FEBRUARY IN MY SMALL LONDON GARDEN / EMMA'S SUNDAY DIARIES

Back to the Sunday Diaries. My name's Emma, these are my Sunday Diaries. Thank you for tuning in again today. Apologies for the lack of vlogs this week. I've not been feeling myself. Just not been very well. In fact, the whole house has kind of gone down with all sorts of different bugs and stuff. So I don't know which one of them I've picked up, but I've definitely picked up one of them. You can probably hear it in my voice as well. Throughout this vlog, you'll probably hear, it's not quite there. It's not quite there. So what can you do? I've done my best to get as many up as I can. And hopefully going into next week, I will be feeling a bit better. So I'll be able to make some more. Today is quite a nice day. We've got some sun, some cloud. It's not that cold. So I thought I would get out and do a few bits and bobs. Unfortunately, as I've been ill, I haven't been doing too much. So I haven't really had anything to show you. I've sort of mainly been sitting on the sofa, reading books, watching TV shows. Caught up with so much TV, seriously. I realise how little TV I actually watch. I just watch The Traitors, which I kind of missed out on. I know everybody went mad about it. I've just watched it. It was amazing. But yeah, so I've been catching up with that. I've also been flicking through my Readly app, which is what I wanted to talk to you about this morning. So if you've never heard of Readly before, it's an incredible app where you get access to over 8,000 magazines and newspapers. And there are so many different categories to look at. There is a fantastic gardening category there as well, which is the one that I'm most interested in. And one of the great things about Readly is that you get access to all of their backdated editions as well. So it's not just gonna be the latest edition of a gardening magazine. You can backdate it and get all of their old editions, which I love. So you never again have to worry about missing a magazine edition in the shop. Another thing I love about it is the fact that you can read it when you are offline. So you can download magazines. And then if you don't have access to the internet, you can still read them. And of course, you can bookmark your favourite articles. So if you're flicking through something like a gardening magazine and you find an article which is really useful, you can bookmark it. And it appears in a little list in your bookmarked section. And then anytime you wanna find that article, you just go to your bookmarks, click on it, and it takes you straight back to the article. I definitely use my Readly app a lot. I go on about it a lot on this channel, but it is fantastic. Also, you might not know this, but I used to write for Kitchen Garden magazine. And I have quite a few articles in some of the backdated editions. So if you haven't seen my articles, you can go back on the app and find them and read them if you want to, and see what I was chatting about in the magazines. I haven't had time to do much writing. My life's kind of got overtaken by other stuff. But it's something I would like to go back to and do again in the future. But yeah, I used to write for Kitchen Garden. It's a great magazine. It's got so many useful tips and hints. Maybe not the articles that I wrote, but you can definitely find some useful stuff in there. If you are interested in giving Readly a go, I have a link that will give you two months free. So you can try it out, see how it goes. You can cancel at any time. It's so simple to cancel. But do use my link if you wanna give it a go and get those two months free and just give it a try. There's also, I think, a QR code on the screen as well, where you can click that. Even easier than going to the link, just hold up your phone to the QR code, go straight through to the link and sign up for Readly. Try it for two months. Let me know what you guys think of it. But yeah, I love it. All right, I'm gonna finish my cup of tea and see what we're gonna get started with today. It's very noisy out here today, so I hope you can hear me. Now that the extension is all sort of a go, go, go, one of my main jobs is gonna be to move the front of the garden to the back, because as we kind of push all this back and sort it all out, a lot of the garden will be lost. And anything that they dig up, they will just throw away, I know that. Ultimately, the garden will be left with what we're left with, and I have to just pick up the pieces after, which I don't really mind. But I would like to save a few things. So for example, there is a great big patch of like these giant daisies here. People always tell me what they're called, and I always forget. Begins with an S. Shisha daisies or something? Shasha daisies? Shatsa? Is it Shatsa? Something like that. There's a great big patch of them here, and I wanna keep them. There's also a rosebush. I'll be devastated if that disappeared, because I love that. There's also a pear tree, but I don't know whether to keep it here or not, because technically this bit isn't being touched, but I also know that they will probably destroy it, if you know what I mean. I just wanna be one step ahead, you know, and have it all sort of cleared as much as I can, save anything I wanna save, and then I sort of won't feel so worried about it, and I can just do what they have to do, and then I'll just pick up the pieces when it's all done. It's worth it, and I am happy, but the only other thing I'm really sad about is this poor little guy here, this little bush, which has been moved about 15 times in my garden, because I couldn't decide where to put him, and he's finally happy here, and I'm actually gonna have to move him again. So I'm really sorry about that, mate. I might start with this. Oh, I feel so sorry for him. Sorry, mate. Oh, he's really rooted in really well as well. He's growing so well there, but he can't stay. Now we're gonna have to move all the daisies. They are quite an invasive plant, these. I think they're shasta, shatsa, shatsu daisies. They're quite invasive. They do spread like wildfire, which is why I put loads of them at the allotment plot, because I wanted them just to spread. They are kind of like a weed, and what I mean by that is that they're very good at blocking out other plants, so if you put them in, they will spread, and they will block out all the other weeds, and you will just have those daisies, which is great. The only downside with these are they seem to be harboring a lot of criminals, and by criminals, I mean slugs and snails. There are hundreds of them in here, absolutely hundreds of them just sitting in there, but the thing is is they don't really eat these, so they're just using it as like a hotel, and then they can slither off to surrounding areas and eat other things, so they're not really bothered by slugs and snails, because they are that invasive, but they do sort of make a good hotel for them. You do find you don't have to worry too much about them when you replant them. Don't worry about getting all the roots in the ground and stuff, because they do just tend to make themselves at home quite easily, so just sort of plonk them on the ground, put a little bit of soil around them, and they'll be away. Right, there we go, you see, so I'm clearing this area here, because basically we're gonna have steps about here, which will be like graduated into the garden, so we're gonna lose a little bit of the garden, but we will have borders either side, so it's a bit complicated, but basically anything here needs to go. Right, I've just had my food shop delivered, and I always get a couple of herbs delivered in pots to use in the kitchen. I'm gonna share some of the herbs that I've got growing and that have been growing all winter just outside, because somebody did ask about that, and I do use them all throughout the winter, but I always pick up a couple of pots of herbs from the supermarket, and the thing about these, so this is chives. When you get them from the supermarket, what they basically do is stuff in as many plants as they can or as many seeds as they can, so you can replant these, but what you do when you replant them is you pull them all apart into individual plants, and you get way more for your money, so I always get supermarket herbs nearer to spring, summertime. When the weather warms up, basically, I replant these outside. I've got these little terracotta pots here. I just literally put the plastic pot into them and pop them on my windowsill, and then, I know it doesn't look great, but I have tried potting them on into here, and they just die straight away. I'm not quite sure why, and so I just do this and then pop them on the windowsill. There they are. They don't look the prettiest things in the world. I agree with the pots, but because the pots are raised, when I water it, it drains, so they stay alive for a bit longer, and I tend to use all of these up. Like, I use so much of it, and I like them being really fresh on the windowsill like that, but when the weather warms up, I will buy these again, but I'll pot them on and put them outside, and they last a lot longer. Let me show you what I've got in my herb. My herb patch is just outside. So this is my outdoor herb planter that I got from Zest Outdoor Living, but I think you can get them anywhere. What I love about it is it's got little sections, and then you can put different herbs into each section. The only thing I will say is don't plant mint into it. I thought I could get away with putting mint into it because it spreads, so you're supposed to put them into a pot, and I put it into one of the sections, but actually it just grew through the section, so mint is crazy. Always keep mint in a pot, in a separate pot, so you can keep it under control, basically. Right, what have I got in here? So we've got some sage here, which has come back and is growing new leaves, which is amazing. Behind that, I've got some thyme, which again, has survived all throughout the winter. This one here is called Feverfew, and I don't actually use it because when I bought it, it was advertised as parsley, and the leaves do look a little bit like parsley, but it started to grow all these beautiful little white flowers on it. So I looked it up, and it's actually Feverfew. So it was just basically labeled wrong in the shop, which really confused me, as you can imagine. This is basil. The basil has died, obviously, because it's not a cold-loving herb, so I expected that one to die. This here, we've got some chives, and they are coming back, which is amazing. Got some parsley over here. This is curly parsley, my rabbit's favourite. This is, yeah, so oregano here, parsley here, and then at the back here, I did have Greek basil, and obviously that has died as well, because again, it's not a cold-loving plant. These in here are some strawberries, which I've just whacked in. This is my little herb garden just outside my kitchen, which I absolutely love, and I will get a new one of these. I think it needs replacing. If I can save it, I will for the new extension, but yeah, it's so great. I love it. Right, my house is a complete mess, because that's what happens when you're sick all weekend and into the new week. Things just, people just survive, don't thrive. So I did manage to roast a chicken yesterday, which I always do on a Sunday, and even if we don't have a roast dinner, I always roast a whole chicken. So we have a chicken that I have roasted, still with lots of chicken on it, so I'm gonna make up a recipe for lunch, and hopefully it's gonna work. So I'm just sort of feeling something hearty, but I don't really want chicken soup, so we're gonna sort of make something else up together. Let's just do it. So I have our roasted chicken from yesterday, which I actually roasted in homemade chicken stock from last week. So I expect the stock this week is gonna be incredible. Okay, so let's get some of the chicken off of this to use in our dish today. With the rest of this chicken, I will make chicken stock. I will make, oh my gosh, what am I doing? Chicken stock for next week, so it's really easy. We just put our chicken into a big, big deep dish like this, and then any veggies that I roasted with the chicken goes in there also. Then we'll whack in some herbs. We've got some rosemary here, a bit of rosemary. Got this organic apple cider vinegar, so we'll whack some of that on. We'll fill this up with water so it's covered, and we'll boil it with the lid on for about four hours. And then we'll just drain it away and get our chicken stock from it, basically. And that's what I do every week for fresh chicken stock, and it's amazing and so easy to do. Right, so I have got an onion, can of chickpeas, excellent. We've got the chicken from our roasted chicken, and I've got a bag of spinach. So that, to me, looks like a good meal, right? So we'll start by chopping our onion. It is fun to experiment sometimes, though, and I just find that the more cooking that you do using fresh ingredients, the more you sort of can make things up and you sort of know how things are gonna taste and work together. A little bit of olive oil. In goes the onion. Right, again, just working with what we've got. So I've got some garlic granules, which I think will go. There's our garlic in there, and some garam masala. I did want cumin and coriander, but I don't have any. Oh my God, that's too much. You also get to know when you make a mistake, so that was way too much. Okay, let's put in our chickpeas. Then I'm gonna put in some of my homemade chicken stock from last week. So I'll put some of that in. Okay, and then we'll throw in our bag of spinach. Okay, and then our chicken stock is doing really well. This will all start to break up. It smells incredible already. So what we'll do, reduce the heat. It's about boiling, so just reduce the heat, put the lid on. Leave that for four hours. Okay, what's going on in here then? Oh, okay, cool. Let's go to, it needs lemon. Just dish this up, some chicken. There we go. So spinach, chickpeas, onions, chicken from last night. Yeah, just really warming, really nice. Really, really nice day today. So 10, 11 degrees. The sun is poking through the clouds, but it does look like it is about to rain. So hopefully we'll get this done before then. I'm actually gonna sow some seeds today. So I sowed these at the allotment plot, but I also do want them in my home garden as well. And it's two different varieties of cosmos. So we've got the double-click, double-click bonbons, sort of ripped the top of it off, but they're this lovely, like they've got loads of different petals, loads of petals, just really, really beautiful. And then I've also got a more classic cosmos, which is the candy floss mix, but these are dwarf ones. So these are quite small, and which I thought might be quite good in my pots and things. So we're gonna sow these two different types of cosmos today, and hopefully be able to keep them alive. We'll see. So I've got two different types of trays. I like these ones really for cosmos because you can prick them out quite easily, but I've only got one tray left. So it's got stone in it. Don't want that. So I'll also sow into this one as well, which will still work. It will still be fine. This is a multi-purpose compost, but it's actually really good for seed sowing because it's quite fine. Unlike other multi-purpose compost, which kind of got quite a few lumps in it and stuff, this one's quite fine. It's the one I got on Amazon, bettergrowing.com, bettergrowing.com it's from. It's quite a nice compost. I'm gonna sort of separate them a little bit because I do want to make my life easy. I do want to make life easier for myself and be able to prick them out quite easily. So I am sort of moving them about because they're big enough to do that so that they've got enough room between them. A little bit of compost. Okay, and then same thing with these. Two or three, two or three in each one. Maybe four. That'll do. Look at that sky. Definitely going to rain. Right, it is actually a lovely day, but it's very dark in my kitchen. So I do apologise in advance for what I'm about to show you because it's gonna be dark. Not much I can do about that, I'm afraid. But I really feel like doing some baking. It's actually my birthday today. So happy birthday to me. And I've got the day to myself. The kids are at school. My husband's gone into work today because he has to. So I've kind of got this free afternoon to myself. And I thought I would bake a birthday cake for myself, which sounds very sad. I'm also doing all the washing as well on my birthday. But life goes on, you know? I actually love baking and I love making cakes. It's my favourite thing to make. So I'm going to make a very classic Victoria sponge. I bought some fresh strawberries on the way home. And I know it's a bit early, but I always have a Victoria sponge on my birthday and that's what we're gonna make today. So let's make a birthday cake. ♪♪♪ I don't quite know where to film this because everywhere in my house is now dark. It's now officially quarter to three in the afternoon. So the whole house is just dark. How did the Victorians live? That's what I want to know. The Victorians must have lived in complete darkness. Anyway, I did order myself a new jumper. It is my birthday today, like I said. So it's kind of like a little birthday gift to myself. You can see it's from John Lewis. It's from a brand called Yummy. I think Y-U-M-I. And I saw this one online and I just could not resist. I thought it'd be so nice for the spring. So I'm gonna try it on for you and show you. So far, I love it. Oh, please fit. Did I get the right size? Yeah, I did. I love it. Isn't it just the perfect spring jumper for me? Yeah, it's so nice. Yeah, this is so cool. But yeah, let me know what you think of it because I do love my knitwear and I get it from all over the place, mainly Boden, if I'm honest, but John Lewis do some nice stuff. ASOS, sometimes I find nice ones. I basically just, sometimes I will just type into Google like floral knitwear or floral embroidered knitwear and then I'll just see what's available because it's just, I just love it. I can't get enough of it. Right, let's go and decorate my birthday cake. Wow, it really has just gone so dark everywhere. I think it's just like, because it's gonna rain. So normally I think you'd put some double cream in the middle as well. I'm just gonna use strawberry jam because it's for my kids as well and my kids don't love double cream, so I kind of want us all to enjoy it. So strawberry jam. Right, one goes on top and then I'm just going to cover it with buttercream and then put some strawberries on. Treated myself to some Betty Crocker buttercream. So I'm not making this because this one is delicious and I feel like it's a bit of a treat just to buy it. There we go, happy birthday to me. That looks like a pretty good cake. The thing is, is my husband did take me to the shop at the weekend and said, what cake do you want? And I just didn't like any of them in the shops at all. I really just, I just crave like a homemade cake. That just looks absolutely delicious to me. Absolutely delicious. I cannot wait to have a bite of that today. Hope you've enjoyed my Sunday edition of my little diary. Sunday diary, Sunday at home with Emma. I don't know what we're calling them anymore. I think Sunday diaries, aren't we? Emma's Sunday diaries. Hope you've enjoyed this edition. I will be back again, hopefully tomorrow on the allotment plot, weather depending. Otherwise it'd be Wednesday. Or I'll see you back here in my home next Sunday. So have a lovely week and I'll see you when I see you. Thanks for watching guys, bye.