|
|
|
|
Garden diary for two weeks ending 29th
August
August is holiday and harvest time. Holidays of family kept me busy and we have all been enjoying wonderful harvest weather. I have my onions well dried and cleaned up and stored in a basket in the larder; my potatoes are finished and the runner beans almost over.
Thinking ahead I sowed some winter lettuce which came up very quickly and now have a tray pricked out. I am very annoyed I failed to sow spring cabbage, when I went to do so found I had no seed, hopeless forward planning so necessary if one wants a constant supply of vegetables.
I am still enchanted
by the robin who appears as soon as I am in the garden hoping I am going to do
some work and give him easy pickings, my little familiar. I was given another
laying hen so now have two again, I guess the one on her own was a lonely she
always arrived on the doorstep looking for company if I let her out off the
run. My little grandchildren loved collecting eggs and apples which they learnt
grow on trees not supermarket shelves!
Week ending14th August 2010
I have been very busy this week and have not had much time for the garden. As the weather has been lovely I harvested my onions and set them out on some wire mesh in a sunny spot to dry properly; I must remember to bring them in tomorrow when rain is promised in the afternoon.
My daughter Katey and I went to the
local garden centre where I was delighted to find some plastic bell cloches, my
original ones had wire hoops to anchor them but these did not, I am sure tent
pegs will do. I find these cloches invaluable, so easy to move quickly and
they protect crops from wind, frost and pests. I now have nine, which I
think should be enough. I also bought some rather leggy cauliflower plants and
they have gone into ground vacated by peas.
I was talking to a friend of mine who
is a professional gardener and like me only caters for one. She told me she now
grows her vegetables from plants started by a garden centre and they do well
and she reckons it is economical. Seeds are expensive and often I only use half
a packet. I can see this is useful for most things but I would always sow leeks
outside, they grow so easily and I need a lot of leeks to see me through the
winter.
I find when I am busy and
perhaps a bit stressed, as I have been this week, that an hour of gentle garden
work has a very calming effect, an easy way to de- stress! I think we all know gardening has
benefits beyond the obvious.
Week ending 7th August 2010
Listening to
the news this morning, floods in Pakistan, Fires in Russia and a 100
square mile of ice floating in the North Atlantic, can anyone doubt we have
Climate Change?
Gardening
seems such a tiny response to these huge threats, but still if everyone with a
little bit of land grew their own we could make a difference. Besides gardening
is good for us body, mind and soul and there is always the "feel good" factor.
Two delights
for me to add to my feeling good, one is a little immature robin that closely
follows me around in the garden almost asking me to start work so that he/she
can find easy pickings in the disturbed earth. Another is the amazement of a eucryphia tree
flowering. A tree I was given twenty years ago as a small bush and it is now
towering over the house and presently covered with beautiful large white
blossoms.
Most of my
work now is harvesting and clearing up. I have failed to sow spring cabbage
seed and wonder if it is now too late?
Last Sunday I
saw lovely cabbages growing in father Pat’s garden in Knocknaheeny in Cork. I
am amazed at the excellence and variety of his vegetables, transforming what
was unproductive grass into an excellent vegetable garden. His potatoes look so
well, flowering and not a spot of blight, it may be helpful that there are
probably not many potatoes growing near, so no blight spores.. Last
winter he made an orchard in a waste corner and is delighted with some apples
on the little trees. An oasis of peace in a very busy parish, an example to others,
and he says it is therapy; the feel good factor again.
Week ending 30th July 2010
This seems to
be a good year for vegetables, we have had more or less the right amounts of
rain, sun and heat and not too much of that killer, strong wind. My garden is productive but nothing
like the garden of Sally and Malcolm that I visited during the week. Not only
is their garden productive, but it is beautiful, and like any garden I visit
that is thriving it is enjoyed, tending it is a pleasure not a chore. I wonder
if vegetables grow better when their care is a delight? Certainly everything is
growing very well in that garden. In their tunnel the courgette and squash
plants are giants and tomatoes are huge, and there is always something coming
on, salads and greens. Thinking ahead and so spreading the harvest over the
year is good vegetable gardening.
Malcolm has
put up the most enviable proper strong supports for peas and runner beans and
has made a frame covered with mesh to go over the carrot bed, as a result the
peas have been excellent and runner beans will be too and the carrots have no
fly damage. At the ends of the pea and bean rows Sally has planted poppies and
nasturtiums, they take nothing from the vegetables and brighten the garden
delightfully. All their out door vegetables are in raised beds, potatoes,
onions, brassicas and leeks for the winter.
Very little
work done in my own garden, early peas are over and I need to pull them out,
runner beans well started, their support needs reinforcing, why did I not make
it like Malcolm’s firmer in the first place? I inspect the courgettes every day
in case they turn into marrows, as I suspected, the late sown plants are the
most flourishing.
My hens have
had another visit from the fox, they were sleeping in the run instead of their
house and it looks as if the fox managed to get a paw in and pull one hen out. I am sure if he/she had got into the run
both would have been killed. The solitary survivor seems unperturbed and has
kept on producing an egg a day and appears (as far as one can tell with hens !)
to be enjoying life. The very next day I saw the fox ambling through my garden
in broad daylight. So if you have poultry in West Cork strengthen your defences
and take care!
Week ending 24th July 2010
Last Sunday
18th was the official opening of Tommy O’Donovan’s Clonakilty allotments,
unfortunately a day of continuous misty rain. However despite the rain it was a
lovely occasion and the allotments are most impressive and of course it was a
gathering of like-minded people which is always a joy. As well as the
allotments Tommy has put up long polytunnels and each allotment renter is
entitled to space within them. Polytunnel
space can also be rented without an allotment, as can any portion of an
allotment. Just phone Tom O’Donovan
for details on 087 292 4372.
The transformation
from when I first saw the area, a stony field growing fodder beet, to now is
amazing. The vegetable crops are superb, cabbage, potatoes, cauliflowers,
carrots, courgettes, lettuces, peas and beans clambering up poles and in the
tunnel a jungle of exotics like peppers and tomatoes. The allotment holders
told me that, as well as good things to eat, they have felt a great sense of
community. So many thanks to Tommy for his idea and turning it into a reality.
There was a
good field of wheat next door and a wise man looking at it said to me “ I am
sure the return from the allotments is far better than from that field of
wheat.”
In my own garden I picked the first tomatoes, so delicious and the flavour completely different from anything from a supermarket shelf. These have grown without the benefit of a tunnel but given some protection from cloches when first planted out. I am also harvesting raspberries and loganberries, peas and the first runner beans, potatoes, courgettes and lettuce, all delicious and utterly fresh. How lucky I am.
Week ending 17th July 2010
This has been
a week of taking advantage of any dry moments to pick raspberries and
loganberries, and those moments were few and far between. There is a great crop
of my little wild raspberries, loganberries are not so good, they have
become overgrown by the hedge next door.
Very little
else has happened in the garden, I tied string to support peas that
have grown beyond their sticks and sowed Chinese cabbage after the last of the
broad beans. Weeds are coming up fast, I ran a hoe down the rows of little chard
plants, they all look well.
I wrote last
week of thinking when we shop. Having my own vegetables takes away
decision making about most of them, but what about things I can’t grow? Mushrooms
from Leitrim, celery from England, tomatoes from Spain? What my purchase has done to the world
to reach me, and then what it is going to do to me, and those I feed when I eat
it. Last season’s Irish apples are past their best, should I put up
with that or buy those grown in Brazil? Grapefruit, am I supporting Israel?
Do I really need products with food miles built in to them? We are lucky to
have markets in Clonakilty so that basics like carrots and potatoes are always
available locally and supermarkets here are good too about supporting the
local. In the end it is the customer who has the power, what we ask
for and buy will be on the shelves.
Then there is
animal welfare. What sort of life did the hen have that laid your egg, the pig
that supplied your sausages and rashers?
Hey this is
supposed to be a garden diary!
If you are a
vegetable gardener feel smug, there is nowhere so productive as the back yard
vegetable patch and the few feet to the back door is very different from the
food miles from Brazil or Kenya.
Week ending 10th July
This week has been dominated by rain. We were very grateful last Sunday but
now wish it knew when to stop! I would really like a chance of the soft fruit
drying up as Loganberries need picking and raspberries are just starting to
ripen and there are still a few blackcurrants.
I ate my first dish of peas, such a
treat. Vegetables are loving the rain and flourishing,
this morning I met a large brown frog (an ally in war against slugs and snails)
on a path. Some people say frogs change with the weather, dark brown
or black for wet weather and light green, like Kermit, for good weather, I am
also told this is nonsense, if true we are in for more rain.
Earlier in the week, before it got very wet, I
am glad I took the opportunity to sow rhubarb chard and plant out more leeks. I am very interested to see that a courgette plant
that I sowed in the open ground in June is doing much better than those I
started indoors. It will be a little later than the others but it is very
healthy and will, I expect, be the most productive. I did
have a cloche over it to begin with. I recalled my mother telling me many moons
ago that courgette seeds, started under jam jars at midsummer, would flourish.
My idea of letting the weeds grow around
carrots and defeating the fly did not work, lots of weeds and no carrots! There
was an amazing amount of weeds showing how important it is to keep on top of
them with hoe or hand weeding. I have another row of carrots and have planted
marigolds close up to foil fly with their scent, living in hope. Meanwhile I
bought some lovely home grown carrots at the farmers’ market; they are
quite delicious and there is also the feel good factor of supporting the local.
We all shop but how often do we think of where our money is going? Every
time we buy a local product our money stays near home and helps create a strong
economy as well as saving food miles. I firmly believe that thinking is the most important
thing we can do when we shop.
Week ending 3rd July 2010
Work now is taking out finished crops and
replacing them and of course harvesting. Most of the broad beans are finished
and various chards are going in their place. They should give a good crop
of greens in the early spring and meanwhile the thinnings are
absolutely delicious. The first row of peas failed and they have been replaced
with leeks. The first row of peas nearly always fail for me, perhaps I should
start with the second one! The later peas look very good, not quite ready for a
proper pick but a nice little raw treat for a greedy gardener.
I am eating Sharpe’s Express potatoes and very
good they are too, as land is left free the last of the broccoli for
next spring has been planted with lettuces in between. The lettuces should be
well gone before the broccoli gets too big.
There was very welcome rain during the week, I
have been watering, especially newly planted things, leeks and broccoli.
I visited a fine vegetable garden during the
week, set in a really lovely town flower garden, and wisely positioned near the
back door. Raised beds overflowing with flourishing lettuces, peas, Swiss chard, beetroot,
radishes and more, no weeds. A very cunning frame is over one
bed with an enviromesh cover that is stitched in place and can be
easily rolled up or down, such a good idea.
This garden is being enormously enjoyed, tending it a
pleasure not a chore.
A chore (and also a pleasure) for me
this week has been picking black currants, a fabulous crop, and I see loganberries ripening.
No chance of being idle in a July garden!
Week ending 26th June 2010
The sweet corn outside my kitchen window is
growing apace nearly “ as high as an elephant’s eye” well at least a
small elephant! It is great to watch things ripening and putting on
great spurts of growth at this time of year. I am harvesting a record crop of
blackcurrants, tedious picking but wonderful fruit rich in
vitamin C and great to have in freezer or made into jam for the dark days of
winter.
Have had some interesting information from
Sally (of the wonderful vegetable garden) about her successful efforts
to keep both cabbage root and carrot root fly at bay. She has been anointing
the stems of cabbage plants with essential oils and marigolds have been growing
amongst the carrots. Looks like
the different scents have muddled the flies.
In my garden I have pulled out the
finished second row of broadbeans and sowed Swiss Chard in
their place, carefully covered with anti cat holly! The first row of Chard is
up and I am trying to keep it damp to discourage that same cat. I see a few of
the New Zealand spinach seeds have survived and they too are being kept
damp. In a plastic ice cream container I made a
last sowing of summer lettuces, Tin Tin and Webs Wonderful. Ice cream
containers are fine seed boxes with a few holes made for drainage.
The weather has been wonderful but for gardeners too
dry, is this climate change? I feel I should get barrels at all my down
pipes. I am carrying water to newly planted things.
I got a brilliant present this week of a
bag of horse manure, gold dust! Have not yet decided where it will be most
usefully applied, rhubarb loves horse manure, or it could also make a
great contribution to a compost heap, or……? A delightful dilemma.
Week ending 19th June
Here we are nearly at midsummer
and all our plants are hurrying to grow strong enough to live through the
winter or produce seeds so that they can grow again next year. One of our jobs as gardeners is to
harness that desire for growth for our own ends - eating!
It is very cheering to start
harvesting (my favourite occupation). I have picked a bumper
crop of gooseberries and made jam and every day get a small bowl of wild
strawberries. There are lettuces, broad beans and early potatoes (Sharpe’s Express)
and soon there will be peas and courgettes, also another bumper crop, black
currants. However, as we all know, vegetable gardeners need to be
always thinking ahead. I am filling every space that becomes available, purple
sprouting broccoli going in after potatoes and Swiss Chard after the first
(autumn sown) broad beans. Leek plants are waiting for a home, I have some
planted out but, like peas, one can never have too many leeks, a great
winter vegetable, hardy and reliable and wonderfully pest free.
I am having trouble with
another pest, my daughter’s cat is living with me while she is on holiday and
he finds freshly seeded soil ideal to use as a lavatory! He has destroyed my
newly emerged New Zealand spinach seedlings with his tidy cover-ups.
Today I put Holly branches over Swiss Chard seeds to discourage him
and intend to keep that bed damp so that it won’t be easy for him to scrape
holes. Hope it works!
Two weeks ending 12th June
I was busy with family last week so not much gardening and no time for diary. My little grandchildren love the hens, and one of their delights is collecting eggs “Look grandma a warm egg!” Worth keeping hens just for that.
During the two weeks there
has been an explosion of green growth, from my kitchen window I can watch sweet
corn growing almost as I look at it! Blossoms are over and the trees heavy with leaves, my front “garden”
is a little forest. I am specially pleased that a wild crab apple that I was
given a long time ago has flowered, I need to clear around it to give it space.
The blackcurrants and gooseberries are heavy with fruit, not yet ripe, but I
can pick a bowl of little wild strawberries most days.
I heard a very good idea,
a friend of mine, plagued by slugs, sowed radishes around her peas and it
worked the slugs ate the radishes and left the peas alone. I should try that
around courgettes. I find that slugs have massacred my yellow courgettes but
are not nearly as destructive of the stronger growing green ones. I have a feeling that this time last
year I decided never to bother with yellow ones again, another instance of
failing because I don’t keep helpful records! Please do as I suggest and do so,
not as I fail to do !
Other work tackled has
been starting to plant out leeks, staking broad beans, sowing rainbow chard that most attractive and useful of vegetables,
and replacing brassicas that have succumbed to the dreaded root fly. And of course,
always weeding and keeping the hoe going.
Week ending 30th May
Two unpleasant happenings in my garden. Cabbage root fly has struck with a vengeance and my neighbour has cleared their hedge which gave me privacy and shelter.
I think the
very hot dry weather brought on the cabbage root fly and, although all the brassicas have collars I don’t think they are
good enough. It is very sad to go
out each morning and find more casualties,
a thriving cabbage plant one day and a dried up dead thing the next, and until now everything looked
so well!. Tomorrow I promise myself to go and buy some carpet underfelt which is what one is told to use for
collars, I have been making do with plastic and other odds and ends, a very false economy. A friend of mine
told me she talks to pests and tells them to go away and it works! I’ll try anything! Luckily there is still time to buy and
replant, and I still have a few of my own seedlings.
The hedge. Well at least it will no longer need
cutting on my side but I shall miss the privacy and shelter it gave me, it was
a fine hedge and I am amazed it has been destroyed.
Good things have
been happening too. The very first fruits of the year have started, the little
wild strawberries that are everywhere in the garden are ripening and gooseberries are ready
for picking for jam, pies and fools. Of course rhubarb has been abundant since
early spring; but is it a fruit—or a vegetable?
I pulled out the last of the sprouting broccoli and now vegetables are in short supply but I do have some spinach and a big plant of Good King Henry. The leaves of Good King Henry make a very good spinach substitute. It is a handsome perennial plant that would be quite at home in a flower border and, as I once read in a gardening
