SPEND A MORNING ON MY ALLOTMENT PLOT WITH ME / ALLOTMENT GARDENING UK

Morning guys, welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma, these are the allotment diaries and it's still blooming grey outside and it's actually drizzling a little bit today which is slightly annoying. I think the sun is coming but not till this afternoon, I think it's coming at about 3 o'clock and then the next few days look lovely, just really really sunny but I'm here today so we're going to have to make do. I tried to bring some sunshine and colour with me by wearing my, somebody called this a tutti frutti jumper, it's kind of like the colours of tutti frutti sweets. I don't think I've ever had a tutti frutti sweet before. Most of my knitwear is from Bowdoin, I absolutely love it. I always get some of their new colourful knits, I think this is a couple of years old now but their knits last a very long time so I always get a lot of compliments on my knitwear so thank you very much. I'm always scouting for nice fun colourful knitwear because it's just my favourite thing to wear. Anyway, a bit of a tangent there. Yeah, grey, miserable, slightly rainy today. I think the only good thing about the weather being like this in the morning is that not many people are here so it means that I can just vlog freely. Is that the sun? Are you joking me? It's like a very thin coverage of cloud so when the sun kind of hits a really thin part of the cloud it looks like it's sunny but it's actually not sunny, it's quite seething. I think I'm going to start today by getting some wood chip, no one seems to be taking it, nobody wants it. I put it on my pathway, yes there's a lot of like leaves in it but actually it's pretty good, the chips are pretty good so I think I'm going to start by grabbing a wheelbarrow, maybe two, of the wood chip. Maybe we should start by watering the seeds. I do have some more seeds to sow today and I've got quite a lot growing here and they don't seem to have been touched by slugs or snails. This is my kale, that's almost ready to prick out and pot on but I'm waiting for a nice sunny day to do that because it's just a bit cold and miserable to be doing this right now and then down here this is my new batch of peas and they are starting to germinate which is great. We've got some brassicas here, some cauliflower, that's looking amazing. We've got our spring onions and then up here we've got our sprouts, sunflowers and some cosmos which definitely is going to need potting on very, very soon. Are you ready for water? Cut out this audio. Note to Emma editing self, cut out audio. Here's a little drink for you. Here's a little drink, here's a little drink. Have a drink, have a drink. Ah, you didn't get any. Sorry about that. OK. Oh, it seems to be filtering down, that's quite good. This is my little water filter system, it goes through the top, through the bottom, through to the very bottom. I don't think that's going to work though, we might need to water that. At the moment I'm just having to pop the camera wherever it's going to sit really, that's just the way I'm doing it. Oh, oh, oh, we're flooding them. Oh my god, we're absolutely flooding them. Right, that didn't work at all. I don't know what that was all about. Right, well there we go, they'll never need watering again now, they've been flooded. Right, well I think we will skedaddle out, skedaddle out and get some wood chip and whack it down on the pathway and I think that's going to be the first job. I don't think the birdie's going to turn up yet so I'm going to give him a little bit of time because he does seem to be a bit lazy recently. He sort of turns up but then he doesn't come and get his worms which is quite annoying so I don't know what game he's playing. Whatever game he's playing I don't enjoy it Einstein, I'd like you just to come and eat the food so I can film you. We can't control the birds and that is the last thing I'll say before we go and get our wood chip. Oh, there's a bee, there's a bee. And that was the last thing I said, right. The thing is, this is sort of the remains of the pile so this is the stuff that's been here for the longest and unfortunately it has started to sort of, I don't know, turn into a growing material. I don't quite know what the proper language is. There are some really good sized chips in here, fantastic for pathways but there are a lot of leaves which have started to sort of, I don't know, compost down, biodegrade down, what's the word? But as I'm digging into it there's a lot of smoke and smoke means compost is being made so it's like a growing material. It's sort of turning into nothingness which we don't really want but there are some good sized chips. Look at that one, that's a chunker so we'll just sort of see what we can get. Look at the difference, one wheelbarrow full of fresh wood chip even though it's not even very good wood chip but you can't even see a lot of the leaves now, it's mainly just chips. That's why I said it's quite deceiving. It just looks so much better. You know I love that job, I love it and I know I'm looking around and I think every single year I'm going to have to top up with wood chip everywhere and it's going to be a hard job every year but I love it because it gives you instant gratification. There's not many jobs that you do in the garden that give you that instant reward where it looks instantly better. Normally if you mulch over a bed or weed a bed you step back and it looks amazing and if you put wood chip down it looks amazing but most things in the garden take time and patience. You put seeds in the ground you've got to wait, you put bulbs in the ground you've got to wait, you plant new crops you've got to wait for them to get bigger but when you do something like put wood chip down it's like an instant reward and it's so motivating and it just changes the whole look of the garden in an instant and there's not many things you do in a garden that sort of give you that so it's just one of my favourite jobs and I think it's so practical, it's so practical. Even through the winter when it was really rainy I was able to get to my plot, walk around, do jobs because it absorbs all the rain water and of course it's free as well, I'm not going to lie. If it wasn't free I might not be so quick to big it up but it is free for us and we're very lucky so there's just a lot of advantages to it. I think Einstein's turned up, oh yeah there he is, I can see him, can I see him? That's a leaf, that is a leaf Emma, oh my gosh I need to go to Specsavers. The other day we were driving and I looked out the window and I said to my husband oh look at all those ducks and he said no Emma they're not ducks, look again and they were sheep. Sheep, I thought they were ducks, I thought they were white ducks and it was sheep so I think I need to get my eyes tested. Alright I'm coming, I'm coming. It's not coming down for it. Maybe he's seen a frenemy, maybe I'm his frenemy, am I a frenemy? He's thinking about it. Right a lot of my sweet peas are falling over now which is not a good thing because they're going to hit the ground and be eaten or just die. They need to be standing up, I don't know why they're not, why they're refusing to stand up but I will have to force them. It's fiddly, I don't like it. I'm just going to support the whole row like this, like I did with the other peas just because it's a bit easier than tying them all in individually. Some of them are doing better than others but I think they'll all catch up. Stand up, stand up, stand up, stand up. It's because they're throwing out so many side shoots to be fair which is a good thing but the side shoots are just not quite long enough yet so I'm just going to sort of support them like that. I don't really want them flip flopping to the ground. Yeah these are all side shoots so this is great, I mean they're throwing out multiple side shoots because I pinched them out twice and that's where you get the flowers on but I do think, I did read, when the flowers come on side shoots they're a bit smaller, the stems are a bit smaller so they're not so good for picking which I didn't really know so you kind of get more flowers but you get shorter stemmed flowers apparently so something to consider if you are going to pinch them out. If you don't pinch them out you do still get flowers, it's not like you don't get flowers on your sweet peas, it's just a way of encouraging more so something to think about. Right we're going to do a little bit of seed sowing. I've had to close the greenhouse door because the amount of power tools is just ridiculous. The second it's not raining and we're going to get some sun all the power tools come out but hopefully they come out this morning and when we get the sun they'll all disappear and that would just be excellent. Right we're going to sow two different types of courgettes so I'm sowing Midas F1 and these are from Premier Seeds Direct, I always find these seeds are really good and I'm going to sow courgette Bianca Di Triesti, Bianca Di Triesti, said with a British accent, Bianca Di Triesti. Alright that's what we're going to sow, both from Premier Seeds Direct. I'm going to put them into a module, now normally when I would do courgettes I would put them into pots but I'm sort of going to wait for them to germinate first and transport them, transfer them to pots because I want to make sure they all germinate and I just think they have to pull their weight first you know, they need to give me something and then I'll give them something in return and that's how it's going to work. So they're quite sort of easy seeds to sow courgette seeds, they're quite big, big and bulky as I like them, bigger the better when it comes to seeds. They sort of look like pumpkin seeds, squash seeds, that sort of thing, they're probably from the same family but I'm not wanted on, I can't tell you that kind of information I'm afraid. And I'm just going to sow half and half, I don't care what they are, what variety they are, they're all going to go in the same bed so I don't care which ones come up where and what I plant where, it doesn't matter. With big seeds like this, if you're unsure what way to sow them, just sow them on this side like that. Firstly they'll find their way to the light if you put them on this side and secondly it can help to stop them from rotting. Sometimes if you put them flat they absorb so much water that they rot really quickly so if you just sort of pop them sideways they're just less likely to rot. A little tip I got from TikTok there. A little tip from the TikTok. Right and then we'll sow the midas. Midas, I have a feeling midas is your bog standard typical green courgette. I could be wrong. I often am. But it's fun to try. Right, stick your finger in like that and we'll just sow them on the sides. I can't believe we're at the time of year where we're actually sowing courgettes, it's absolutely insane. I mean I think a lot of you are probably not there yet. I keep getting comments saying it's still snowing where you are or whatever. I just think my gosh where do you live? How is it still snowing in March? Where do you live? North Pole? But apparently not everybody lives in the same area that I live in so it's just something I've learnt from doing these vlogs really. You know, not everyone lives in London and that is astounding to me. Right there we go. That was a joke by the way, that was a joke. Right let's give them a little water and stick them on our shelf of, shelf of, what shall we call it? Shelf of seeds. Keep it simple. And then I do want to harvest some of this broccoli today. I just thought I'd show you I did say that I wanted it to get bigger but I got so many comments from you guys saying no no no no no don't wait too long because it can go over very very quickly and if it's good now, like eat it now and you get side shoots and I can already see some mini tiny little broccoli side shoots coming off so I know I'm going to get tonnes more broccoli from these plants and I really do want to make sure that I get the best sort of broccoli I need it today as well so there's lots of reasons why I'm going to harvest this today. Right there we go, a couple of bits of broccoli for me to take home and then hopefully I'll get lots more on the side stems so I'll just be picking broccoli for a while before the tomatoes have to go in. I haven't planted my tomatoes, I haven't sown my tomato seeds yet, I really need to do that. I actually am sort of thinking maybe I'll cheat this year and just get some plants just because I feel like I've got quite a lot growing from seeds. Or should I just go for the tomatoes as well? Maybe I should just go for tomatoes as well? What do you think? I need encouragement. I'm feeling a little bit deflated I have to be honest. Next time that I'm here I will pot on some of my little seedlings here because they do need their own pots now and we're also going to plant out the brassica bed and protect that so there's lots to come and hopefully we'll have a bit more sun as well. I don't think it was as miserable today because it does feel a little bit brighter. I think maybe the cloud coverage is a bit less so everything feels a little bit brighter and I'm sure my lovely tooty fruity jumper helped. Though I couldn't take my coat off because it is just too cold. But anyway, I will see you again on Friday. I hope you're enjoying these vlogs, if you are leave me a comment below. So many of you have messaged and asked them to be longer, I don't think I can get them much longer than they are. The thing is, I'm making these vlogs three times a week more regularly so when I come down here I don't spend as much time at my plot, I just come down more regularly. Whereas if I was to put up like an hours vlog, I'd probably come down at a weekend and spend a whole day here and then I'd have one hour to put up. But I can't do like a half an hour to an hour vlog three times a week, it's just too much. I just don't do that much here. But thank you if you're saying you'd love them to be longer because it's just a huge compliment really and I'm so glad that you're enjoying these. I'm doing my best to get them up as regularly as I can so I'll be back again on Friday. Thanks so much for watching, see you Friday. Bye!