A CRAZY, UNEXPECTED MORNING ON THE ALLOTMENT!! / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

[Music] [Music] Oh, you're back, are you? Oh, great. All our mates, the spiders are back today. All sitting out in their webs. Fantastic. They're in the same spot, though, so that's actually quite handy cuz I know where you're going to be. Good. Excellent. That's what we like to see. Good morning, guys. Welcome back to my alotment diaries. My name's Emma. These are my a lotment diaries. I vlog three times a week about my a lotment plot here in South London. Another beautiful day, blue skies, sun. So, obviously I've run down here. Um, it's just gone 8:00 in the morning. I'm already here. I am ready to go. I do really like this time of year because it is a little bit quieter than in the spring and the summer. It's almost like everyone's kind of wound down a little bit. Most of the crops have been picked. A lot of people's beds have been sort of mulched over, covered over, and left. And um, all just feels a little bit like the the chaos of the summer and spring has kind of ended. And now we've kind of got this like in between calmness, but not for me because I'm very busy over the autumn. I've got lots of jobs to do. I've got a new pond to put in. I've got beds to mulch over. I want to redo some of my pathways with wood chip, which is what we're going to do today. Before I get into this vlog properly today, I wanted to tell you a quick story about something that happened to me on the way to the a lotment today. Just something that happened to me that was just a bit out of the ordinary and made me, I don't know, just sort of was just different. It's just different. Anyway, let me just tell you a story. So, you know me, I'm a little bit scattyrained. So, I left this morning. Um, my head's all over the place as it normally is. I decided to sort of put my headphones in, listen to some music, just walk straight to the a lotment plot. Um, it's quite busy at that time in the morning, people going to work, you know, buses pulling up, people getting on the bus, getting off the bus. So, I'm sort of walking down the road as I do, headphones on, music on, in my own little world, in my own little bubble. So, walking like this. Yeah. I've got a physical representation of how I'm walking and I'm sort of ducking and diving and sort of, you know, out of the way of people. Take my phone out to change my music. I'm walking down the road like this. Boom. Bump into someone. Straight into them. Literally straight in as they're coming out of a Tesco Express. And I sort of look up in my days and I go, "Oh, sorry." And he he sort of goes, "Oh, it's all right." Carries on walking and I'm frozen for a minute because I realize I've just bumped into Bradley from S Club 7. Bradley from S Club 7 coming out of Tesco in the morning with a pint of milk. He walked straight into me, walked straight into him. I've turned around like this. No one else has noticed him. No one else is giving him the eye. No one else is second glancing at him or anything. I'm thinking that's Bradley from S Club. I've just walked into coming out Tesco Express 8:00 in the morning. Crazy start to the morning. Crazy. Obviously, I've texted my husband and said I've just bumped into Bradley from S Club. What's he doing in my local area? Does he live here then? Anyway, absolute mad. Madness is my chaos. Chaos. Right. I can hear Einstein squawking. Go feed that little birdie, shall we? I'll tell him all about my uh my celebrity encounter this morning. If you don't know who Bradley from S Club is. Google him. Just Google it. [Music] You come in then. Hey, where are you? [Music] [Music] He just landed on you. But there's another one. There's one over there. And now there's one here. One there. I don't think they're friends. Are you two not friends? [Music] Oh, okay. Wait for him to go and then you can come and get some. Yeah. I'm parenting Robins now. Yeah. Come then. You come and get some. I'll keep him away. I won't let him. I won't let him. You come and get some now. Oh, they won't listen to me. This one seems to be the boss. Oh, that sunshine is gorgeous. Oh, you're not straight. Little bit of sun on the face. Right. I'm looking around the plot. Everything's looking pretty good. Pretty in order. Must have done a good job when I was here last time, actually. Well done. Well done. Pass me. I think what we'll do, we'll go and get a wheelbarrow full of wood chip. As long as my wheelbarrow doesn't finally cave in and everything falls out of it. Hopefully not. Hopefully not. Um because I'm looking here where I wood chipped in front of the shed. And it's looking very good, very neat. So, I think it's probably worth getting a bit more wood chip for around the greenhouse area cuz I didn't top it up fully, did I last year? So, it's a good time of year to start doing your wood chip pathway. So, that's what we're going to start with, I think. Yeah. We'll leave the robins to fight fight to the death. But I hope they don't [Music] I have noticed that the longer this pile of wood chip is here, the more the leaves are kind of disintegrating into nothingness and falling to the bottom. And then on the top you've got more kind of chunkier wood chips. So that's a good thing I guess. So look, that's almost completely just wood chip. I love that. I don't really know why no one's taking it. Normally these piles of wood chip, they last about two two days tops. It doesn't matter how big the pile is and everyone will just come and take it. But this has lasted months and months. So obviously no one wants wood chips. So that's why I've been so sort of lax about it and just not not bothered to go and get it. But now is the time I think in the autumn now is the time and everyone else might start getting the same idea. So so far the wheelbarrow is holding up but I don't think it's going to take much more. I need a new one. Right. Let's see if we can get this back without it all caving in. [Music] [Music] Right. What we'll do, we'll clear the pathway a little bit. You can see we've got some grass and some weeds coming up here. And then we'll pop down the new wood chip. And you can see how much I need it. This is the ground sheet. And I don't want to see any of this. [Music] [Music] [Music] You can stay. You can stay. Is anyone else's nogium plants going absolutely crazy at the moment? My no stersium has just exploded in the last few days. A bit like the cosmos has as well. It's just no stopping it. It's October, guys. It's October. I should just mention as well that I did not plant or sew a single Nosters this year. This is all from last year. There are so many different varieties of nosters here. Honestly, loads of different ones. And I actually remember sewing and choosing them and planting these ones out. But last year on the first year that I planted them out, they didn't do great. They did okay, but they didn't sort of explode in the way they have this year. But this year, they've selfseeded. So like I said, I haven't planted or sewn any of these this year. This is all selfseeded nesters. They've absolutely exploded, gone crazy. I don't know if that's something to do with the fact that they now know their soil conditions and they know where they are and so they can kind of just get stronger. I don't know what it is to be honest or maybe there's just more seeds that have dropped and this is a billion plants. But I think a lot of people see them as weeds because they selfseed so like prolifically. So I think some people do see them as like weeds and get annoyed with them. They are edible. You can eat the leaves and you can eat the flowers. I don't love them. They're kind of like rocket. They're quite peppery, quite spicy. Um they're not quite for me. I don't really like them. Sometimes I use the flowers in salads because they look pretty. Um but they're a great plant to put at the base of like an archway because they really do just cover it like crazy and they just explode. And this year they've just done particularly well, but particularly well late in the season, bit like the cosmos. So, I'm getting all these sort of late blooms of flowers and it's beautiful and gorgeous, but when will it end? Are they all just going to suddenly die when the frost comes? I don't know. Stay tuned and find out, I guess. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] Right, that is looking a lot better and fresher. I'm very happy with that. Isn't that a pretty sight at the moment? I know I need to take this archway down at some point cuz it is all dying, but not yet. Not yet. [Music] [Applause] [Music] You see all this grass that's coming up in bed, right? I've never had a problem with grass coming up in this bed before. And the only time I've had a problem is when I've mulched it with um horse manure. And I think because there's a bit of hay in with the horse manure, I think there's a low grass seeds in there. And I think it's just sprouting up grass cuz this is really good quality grass. This is excellent grass. It's just I don't want it in the bleeding bed. But because the horse manure comes with all that straw and like hay in it and stuff, it's just um it's just growing grass in all my beds, which is really frustrating. But obviously, I'm going to keep using the horsemanure cuz it's so good for the beds. Just a side effect. I think a drawback side effect, you know what I mean? What are these? Are these beans? Are these those bean plants that I put in the in the horse mirror to see if they grow? I think they're growing. They're growing really well. I'll just leave them to it. I think. I'm not quite sure. I've got flowers on them, so maybe I will get some beans. Yeah, I think these are beans. How funny is that? That they are growing in the horse manure. There's our little experiment. That was I guess fresh horse manure doesn't always burn the roots of vulnerable new plants because these were literally put in as a seed into horse manure. But then I suppose having said that, the horse manure was on the top and so technically they're growing into soil, not horse manure. So I don't know. I don't know what that says about our experiment, but I've definitely got bean plants growing in here. And that's the point, I suppose. Is that the point? Yeah, I think that's the point I'm trying to make. Always nice to see unexpected things growing at the a lotment. To be fair, they look very happy and healthy. I'll just leave them to it. God, look at that. Look at that. Utterly exploded that Cosmos has. I really didn't think this one would do anything at all. And my gosh, it's gone crazy. I actually am very tempted to pick some of these and have them at home in a little jar cuz I really don't know how long they're going to keep going. I feel like the second we get a hard frost, they're going to be gone overnight. We're going to lose them. But they are so stunning. I really just want them in a little jar. I wish I'd managed to grow them this well in my back garden because then I'd be picking them all the time. Next year I'm going to be growing a lot of cut flowers cuz I realized that I really want to be able to cut flowers on the garden and put them in a little vase. But it's really hard for me to take these home from the a lotment and tempted just to leave them. I might decide later. There's a lot of buds on here though. I have to think of a way of getting them home from the aotment plot without ruining them all. I don't want to just like carry carry a bunch of cosmos. And how do I keep them alive? I need to think about it. Right. Last thing I was going to do today cuz it's not a very busy day today. I just came to do a few bits and bobs. Just want to check on my carrots and see how they're doing. These are the carrots. The carrots that we resoed about 15 times because Foxy kept coming in here. You know what they could do with the water. Yeah, they need some water. [Music] But they are all starting to germinate. I think I might have flooded them a little bit. Oh, that's so annoying. You know what? The soil in here was so good. I had sand, had the right mix and everything. Because of the fox, I had to keep resoing them and I think they're just not going to Well, I don't know. I don't know for certain to be confirmed. And we'll have to see how the carrots go. [Music] These two robins have got a real problem with each other. They really have. [Music] All right, mate. Where you going? Come on. Do you know I often forget at this time of year that new seedlings or seeds that you've just sewn will still need regular watering especially if it's not been raining and it's not rained here for a few days and I often forget because it's autumn time the temperatur dropped and we kind of get a lot of cloud and stuff at this time of year but actually it's been sunny and blue skies and even though it's been cold they still need water. So, so if you've sewn any seeds directly or you've got any new little baby seedlings, do make sure you go and water them or they will die. And if you planted any perennials in um because autumn's a great time of year to go buy a perennial plant, stick it in the ground, make sure you keep watering it until the roots are established. So, don't assume it's going to be fine. It's not. It still needs the same things that plants need in the springtime. Right. Well, I hope you've enjoyed my installment of my a lotment diary today. If you have, do subscribe to my channel. Um, Bradley from S Club, if you're watching. It was very nice to bump into you today. You made my morning. I'm absolutely starruck. Um, I wonder if I'll see him again. If I do, I'll let you know, guys. I will let you know. I'll be back again in my next video. Um, I vlog Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then I have a Sunday diary vlog going up every Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m. Just showing you a little bit more of my life, my home garden, um, some home cooking. We use a lot of things from the a lotment plot that we we've picked and we take it home and we cook with it. So, if you enjoy these videos, you might enjoy that one as well. I'll see you again in my next one. Thanks for watching, guys. Bye.