THE POND HAS GONE! / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] Hello again. Good morning everyone. Welcome back to my a lotment diaries. My name is Emma. These are the a lotment diaries where I just vlog all about my a lotment plot here in South London. That's right. We're in London. Welcome to London, guys. Welcome to my peaceful gardening vlogs. Not. Yeah, it definitely can be a little bit overstimulating here at times. Sometimes though, sometimes on those rare occasions, we get blue sky. We get just bird song and it's super peaceful. And it's those moments that I do it for, to be honest, because living in London, there are not many spots and not many places you can go to that give you that kind of sense of peace and tranquility. I think we may potentially be the only ones on the site today. Ah, and this is the reason. This is the reason. When I woke up today, I looked at the weather app. Oh, that was the fox. The fox has scared. God, he's running fast. Who's he running from? What's he done? He's running from the law. I checked the weather app and it said wind all day and we've actually got a bit of a warning for wind. It's not a yellow warning. I think it's just moderate wind warning. But when I looked out the window, it didn't seem that windy and the sky was blue and the sun was out. So, I thought I'll come down here. I'm sure was that bird that just Oh my god. Shut the windows. I noticed that some of my new seedlings have actually started to spring out the ground. So, let me go and check let's let's go and show you those quickly before it gets too windy. These are the radishes that I sewed with you literally last week. Look at the three rows come up. How amazing is that? To be fair, this is exactly the kind of temperature and weather conditions that radishes love. Maybe not the wind. They do love the cooler temperatures. We've still got the longer days. We've still got sunshine and none of them are flopping over. So yeah, if you want to stick something in the ground now, stick in some radishes. Right, let's check on the other seedlings. Is there ever anything more exciting than new seeds coming up? Like it doesn't matter when you sew them. It is so exciting. Yes, the turnips are germinating. They are coming up slower than the radish, but I can see the row. I'm not sure if you'll be able to on camera. Actually, right over here, this is where it is most obvious. I don't know if you can see the little row, the little neat row of turnips coming up. Right, this is the area I'm going to work on again today. It's the wildlife pond area. So, I'm going to clear away this entire area. Today I'm going to work on all the rocks around it because I've got lots of rocks around my pond. I'm going to collect them all up so I can reuse them and we're basically redoing the wildlife area. So this is the big autuminal job and this is what I'm going to be working on today. I'm going to do a little bit of work on it every time I come down here until eventually the whole thing's done. I'm not going to rush in and do all of it because I'll lose motivation. So it's looking good so far. And yeah, that's going to be the first job of the day. Right, let's go get our gloves on. [Music] I was going to reuse this And then the bottom fell out. Actually, this might be quite good for growing carrots. Then I'll keep this for carrots. I think [Music] Oh, look at the size of you. Look at the size of this guy lurking under there, honestly. Oh, I better move you. All right, come on, mate. I've got you. Oh, no. Look at that. That's snail eggs. That is Is that snail or slug eggs? Oh, no. That is definitely not something you want to see on your a lotment plot. Come on, mate. I've got you. I've got you better hiding from Einstein. Einstein, I have him [Music] So, I'm currently weighing up whether I can keep the pond plants alive out of the pond for long enough to get my new pond and put my new pond in, or will they die? If I just keep them really well watered, can they survive out of the pond for a bit? I mean, there's hardly any water in there now anyway, and they're surviving. So, I'm going to say yes. Right, we're going to do it. We're going to try. Right, let's go for it. Let's pull them out cuz they are in containers as well. So, you know, right, I've got this little tray here filled with water. I think I might sort of temporarily keep them in there. Right. So, they're in a little tray of water. I don't know how long they'll stay alive in there, but hopefully just for a few days until I get my new pond in. Um cuz I really need to start taking all this out now. [Music] That is so funny. The pond is just I've just literally just pulled it out with ease. That is crazy. That's my pond. Oh my gosh. That is crazy. This pond has been here for as long as I've had the a lotment. It was one of the first things that I did when I got here. Literally just came and dug a hole and put a ground sheet in the bottom and filled it with water. Little did I know it would last five, six years. This is the sixth year of the pond. I remember digging this shape. It brings back so many memories. I remember the shape. I remember digging it and making this end shallower and that end deeper. That is actually crazy. But obviously, I mean, this is one of the reasons why I'll show you the ground sheet. That's it. That's been the base of my pond. So, you can see that it's not great. I mean, it's not exactly how a pond should I mean, is it how a pond should be make? I think you can make it like that, but this is definitely not specific. It's got holes in it. It's not a specific um like ground sheet made for ponds. Yeah, it's got those holes in it. That's probably why the water was draining away. Right. So, progress with the pond. Progress with the pond. This now should be much easier to dig out this entire area cuz I can kind of get underneath all the roots. I have to admit though, the area itself is already looking better. So, I think this is a really good idea to tackle this this year. And hopefully I'll make a really nice proper little pond area and we can attract some frogs at last. All these bricks as well. I found all of this when I was digging out my first a lotment plot. So, this is all just what I found. So, every time I dig out a big rock like this, it goes onto the pond and I absolutely love that. There's some great looking rocks in here, too, if I'm honest with you, you know, really great looking ones. And the thing is is I sometimes go to the garden center and do you know that you can buy rocks at the garden center and they're so expensive. And all of these, look at these giant ones. These are just what I found around my a lotment. I use the pond. I've even got some bricks here which look pretty good. It feels great to reuse stuff as well. It really does. Right, these gusts of wind are coming out of nowhere and they're getting really strong and I'm very aware that I'm underneath the tree. So, I think I'm going to leave it there with the pond today and move on to something else away from the tree. [Music] [Music] [Music] These early potatoes that I planted in this bed, I've never earthed up. I don't think they desperately need earthing up early potatoes, but I'm going to try and do it with what I've got. I don't think it'll be long before these are ready to pick and they have done exceptionally well. I had potatoes in this bed straight away this year. It's the first thing I planted and they did so badly and these are the same potatoes that I planted in a little bit later and they've done really well. Please explain it. Make it make sense. It's the same crop in the same bed. It's just a couple of months later that I planted it. Fussy little things plants, aren't they? Fussy. Fussy, fussy, fussy pots. The whole lot of you. [Music] Also, I'm noticing the compost in this bed. Like the soil is absolutely fantastic. It's such a beautiful color. It just looks great. And I really wasn't expecting like I mulched it at the beginning, but that's it. It's just taken so much time for the soil to get to a really really good state. And you know what? I think next year might be my year for this bed. Watch this space. Right. There you go, guys. Tuck you up. [Music] [Music] [Music] Right, it's actually getting quite crazy windy now. Um, dangerous windy. Wind is the one weather at the all a lotment plot that you cannot escape from. If it gets too windy, you must go home. You must go home because a lotments are not the safest of places in the wind. Rain, fine. Snow, ice, heatwave, you know, you name it, you can come. But in the wind, things get really dangerous. trees can fall down as we know because that tree branch has still fallen across the pathway. Who's to say that more of the tree won't come down? So, it's a very very real situation in the wind and we have to we have to take caution. So, there's a couple of things I want to harvest. I'm going to pick them now and I'm going to be off on my merry way and hope that I don't get hit by a tree on the way home. And I'm only half joking when I say that because I am slightly concerned by these uh wind gusts. They are getting worse. Right, we're going to grab ourselves a corette cuz this one here looks absolutely fantastical. Ever so slightly too big, but we're not going to hold that against him. That's not his fault. That's my fault. I can sense this corette plant is on the way out as well. I can I can sense it. It's coming to the end. So, we got to start harvesting everything we can. There he is again. Seems to be growing in a telephone sort of way. He's a bit squishy, you know. I don't think he's any good. I think he's rotted. That's a bit annoying. I didn't even see him till today. No, he's for the compost he is. Oh, that's a shame. Let's see if there's any more. Oh, no. That's a shame. I must have waited. This plant, it's got flowers, so it can't be that much on the way out. Maybe I should cut some of these leaves back. Okay, just pull them back. Gosh, how is this possible that I don't have any more corettes on this plant? I don't have any more corettes. I got one growing. I'd quite like to harvest some of the corette flowers, but I'm not entirely sure how to do that. Oh, there's a new one growing there. Maybe when this one gets a little bit bigger, I'll harvest it with the flower on top, cuz I'd really like to do something with the flower. This one over here still has his flower on. But the thing is is when they get a bit bigger, their flower sort of dives back. So I'm not entirely sure how people pick them with the flower on. Would that be right to pick now? I'm not sure. And then this kabi, we waited last time for him to get a bit bigger. And actually, he is bigger now. So we're going to pick him. Yeah. Fantastic. He's going to be great in a um colelaw. Going to make col Robbie colelaw. Oh, delicious. [Music] [Music] How about that for a pretty basket of tomatoes? How beautiful are those colors? I have picked some of the green ones. So, I've got a recipe. Um it's like a pasty tomatoey recipe and it says that you can slice and fry some green tomatoes for it. So, I did pick some of the green ones. That is absolutely beautiful. That is so enticing. Isn't it? It just makes you want to eat all of them. Right, that's it from me today. I hope you've enjoyed it. I hope you've enjoyed my vlog today and I've just inspired you to get outside a little bit. I know I didn't do too much here. I've harvested a few tomatoes. Got my Cole Robbie, done a little bit of weeding, got lots of things um lined up in the in the next few weeks. And the knitwear is back. The knitwear is back, guys. So, tune in to see what fabulous jumper I will be wearing on Friday. I will see you again on Friday, guys. Thank you so much for watching. See you next time. Bye.