SOWING SEPTEMBER SEEDS / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

[Music] Good morning everyone. Welcome back to my a lotment diaries. My name's Emma. These are the a lotment diaries. We are in September slowly but surely moving towards autumn now. So the jobs on the a lotment plot are going to change from sort of, you know, pottering around kind of summer jobs where you're just looking after the crops that are growing, doing some weeding, doing some watering, harvesting things, and then we're moving on to more autoutuminal jobs. So clearing away things, mulching over the beds, preparing the plot for next year, and of course doing those big jobs that need doing on the a lotment that maybe you can't get done in the spring summer because things are actively growing then and it's just not kind of logical to do it when you've got so much to look after. So this year I'm going to be replacing the pond, redoing the entire pond area. It becomes an overgrown mess every year. And I absolutely love having a wildlife pond, but it just becomes overgrown and so difficult to manage. So, it needs completely taking out, redoing the whole thing. Redoing. Um, maybe I'll make it a little bit bigger as well because it does dry out very quickly. It's a really small pond. And yeah, that's going to be my main kind of huge autumn job. It's going to take me a little while to do. I want to do it properly, get it right. Is that Einstein already? That is Einstein already. He's already turned up. Already turned up. There he is. Right. We will um feed the bird. Um go and check on everything in the greenhouse. Have a little look around. See if the fox has been back cuz foxy has been causing a little bit of damage. Think it might be baby foxes sort of just having a play and stuff because the damage they're doing is quite minimal but just sort of annoying more than anything. And then I've got some seeds to sew today. So, it's going to be quite a full-on day at the a lotment plot. But luckily, blue skies and sunshine. So, yeah, really lucky with the weather at the moment. Right. Okay. You Yeah, I can hear you. I can hear you. Right. [Music] Come on in. Oh my gosh, he's waiting for me. I can't believe it. He's waiting for me. Look at him waiting for me so patiently. Oh, Einstein, you're back. [Music] [Music] Morning tomatoes. How you all doing? Good, good, good, good. Oh, it's a bit bit messy in here. The greenhouse has definitely seen better days. The cucumbers, I'm getting a lot of questions about the cucumbers and what happened to them. Basically, they grew a lot of giant cucumbers and I didn't touch them. they've sort of become one of those crops that have been a little bit neglected. Um, firstly, I sort of forgot about them if I'm totally honest with you. Uh, I was sort of focusing on the tomatoes which have done exceptionally well. Exceptionally well. Also, I didn't really love the cucumbers. I didn't really know what to do with them all. I'm not quite sure why I grew them. I like cucumbers. I don't love cucumbers. And this plant has given me about millions. So, I did struggle with the cucumbers. Choosing what to grow on your a lotment plot is actually harder than it than it looks because you never know what crop's going to give you an abundance and what crops going to absolutely flop. And I tell you what, it's always the way that the things that you're sort of not that keen on tend to do really well. And the things that you're desperate to have, you'll get one one or two of. And that's just the way it is. And I don't know why that is the way it is, but it does seem to be a real thing when you're growing your own food. It's not logical. It's not scientific, but it's definitely some kind of fact. There's a fact in there somewhere, hiding in there. Search for it and you'll find it. Okay. Right. Tomatoes doing great. I think today the very first job I'm going to do is focus on this greenhouse. I want to grow into it over the autumn winter. I want to rejig it a bit before then. And um now is a very good time to get going with it. So, right. Okay. It's got the wheelbarrow. [Music] Right. [Music] These tomatoes are trying to take over the world again, aren't you? You're really not giving in. And I really appreciate that kind of stamina. I think with a job like this, it can be really hard to know where to start. And I think the best place to start is the place you least want to and the part that you're dreading the most is probably the part where you should start. Get that bit done and then the rest of it will kind of feel easier. That's my advice anyway in anything like this. Clearing, doing these big strenuous jobs, things that you're dreading, do the bit that you're dreading the most first. These shelves here have been taken over with bindweed and brambles. So this this is horrible. Oh god. And it won't even come off. It's just like, you know what it's like? It's like those vines from Jamanji. You know, the ones that just grow really fast and take over. What's all this? Bring out the big guns already. Right. This is the next area of dread and despair. So, we're going to get on with this bit now. This is just a Oh, spiders there as well. Go away. This is just a messy area. It's just become messy for no reason. Come on. Right, we will have to remove the cucumbers. There is a spider in the way. So, we need to remove the spider first calmly and humanely. No, don't land on the cucumber. Please don't land on the cucumber. Great. We've lost him. Fantastic. That's exactly what I wanted to happen. Not I don't know what we can do now because the spider's on the cucumber plant. And I'm not touching the cucumber plant if it's got a spider on it. So, we'll leave that for another day then. Fine. Right. That is actually looking quite a lot better. I appreciate I could have done a much much more thorough job, but actually in terms of just clearing it up a little bit. That's quite good. The cucumbers will have to stay until the spider decides to vacate the premises. This here that could have been done a little bit better, but I've got nothing to go in there right now. So, they will they will just grow back. You can see how prolifically the uh tomatoes have been growing again. Particularly that one on the end that seems so happy with life. I have cut these back a few times, but this one, I mean, look at him. I just feel bad cutting it back. I just don't want to. It's got loads of flowers on. I don't think we'll get many more tomatoes. But having said that, I thought that before. And we've got quite a lot in there, which is sort of new ones, [Music] right? It's actually 26.8° C in here. So maybe we will get more tomatoes. No, it's very sunny. Very lovely few days. Feels very much like a little blast of summer. So, we're going to make the most out of it. And we're going to sew some seeds. Got some seeds with me today. You can still sew quite a lot in uh September. So, it's not over yet. It's not over till the frost. We got some turnips. Absolutely love growing turnips. These are snowball ones. So, they're white white turnips. Lovely. Got some of those. Calibri. I don't think I'd be able to say that directly, but I might give it a go. Why not? What's to lose? the seeds, I suppose. But there we go. Um, we've got radish, giant of Sicily. Radishes. Radishes always do well at this time of year because they like a cooler temperature. So, that's great. And we've got some mustard. Red giant mustard. Amazing. Mustards. Um, and things like mazuna rocket. That'll all do really well at this time of year. So, there's loads that you can sew. So, let's go find some places for these. Right. Turnips and radishes I want together. Mustards in a separate bed. Calibri. That's an experiment. Okay. We better get rid of this first. [Music] [Music] Right, we are properly keeping on top of our compost heap. Now, we're going to have a lot of crops going into it as they're finishing. So, anything that goes into it now is going to be chopped up. Chop. Chop. Chop. [Music] Right. I feel like this might be quite a good spot for the turnips. Um, it's in between sweet corn and the leaks and and I think it will just make a nice couple of rows in there. So, we'll do it here. Right. Almost perfect. We've got a rogue sweet corn. He's fallen out of line, which isn't great. Right. I think we'll get a couple of rows in here. One there, one there. [Music] All right. Oh my gosh. Can't even reach in this bed. This bed is so big. I think I made this bed for things like broad beans and sweet corn cuz I thought it'd fill up the whole bed, but here we are sewing in turnips. [Music] Give it a pat down to make sure that it has contact with the soil. And then we'll give it a good water. [Music] [Laughter] [Music] right, radishes will stick in here. So, let's get all this out. Haven't had too many weeds in this bed this year. I think it's cuz it's sort of a fairly new bed, to be honest. Haven't really had a chance to grow the weeds. Right. It's quite a lot of space here, actually. Yeah, there a lot of space. So, just do a few rows. Maybe three. Three rows. Is that you, Einstein? What do you want? Fed you already. All right. These are nice big and chunky carrots. The um radish seeds. Gosh, I wish they were carrot seeds. Love to sew more carrots. So then we'll just drop them in here. I love bigger seeds. I think it's so much easier to be more precise and also to sew thinly when it when they're bigger. When they're little, they just kind of fall into nothingness and you always think you haven't sewn enough, so you overse. Not there's anything wrong with overse. Feels nice to be sewing seeds again, especially on a nice sunny day. There we go. That's the radish seeds in. So, I just cover them over like that. And then I just give them a little pat and just make sure it's got good contact the soil. And then we'll give that a little water. Doesn't stick in there. What's going on with you? Oh my gosh. Are you joking? Look. Look at that. Peekaboo. Look at you sticking your sticky little head out. So proud to be in there, eh? How are you going to get out of there? You can't get out of this way, can you? You can't. You're stuck. You're st How am I supposed to help you then? Sometimes in life, mate, you've got to go back to go forward. You've got to go back. Come on. You've got to Oh, he's in. He's in the water now. Now I've got to rescue a drowning snail. Can snails swim? No, he can't swim. He can't swim. Oh, mate. Mate, he's really trying to swim. I got you. I got you. Oh, mate, I've got you. Are you okay? Are you okay? Does anybody know snail CPR? Oh, mate. You poor thing. Feel so sorry for you. That's a really awful ordeal that is. Do you want something to eat? I'm going to give him something to eat. What do you fancy here? Do you want some corette? You fancy some of that. You can have that, mate. That can be yours. You can have it. You need it more than me. Poor little guy. Right. Where was I? Oh, yeah. Water in this. Right. [Music] for the other two things. I've got the Calibri. I think I might save the Calibri because I think that might be better sewn into a module at home. Um, and then the red giant mustard. I feel like that's going to be quite a big crop. So, what I'm going to do is come back to that. I'm going to find a bed that I can really dedicate. It might actually go in here, the mustard, cuz I might do some mazuna and lettucees and stuff in here. So, we'll come back to these. We won't rush into throwing seeds in the ground willy-nilly whenever we feel like it. It's not what we do here. We're organized. We're calm. Right now, I need some more apples. I'm making an apple cake, which will be in Sunday's vlog. When is this one going up? Monday would have been yesterday. Would have been yesterday. I made an apple cake. Hopefully. And today is the day that I'm picking the apples for the apple cake. If that's not confusing, I don't know what is. But there we go. I film these a little bit out of order just to make it super confusing for everyone cuz I just I love doing that. Anyway, apples. So, we need probably five or six. Let's not be uh crazy and take a whole bunch of apples home again. Let's just take what we need. Five or six apples, I think. Let's go. Still got so many apples in this tree to harvest. It's absolutely insane. There's no way I'm going to get through an entire apple tree of apples in one year. Next year, I'm going to have to really revisit this. In my defense, last year was the year that I pruned this apple tree, and I barely got any apples at all, as you'd expect when you really prune back tree or a shrub or or any kind of fruing plant. This year, they've gone crazy. I wasn't expecting it, so I wasn't prepared for it. And that's my defense. [Music] [Music] Right, there we go. I was very selective with the apples that I picked this time. I just I really made sure they were actually all okay. No holes in them, haven't been eaten by anything. Just so I'm not taking any dod ones home. I got about seven cuz they're quite little. So, going to make an apple and walnut cake, which should be really, really nice. I'm very excited to do that actually. And that's it. I'm going to go home. It's quart 10. I've been here um an hour and 45 minutes. That'll do it. It's all you need. Uh it's all you need, didn't it? And um I'm going to bubber off home now, have a cup of tea, and do something. Um probably design my planner. Actually, I'll probably do some work on my planner today. So, that's what I'll be up to. I hope you've enjoyed the vlog. Uh I'll see you again on When will I see you? Friday. I think I'm going to do two vlogs for the rest of September and then we're going back to three in October. So, I'll see you again on Friday, guys. Thanks for watching. Bye.