LOOK WHO SHOWS UP / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Are you going to eat them or are you going to play with them? Oh, you know what? I was just literally thinking I could do with some more wood chip and look at this a great big new wood chip pile that is perfect timing today looks like pretty good quality too we've got quite a big big amount of sort of chips like wood chips in here compared to leaves this is fantastic I could really do with some of this to top up some of my pathways now the question is do I abandon my plans of today and start doing this instead or do I stick with the plan of the day and hope no one takes it over the weekend Decisions decisions I don't know I have to decide a bit I have to have a look at the plot oh no it's put me right out of whack this morning now Good morning guys welcome back to the allotment diaries my name's Emma these are the allotment diaries I'm still wearing my coat down here and that's not because it's cold it's because it always sort of looks like it's going to rain I think the weather woman the weather woman the weather people and the telly um so watch the weather every morning if you didn't know with my breakfast I always want to know what's going on with the weather very important when you're a gardener but the weather people said that instead of having April showers we're kind of getting May showers so the weather's very changeable one minute sunshine the next minute it's raining there's rain clouds there there's sunshine there it's all over the place so I'm just trying to be prepared for every eventuality and I've got a sweet pea flowering in my greenhouse it's just the weirdest most beautiful thing this is one of the sweet peas that I found randomly growing in here I must have dropped a seed and it's self-seeded itself into my greenhouse and look at it standing up on its own literally upright I know the plant's a bit bent but isn't that amazing it answers my question I'm always asking as to like when plants grow and they need tying in how do they survive in the wild it turns out they just do they just do isn't that the most beautiful sweet pea what a lovely colour tomatoes are all alive guys they're all doing very very well they will come bouncing back and they're just all sitting here quite happily so no more tomato drama I think they're just going to grow away now and be fine I've got four plants I put four in one two three four and I think that's plenty last year I did get quite a few tomatoes from like I think I had like six plants last year so I think four is absolutely fine for what I need and the other news is that I think the robins have fledged I think they just got bigger and flew away apparently fledging only takes sort of two two and a half weeks which I didn't realise I thought it'd be like six weeks or I don't know three months or something but it's very fast actually um so that panic is sort of over I don't know what I was getting so worried about but you know I I was just panicking that I had made the situation worse and feeling really guilty and bad about that um because I never quite know what the right thing to do is when it comes to wildlife wildlife for me it's all a bit of a mystery I do my best to get on with it and help it out but I sort of don't understand it as well and I don't think it understands me so you know that's fine I'm not asking it to anyway I think they've just fledged I have brought with me today so much stuff I've got all of my dahlias and my gladiolus to uh plant out which I think it's going to be a nice day for we've got a bit of sun I've also brought with me and this is the first thing we're going to do um some of this oh my god some of this um fungus gnat larvae killer which grows in the pond I had a little look in there the other day and I do think I have got gnat larvae gnat larvae larvae I don't think it's like mosquitoes I don't know if gnats and mosquitoes I think they might be the same thing um but they're little biting flies and I'm pretty convinced I've got their babies in my pond because it's still water and that's what they like I've put the fountain in but I don't think it's moving the water enough to put them off so these are little pellet bites and they only affect the gnats larvae they don't hurt mosquitoes they don't hurt other animals they don't hurt birds um just the mosquito larvae or the gnats larvae whatever you call it fungus gnats fungus gnats so we're going to stick this in the pond I think that's going to be the first thing we do and feed Einstein so let's go and have a little look at the pond Spooky's waiting right so here's the pond here is the pond I think when the sun comes out in a second you will be able to see what I'm talking about uh I'm not sure if it's going to show up on camera because of the uh the reflection and stuff but basically they're like these little worm things and that's when my suspicion started that actually they might be yeah there's loads I'm not sure if that's focusing can you see all those little things they are gnat larvae because they're long they're long and thin that's what they are I think you can just about see sort of movement on the camera at least even if it's not focusing but they are that's what that's what that is I'm convinced that's what that is and that is not something we want in the pond because that will turn into little gnats and they'll bite me and they'll just hover all over they'll just hover all over the water so every time I walk past her I'll get bitten I actually didn't read the instructions about how much to put in I'm just sort of guesstimating there we go hopefully that sort of takes care of the problem because I really don't want those in here however I have to say the pond weed situation looks better it does look like it's really reduced so I think the barley straw has done its job and I did put that in about a month ago just under a month ago so it really has reduced the amount of um the amount of this stuff which is horrible sort of slimy pond weed which we don't really like in here um but I do need to get some more pond plants and uh cover it over for the tadpoles anyway if any of you want to know that stuff that I used it is mosquito bites just got it off of amazon I can link it below maybe um if you want to try it but it does specifically say that it's sort of okay for other wildlife and it just attacks them um I think they eat it and then it devoids them of a nutrient that they need and they die something like that but yeah that is not what we want in there all right Einstein was hovering around here so I'm going to give him some of these um I'm not going to soak them because I know he's not got a nest at the moment so make my life a bit easier I'll just give him a few little little wormies of course he's flown off now nowhere to be seen typical Einstein right I thought we'd get right on today and do some planting so like I said I've brought my dahlias and my gladioli bulbs um so I'll show you quickly what I've got I've got the daily a single mix these are really great for um pollinators because the daily flowers are open and pollinators love flowers that are open so they can get to the center a lot of the pom-pom ones and the the fancy dailies with lots of petals are quite difficult for pollinators to get to and use and because I don't pick a lot of my flowers here let's be honest I just let them grow and enjoy them in the ground um I think it's good to grow some that are like good for the pollinators so they're doing some good got these gladiolus gladioli bulbs um magenta princess these are a really lovely color these tend to do really well at my plot because slugs and snails leave them alone they don't tend to eat gladiolus so I think it's a good bulb to stick in the ground they come up unaffected um got this daily mix which is the summer sorbet basically a mix of different daily colors which are like a sorbet color pastels pastel pinks and oranges anyway they look nice I get these ones probably probably not so good for the pollinators because they've got a lot of petals but you know they're good for me they're good for me to see and look at and I also got these gladiolus which are fairy tale pink very deep fuchsia pink which are absolutely gorgeous hot pink blooms adorns tall flower stems they get very tall gladiolus um and I always forget to stake them and they always snap over in the wind at some point but you know that's the fun of them it's the fun of growing them these are all going to go into the flower bed where the tulips were got some cosmos in there got a few wildflowers but we're just going to plant them around the other like the foliage where we can and that's the job we're going to do today I think right so this is the bed that we're going to plant our flowers into as you can see we've still got a lot of the tulip foliage which I'm trying to wait to die back so that they feed the tulip bulbs the next year um but I always end up putting more tulip bulbs in anyway and because I don't think tulip bulbs carry over to the next year perfectly so it's always nice to refresh so I'm not going to panic too much if I have to take some of them out or cut some of them back even yeah okay right we're just going to sort of whack these in and I mean quite literally whack them in because I actually can't find my trowel anywhere and I've searched for it for ages and I can't find it so we're gonna have to sort of use our hands and also I've got my hoe which I'm going to sort of try and dig a hole with um I just can't find it I don't know where it is I'd have thought I'd have found it by now with all the weeding and the trimming and the cutting back it's just not shown up so we'll have to make do with these all right it's a very weird looking tuba adelia I was a bit scared of them the first time I saw them I still am a bit scared of them um they sort of look like little octopus creatures little spiders and you might be thinking how on earth do I plant that what do I do with it you see this little sticky bit that comes out that's up basically that's all you need to know about them there's all this information about eyes and um oh I don't know all sorts of things but I tell you what the only thing you really need to know is which way up they go and it's that way so I usually leave a little bit of this sticking out the ground just so I know where it is and all of that goes under the ground and that's how you plant your little octopus people how many have I got one two oh look you can see this one here has already got a little bit of growth coming out of it and that goes up that way mate that way so I might plant this one first because he looks like he's got the most life in him one two three oh they've given me three and that's a little baby one oh with a little bit growth excellent okay good so these ones look good this one's probably still good too but it doesn't have anything growing yet so right let's whack these in obviously you need a hole deep enough for it to sit in quite nicely our big one in here so the hole has been dug with a hoe and my hands in he goes like this we don't want him to feel squished we want him to feel happy and relaxed there you go are you happy and relaxed let's take that as a yes the silence is always good and then we're just going to fill it in around press him down a few times to make sure oh gosh what's that siren they found us guys at last oh they found the bodies right we'll press him in to make sure that there's no air gaps we've got a little bit of growth sticking out I've sort of left that out and I'll leave this little bit sticking out here and that's it that's him sort of planted so we'll just water him and he's in that's the first alia good luck mate in goes this one he's a bit longer but that's fine so jug a slightly deeper hole just hold him like that fill him in this one's also got a bit of growth it's a good start isn't it funny how the weirdest ugliest bulbs seem to have the most beautiful flowers there we are all right got a little sorbet mix I'm excited about these ones oh okay looks like a bit of a tangle doesn't it looks like my hose pipe at home I think I've only got two in here okay I see I see they are confusing guys but as soon as you locate this little sticky bit that's it just hold it by the sticky bit and you'll see that's all the tubers coming off of it and we've even got a little bit of growth on this one so it's as soon as you find a sticky bit you've got to find got to find a sticky bit and it can be quite hard when it just sort of looks like that but keep looking and you'll see there's a sticky bit see just find a sticky bit and if you're lucky you have a few little bits of growth on it and it will just confirm it to you that that is the correct sticky bit and then you just put it in sticky bit up sticky bit up guys all right let's work these in okay right then like I said gladiola get quite tall I don't want them to over tower everything else so they can get to 140 centimeters tall I'm 164 centimeters tall so that's 20 centimeters smaller than me that's really tall that's really tall so I've actually got quite a few bulbs so if I put some in this bed here and then some into my little wildlife area over there I think that might be quite nice I've got so many bulbs probably quite an impractical way of growing them I think because it's easier to support them when they're all growing in a row but you know what let's just make it look pretty look at that it's already starting to grow so you can already tell which way the bulb is supposed to go that is super helpful but if you didn't know then it's just the end that's got all the little bits of roots coming out and the pointy end goes up same as garlic same as onion right let's whack these in so right I'm looking at this very messy bed here and I'm thinking why don't we just whack in the rest of the gladioli bulbs into here I think I've got enough to make a little bed of them I think I did put cornflowers in here but I'm pretty sure they've all been eaten so not really surprised with the amount of weeds here let's give it a weed and whack them in look at that rain cloud over there I don't like the look of that one that looks like a heavy shower showing up hey you're following me around today aren't you yes right I've got a little handful of them so we'll just sort of put them space them out really they do need quite a lot of space between them because they do grow up quite tall and so we'll do it properly in this bed and I think that's about right and then we'll have a row we'll have rows of them so we can support them really easily right in he goes good luck mate oh it's got a little medley a little medley of insects there blimey loamstein like a pickamix yeah pick a mix of bugs you're gonna eat them or you're gonna play with them right just one of those uh vlogs where I don't really know how much I filmed it's probably going to be like half an hour long and I've got nothing to worry about but I was so busy planting all those bulbs in and stuff I just sort of I wasn't quite sure what I was filming so hopefully you've enjoyed this vlog um and I've shown you a little bit of what I've been up to today on my allotment plot here in South London if you have any questions or any advice for me leave a comment below I do read all the comments I can't always get back um but I do my best to read them all and then to implement your advice it does take me a little while because I upload the videos in advance if you know what I mean so I filmed about three in a row and then I stagger them and so by the time I see your advice it's not going to appear in a video for another week and a half or so um but I promise you I do read it and I do implement it and I do the best that I can here and that's all you can do really so I hope you've enjoyed today's vlog I'll be back again next time thank you for watching bye