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Week ending 30th. August

Week before last I was in Glenstal for a fascinating Course “ The Environment, Education and the Eucharist”.  While there I visited  the garden twice on my own. The garden is a magic place; dating from 17th century so it well predates the mock Norman Castle built by the Barringtons in 19th Century.  I love the old walls, the sense of peace and continuity.   I could sit on the top terrace for hours watching the changing sky and the quiet Limerick countryside.  It is certainly not a manicured garden but the grass is mowed and there is the very interesting Biblical garden where Father Brian has gathered as many of the plants mentioned in the Bible as will grow here, mint, rue and dill, figs, grapes, barley and wheat, the weeds cockle and thistles (tares?) peas, wormwood and many more.  I ate a fig and inspected pears on the walls but they were not ripe.

Beyond the walls there is a flourishing apple orchard (banished from Eden?). The grass is kept down by a flock of Biblical Jacob’s sheep!

In my own garden not much happening as I have been busy with family around. Lovely to be able to feed them my own vegetables and even some fruit and eggs.

I heard during week that more people are thinking of starting to grow vegetables next year. How wonderful and this is a good time to plan where and how. Can I suggest covering the plot chosen with black plastic; or if you are lucky enough to have a plentiful source of well rotted manure, cardboard with a thick layer of manure on top. I have tried both these methods for getting a good weed free start in the spring.

If you grow even a few of your own vegetables you will save money as well as helping to save the planet, and enjoy yourself! 

Week ending  23rd August

No garden diary this week because I have been away in Glenstal on a course “ The environment, education and the Eucharist” - absolutely excellent.

Amongst other things there is an interesting Biblical Garden at Glenstal with many of the plants mentioned in the Bible, grapes and figs come to mind and I hope to write more about that next week.

Great to see on my return tomatoes starting to ripen despite rain.
Proper diary next week.

Week ending 16th August

Perhaps we should be growing rice! Constant rain this week, enough to fill Paddy fields, very depressing and weeds are loving it. I believe it is the Atlantic warming up that is causing the rain and floods, so we can expect more of this kind of weather in the years ahead.

I have managed to do a little garden work on days that were only showery, planted out the last of the January King cabbages (after potatoes) and sowed a row of Swiss Chard (after onions). I wonder if I will ever get the onions dry? I have created a wire drying frame but they must be soaked again tonight. I do know that unless really dry onions wont keep, and I need plenty onions. Today I thinned the earlier sown Chard and ate the thinnings, quite delicious.

Talked today with someone with a tunnel, I can see how it makes gardening much easier and of course one can work sheltered from the rain!

Anyhow no need to water his week, count our blessings! Jennifer

Week ending 9th August

A lot of gardening is thinking ahead. This week I planted out January King cabbage plants and sowed a tray of Flower of Spring cabbage seed. I hope these will give me cabbages from early spring right through to early summer ---- I can always hope! Amazingly the seed germinated in three days, I still find this is a delight to watch. I always sow things like cabbages in trays to keep the seedlings are safe from slugs. The late sown carrots seem to be flourishing so I have tried another row although, with days getting shorter, guess it is now a bit late.

My sweet corn is just outside the kitchen window, not quite “as high as an elephant’s eye” but doing well, like some skinny scarecrows and I am glad to see some cobs forming.

A job I have started is cutting out the old loganberry canes and tying in the new ones, this makes me realise autumn is almost here. However autumn is a good time for gardeners, less urgency in work and more to harvest.

I love seeing other peoples’ gardens and during the week I revisited the flourishing vegetable garden of the Parish Priest in Knocknaheeny, which I have written about before. This is a brand new garden, at the start of spring it was only grass. Ate a delicious stir fry mostly picked a few minutes before cooking!

Enjoy the things you have grown.

Week ending 2nd August

On Sunday I was wishing for rain, the garden was very dry, on Monday my wish came true! Quite amazing how things grew with the rain, but of course it did not know when to stop.

So there has not been much time I could get out in garden but every opportunity was seized and today I have been thinning chard and turnips, perfect damp ground for that. As the soil is so lovely I have tried planting some of the chard thinnings and they look quite happy. These are thinnings of the beautiful mixed coloured Chard called “bright lights”. I grew it last year for the first time and was delighted. It looked so pretty, tasted delicious and came in, from a late summer sowing, when winter crops were wearing thin in the spring. I would highly recommend it to anyone who has not grown it already and who has space after potatoes early peas or broad beans. I expect Hosfords have seed and if not try www.organicCatalogue.com; very tempting!

I was glad the raspberries and loganberries were finished before the rain came, it would have ruined them. The front garden is full of creamy heads of Meadowsweet and the white lace of wild carrots. The Montbretia are flowering, horrid invaders from the Southern Hemisphere, I only planted them after much thought and wish I had not. They keep spreading and smothering nicer things with their great clumps of leaves. I have made a small start at cutting back some of the jungle that is creeping onto my drive and attacking Montbretia at the same time, but I fear it will always gain on me.

This is a most satisfying time of year with crops coming in, the last of the broad beans, runner beans starting, courgettes, lettuces, onions and cabbages, I am even going to have some sweetcorn. Tomatoes looking good, hope we get some heat to ripen them, I have tied them up, cutting off unnecessary bits and the tips beyond which nothing will ripen. Despite my spraying potatoes are blighted, but tubers so far are sound. My neighbour John tells me he has potatoes that don’t get blight and don’t need to be sprayed, I have forgotten name but will ask again, and try to remember it when I buy seed next spring. (I think I am going to live and garden for ever!) Jennifer


Week ending 26th July

Last night I met someone who, to my surprise and delight, reads this diary every week. But she does not garden!

I wondered am I making vegetable gardening sound too onerous and have I failed to explain the thrill of starting with seed and ending with a delicious fresh vegetables on ones plate? I would love to use this diary to encourage people to make even a small start at vegetable growing and so find out how easy and rewarding it is.

Someone who needs no encouragement is the Parish Priest of Knocknaheeny, whose garden I have written about before. I saw that garden again last Sunday and it is full of lovely vegetables, salads and especially good peas. Like my daughter Katey’s abundant garden it was started from scratch this spring. And those are two busy people. Another excellent garden belongs to my neighbour John who is well up in his eighties.

Apart from harvesting, weeding and a bit of watering not much work done here. I visited Hosfords and was tempted to buy a packet of Spinach seed, on the packet it proclaims," “The Real Taste Of Italy", water twice a day”! Anyhow, they are set for a catch crop and we will see, real spinach as oppose to the easily grown Chard is so delicious.

If you haven’t started a garden think about it!

Week ending 19th July

Today is the anniversary of my mother’s birth 104 years ago. I have been thinking about her and giving thanks for the love of gardening that she passed on to me. I know she found great solace in her garden when things were tough, and living through two world wars there must have been very worrying times. I can wear myself out with worry but I do find thinking about the garden and getting down to the work there very therapeutic.

Work is not really urgent at this time of year, mostly watching things grow. I am still planting leeks (it must be obvious by now I enjoy planting leeks, and eating them!) and a row or two of January King cabbage plants where potatoes have been lifted, also lettuce plants fill odd corners. Of course there is always something to do, hoeing, weeding, building up compost heaps and tidying. However I read in my Irish Times that tidiness is the enemy of biodiversity, anyone who has seen my garden will realise how much I approve of that!

Harvesting is a delight, potatoes of course, broad beans nearly over and runners just starting, I have to inspect and pick the courgettes every day in case they hide and explode into marrows. Berries, raspberries and loganberries, are very good this year and my freezer is full and there are pots of jam in the larder.

I hope anyone who is reading this will also find their garden a place where worries and problems are eased.


Week ending 12th July

Yesterday I saw a lovely little bright eyed bird perched on my broad beans and gobbling up black fly, I was enchanted, a dear little ally. I have decided not to sow broad beans later than January as the later ones do get infested with the fly. However the beautiful purple flowered ones I got from brown envelope seeds seem to be OK.

A lot of my time and energy this week has gone into picking berries, taking advantage of any dry spell. Crops are good, making up for absence of apples.

This week I revisited Sally and Malcom’s garden, I was last there at end of April. It is now truly magnificent with an abundance of flourishing vegetables, some in raised beds and more in the tunnel. What really struck me was how healthy everything looked, the same as in Katey’s garden. I have begun to realise that my vegetables don’t really look flourishing, needing feeding. With this in mind I did something I have never done before. I bought a box of Gouldings organic fertilizer and as new crops go in they are getting a sprinkling of fertilizer. I expect great things, wondering why my compost was not enough and very aware that stuff in boxes costs money! A catch crop of turnips has gone in after peas and Swiss chard after garlic, as potatoes are lifted I plant leeks. I do have excellent leek plants, love planting them and now with their dose of Gouldings hope for great things.

Gardeners need to be full of hope and delight in the work and results; that little busy bird really raised my delight levels. Hope all yours are high. Jennifer

Week ending 4th July

As I write this the rain is bucketing down and wind battering the garden, I have just been out to feed my miserably wet hens and to move their muddy run, and collect two eggs, so they are worth a wetting.

Soft fruit are ripening and this rain is a worry, managed to collect a few raspberries before going to Cork this morning, but on a fine day I get raspberries, loganberries, black and red currants and a few alpine strawberries. I love the look of them, their jewel colours as they sit in bowls.

Not much other work this week, pulled out the finished earliest peas and sowed Swiss Chard in their place. I find Chard a wonderful vegetable, really two, the green spinach part and delicious stalks; also, sown now and in August, it seems to be a useful and fail safe crop ready in the spring and “hungry gap”

Had a delightful visit from some members of Sustainable Clonakilty on Wednesday evening, how lucky we were with the weather. Interest in producing some of our own food seems to be growing, if there is anyone out there in Clonakilty who would like to join a group/committee to foster this do get in touch.
Phone 023 34637 Jennifer

Week ending 28th June

There has not been a great deal happening in the garden because of the rain, one can’t do much with waterlogged soil. Also on Wednesday next week Sustainable Clonakilty is meeting in my house and they are going to have a look at the garden, so I have been doing a bit of tidying up.

Soft fruit has started to ripen, loganberries, red and black currants and the very first of the raspberries, hope the weather dries up to harvest them.

I suppose the good thing about my garden is that I do have vegetables to eat all year round without help of a greenhouse or tunnel. Of course only myself to feed.

If anyone reading this would like to come 5 Ard Carraig, Clonakilty 8.30 July 2nd. You are welcome.

Just remember that one can learn as much from other people’s mistakes (mine) as their successes. Jennifer

Midsummer's Day

A wet and windy midsummer, wish I had sprayed my potatoes again last week when it was still dry, and it was very dry up until Wednesday when I was delighted to see rain.

I visited Katey’s magnificent garden in Fairfield Terrace during the week and find that her vegetables are way ahead of mine, they are growing on land that has, I presume, been fallow for years. It made me think about the fertility of my soil, it is obviously not as good as it should be. Then I realised I have been gardening here for eighteen years, longer than anywhere else in my life, and have been taking more from the soil than I have been putting back. Of course I have been making and using compost but need to do more, this diary will, I hope, record my efforts. I would love to get hold of some “well rotted farm yard manure”!

Work has been planting leeks where broad beans have been pulled out or potatoes lifted. Broad beans were a great crop and I still have some later ones. Leek plants from out door sowings are better than those started earlier in a seed tray, a lesson there. Planting leeks for me like planting potatoes, something I really enjoy and keep on at as long as there is land. Luckily I enjoy eating both!

I also pulled out second last row of Swiss Chard and replaced it with carrot seed remembering Marian Crudge’s advice to sow carrots at end of June and so escape carrot fly, hope so!

Week ending 14^th June

Talking to a fellow gardener yesterday we were bemoaning how dry everything is. Of course gardeners nearly always have something to moan about, weather, slugs, greenfly,blight,cats, cabbage root fly, carrot root fly and now I think Climate Change. I notice that plants that like heat are doing very well and those that prefer it cool,such as peas and brussel sprouts are very disappointing,even failing.

 So this week I have been filling gaps with letttuce  plants and catch crops of radishes,late peas and, a new plant for me, chicory.I have also started planting out leeks where broad beans are finished. During second world war (yes I really am that old!) I knew a wonderful gardener called Pepper, he had a waxed moustache and had been a POW in first war; he always said leeks should be as thick as pencils before planting out. As usual mine are going out too thin but I feel sorry for them cramped in seed trays and beds so hope for best.

 Despite failures the view from my kitchen window is lovely, flowers on courgettes, purple broad beans,potatoes and runner beans just starting as they climb their poles.As well margarites, foxgloves and valerian  are flowering.

 Have dug my first potatoes (Sharpe's Express) and despite moans am really enjoying my garden, hope you are enjoying yours. Jennifer

Week ending 7^th June

My garden looks as if there has been a wedding in it with the petals from the May blosson drfting down like connfetti,so pretty.

 But there is always work to do, one is never “finished “ in a garden. Luckily I love the work and try to do something every day even if I is only ten minutes weeding.

 What have I done this week? Staking and tying up, tomatoes and brussel sprouts. Something I have never come across before is happening with the brussel sprouts; someof them, I hope not all, putting up flower buds and I imagine they will be useless.Did I sow too early? But I have always believed sprouts need a long growing season. Or more sinisterly is this climate change and the warm month of May has triggered this odd behaviour? It has caused me to wonder if we will have to change the way we grow things, and maybe the things we grow, as the world heats up.

 Sprayed the potatoes once more, they look good and I will soon be digging, there are new potatoes in the shops, looking at price realise how worth while it is to grow earlies.

 I have covered carrots with end bits (scraps) of curtain netting I was able to buy for next to nothing and live in hopes I will defeat carrot root fly.

 Gardeners are always full of hope!