AN UP AND DOWN WEEK IN MY SMALL LONDON GARDEN / EMMA'S SUNDAY DIARIES

Good morning guys, welcome back to my Sunday Diaries. My name is Emma. These are my Sunday Diaries where I just vlog all about my home life here in London. I live in a Victorian terrace, I do some baking, we do some gardening, I have an allotment plot, I'm sure a lot of you know that, and I often bring produce home and then cook with it and show you what I'm doing with all the lovely things that I harvest. So if this sounds like your jam, do subscribe. I vlog every Sunday at 9am. I do my best to get a video out every single Sunday and so far I'm doing pretty well. I'm pretty proud of myself actually. Give myself a good pat on the back. This week I am going to do some gardening. The blossom tree, the tree in my garden has blossomed and it only does this for a few weeks every year and it's absolutely incredible. It looks like candy floss so I can't wait to show you that. I've got some jobs to do in the garden, some seed sowing, I've got some baking ideas to do this week and some cooking as well and we're going to go out. I think the weather's looking quite nice. I'm sort of looking out the window, the sun keeps coming in and out so hopefully we will get out this week and go somewhere really nice and springy and sunny. Things have been pretty hectic recently and I've been quite stressed. I had like four things that happened in a row to cause me significant stress so it's just been one of those weeks so far. I don't know how I've managed to get up all of the allotment vlogs, it's honestly it's been such a challenge but you know when like one thing happens and then like it spirals and another thing happens and another and another and then by the end of it it's like I can't take any more stress, like I can't take any more things happening to me so I'm just drawing a line under it and just sort of moving on with the week and just hoping that things pick up a little bit. Let's just say they can't get much worse so we'll take that I think right now. I think I need to spend the morning in the garden pottering around. There isn't too much to do but there's sort of enough to do to keep me busy if you know what I mean and it's kind of really nice jobs like mowing the lawn, sowing some seeds, tidying up a little bit, doing a bit of weeding so that's really what I need in my life. But before I do go out into the garden I need to top up my SPF on my skin. I am out a lot, I go to the allotment plot, I'm always outside in my garden and using an SPF every day is really important. I have partnered with Hello Sunday and they are on a mission to make our sunscreen feel like skincare so they've got such a fantastic variety of products but all of their products do multiple things for our skin so obviously the big one is the SPF. This is their glow primer which I love, it's SPF 50. It protects against UVA which is premature ageing and UVB which is the burning so it has a really high protection but it also contains vitamin C and hyaluronic acid which are both really important for our skin. This is a makeup primer so it creates a really nice base for putting makeup over the top but obviously with the added benefit of having an SPF 50 which is fantastic. It goes on so easily and it doesn't have that really icky kind of sun cream smell and they're actually fragrance free which I love because I hate the smell of sun cream. It just gives you a really nice subtle glow without being too glittery and it doesn't feel heavy on your skin at all. I also love their takeout one, this is SPF 30. Again it protects against UVB and UVA and this is great for when I'm out and about in the allotment plot or in the garden if I want to top up my SPF you can just use it on the go. They have a serum which is SPF 50 and this again has hyaluronic acid in it so it just really helps to moisturize your skin at the same time. Also they have a lip balm which is rose tinted and this again is SPF 50. I don't know about you but I am pretty bad at remembering to protect my lips from the sun and I have actually burnt them already. The thing about the UK is even though it's cloudy a lot of the time it's still really important to protect our skin every day from the sun so even though it's cloudy you still need to be wearing SPF every single day. This is really nice because it has shea butter in it as well so it's really moisturizing on your lips. So if you want to try out any of the Hello Sunday products I actually have a discount code for 20% off it's called emma20off and it should be on the screen now and it's also in my description. That will give you 20% off all of the products but only for a limited time so if you do want to try some do it quickly because the discount code does not last that long. So it's emma20off and now that we are all protected against the sun we can go out into the garden and do some gardening. I can show you that gorgeous blossom tree and pips can stay here and have a nice rest. So many of my flowers are starting to bloom in the garden like literally just overnight all the tulips are starting to open and got some really fun daffodils but my tree behind me and this is a prunus accolade prunus accolade or adelaide accolade I think is absolutely beautiful. We planted this six years ago and it was like basically like a little twig and we carried it home from our local garden centre which was at the end of the road it's gone now and but used to be there bought it for about 20 quid six years ago planted it and it has just grown so big and it has the most beautiful blossom but then it has really nice leaves like really vibrant green leaves with berries for the birds to eat um I think cherries is it cherries prunus always have really good blossom but then also give like food for the birds as well but it's beautiful I found it because I was looking for a tree for a small garden and it said that prunus trees are really good for small gardens but this is the peak it looks like candy floss this is the absolute peak of its blossoming and it's just amazing the bees are loving it look at that isn't that amazing it's my little pond in a pot here isn't doing too well it's got a lot of pond weed in it is it pond weed or is it algae or something look at that it's like slime oh it's horrible it shouldn't have this in really I think the problem with this is that I don't have any oxygenating plants in there these are just all sort of normal plants I suppose but it needs like oxygenating ones I think I might get some duck weed that's really good at sort of giving coverage on the pond I think it stops this stuff developing so I might give that a go try and get all of this I've got some cornflower seeds these are the blue boy variety I really want them to go under this tree here it's got a lot growing in it at the moment but this is the time when I need to get the seeds in and I sort of don't want to have a gap between all of the spring stuff finishing and then just nothing being in you know like nothing growing then um so I really just want to get these in I'm going to sort of scoot them around everything um and hope that they sort of but it's so nice this area under the tree it's honestly it's made for spring bulbs it's beautiful it really is looking oh hello bee it really is looking so full and vibrant and beautiful um but like I said I don't want a gap so what we're going to do is go around and plant these in all of the little areas I can find actually I've just had a better idea and I remember this from last year I was doing all these hacks and tricks and things to see what worked so I'm going to fill a pot with some compost like that and then I'm going to pour all of my cornflower seeds in there and then I'm going to scatter it I think it's called the cupcake method I don't know why it has to have a name it doesn't have to have any name at all but I think that is what it's called so I'll just pour all the seeds into there and mix them up and then when I scatter them they'll sort of be covered by compost at the same time quite clever really right there we go use a little bit more compost over the top just to make sure they're all covered and I've just put them into all the gaps so just have to see if we get any cornflowers coming up but so far I mean it's looking beautiful absolutely beautiful we definitely did sow some seeds in here didn't we I think we did um parsnips and maybe something else none of it has germinated yet which is slightly concerning I do have these beautiful little daffodils that have come up I think from the compost and stuff that I've thrown in here there must have been some bulbs and we do have a baby nasturtium so it's not all lost I think I'm going to sow some carrots in the other end of it um I'm so confused as to where those seedlings went I would have expected to see a little bit of germination by now but that's okay we won't panic just yet um there's time for panicking but the time is not now so I'm just going to rough this up make sure there's no lumps in here and I'm just going to scatter the seeds and then sort of zhuzh them in with my hand and then I think it's about to rain in about an hour or so so I think we might just leave the rain to do the rest so these are sweet candle f1 going in from premier seeds direct which is why I got most of my seeds this year randomly I mean most of them aren't germinating so maybe don't copy yet let's wait and see if any of them actually germinate um but it's sweet candle so I've never grown these before we'll give them a go teeny teeny teeny tiny seeds I'll pop the trellis back over and that's to protect from the cat and the squirrel from digging in there morning again guys um the weather has really turned in the last few days it's been a few days since I last filmed um and I think I was in the garden it was actually really quite nice and sunny and bright and just quite warm but now it's freezing it's absolutely freezing cold it's so windy the sun is coming out actually but that wind is just so so cold and um I haven't managed to get to the allotment plot because obviously it's just been too windy to film so thought I would take you into my kitchen today and do a little bit of cooking um I found a recipe which is sort of in season but with some ingredients that I actually haven't managed to grow myself this year so I've had to buy them unfortunately let me show you what we're making right so here's everything that we are using the um produce that's in season is this purple sprouting broccoli which is definitely in season now I actually don't have any growing um but I have planted some for next year so hopefully next year I'll be picking my own purple sprouting broccoli it is purple but when you cook it it does turn green so just bear that in mind because I was quite disappointed the first time I cooked it and it turned green we've got some ready to roll puff pastry some pork sausages some tarragon I'd love to grow this but I've never even thought about growing this and some creme fraiche okay so it's kind of going to be like a pastry kind of well I'll just sort of show you I think but the first thing we're going to do is blanch this so stick it into boiling water for about a minute and basically blanch it I think that's what it's called blanch it how many times can I say blanch it I think basically soften it that's what I'm trying to say okay so then we where's the sieve gone there it is we drain it and we run it under freezing cold water and that stops it from cooking any further and then what we'll do is we'll just put it into a tea towel clean tea towel and we'll just dry it off a little bit okay so the sauce over the pastry is going to be creme fraiche tarragon and then I've got a little bit of lemon as well so you could put cheese in as well but I don't really like cheese I'm not a big cheese fan so I'm gonna leave the cheese out I'll chop up some tarragon if you've never cooked with tarragon before I urge you to go out and buy some immediately and cook something with it because it is absolutely delicious all right so chop that up and throw that in too right so then we'll just squeeze in a little bit of lemon juice that always goes nicely with everything a little pinch of salt a little bit of pepper and then I'm going to add in some pork sausages so these are the M&S 60% pork obviously you don't have to add any meat if you don't want to and I'm just going to take them out of their casing there we go so just squeeze them out of their packaging lovely right let's construct our dish so this is just a baking tray covered with foil because it's a bit dirty roll out our puff pastry which thankfully does come on a sheet of baking paper so we don't have to worry about that so we're going to score a border around here with our knife of just a couple of centimeters I think there you go it's like a picture frame lovely and then we will take our sour cream tarragon mixture dollop it on and then just spread it within the border so now I'm just going to pop on the purple sprouting broccoli which as you can see has gone green so just one of those things I was just very disappointed about when I learnt I really wanted it to stay that lovely cool purple colour but it just doesn't guys it just doesn't so do you know that's actually quite pretty I think I might just season it again look at that lovely right so this is going to go in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes until the puff pastry is cooked and also the sausage is also cooked so I'm sort of going to do it by eye a little bit as well in it goes there we go look at that right this is nice and brown this is all cooked oh my gosh it smells amazing it's also so pretty I feel like I could have prettified it prettified it a little bit more maybe some red pepper maybe it needed some red tomatoes or something I think I'm going to serve this with just like a salad but that is a really nice quick dinner oh my goodness the weather is just getting worse and worse outside I can hear the wind from inside my kitchen it's actually half past two and I've got all of my lights on we're in March guys it's just horrendous out there but tomorrow it's looking really really nice so I think we're going to go to a place called Claremont Gardens which is a National Trust place can you hear the wind so it's a National Trust place called Claremont Gardens it's in Esher in Surrey and then there's a really nice garden centre and farm shop nearby called Garsons and I think we're going to go and have a wander around there so I will take you with me fingers crossed the sun so guys what a lovely day and what a contrast to the day before so Claremont is absolutely beautiful I definitely recommend having a look around there and then we went to Garsons which is like a garden centre and it also has a farm shop attached to it and a farm shop is just amazing they've got such great produce in there so many fun things to look at like if you are a food lover or you like baking and stuff go to a farm shop because they always have like the best ingredients and there aren't many around here because obviously I'm in London but the one at Garsons is like brilliant I saw so many lemon drizzle cakes there and I just thought you know what I can make that I don't need to buy one and I really feel like doing some baking so I thought we would make a lemon cake a lemon drizzle cake it just feels like that kind of weather it's so nice today now the sky has gone blue it's sunny it's warm it's peaceful yesterday it was just horrendous it was like freezing cold windy and we had a little bit of snow as well what is going on with the weather anyway let's do a little bit of baking always really fancy like lemon at this time of year when the sun starts to come out it's just such like a fresh sort of sunny thing isn't it lemon I guess it's yellow so right so starting off with some butter 225 grams of that 225 grams of caster sugar most recipes it's always mix the butter and sugar together isn't it and then add everything else I didn't read the recipe by the way usually I just read the ingredients and then I just figure out the recipe I think I'll be quite good on the bake off actually don't hold me to that though and I'm definitely not going to apply so then we need four eggs this is sort of like a loaf cake not a circle cake I don't know if that makes a huge difference but well that's what it is so there's four eggs okay so then it's 225 self-raising flour back to zero nope zero why are you not behaving oh you have now right okay and then of course the secret ingredient well actually maybe not so secret with a lemon cake um lemon so we need the zest and the juice and then this is a trick my nan gave me to stick your finger into the mixture and splodge it about your tin like this scrunch up your baking parchment unscrunch it now it's easier to use and then just sort of stick it in probably not I didn't probably tear that the neatest but hey ho there we go that's what we've done okay into the oven we need another lemon some icing sugar we're going to make the drizzle bit basically so I'm not going to measure this out or anything I'm just going to go for it guys okay and then what we'll do is we'll put the lemon juice in first because I always find it quite hard to know how much water to put in with icing sugar right so here's our cake it's been um just over 45 minutes it took it's a bit like banana bread it's quite deceiving it takes longer than you think while it's still in the tin I'm going to use a skewer and poke some holes into our cake then pour over our lemon drizzle and it will go through all the holes into the cake just make sure it goes into all of those little holes that we've made beautiful absolutely beautiful right I think I'm going to go and sit outside and have this because it's such a nice day out there anyway that's it for me for this week I hope you've enjoyed this vlog um don't forget to check out Hello Sunday and use my discount code it will be in the description bar below um for 20% off all of their SPF products I will be back on the allotment tomorrow or you can catch me again here in my home garden next Sunday at nine o'clock I'll see you when I see you guys thanks for watching bye