Our vlog pick - Sean's Allotment Homestead Garden

London-based gardener Sean James Cameron has been gardening for over 30 years and is passionate about growing his own produce and sharing his knowledge.  His most recent videos follow his journey creating a new allotment into a ‘bountiful land of food and flowers.’  We watch him putting up his shed, buying plants from the garden centre, sowing seeds in his potting shed and planting them out.

An experienced gardener, he grows a wide range of produce and loves trying more unusual and heritage varieties.  I liked the sound of the winter squash called ‘baked potato’ and ‘mashed potato’ – which apparently tastes of potato but has more fibre and 80% less carbohydrates than potatoes.

There are plenty of tips to be gleaned, such as putting your purple sprouting broccoli down the middle of runner beans for successional planting and making maximum use of the beans’ ability to fix nitrogen in the soil.  He also creates short practical vlog tips on things like deadheading roses.

It’s gentle viewing as we see Sean pottering about watering the garden with birdsong in the background, or having yet another cup of tea as he ponders what to do next.  In one post he even falls asleep in the shed and then resumes filming slightly bleary eyed!  It’s a far cry from fashionable, lifestyle vlogging: it’s allotmenting, warts and all, complete with bindweed and a leaking pond.  Sean has an infectious enthusiasm for what he’s doing – whether it’s the joy of cooking new potatoes or picking your own homegrown blueberries - and his vlog is a reminder of the small pleasures to be had from our favourite hobby.