I wanted to check. I sort of did see some green out the corner of my eye, but I was waiting for this moment to share with you. Look, all started to come up. Amazing. They're growing really well. Sometimes you can just sort of tell by touching a plant if it's growing well, but it's sort of got a short stem and lots of leaves and it feels very strong and not like long and dangly and weedy. So, they they're doing fantastic. They're obviously really happy in this bed. Don't know if it was me just being impatient before, but I was thinking, am I even going to get these main crop potatoes to grow? But they are growing. They are. So, I think putting them in a little bit earlier because technically these are my Christmas potatoes, but I normally put them in end of August. This time I put them in end of July because I never get a good crop out of them at the end of August. So, I put them in a month early. And the great thing about main crop is that they store really well. So, even though I might be harvesting these a bit early, so end of July, August, September, October, November, sort of end of November time I'll be harvesting them. I mean, technically that is Christmas potatoes because Christmas is basically December, isn't it? So, as long as the frost doesn't kill them and that's going to be a challenge for the autumn time. Join me then. See if we can keep the potatoes alive. Right, we have to harvest this corette in here cuz it's huge. But you know what? The plant is huge. Look at the size of the leaves. They're monstrous. This is a huge huge plant. Considering how worried I was about my corettes at the beginning. Do you remember? I was worried. I was so worried about them. I might have overfed them now because they're absolutely monstrous. They're beasts of plants. So many corettes forming. But I can see a whopper in there. Oh, that's not a good thing. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with a corette this size. Oh my gosh, it's so heavy. Oh wow. Okay. That is absolutely ridiculous. The the size of it. Oh my gosh. It's like a marrow. It's really heavy. That is an absolute whopper of a corette. My gosh, look at the size of it. It's actually so heavy. I could lift that as a weight. That is super exciting. I will try and make sure I do pick the rest though later before they get to this size. I'm like holding it like it's my child. I guess in a way it kind of is cuz I've nurtured it from a seed. I grew it out. I worried about it and now it's turned into a monster. How fantastic. Right, that's it for me today. I do hope you've enjoyed my little visit to the aotment plot. I will be back again on Wednesday. Have a lovely rest of your gardening week and I will see you Wednesday. Thank you so much for watching, guys. Bye.