SOW THESE NOW FOR A GREAT SPRING CROP! / ALLOTMENT GARDENING UK

[Music] [Music] Good morning, guys. I can't see you at all. Oh, is that spider web? I can't see you at all because the sun is literally blasting in my face, but that is actually the main reason I've come here today. It is such a beautiful sunny day. Blue skies, sun. It's a little bit windy. I always start with a weather forecast, don't I? I am very aware that I do that. But I think I think I'm allowed because I'm a gardener and um the weather dictates a lot of what I can do. I haven't been here very much recently because of the weather because it's been stormy, windy, rainy, miserable, really cold as well. The weather has really like the temperature has dropped dramatically. Um which really is kind of like the signal that the garden is pretty much done. Like it needs to wind down now. I've tried to keep it going as long as I can and I am going to check on a few things today and see how they're doing cuz I've still got sweet corn growing. I've still got runna beans growing. The cosmos is still flowering. So, it's all very, you know, we're we're in the thick of it really, which is so funny because we're at the end of October, guys. The end of October. You can probably see the wind. You can probably sense that it is quite windy today. So, I'm going to do my best to film in the wind. But yeah, it is funny how much is still growing at this time of year. It's been a really funny year for growing. It's been very very odd. It's been warm and sunny and and everything's just done amazingly and it's still going. So, I mean, it's a great year. If you started your vegetable garden this year, well done you. You must have had a great year. So, congratulations. Okay, so looking around the greenhouse, everything is doing really well. Nothing's died. Um, I haven't been here for about 3 days. So, what I'm going to start by doing is watering everything in the greenhouse just in case I can't get here for the next few days. Um cuz we've got new seeds, new seedlings gone in. Apologies for my voice by the way. I've got a little bit of a sore throat. So, um if I'm a little bit croaky, that's why. These are my sweet peas that I am overwintering. And then we've got some Calibri. I didn't quite put these on or plant them out. Not quite sure what to do with them. But these ones I've potted on. They've all survived. They're all doing really well. down here into the greenhouse. In my last video, I planted some uh salad crops in here. We've got some calibri out which has been untouched by slugs and snails. Excellent. Um and then at the end there, I did put in some all all year round cauliflower seeds. So, we will see. The soil does still feel quite wet, so maybe it doesn't need a water. But I feel like if I don't water now and then I don't turn up for the next few days, it might dry out. Quite hard to know actually because what I I don't want to like flood it. No, you know what? We'll give it a little bit of a water. Just a little bit of a water and then I just know that it's been watered. Yeah, we're going to we're going to do it. [Music] [Music] I'm here. [Music] Thank you. [Music] Right, this archway behind me needs to come down. It is literally falling down. I don't know how it's stayed up this year. Probably because it hasn't had anything too heavy climbing over it. But it is literally a mess. So, I'm going to take it down. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep the one behind it up, but we'll see. I do have some new archways to go up. I always use these metal archways. Um, and a lot a lot of you ask where they're from. I used to get them from Wilos. Now, I pick them up from places like Amazon. They're very flimsy. They don't last very long. Um, and I wouldn't completely recommend them. I tend to spend a lot of my time reinforcing them and fixing them. Um, and I also have to put a lot of stuff over it to make things climb up it properly. Let me show you. The archways are essentially like ladders, so they've got quite big gaps in between, which isn't really good for things like runner beans and pumpkins and stuff that need to really cling on. So, I've had to cover it in like garden mesh. And also, they need a lot of reinforcing. They get rusty really quickly and they do just sort of snap. You can see up here. This is from the vandalism that I had a few months ago. and kids sort of swung on it and it's just snapped. But really, it didn't take much to snap it. It really does. It It's so flimsy. It just doesn't take much to snap it. Anyway, I know what you're thinking. Why use them? Why keep buying them? Firstly, they're about £10, so they're super cheap to replace. Secondly, this is an a lotment plot and it's not my home garden and I can't always be here to protect stuff and I'm very wary about spending a lot of money on good quality things for my a lotment cuz I just don't feel like it's a secure place. I've had so much stuff stolen from my a lotment plot particularly this year and a lot of vandalism. I just don't want to spend the money on it. I just don't want to spend £300 on a solid metal archway just to have it stolen or kids swing on it or have all my crops stolen from it. So, I'm just not going to spend any more than I have to on it and that's it. [Music] [Music] It's not going quite as smoothly as I hoped it would. [Music] Look at this. This is like my archway graveyard where archways come to die. I think I've got two here now. Is that two? Yeah, two failed archways. You're absolutely right, guys. It's not good. It's not economical. It's not It's not environmentally friendly. It's not practical to keep rebying something over and over again, especially if it keeps not working. But like I said, I don't want to spend any more money on this plot, and I don't want to put anything in too permanent anymore. And I want to say that I'm sorry, guys, as well because I know that I have been more negative about my a lotment plot this year than I've ever been before. But it's just because this is the first year where I've had real problems with vandalism, with people stealing my crops, stealing my tools, coming onto my site more and more, and it just doesn't feel the same as it used to. This is the first year where I've had real real issues with my a lotment, and that's why I have been a little bit more negative about it. I think I'm just being realistic about it. It is a London a lotment plot and I know a lot of you guys have problems, the same problems that I do, but I've never really noticed them before. Um, I've just got quite lucky, I think, cuz I'm quite out the way here. I'm at the back of the site. I'm sort of hidden. So, I haven't had those problems, but that's why I've been a little bit negative. But don't worry, guys. I still love my a lotment. I'm still going to be coming down here. I'm just going to be taking steps. I'm just going to be being a bit more careful with how much money I spend on it and what I bring down here and all the rest of it. What else can you do? [Music] [Music] Right. I want to whack in my broad beans. I brought these ones which are the aquad dolce um which I always plant because you can plant these ones over the autumn winter and they'll survive the winter months. So they're really really good variety. I also get loads of broad beans from this variety aquadce if I can see it. There is my favorite ones. You can plant your broad beans in the springtime or you can plant them in the autumn time and overwinter them. Last year I planted them directly in the autumn time. So literally put the seed into the ground, which is what plant directly means. And they did amazingly. I got I got such a good crop in the spring summertime. And I had minimal problems with pests, which apparently is an advantage of planting them in the autumn winter. And I didn't really know that. I did get some sort of black is it aphids? Black aphids. I did get some pests on them, but not as much as the ones that I planted in the springtime directly. So, planting them earlier in the autumn winter reduced the amount of pest that I got on my broad beans and gave me an earlier crop. So, I'm going to do it again and I'm going to put them in to this back bit of my a lotment plot. It gets lots of sun. It's a very big bed and these are very big plants. They can get four or 5t tall. So, this is what I'm going to put in now. Why not? [Music] [Music] Okay, I'm going to use a stick to make some holes so I know where to plant them. So, I'm going to make the holes first and then we're going to put the beans in. [Music] Hello. [Music] Hello. He's [Music] more interested in uh where I've dug. Yeah. He's decided to have a fresh breakfast today. Some worms on your table if you want them. Yeah, I've already done it. You were late. You're late for your breakfast today. Not me. I was early. [Music] You best not dig all these up again, Einstein. Oh, you got one. There's one there. Right. So, the official way that you normally plant in broad beans is in zigzags. You can see I sort of made these dots as zigzaggy as I can. So, I've got two zigzag rows. And I think that's so that you can support them easier because the way you support broadbeam plants is to put two sticks in either side of the row and then run twine across and it supports the whole row. And I think it's to do with supporting them, but I can't quite remember, which is weird cuz I plant and grow broad beans every single year and I forget every single year what you're supposed to do with them. But I do remember that you are supposed to plant them in a zigzag. If you don't plant them in a zigzag, I expect it's probably okay. I don't know what what the plant would think. I don't know if the plant knows it's been planted in a zigzag. So, I don't know if it really matters. Anyway, let's plant them. You just drop them in. Don't worry too much about what way they're supposed to go. Just drop them in the hole. They'll figure it out. [Music] Okay. [Applause] [Music] Take a look over it. [Music] [Music] Yeah, I don't need to worry too much about watering cuz it's going to rain a lot this week, I think. So, it will get watered. Hopefully they'll grow up nice and strong in the autumn time and then they can sit dormant over the winter. Fingers crossed. Give me a nice early spring slash early summer crop. Right, cool. [Music] Oh no. Has the wind blown everything off? Hang on a second. [Music] [Music] Oh, the runner beans look like they're on the way out. You see this here? I think this is frost damage. I was look I thought they might have snapped in the wind. But actually, I think it's the cold weather coming along and they're not very happy with it. They do not like the cold weather. I did get a nice last little blast of runner beans, which has been fantastic. And I've got such a good harvest and I've managed to catch them when they're quite small, which is my favorite time to harvest runner beans. So, I'm really happy with them. But they are on the way out. And the sweet corn, I think, has probably no chance at all to get going, but it's still growing and it's still green. So, I'm just going to sort of leave it as long as possible. Right, it just seems to be getting Can you see me? I can't see you. It just seems to be getting windier and windier. Um, and my tree is really blowing about and I don't want a branch to come down on my head. So, for that reason, I'm going to call it a day there. It looks really miserable for the rest of the week, but I'm going to do my best to come down again for Friday. It may be that I start skipping a few videos because the weather just seems to be taking a massive turn. But I do have exciting news from the Sunday videos for the Sunday videos I should say. Um, my raised beds, my home raised beds have arrived. Um, the metal ones, they're like an off-white metal and I've started putting them together. So, in Sunday's vlog, this Sunday, 9:00 a.m., you will see my new raised beds. Um, which is so exciting. So, I'm going to actually be able to grow some vegetables in my home garden, uh, properly. And I'm I'm I didn't realize how excited I'll be about that. I think, like I said earlier, this has really been the first year where I've had a problem with vandalism and people stealing crops from my a lotment plot. And it is so disheartening. It's so disheartening the amount of work that goes into it for someone just to come and take it. It breaks my heart. So, I am so excited to be able to grow things and actually pick them myself. But it's not the end of the a lotment. I'm going to keep the a lotment. I'll keep going as long as I can with it because I enjoy being here. It's not just about growing stuff for me. It's about having this space to wander around in and enjoy. Wow. That might be my cue to shut up and go home. So yeah, I do I do still enjoy coming here for many reasons other than just for many other reasons, you know, not just growing my own food. So I hope you enjoy joining me here on the a lotment for these little vlogs. I'll see you again in the next one. Hopefully it'll be Friday. If not, it' be Monday. I'll see you again in my next vlog. Thank you so much for watching, guys. Hope you enjoyed. Bye.