A SUNNY DAY AT THE ALLOTMENT PLOT / LONDON ALLOTMENT GARDENING UK

Good morning everyone, welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name's Emma, these are the allotment diaries. Talking a little bit more at my normal kind of level today because I do believe I am one of the only ones here. It's Bank Holiday Monday when I'm filming this, I've come down at 8 o'clock in the morning, got myself up very early, ready for a day of gardening and mainly just so I can film the vlog because obviously the weather this week is, well not obviously if you don't live here, but if you do live in the UK you might know the weather this week is looking good. We're gonna get up there to 20, sometime maybe 25 degrees. It's going to be a very nice week and that means the allotments will be busy so I'm gonna try and get here really early to film the vlog. It does mean it's a bit cold out but I'm gonna pretend that it's nice and sunny so that it looks nice and sunny on the camera. It's a little bit chilly, I wouldn't say it's freezing cold, it's not like the depths of winter or anything but it's just a little bit chilly. Everything's looking so good in here, all of my crops are looking fantastic, everything looks great. Still haven't quite processed the fact that they chopped that tree down. I also didn't get like any kind of warning about it, nobody emailed me letting me know the council were going to chop the tree down so it's just been a little bit, I don't quite know how to take it. I was happy that the tree's gone because it's opened a lot of space there and also it was practically falling down so I do understand that. I just feel a little bit like miffed that nobody told me and they just came onto my plot and did it. Slightly frustrating because I would have just liked a little bit more communication but hey-ho. I mean the fact is it's gone and it has opened up that area so that's all positives, all positive things. Just trying to keep things positive, look on the positives, look on the bright side of everything and that's exactly what mood I'm in at the moment. So we're looking on positives, it's a good thing the tree is gone. So good for me, maybe not so good for the birds but hey I look after them enough I think. I've brought lots of things with me to sort out the pond, got some plants, got a fountain, got some bits and bobs to put around there so that's our main job of the day. I'm looking around and seeing quite a few weeds have popped up so I think what we're gonna do, we'll start with a bit of weeding, when Einstein shows up we'll feed the bird and then we'll get on with the big job which is the pond again. I can just see a few weeds starting to come up in some of my beds. It's just that time of year guys when all the weeds start to rear their ugly heads but this bed here has been weeded a few times and they're all coming up so it is time. It is time to make the 15-minute weeding jobs sort of a daily job really and then that's how you kind of stay on top of it. You just you do it every time you come down. You water, you weed, you water, you weed, it's on repeat but it does make a huge difference and it does help you to stay on top of it. He was just there and he changed his mind. Why did he change his mind? What's wrong with me today? Obviously the pond has become an endless source of excitement for me. There you are waiting for me to start talking. Honestly. Obviously the pond has become very very exciting to me and so today we're gonna plant up around the outside. Remember I was worried because we've got a lot of spring bulbs but not much sort of else going on so when the spring bulbs die the pond's gonna be very empty. Obviously the spring bulbs around the pond are looking beautiful at the moment. Honestly so stunning and these ones down here have just literally bloomed and they are just gorgeous. They're like a orange and red color and we've got the red ones and the yellow coming up. They're just looking lovely and we've got the purple ones just across there but not much else growing so once they die back the pond is going to be very bare. Well hopefully not because I have bought a few plants. I went to a garden center and went to their pond plant section so these are plants that kind of like a bit of moisture and they don't like to dry out and they're very happy to grow around a pond. So I've gone with this one which is Liriope kindy pink. It looks very pondy that's why I picked it up. Looks like it should sit around a pond. Couldn't resist picking up an iris. This is an iris blue rhythm. I did have irises around my pond and in my pond but they actually they are no more. I don't know where they gone so I certainly didn't get rid of them but they got rid of themselves. So now I've got another one so that's their replacement and I've also picked up this one which is the most pond looking plant I've ever seen. It's got the longest name in the world. Is that? I can't say that. I just can't say Ligularia ventata desdemona. It looks a little bit like water lilies and I loved the shape of the leaves and I can just imagine the frogs hiding underneath it so that's why we went with that one and we're gonna plant them around the pond like I said. Just gonna plonk them in wherever I think they should go. I think we'll have two around here and we'll put the iris over there and that gets more boggy and I think the iris will like that better. What do we think? Yeah I think so. Doesn't the pond look nice? Oh my goodness me seeing it through this camera lens it looks so nice. Right I got these snazzy new gloves from Cool Job. If you want a discount it's Emma Glove and their website is below in my link and in my description bar but look how cool these ones are like a pastel-y pale pink. I absolutely love them and these are the only gloves that I wear, Cool Job gloves so if you're looking for a nice snazzy pair of gloves have a look below. Right this one we're gonna put here between these lovely tulips. I think it will work well here. We've excavated our hole. These are very pond looking plants aren't they? I do love them. They all just look like they're made to live around a pond which they are I guess. Go in there. Oh yeah I love it already. He already looks at home. You really do mate. I've definitely got a leak in my watering can which I'm gonna have to fix at some point pretty urgently. Right so I've also brought with me a few other little bits and bobs just to look after the pond basically. Now remember that I said I've got some mosquito larvae or like mosquito babies in the pond. I've ordered some mosquito bites which are like little pellets you put in your pond and they only attack the mosquito larvae babies, the mosquito babies and they don't harm anything else and even if a bird came and ate one or a cat or a fox or whatever it wouldn't harm it. It doesn't harm tadpoles but it gets rid of all the mosquitoes which we don't want. So that's on the way and I will sort that out and deal with it when it comes but until then we don't want any more mosquitoes laying babies in there and something mosquitoes like is still water. So with that in mind I ordered a little solar fountain. I've got this one in my home garden. It's not brilliant but bearing in mind that in my home garden my pond is basically a pot so I don't think it's big enough anyway. So I think it will work quite well here. So it looks like this. It works by solar power, the sun. So the sun has to hit all of this. It's a little bit, because I've got one at home, it's a little bit sort of hit-and-miss. It has to have full sun on the whole thing in order to work and if a little bit of it's shady like that even just a little bit stops working so it's a little bit sort of you know fussy and then we've got all these different bits to go on the top. So I think, let's whack it in and see. Hey! It's working straight away, oh my gosh. Oh yeah, I love it. I love it, I love it. Look at that. That is absolutely fantastic. I wish it was a bit taller though. Oh I think I can make it taller, hang on. I think that's what this bit's for. Right, come here a second mate. Hang on, hang on. This bit here makes it taller. Stick that on the top there. No? Oh my god, did I just lose it? No, I've lost it in the pond. I've just dropped it into the pond. Why am I like this? Why am I such a wally? I've just dropped it into the pond. For God's sakes. Oh, I don't want to touch one of the tadpoles. Oh, there it is. Oh, I like the tadpoles but I don't want to like touch them. Right, okay, let's try it like this then. Oh, I've broken it. Why have I broken it already? Why does this happen to me? Why are you broken? Can you not be broken please? Right, it's just doing whatever it wants now. Whatever it feels like doing, it's doing. It's not bothered with us anymore. It doesn't care. It doesn't care about what we want. I don't know why it's doing that. It's making a very like sad sound as well. It's already given up on life. It's like, that's enough work for me. I want to retire. Right, then I've also got these little hidey houses for the frogs to hide in. So I thought these are quite cute. These are made of coconut, coconut husks. How cute are these? So I'm gonna pop these down and I've also got a sign just to welcome them, welcome frogs, because I want them to feel really welcome in my pond. So we're gonna set these up as well and then that my friends should be the pond finished, other than the mosquito bites, which we will do next time. How cute is he? Guys, I've just had a moment where I've realised how many tulips I've planted on my allotment plot. Honestly, I didn't realise I had this many and they're all different colours. They're so stunning. I think this is probably their peak. So let me just show you some of the tulips. Guys, I've just discovered that my jeans have been undone pretty much this whole vlog. I must have kept them undone at home and just not done them up. So if you've seen my jeans undone, I'm not gonna refilm it all and I'm not gonna check. So just ignore it, please. I'm very tired. It's bank holiday Monday and I got up very early for this, but it's been lovely and the weather is really cheering up now. Like, it's so gorgeous out and just all you can hear is the birds. It's just, I'm so happy to be here. I'm gonna quickly fix my watering can because obviously we can't leave a hole in it. Where was the hole again? This side, I think. We'll just stick a little bit of this, which is polycarbonate, poly, no, poly, polytunnel duct tape and it's sort of a waterproof, very, very thick tape, which is almost like a sheet of plastic. I got it online. I just found it on Amazon. I looked for polytunnel tape and if you get a tear in your polytunnel, this is how you fix it. I've got it all around my windows of my polycarbonate greenhouse and it's waterproof, so why shouldn't it fix a watering can, basically? That's what I'm trying to say. I should be able to just tape up that hole. It did work last time for a long time. I can see the tape has just come off, so it's got all my fingerprints on that, so if there's any crimes around here, my fingerprints are on this tape. There we go. And then what we'll do is we'll give all the seedlings in here a good water. There we go. Fixed. I really soaked them, but you know what? It's going to get so hot over the next couple of days. They will dry out so fast and there's a few things in these pots that shouldn't be in these pots. For example, these sunflowers, which look like they really need planting out. I might plant them out sooner, sooner than I sort of anticipated. And then obviously the courgettes as well. They will dry out so fast in these little pots. But that is a job for another day. I did bring with me some seeds. I whacked into my bag some nasturtiums. These are the dual mix. I get so many nasturtiums come up every single year, but I still sow them every single year because just in case they don't come up or I've killed them or something. So I think what I'm going to do is plant some of these along the archway. I'm pretty confident I've already got some in there that will just come up. I think it might just be worth whacking some more in just in case. Why not? There's such a beautiful flower, so good for pollinators and apparently they're quite good at sort of attracting slugs and snails so they don't go to your crops. They're like a sacrificial crop for slugs and snails. So we might as well try it and whack them in. I mean there's nothing to lose. Like I said, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna have them coming up anyway, but you know what? There's no harm whacking a few seeds in the ground. Also, just to warn everyone, it is bindweed season. Bindweed is starting to grow guys. Right, well that's it from me today. I hope you've enjoyed this vlog. I will be back again on Friday with another one and then Sunday with a home diary. I hope that you have some lovely weather this week and can get outside into your garden, grow something, just enjoy it, just listen to the birds and yeah, I will see you when I see you guys. Thank you so much for watching. Bye!