CLEARING THE FLOWER BEDS FOR AUTUMN / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

[Music] [Music] [Music] Good morning, guys. I appreciate the camera is a little bit wonky. I just can't seem to figure out how to make it not wonky. Is that better? Oh, that might be better. I put a seed pack underneath here. I think that's better. How are you all doing? My name's Emma. These in my a lotment diaries. It's not going well so far. I'm joking. It's going well. It's fine. I've only just arrived to be fair. I've come down this morning because we are juicing sunshine this morning and some blue skies. So, I'm trying to time my visits with when the weather's actually nice to be here. I was sort of dreading these um autumnal kind of months because you know me, normally I drag myself down here come rain or shine, which is fine, which is absolutely fine. I mean, I'm not scared of the rain. I'm British. If I was scared of the rain, I'd never leave my house. But I was sort of thinking, do I really need to be down here when it's pouring of rain? No, I probably don't. I did the hard work on this plot. I've, you know, I worked an entire autumn and winter in rain, shine, snow, frost, mud, just to get it all under control. And now I've done it. I need to reward myself by coming down on days where, you know, the weather is sunny, it is nice, it is pleasant to be here. I don't need to be standing in the rain. So, I think that's um really helping with my motivation for the a lotment knowing that I don't have to come down if it's pouring of rain. I can stay at home, have a hot cup of tea, do something else. But today, today is lovely. It's sunny, blue skies. It's going to be a really nice morning. And so, I've come down to do some work. I did catch a baby fox. Are they cubs? Is it a baby fox a cub? Um, but he was lying in my little flower bed just sleeping and he jumped up when I arrived and ran off cuz he knows he shouldn't be here. He knows. But he doesn't seem to have done any damage anywhere else. He was just snoozing. So, there we go. The plot is looking particularly messy today and it's really annoying cuz I was only here 4 days ago and I felt like everything was in order and I did a lot of weeding and I was like, "Yeah, things are looking good." 4 days later it looks very, very messy. Again, I think that's just another side effect of the autumn, isn't it? The rain and um the messiness in the garden. Anyway, we are going to do some weeding today. I'm going to weed the flower bed around the apple tree. Um that is the part that really does need doing. This part under the apple tree here, I've got lots and lots of beautiful shrubs and flowers and perennials under here. And you wouldn't know because it is such a weedy mess and it really needs to be sorted out. You can see the lavender's been overgrown with weeds and things. I mean, it's very frustrating because it has the potential to be so lovely under here. I mean, we really just haven't quite got this area right yet, you know? I mean, I really think it takes years and years to get any kind of garden area right and correct. And it's always so amazing when you you go you visit gardens and like they're so immaculate and beautiful and you just think, how long did it take you to get it like that? Because honestly, it t I think it takes years. Year years of learning about your soil, years of figuring out what plants work, years of tampering with it and sorting it out. There are a couple of plants in here that have failed this year. And I'll tell you why. So, you see this one here, and I can't for the life of me remember what it's called, and that shouldn't really surprise you, but this one here, and there is another one behind it. I put these in specifically because this area got flooded on my first year and these plants here love boggy wet conditions. They love sitting in water. So I put these in and what happened this year? We had a heat wave, didn't we, in a drought. Typical, huh? So it's not like I haven't tried my best to adapt plants to this area to choose plants that I think will do well. It's just that the weather changed and all the conditions changed. So, the plants that should have been happy here actually were really unhappy this year. Do I take them out? I don't know because what's going to happen next year? It's going to be a rainy summer. That's just the way it works. So, anyway, we'll put on our gloves. We'll roll off our sleeves and we'll uh we'll get to work. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I've got some lovely flowers in this flower patch. This is um how do you pronounce it? Is a scabia scabius? Scabas. Um and this is such a nice flower to grow. It spreads like wildfire and it's really good for the butterflies and bees because they can really land on the flower cuz it's so open. This is just lovely. but it's been hidden with all of these um weeds that just grown up around it and tried to strangle it. But yeah, there are a really nice selection of plants in this area. Oh, that's a uh that's a plant. I've got to be careful what I pull up and what I leave behind. This, on the other hand, is definitely a weed, but I'm going to leave it because it is upright. It looks beautiful. It's flowering and it just sort of like it matches all the colors I've got here as well, the pinks and purples. So, I'm gonna leave this one. So, not all the weeds are coming out. After all, a weed is just a plant that you didn't plant. You know, [Music] [Music] [Music] Right, it is definitely getting there. It is better than it was before. I'm going to call it a day there because I cannot spend the entire time here just weeding this one spot. Like I've made a really good start on it. But the thing is over the autumn time you will get more and more weeds coming up because the temperatur dropping. There's more rain. There's still some sunshine. Oh, bye. But yeah, you know what weeds are like. They'll just come back again and again. So you're sort of fighting a bit of a losing battle. It's just about trying to keep on top of it now over the autumn months before it all dies away in the winter. Anyway, as I was doing that, I was looking around. I was thinking so much of my cosmos is flowering. My cosmos took ages to flower this year. I don't know if that's normal or not. Has your cosmos flowered yet? Let me know in the comments. But so much of mine has just started to flower. And I'm thrilled cuz it means the flowers are going to go on for longer. And it's given me some new pops of color on the plot. And I just love it. [Music] [Music] Haven't [Music] checked on these. These are main crop peas. Um, you know that nothing I put in later in the year ever tends to do very well at this plot. All of my spring summer stuff sort of grows quite well, but anything I try and grow over the autumn winter tends to die other than brassacas. Brasacas do well. What on earth is that? Is that a duck? Why would there be a duck up there? Right. Anyway, yeah, these aren't doing great. I won't rip them out, but I'll just sort of I just won't put any hopes on them anymore. I won't put my hopes and dreams on these peas anymore. But I tell you what is doing well, the beetroot. Beetroot seems to be doing really well at this time of year on my plot. So, I think I'm going to hopefully get a little harvest of this. I'm just going to take out the weeds that have grown in between it. But yeah, the beachroot is just doing amazing. Oh, please keep growing, guys. Please. [Laughter] [Music] Where are you? Might just chop a bit of this back. Actually, this is uh I don't know. I can't remember. You always tell me what this is. I don't use it for anything. And um it's just a big inconvenience really. I'm going to chop it back a little bit. We won't be able to see Einstein when he comes. [Music] Also, apparently Einstein can't see me. So actually birds don't like their feeding area to be overgrown because then they can't see you. He wants to see me as much as I want to see him. You know, he's watching me. I'm watching him. You're watching him. You're watching me. He's staring at you. We're all watching each other really. That's what this is. We're just watching each other. Just watching. It's a bit of a tangent there, but I think you get the idea. [Music] Pond. The pond. The pond. Where is the pond? I know. Exactly. Exactly, guys. The pond is the biggest job this autumn. I am literally ripping this entire thing out and starting again. This whole thing needs complete ripping out. Um, the pond has been like it's way overdue that it needs sorting out properly. It becomes overgrown every single year. It doesn't seem to matter what I do to it, how well I weed it in the early months. I've got shrubs put in here now which I thought would kind of overtake the weeds. It hasn't. There's wood chipped down. Nothing. Nothing works. And also, the pond is so small and so shallow that it dries out like that. Like you get a little bit of sun, all the water's gone. So, this entire area is going to be my autuminal project. I'm taking it completely back to basics, stripping it right back down, digging everything out properly, and then we're going to put in a proper pond for next year. So, that's the autumn project, guys. And I will get underway with it soon because it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. Wow. But it's going to be worth it, I think. I can hear him, but I can't see him. And that's the wrong order. Want to be able to see you and not hear you, Einstein. Come on. Right. We're sick of it. We're sick of the complaining. Where's the mill worms? We're sick of it. [Music] Oh, it's going to blow away. Oh, no. Stop. Come on. [Music] By some miracle, all of these carrots have suddenly started to grow. And I can't believe it. There's like new There's like new seedlings coming up. It's almost like the carrot seeds were just waiting for safety, you know? Waiting for fox seed to disappear. There's a couple of weeds in here. I just want to try and get out. It's a bit annoying. I don't want to pull the carrots out. Oh, careful carrots. Yeah, carrots are looking really, really good now. I'm actually wondering if we'll end up with some autuminal carrots. I've literally just said um in a previous clip that like autumn stuff doesn't grow very well here. And I've just shown you carrots. The brassacas are doing really well. The main crop potatoes are fantastic. The beetroot is thriving. I mean, what am I talking about? Rubbish. [Music] Another year and another failed area of the plot. The same area failing again and again. I really don't know what to do with this area at the back of the plot. anymore. I've tried two poly tunnels. They flew away and became super overgrown. Just a nightmare really. This year I put in sweet corn and pumpkins. Didn't grow. All died. I've got some flowers at the back which are doing really well. Um they are sha shante shatzy daisies. Like a perennial kind of daisy that comes back year after year and gets bigger and bigger. That's doing really well. But then that would do well anywhere. I mean, I could plant that on a nuclear power plant and it would do well. Maybe another compost bay. Should I just make another compost bay here and have two? Can you have too much compost? I don't think so. Ideas, ideas in the comments, please. I am completely stumped with this uh little section. The thing is as well is it gets so much sun, so much sun, but nothing grows. Why? Make it make sense. These daisies here at the back, these will come back. These will be very happy here. They are thriving. I'll just cut them back to the ground um as soon as these daes are finished. But this will come back year after year. So that's not a problem. Look, more cosmos at the back flowering. How beautiful is that? That is absolutely stunning. Really strange looking, but beautiful. Sweet corn just didn't work. Just don't know what to do here. [Music] You know what I really, really want to do? I want to have a look at other people's plots. I'm not going to do it today because I think there's quite a few people here. But what I'm going to do next week, one day, is come here super super early and just have a walk around. Maybe I'll show you as well. I don't think people mind if you look at their plots, especially like I won't say anything mean about them. If I don't like it, I just won't say anything. But I think it's a good idea to get um ideas and stuff from other people's a lotments, especially on your own site. Because remember that when you have an aotment plot, even though it's like a little patch, it's a it's like a patchwork quilt of gardens because we're all growing on exactly the same land. It's just one big field that we've divided up. So, what's working on someone else's a lotment plot is likely to work on your plot because you've got the same weather, the same pests. What was that? Was that a bird or was that tomato plant randomly moving? Why would you just move like that? What are you doing? Sorry about that. But yeah, we're all um we're all growing on the same land. So, it is nice to get ideas from other people and just see what they're doing. And then if I can maybe get some ideas for the the dodgy area at the back, maybe the area over there. see what other people are are doing, how they're keeping the weeds away and stuff. So, yeah, I really need to do that, I think, next week. Have a little have a little nosy round. And um yeah, I think it's going to absolutely pour down. I can't believe we started with sunshine and now it's like this and I don't have an umbrella cuz I gave them to my kids to be nice. I was like, "Here, have the umbrella. Have the umbrellas." I am going to pick something today. I'm going to go back to the brassacas and have a look and see what we've got growing. I did cook with that seavoy cabbage. It was delicious. But I didn't film it cuz I tried a new recipe. So maybe I'll pick another one and then film it for my Sunday vlog. But yeah, let's go. Let's go and see what's growing in the brassica bed. [Music] There are two massive seavoy cabbages. So there's this one here just around the corner. Look at this one. And they look absolutely fantastic, don't they? It's only really the outside leaves that have been munched. The middle is pretty much untouched. That is fantastic. I'm going to pick the smaller one, I think. Oh, absolutely love Seavoy cabbages. I know I've said that before, but they are absolutely delicious. And I will share what I do with this on my Sunday vlog. I promise. [Applause] What I need is a knife. [Applause] There he is. That's That's a decent size. That one is. So, I'm going to share what I do with this on my Sunday diary vlog. So, I vlog every Sunday at 9:00 a.m. And I show lots of recipes with all the crops that I'm picking from the a lotment and sometimes on things that are in season, but I haven't managed to grow myself. So, I do cheat a little bit, but I do try and share as much um of what I do with the produce as I can. But yeah, I will share this. There's a spider in this, and I didn't notice it, and now I'm freaking out. I'm going to have to rid this of the spider. But yeah, he's a decent decent little size. The spider moved. Okay, it's fine. It's okay. Oh, and there comes the rain. Here comes the rain. Fantastic. So, I'm going to have to end the vlog there, guys. I hope you've enjoyed it today. If you have, do subscribe to my channel. Uh, we've got lots of autoutuminal projects coming your way soon. And I will see you again when I see you. I think Sunday and Monday. And then next week we're going back to three videos a week because I've got lots of stuff to do. So I will see you again Sunday or Monday. Thanks for watching, guys. Bye.