Tunnel Progress | Problems With My Plums | Hotbin Tinkering

Brilliant to be back at the plot after a pretty crap week at work.

Support the channel:
If you enjoyed this video and want to donate to help me keep making them you can do so at: https://www.patreon.com/NatJB or make one-off donations through https://ko-fi.com/naturallyjb or at https://paypal.me/naturallyjb. Thank you so much for considering this, times are hard and there is no pressure!

Affiliate Links:
► 10% off Grown Local seed orders with code ‘NATJB’: https://grownlocal.co.uk/ref/Naturally%20JB/
► Plan your allotment FREE with Vegplotter at: https://vegplotter.com/?a=JBPLOT
► My Favourite Garden & Filming Gear: https://kit.co/NaturallyJB
► Garden Supplies, Crop Protection & Raised Beds: Harrod Horticultural https://tinyurl.com/298v6bpo
► Failed crop or forgotten seed!? Plug Plants: J Parker’s https://tinyurl.com/2d8adpqj

Playlists:
All my uploads, starting from 2020!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MNX5sctcOA&list=PLN4LsN_65N2awIsuPhBRk_9OgIgVLqfHm
My allotment diaries: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLN4LsN_65N2bz0AjPty9x9nfuN6fi67dw
Beginner guide series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ8H2ZO2K20&list=PLN4LsN_65N2ZUF3kaTtV0YtmDYYRoos9m
My (long) Greenhouse Build: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AILI6cLKoXE&list=PLN4LsN_65N2Z2lDznBkDroIGK2nxLJXSD&pp=gAQB

Instagram:
I’m not very regular at posting and mostly just take pictures of insects and butterflies and nice things like that: https://www.instagram.com/naturally_jb/

Hi folks and welcome back to the plot you’ve seen the thumbnail you know that something has gone a bit wrong which is uh entirely part of the course on this allotment and I’ll get to that I’ll get to that but first I thought I just do a bit of

This the classic white Trace carrier bag today I actually gave these very old and tired shears I showed in a recent video a good sharpen the other day and I’m still generally getting to grips with hot composting and you know that’s a good example of what started as a mistake you

Know me putting the wrong things in the compost in the wrong kind of form not chopping them up small enough and it’s a lesson I’ve learned an adaptation that I’ve made and we’re going to be talking about some more mistakes in a bit I’m just going to get

This nice and chopped up some kind of cut flowers a bit of food waste but something else I’ve done thank you very much to my patrons who have let me buy check this out a cardboard Shredder very good now I know that’s quite blue and there’s a bit of some

People say you shouldn’t really use colored cardboard but this one is from a a flower company that’s super biodegradable and friendly this is what it looks like when I do it by hand not ideal but I’ve only got so much time and patience for it so that will still go

Down it’ll just take a bit longer but that’s how we start doing it by hand and this is probably about twice as much material in the same space here as well which is really cool I just bought a a little kind of cardboard Treader I think it’s about 40 quid it’s quite powerful

You know it’s enough to go through cardboard and let’s go and look at how the hot bin is doing oh man there’s like some lemon or some orange or something in this and it’s SM so good uh Fork would be a good idea let’s give this a mix wherever I put that who

Knows oh yes I actually put it in the shed where it was meant to be this is just a light sort of Border Fork I normally use this for wood chip but it’s quite good for kind of mixing just not good for digging let’s have a look in

Here what we got the thermometer on the top just says 20 but I opened it this up just the other day and it was cooking it was cooking in here oh yeah oh it’s sludgy oh it’s really sludgy let me show you so I’ve just been in here giving it

A bit of a mix and you can see actually there’s still quite a lot of stems quite a lot of chunky stuff so I think I’m going to spend a bit of time going through again with just some secars and some shears it’s pretty laborious but

You know it’s one of those things we we want to get it right and I want to get this chopped up a little bit more and then I can mix in all that cardboard dry it out a little bit and hopefully this will continue to improve I was expecting

There to be a bit more heat in it I opened this maybe a week ago start of the week and it was roaring um there’s a bit of gentle heat in it today but it has cooled down an awful lot so I need to keep working on this shame I didn’t

Get it right first time it would have been easier to chop up before it had gone in the composter but you know we’re moving in the right direction so bit more time chopping this up we’ll do it right we’ll do it right I have a feeling that part of the

Issue here is that it’s too wet and not enough Browns I think the other might just be the volume of material that you need to get this going you know I’ve I’ve got some heat in here that’s mainly coming from the manure breaking down but

I feel like what I could really do with is you know those those summer greens the grass clipping something to really get the heat started but if I had all of the grass clippings going in here well I’d need loads more Browns as well so it’s one of those things that we’re just

Going to try and continually try and improve bit by bit I’m going to get better at chopping everything up we’re much better now at getting every single scrap of food in the kitchen if there’s anything that Jess is heading towards the B with I’m like no the compost think

Of the hot compost I need as much as I can and these things are hungry so we’ll keep keep moving what is encouraging is you know the the darkness in here like there’s there’s a lot of stuff that is already composted down my immediate thought when I open This

Was oh no sludgy wet bad but actually there’s so so much that’s already composted down and turned from that Lush Leaf like uh all the the Braska leaves and the chili plants a lot of this is just chili stems now that need chopping up a little bit you know the first

Chilies I put in here weren’t enough this newspaper you can see are really stupid just didn’t chop this up at all so we’re getting there we’re making improvements and I’m being very careful whenever I get near the bottom with this fork and thankfully so far I

Haven’t put a hole in it if I’m trying to get things off the bottom specifically I’ve got a spade to hand as well bit of a crap Spade that one but it does the job feel like what would be a good idea is if I could get a hold of

Um you know some waste from like a a cafe or a restaurant or something like that you know if they were getting rid of all their vegetable trimmings that would be an amazing source of compost wouldn’t it anyone ever done that have you ever got like an external source for your

Compost I do I had a few comments as well saying JB you’ve got a garden Shredder at home you could use that but the just the sheer Logistics of trying to use that break up a load of stuff and then having to kind of transport it all

To the alotment and then you know it’s a lot of f to get out and set up it just it’s not going to happen it’s one of those things and as well I don’t actually don’t think that it would get most of the material is small enough you

Know it’s a very those Garden chippers that you get are very very rough like it’s just everything’s still quite big at the end of it you know it’s sort of like wood chip sized which I guess is better than putting it in hole but I found that just putting something in a

In a bucket with the shears does get it to a really good size and doesn’t take too long you know Steve used to do it in his wheelbarrow and good to follow the advice of the old boy pretty much at all times isn’t it Even after a really good mix you can see it’s quite a lot of cardboard kicking around in here so you know the shredded stuff so it looks like that was a good amount and like I said we’ll just continue to add to it continue to chop

Up as I go continue to hope that we’ll get some heat in here it is slightly harder to keep these going over over winter I think there until next time hot bin I’m quite warm after that don’t forget your gloves JB now I’m a bit of a walking contradiction sometimes you’ll

Not that a lot of the time I spend a lot of time talking to camera and kind of figuring out what to do next and that’s quite a I’ve just learned that that’s quite a good process for me actually I do get the odd comment though that just

JP talking so much get back in and when I was down here I think it was Monday didn’t have much time I’ve gone past it and I thought it would be a good idea just to prune the apples fun fact I actually forgot my camera that’s what

Really happened I came up to film the video about how to start vlogging didn’t have my camera I had to wait ages till I could go home while I was here sharpened the tools and thought Oh time to prune the apple tree so I’ve just given the

Apple tree a little prune probably could do with a bit more and the other thing I did was look at the plum trees and go they need some work now I might have some footage of the plum trees before I started butchering them but I don’t

Actually think I do this bit of the plot of the back has always been just a bit of an i or bit crap um in Spring I left them I kind of forgot to prune them because you know there’s a hundred things to do in Spring isn’t there and

As well it was all overgrown you can see hopefully I’ve cut back all the Bramble that corner that bin that upside down wheelie bin you couldn’t see before because of just brambles that were growing in here and I decided to start butchering the plums a little bit you

Might remember I didn’t get a single Plum this year I I literally I’m not exaggerating not a single Plum there were lots of fruit on the trees but they all just went moldy I think a lack of air flow we’ve got some more plums at the back there that are the neighbors

And they look a bit neglected too or just in dire need of a prune but for whatever reason the plums were not happy the the branches themselves were just completely Laden they were basically touching the floor they were drooping right down really really unhealthy trees and I know that generally the the done

Thing is to PR these in spring because of something called Silver Leaf Disease it’s sort of the main the main baddy when it comes to plums and oh boy oh boy have we made a mistake so the reason that you’re not meant to prune in autumn and winter because of

Silver Leaf Disease is because the fungus the silver leaf fungus sets it spores around this time of year autumn and winter and what it does is it lands in the fresh wounds of your plum trees or your soft fruit trees and from there it can get pulled in to the plant now

Just look at this this is an unhealthy tree it’s covered in like fissures and yeah look at this one a massive fissure there so I I kind of knew that I think to be honest they’re on the way out this is bit of a l itch attempt to give them

A second chance but the problem is I was aware of Silver Leaf Disease but I should have done a bit more reading and a bit more research before I started hacking away at these because I’ve got a picture here one of the stems basically was here there were four here and there

Was one that was completely dead and I cut that right back but it was covered in fungus and I took a picture cuz I thought well that’s quite cool then when I went on the rhs page that is the silver leaf fungus now that basically

Means I think that’s the cause of a lot of these problems and there was another Telltale sign which was this the staining when I cut into a lot of these stems they have a very characteristic staining which apparently indicates Silver Leaf virus or silver leaf fungus

I should say this is the bad stem you can see it’s basically just an open wound all the way up there and there’s that marking in the wood so what I should have done and what you should do if you’ve got soft fruit trees take a bit of time first to properly inspect

Them look for signs of fungus look up you know the types of fungus that might be affecting your tree see whether or not it’s going to spread to your other trees if you prune them and then maybe take some action preferably prune them in Spring like

You’re meant to now this isn’t the end of the world there’s kind of this tree at the back is just crazy this one has got multiple stems uh it’s down to three it did have five and it might that it might even be two different trees you

Know um but i’ I need to cut that right back I think maybe take that down to just two stems this year see how it gets on see if they’re they see if they’re different trees or not I’m not too sure but that one needs a huge huge lot of

Work you can see I’ve had a go it already this one has come out this one looks like it might just survive it’s actually not got much signs of damage although saying that there is a little bit there is a little bit but generally this is probably the healthier tree it’s

The smallest tree so I’ve got hope for that one this one though I’m not too sure about this one is the one that I just showed you with the the serious fissures so the fact that they’re already so damaged you know and I’m not particularly attached to these but one

Of the problems with allotments this is a uniquely allotment issue the person who planted these have a plot a few over they’re very friendly they’re very kind but um you know if they come by and they see that I’ve hacked down all their plum trees just a little bit uncomfortable

You know because you got to kind of say oh yeah I think they had a disease and they they weren’t very healthy and it’s just something that you need to consider you know you can’t always just I mean you can I it is this plot is now mine you know it’s my

Tency it would be within my rights to cut down and I want and completely chop and change everything it just feels a bit mean you know so uh yeah that’s just a little a little something to consider on allotment sometimes but the real mistake I’ve made I think and the thing

That I would have done differently because to be honest if I’d seen that this was silver leaf fungus I know I’m talking about this a lot but if I’d seen that this was silverly fungus identified it properly I probably still would have done all this but what I wouldn’t have

Done is left all of this on the floor all of this Brash for a few days because when it’s on the floor it can still set spores and they’re all quite close to the to the open wind so I should have stacked this away somewhere else and

Probably burned it um but you know heyo we we move we learn and I think what I’m going to do is process a load of this up get it chopped up a bit smaller get it tidied up and get it moved away and hopefully I’m actually going to take out

Another one of those stems as well but hopefully these will give a little bit of a better show next year we’ll See you’ve seen me merrily chopping away and I’m pretty happy with the progress I’m making I do think I’m going to need to have a bit of a burn up though and as a rule it’s kind of my last resort I think with kind of Woody material and

That kind of stuff if you can compost it down you know chop it up small enough or turn it into wood chip so it’s going to compost it just makes sense you know it’s nice to keep that organic matter in your garden system rather than sending

You know 90% of it into the air there’s not really a need if you can avoid it however I would say this is starting to get to the point where really you do need to do it um there’s a big pile there I’ve just brought in a load of the

Tree clippings there’s a load there and unfortunately it’s a bit too drizzly to film properly but you know it’s one of those things this is a bit like where I’ve started to pick at a scab or something I know that’s a bit gross but you know what I mean where it’s like

Well I’ve started kind of clearing back here now and this bit is so gross this is just like random bits of Dum proof membrane that I found there’s you know we really don’t talk about this enough but that is a kid paddling pool that for some reason was on the allotment back

Here when I took it on there was like a bathtub back here and I mean believe it or not it used to be grosser than this but you can see it just it just looks horrible doesn’t it and now I’ve started clearing it it’s like well I kind of

Want to get it all done now I want to cut back all the brambles there’s a few kind of tree roots and stuff that are coming in the back of this corrugated fence and I found a few little kind of incinerator things so I think maybe

Tomorrow I will have a bit of a burnout especially considering that a lot of this has got the silver leaf fungus I think it just kind of makes sense and you can still make use of the ash which is something but I’m going to have to

Put the camera away and that was a little Midway through I’ll show you maybe spend an hour or something get the rake out get it all looking a bit neater and tidier it’s compulsive you know once you start you can’t Stop So I’ve just stopped to have a bit of lunch and uh I’ve eaten too much to be honest just made some sausage rolls like Christmas sausage rolls bit of chili jam ah that and some banana bread and now I’m like oh oh I don’t fancy doing any hard work

Anymore but uh nevertheless I do and what I was going to say why I was laughing is because I just looked at that timelaps quickly and I saw the plastic just coming into the shot the entire time let’s have a let’s have a little look shall we it’s still pretty

Far from perfect we’ve got two nice big kind of brashy piles now that are ready to get look at all that root system I think that’s brambles um but yeah these can go on the Fire once the once the wood is going properly you can just kind

Of Chuck them on and they’ll go go all crackly and Poppy butth yes look at this big old pile of like what is probably Once Upon a Time compost um you know just this big pile and that asbestos shating pretty gross look at this next

Door as well this is just wild if I was taking this plot on I would not be very happy having to go through all that that is a proper proper just neglected compost pile H and I’m probably just going to leave this like this for now it just looks a little

Bit nicer you know I would quite like to do something with this area I don’t know I was thinking maybe just some spring bulbs or something for now to kind of pretty it up a little bit you can see a lot of the grass is dying back where

It’s sort of been partially covered and the the issue is I don’t know what’s going to happen with these trees I’ve got a feeling they’re they’re on their way out so if we take out all of these trees then I’ll have like a whole new bit of planting area either for new

Trees or maybe some beds or maybe both to be honest maybe it would be cool to do like some fruit tree guilds or something like that I know n is really into those at the moment and he keeps saying they’re just so good so maybe

That’s on the cards for the future but I don’t know for now it’s just nice to have that a little bit tidied up because that is something I literally never ever do on the plot but they’re plastic they’re plastic the tunnel needs some work doesn’t it I know I know I’m sorry

I’ve been stringing you all along with this plastic but the plan is what I want do I think next is start on this properly you’ll notice during the week I have been up and I’ve moved all the stuff this was all covered in stuff and I’ve um been breaking up all the clouds

Of grass especially that were down this end so it’s had a bit of a you know milling and that kind of thing and what I want to do is start to dig this out move the material up to this end I want to Chuck some cabbages in there look at

This oh these were given to me by a neighbor Mike my allotment neighbor and they are looking so good so healthy I just it’s a bit of an experiment I’m not sure how well they’re going to do over winter but I think Chuck them in there and

Then I still want to pursue the hot bed idea so what that means I need to do is kind of excavate a lot of this so there’s room for all the manure I want to build it up as well so it’s time to get the scaffolding boards in and get to

Work now I’ve been kind of debating about exactly how to do this and where to kind of tie these in and all that kind of stuff and whoops good thing I’m wearing boots what would be ideal is if it could sit on the bricks and on the

Slabs just so the bottom stayed really dry then it’s going to be difficult to tie into the the framework here properly and the kind of question that I’m wondering or the question that I’m asking is whether or not it’s worth doing it along the back it’s going to be

A right pain because of the way that these U Clips I’m why what am I doing I could just pick up the camera and show you could I so the way that these eucalyp kind of protrude means that you know I can’t screw anything into the base rail

Flush or anything like that so there’d be a massive bit of dead space between where those clip the end of those clips and the base rail where you just get all these weeds kind of growing up and I’m wondering if maybe that’s pretty much roughly the same level I’m not sure oh I

Don’t know what to do maybe this one would be better I’m kind of going back and forth a lot I just not 100% sure what to do I don’t want to have the base rail completely really far away aren’t I don’t want to have the base rail completely in the

Soil just because if that starts to rot then well you know it’s just dangerous isn’t it we don’t want to mess around with that so I’ve always intended to keep the soil below that base rail but you can see there’s still quite a lot of space especially down well this end it’s

Slightly higher the soil is and then down this end there actually loads of space along there so I’m thinking maybe if I go with the shorter board there and this one as well this big board I feel like that would just be quite an obstruction to be honest and make

Gardening in here you know tending to the plants and that a little bit awkward whereas if I just have this nice leather one it will just act as a perfect thing just to separate yeah I think I’m leaning that I’m leaning that way now just been fiddling around a bit and

These are pretty much exactly half the size of the scaffolding board so I think I think that’ll work really well it does mean for the hot bed I’m going to have to dig quite a lot to basically create like a trench hot bed and there’s a few

Different ways to do it you can either build a hot bed on top of your soil or you can dig into the soil take the soil out and then build your hot bed in that and then have a little bed on top of it and I was sort of planning on Excavating

This a little bit this just means I’ll have to go that little bit further and I think if that material is spread out all along here it should be just fine maybe I’m going to give it a go I think I’ve done a lot of talking this

Might be a really long episode so I’m going to get this Done I am feeling it folks I tell you what got horrible job absolutely horrible horrible horrible job took flipping ages everything is hurting so much bending over my knees are killing me and basically I just wanted to make sure that the bricks and this Timber

Lined up I could have had the Timber on the floor but a I didn’t want it to start rotting through this stuff is just lightly treated it’s not the best you know so a that and B I just the real thing I didn’t want was Weeds starting

To grow under and in front front of the bed I just know that that would have driven me absolutely potty you know that would have driven me mental and speaking of potty potty mouth gardien Club back every Monday at 7:00 on our live streams links in the description if you don’t

Know about them I’m feeling pretty good I’m feeling pretty good that this is done now so much just moving the slabs a little bit and it’s a real shame cuz I had them all set up perfectly we’ve got this little join here just whoa we’re going upside

Down in there I just popped in a nail plate and a little bit of Batton just to give it a bit of strength and here this I’ve just put in a little bit of a steak just found a bit of wood turned it into a steak few screws in there and that’s

Really just a brace it stop it from bowing out but yes look look at these slabs that were perfectly laid and big gap down the middle you can see how much I’ve had to shift everything over and I think that’s just where I you know it’s

Just how I’d done them so that they were Center in the tunnel itself not lined up with the the door or anything unfortunately we’ve still got all this to deal with at some point but you know the slabs just weren’t quite wide enough so I probably need another course of

Bricks if I want to do that properly it might make sense to either have that as a retaining thing or maybe just take all of these slabs off at some point and scoop all that soil onto something else maybe into a raised bed or something like that I don’t know that’s one for

Another day you know next thing for me to do is get this dug out get it ready for the hot bed and I really need to clean out the green houses as well that’s tomorrow’s list getting rid of all those chilies starting to look really man but the reason I haven’t

Really prioritized this with the hot bed is cuz it’s still a little on the early side I think it’s good to start your hot beds in January because otherwise they can kind of run out of heat a little bit too soon that’s what I’ve been reading

In the Jack first book anyway thank you ever so much for joining me hopefully I’ll see you again next time an extra special thank you to all of my chili pepper tier patrons Tony Bill Pam Louise Mel Michael Denise socks in the garden and Andrew happy gardening folks