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Most recent posting:
Week ending 27th June
If there is anyone reading this living in, or near, Clonakilty who would love to garden if only they had land; I have news for you. Tommy O’Donovan, of O’Donovan’s Hotel, owns some very good land just outside Clonakilty; and he is thinking of making allotments . If you are interested please phone Tommy 087 292 4372. Incidentally O’Donovan’s hotel won the Cork Environmental forum award for commercial environmental excellence in 2008.
Garden work not pressing. I have planted out some of the leeks from seedbed, nice sturdy plants. From now on as crops go over, I will replace with leeks or sow things for eating next spring, rainbow chard and the reliable Swiss chard. Soon I will sow in a seed tray spring cabbage and winter lettuce.
Fruit is ripening, a picking every day of loganberries and blackcurrants. I see the blackthorn bushes in my hedge are covered with sloes, I look forward to making sloe gin and adding them to liven up apple jelly.
I have been admiring my neighbour John’s garden. John is into his ninth decade. His large plot of potatoes is very impressive, one of the new blight resistant varieties (Sarpo Mira) and they are luxuriantly green and flowering and not a sign of blight. (My small patch looking very burnt and scruffy) He has all sorts of other vegetables as well, and all flourishing.
The young have also been busy, I hear the girls at the national school were very thrilled and excited when they lifted their potatoes; vegetable gardeners of the future.
If you are anywhere near Clonakilty next Saturday, 4th July, call in to see the Sustainable Homes Fair in the Parish Centre from 2pm until 6 in the evening. It will be of great interest to anyone who plans to make their home cosy and fuel efficient and wonders where and how to go about it. Something for gardeners too.
Week ending 20th June
Very nearly midsummer and the days will soon be starting to get shorter, however we are moving towards harvest and reaping the rewards of our labours. Today I see the blackcurrants and loganberries are starting to ripen and during the week I had the first dish of peas.
Work has been mostly maintenance, staking, weeding and planting out the last of the brassicas, (cauliflowers) where I have lifted early potatoes. I am delighted, as the French beans seem to be coming up well, perhaps before now I have always sowed them too early. Runner beans are well up their bamboo supports. A small success is that I think I have beaten the carrot fly. I have fastened netting over old bits of beehives and put them over the carrots and that seems to be keeping the fly out, the carrots look well. I used to keep bees and when I see the white clover in flower wish I still did!
Other peoples’ gardens are always interesting and last Sunday I visited Father Pat’s garden behind his house in his busy Parish of Knocknaheeny. This is his second year there and the vegetables are amazing, flourishing and weed free, carrots, peas, parsnips, beetroot, lettuce, turnips, beans and quantities of potatoes. I hope some of his parishioners take note and follow his example, however busy our lives, time spent gardening is time well spent.
Week ending 13th June
Browsing in a Charity Shop this week I found an old book “Gardening through the Year” by Arthur Helyer. Unfortunately the front pages had been torn out so no clue as to when it was published but inside there was a cutting from the “Cork Examiner” dated July 12th. 1988.
Interesting to read what Mr Helyer said we should be doing in June. Pinch out the tops of broad beans to hasten development of pods and deter blackfly, done that. Plant out celery, runner beans, aubergines, sweet corn and out door tomatoes. I don’t grow celery or aubergines but all the others are out. He says to start digging early potatoes and warns to only lift what one needs as they ‘lose quality quickly when taken out of the ground’. I have had one digging of my early potatoes, Sharpes Express which were set in February, delicious. I shall be checking with the book to see if fashion in gardening has changed and I hope pick up a few tips
In my garden I have pulled out, and eaten, the last of the chard and after throwing on a bucket of compost planted kale. Not a popular vegetable but full of goodness and able to withstand the worst of weather in the winter. I am sure the plants are delighted to be freed from the concentration camp of their seed tray. As soon as potatoes are lifted and there is space I will plant the last of the brassicas, cauliflowers. Once planted out it is cheering to see how fast plants grow; already I have had to stake brussel sprouts.
Neighbours are complaining of slugs and snails, luckily I don’t seem to have a problem, is it possible that the use of bran stopped them proliferating? That would be a miracle.
Week Ending 6th June
At last this week we had some heat and things started to grow. Weeds of course as well as vegetables and my front garden is rather like a jungle, part of the jungle growth is wild raspberries and they look really promising as do the tamed loganberries. Already I have found some delicious little wild strawberries, shining like jewels in the long grass.
As I am short of space and still have brassicas to plant out there is a big temptation to put them in where I have finally pulled out the sprouting broccoli but that would not be a GOOD THING. So to fill the gaps I have sowed real Spinach and New Zealand Spinach and Dwarf French Beans. I am always praising sprouting broccoli and try and grow both white and early and late purple, which keep me in delicious greens for many weeks through the Hungry Gap
I am eating broad beans (Aquadulce sown in Autumn) and I think I will start the early potatoes next week that will give me space for cauliflowers and kale.
Amazing the difference heat makes, the mixed lettuce I sowed ten days ago came up so quickly I have already pricked out some and so hope to have salading through the summer.
Hope we do have a summer!
Week ending 30th May
At last we have warm weather and things really growing. This has been a week of pulling out old crops and replacing them. I do try to put a bucket of compost on the land between crops, and with the dryer weather compost is lovely, like crumbled chocolate cake! I make it in heaps just throwing everything, weeds, old crops even small sticks onto them and with time it seems to work.
Out has come the beautiful rainbow chard (also known as bright lights) one of my favourite vegetables and that has been replaced by early sprouting broccoli for next spring. Sprouting broccoli has a year-long life I am still eating from last year’s plants. I have been staking peas, starting with little twigs and, as they grow, putting in longer ones. I am lucky that I am now able to cut enough in the winter from the trees and bushes in my garden, to supply these - wire netting would do otherwise. A row of mange touts has come up very well and I have filled in gaps where real peas did not do so well. As John Seymour the guru of Self Sufficiency says “you can’t have too many peas” or he says “brussel sprouts”.
Today I will sow a tray of mixed lettuce to follow after the ones I am planting out in odd vacant corners. I keep the hoe going. There are pods on my early peas, and broad beans are very nearly ready, and today I saw the first wild strawberry turning pink, I look forward to feasts
I had some small visitors during the week, they caught tadpoles, which now have legs, from my pond kindly returning them after examination.
The year is moving on, enjoy it.
Week ending 23rd May
Diary very late and short this week, I have been away, not the best idea for a gardener in the spring. I have come back to warmer weather and a small start in growth.
Most of my work now is caring for things on time, something I have failed to do for my summer cabbages; I did put mats round them during the week but too late, quite a few have been killed by cabbage root fly. They were looking so well too, most annoying and of course my own fault. I have a store of mats made out of plastic or old carpet underfelt. I have also heard that putting a moth ball in when planting is a good idea, but how organic? It behoves us all to protect all our brassicas from the root fly as best we can.
Broad beans from autumn sowing needed staking, they are doing well and I will soon be eating them, peas also crying out for sticks to climb up. Then just before I left there was a blight warning so hurried out to spray the potatoes, hope I have done that in time!
I was given two lovely strong runner bean plants, a most welcome present, and from someone else celeriac plants which now need to be planted. So much going on no wonder this diary is late and short!
Week ending 16th May
All week we have had the horrid East wind blowing.
Vegetables that need heat, corn, courgettes, runner beans and tomatoes are looking miserable but cold climate crops like brussel sprouts and broad beans doing well. I am envying people with tunnels! I visited Malcolm and Sally in Leap and so admired (envied!) their garden and tunnel. They are wonderful vegetable gardeners, at this very worst time for produce, they have plenty of beautiful vegetables to harvest both inside and out. Since hearing Marian Crudge talk at a Sustainable Clonakilty meeting they have reorganised their tunnel, with a bed down the middle as well as one each side, they are delighted with the new arrangement and say it is easier to work and produces more. Certainly their tunnel was a picture with flourishing vegetables and young tomatoes ready to grow up pre arranged strings. Inspiring. I also visited Katey’s garden, no tunnel here and less space, but something to eat now and lots coming on, very productive. Another successful vegetable gardener who has something to eat all the year
In my garden one runner bean and one courgette have appeared from outdoor sowings, I fear the rest of beans have rotted in wet cold ground. In desperation have set more inside. Also sowed a row of French beans, not something I have been successful with before, but keep trying. Where good spring cabbage has been eaten (by me not pests!) and pulled out have planted leeks from an early sowing, wet weather good for planting if hopeless for sowing. Hoping for warmer weather soon.
Week ending 9th May
It is disappointing how cold the wind has been this week, there is no heat and no growth and no sign of seeds outside germinating apart from two brave little corn stalks pushing up, these are much hardier than the corn transplanted from inside, some of which have keeled over, or maybe they were blown out. Despite being mostly under plastic bells the courgettes look miserable. I have tried again with runner beans inside as there is no sign of the ones I sowed outside germinating. It is time that things were starting to move, already a lot of the growing season is gone. Surely it will warm up soon. Anyhow work goes on and I have put in a row of mangetout peas after pulling out some chard and I planted out, again under plastic bells, some tomatoes I got from my daughter Katey. Her garden is doing well, she has chard to pick and cabbages, onions, courgettes, garlic, beans and peas coming on. Also she has planted potatoes in the front garden of her terraced house. This has caused some interest and she has been told that once upon a time potatoes and carrots and parsnips were grown in all the front gardens, perhaps her example will encourage this again.
I had visitors to my garden on Monday so Sunday was spent tidying up! No doubt less weeds and more tidiness does make things look better. The beautiful May(hawthorns) blossom is starting, first at the bottom of my garden where it is under street lights, later the bank behind the house will be a mass of white. If hawthorn trees and gorse bushes were not so common we would be buying them in garden centres!
The Grey crow babies have flown the nest, towards the end they were easily seen flapping their wings and jumping around and getting excited when their parents came to feed them. Free entertainment for me and visitors, not probably as good as wildlife on the television but real. Another reality is a fox that comes through my garden every morning at about 9 o’clock, this must be a bit nerve wracking for the hens, I hope they are safe in their run. Laying well now two delicious eggs most days, they eat a lot of grass which gives flavour and colour to the eggs.
Hoping for some heat soon, is the Gulf Stream is still flowing?
Week ending 2nd May
It seems to me it has been raining all this week until this afternoon, such a relief to have it dry and even a bit of drying. My garden has been just mud, perhaps we should be growing rice not potatoes and cabbage! I think some seeds may have rotted in the ground and will have to be sown again.
Peas have failed in some rows, and others are doing well. Today, taking advantage of the good afternoon, I put in a row of Kelvedon Wonder where Hurst Green Shaft had failed (maybe old seed). Pulled out a row of inferior Swiss Chard and replaced with Brussels sprouts. These plants look as if they have been in seed tray too long I only hope they will start to grow now, they do have good root systems.
Apple blossom time but my trees have very few flowers; I have seen trees in other gardens covered with blossom. Had the delight of visiting Joy Larkcom’s garden this last week, the apple walk in full blossom, a crab apple a mass of white, quite delightful. Joy and Don so generous with their time and expertise.
Despite failures and weather my garden is a constant delight and I do have things to eat. Bird song is wonderful these days, almost deafening in the mornings, I am sure there are nests deep in the bushes. The baby grey crows are now easily seen moving around in their high home. A family of magpies come to eat the slugs that have died from eating bran – hurrah I really think the bran is working! The parent Grey Crows are furious if they see the Magpies and attack them viciously, quite dramatic.
I am finishing this on Saturday, another dry day and was in Cork all morning at Philosophy class (gardeners need to be philosophic!). Regretted the time I could have been gardening but had a happy hour or so in evening, planted out summer cabbage (greyhound) put in another two runner bean seeds and hoed around the tiny parsnip seedlings. The radishes I put in to mark parsnip rows have done surprisingly well and I eat one or two most evenings. I am sowing beans bit by bit in the hope I will harvest them over a long time.
Looking forward to harvests!
Week ending 26th April
This has been a busy week
and the warm damp weather ideal for planting out. I have continued with
planting and sowing tender things, mainly under plastic, and started planting
leeks (from an early sowing indoors) and brussel sprouts. The leeks are thin
little things, I think of an old gardener I knew who said leeks should be as
thick as a pencil before planting out. Luckily my weedy little plants don’t
know this and seem happy to have escaped from a crowded seed tray. I always put
a bit of rhubarb in the holes when I plant brassicas, I think it is to confuse
the cabbage root fly, probably only a myth I picked up somewhere, but in it
goes!
The leeks sown outside are
up, broad beans are flowering and I am harvesting purple sprouting broccoli,
rainbow chard and soon spring cabbage. I also had one lovely little cauliflower, very delicious, pity only one.
What a long time broccoli and cauliflowers are in the ground, I am pricking out
next season’s plants at the moment. Even although it takes up land for so long
I do think sprouting broccoli an excellent plant, even for quite small gardens.
It comes in at this time of year and a few plants will give good pickings for
weeks, a real cut and come again vegetable. Cauliflower take up space and
only give one head per plant but they are solid and delicious. I am hoping to
harvest more than one next year!
I am amazed at the
number of potatoes that I failed to harvest and that are now springing up, what
a waste. Another resolution, to
really dig carefully after, and when, harvesting potatoes this year. I read
somewhere that those volunteers should all be removed as they bring blight.
Every morning when I look out of my front
door things are greener, 40 shades at least! Hope you are enjoying all this
greening too.
Week ending 19th April, 2009
Is it possible I have been writing this diary for over a year? I think so. I seem to be repeating things I have said before!
Anyhow a good week, I am starting cautiously to get ready to plant tender things. Today I put up the bamboo poles ready for the runner beans over trenches filled with compost. Tentatively planted one courgette under a plastic “bell” that has been warming the ground for a few days. I am a great believer in planting out tender things bit by bit so that if I miss-time not everything will perish.
Inside, corn, beans, courgettes and cucumbers are “hatching’, I enjoy each morning seeing what has popped up.
Outside brassicas are doing well in seed trays and this week I made a start at planting out brussel sprouts and red cabbage. The usual seasonal problem is with me—not enough room, or probably more accurately not enough planning! I have pulled out the white sprouting broccoli and the few leeks still left can be pulled out and heeled in until needed. I am tempted to replace brassicas in land that has just been cleared of brassicas, I try not to, and have been putting in peas to follow the broccoli and the cabbage family to follow the leeks. My early peas look well but only a few came up from second lot, I have re sown in the gaps. First carrots are the usual failure but I still have hopes of a second lot mixed with linum. Early potatoes well up and main crop just starting to appear.
That excellent vegetable, Purple Sprouting Broccoli is producing well and there are self sown marigolds flowering cheerfully among the vegetables. They are from seed gathered at Samye Ling the Bhuddist monastery in Scotland where my grand daughter Emma was a nun for several years.
I have been given lovely presents recently, special gardeners soap and now gardeners hand cream, as I never wear gloves these presents are a delight.
Hope all who read this are enjoying the lovely spring growth.
Week ending 12th April, Easter Sunday
At the entrance to my grandmother’s garden there was a little wooden gate and on it was written,
“ The kiss of the sun for a
pardon
The song of the birds for mirth
One
is nearer God’s heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth”
That refrain was running through my head this
glorious Good Friday as I worked in my garden, in sunshine and surrounded
by birds.
Not very hard work either, pricking out little
broccoli plants and weeding the onions.
During the week I continued getting ready to grow
the tender vegetables. More seeds were sowed in the milk cartons inside and I
see some of those that went in last week are just starting to come up. Outside, in a sunny spot, I filled
holes with plenty of compost, filled them in and put plastic bells over them. In a day or two, when the soil has
warmed up, I shall chance some courgette seeds there. I always find it helpful to try
different ways of managing tender plants, belt and braces method! Of course anyone with a greenhouse or
Polytunnel will have a different (easier?) approach. I have also sowed, kale and cauliflower
in seed trays.
To my delight no real slug damage on my cabbages or
lettuces. I do put out bran in strategic places and when I go out after dark
find slugs and snails congregated on it. They are supposed to eat the bran and
dehydrate and die, I am not so sure about this but if it keeps them away from
plants, that’s great.
A welcome visit of two large strong grandsons this
evening, they moved the hen run to the top of garden for me, I can now easily
move it down.
Week ending April 5th
Now that April is here things are speeding up
and we gardeners need to keep working. This week I have sowed more peas,
broccoli, both white and purple, in seed trays, and in cut down milk cartons
the first of the tender things, courgettes both green and golden, sweet corn
and cucumbers. These will stay on heated
trays until well established. I have also planted out the cabbages which I
sowed in February and today lettuce plants went in between the cabbage rows. Of
course I am expecting the slugs and snails to attack these precious plants, I
go out after dark and commit snailicide! So far all is well.
There was a very interesting and informative
gardening talk by Selvi from The Hollies at the Sustainable Clonakilty meeting
on Thursday. It is impressive how well things grow there with their policy of
always keeping ground covered, mostly with straw. Perhaps I should find some
straw but must admit I love the sight of tilled and weed free earth, I am an
old fashioned gardener.
On the bird front my pullet has started to lay,
lovely little very brown eggs, she has settled down well with the old hen. I let them out in the afternoons when I
am working in the garden and can keep an eye on them. They love this and spend
a happy time foraging and having dust baths. Seeing them enjoying themselves makes me aware again how
wrong it is to keep hens in cages, as so many still are.
I think there are both doves and blackbirds nesting
in the hedge at the back The grey crows must have have hatched, as both parents
are visiting the nest for very short times. It is amazing to see such large
birds landing to feed their babies on a tree in a town garden.
Enjoy this lovely month, April showers and all.
Week ending 28th March
I have always been told that when the blackthorn
blossoms the weather gets colder - blackthorn winter. This year is proving the
point, in the hedge I can see from my kitchen window the pearl like buds of the
blackthorn are opening into a mass of blossom. Despite this cold weather, the
sun is stronger when it does shine, and spring is moving on.
A big change is how the soil has dried out, my
constant job of moving compost from a large heap to the garden has become much
lighter and easier, also seed beds can be prepared. This week I sowed carrots
mixed with linum rubrum which I gather is a type of flax. This is another
attempt to outwit the carrot fly; an idea I found in The Organic Gardening Seed
catalogue. My early potatoes are up so am hoping we don’t have frost.
On the wild life front I found the skin and leg of a rabbit by the back door, what killed it? Does it mean that there are rabbits around? Must do. I hope they are not too numerous. Despite endless readings of Peter Rabbit to my grandchildren I have no love of rabbits in my garden! Another thing of great interest to me is that a grey crow is nesting right at the top of the tall tree by my gate, bringing the nautical term “crows nest” to life. In the evening the parent (I presume the mother) comes off the nest for a fly around, it will be interesting when eggs hatch and parents are feeding their babies. For those who have just started reading about my garden, the front of house part is dedicated to wild life and indigenous Irish plants, so very little work!
No egg yet from my new pullet, but the old hen is doing well.
No one I have talked to ever remembers the weather on St Patrick’s day being as beautiful as it was this year, with the continuing dry days I am up to date with seed sowing. A second lot of peas have gone in, the first sowing are looking happy. Another row of broad beans is in and a small row of carrots under a plastic frame. I am determined to grow at least some carrots, every year I try but the slugs and carrot fly defeat me, I have strategies thought out, the first being to grow under this little frame.Also a small quantity of lettuce, to follow the earlier sowing, has gone in in a seed tray.
On the bank at the back of my garden, primroses and wild violets are flowering and I see the first buds on the autumn sown broad beans. As I have said before I love broad beans, so hardy and easy and I look forward to the wonderful perfume of their flowers.
Last week I was wondering what to do about my tiny flock of hens. Decision time on Monday when we went to buy pullets. I dug a deep hole and killed the old hen that was not earning her keep;she seemed to be not “right” so not for the pot. To my surprise her companion missed her and made a big fuss but now has settled down happily with her new young pullet companion.I will let you know when I get my first pullet egg!
Two things of interest to all gardeners. On 28th March there is an open meeting about Community Gardens in O’Donovan’s Hotel at 2 o’clock.
On 2nd April the meeting of Sustainable Clonakilty will also be about gardening , there will be a presentation by the horticulturist John Conway from the Hollies. That is in Quality Hotel at 8 o’clock
As always everyone most welcome.
Week ending 14th March
I am writing this on Sunday morning after coming in from the garden, a lovely day but am disappointed by how wet the soil is, much too wet, I feel for sowing anything. We don’t seem to be getting “good drying March weather”. I am delighted to see the early peas which I set under cloches are up also main crop broad beans are appearing. I have finished planting potatoes, early I know but my energy use has to be carefully spread out, also potatoes left in the ground by chance over winter seem to do very well. So why do we worry about planting too early? I have also been pricking out the little Brussel sprout plants and red cabbage.
One or two of the onions outside my kitchen window have started to grow and everywhere little plants are germinating reminding me to keep weeding. I am harvesting sprouting broccoli and lovely rhubarb. The freshly picked rhubarb is beautiful, firm and shining, so different from the limp stuff in shops--- and it is so easy to grow.
Now that The Local Food Committee is up and enthusiastically running we expect lots more people in Clonakilty will soon be enjoying their own fresh produce.
We go to buy pullets tomorrow, should I replace my old hens? They are senior citizens like their owner, earning their keep at the moment, but for how long? Will let you know their fate next week!.
See you at the parade!
Week ending 7th March
We gardeners are so dependent on the weather unless we have a tunnel or green house, as you know I have neither so work stops when it rains. That is apart from seedlings in trays. I grow most seeds in trays because in the ground slugs can gobble them up. I now have cabbage, lettuce and leek seedlings doing well on outside windowsills and brussel sprouts just emerging they are still inside and on a heated tray. Before the rain returned I put in a row of early peas under a cloche, I also finished planting early potatoes.
I am delighted that my daughter Katey got Kerr’s Pink seed potatoes from Hosfords, a big bag which she split with me. I have them carefully laid out to sprout under a sky light upstairs.
Another delight, a friend of mine, who has never kept hens before, is planning to do so. She has bought a ready made hen house on the internet, and has located pullets that will be ready next week. I hope she will have as much pleasure from collecting and eating eggs as I do. There is no doubt that “garden” eggs taste quite different, delicious. Hens will eat a lot of grass if it is available and their rations can also be augmented with scraps
Watch out for live vegetables in Paddy’s day parade!
Week ending 28th February
What great gardening weather we have had recently, still a little early for sowing seeds outside but tomorrow is 1st March and in March we will all be getting busy. I have put in early potatoes, only 4 small rows, using my rough rotation system potatoes are in one of the smallest bits of my garden. This part is original field, as oppose to land churned up by builders, and is quite fertile; so I am hoping for a good crop. When I went to buy main crop seed in Atkins (where I have always got them heretofore) they were sold out and did not know when, or if, they would be gettting more. A happy sign of the times that more people are gardening, but I will have to get seed from somewhere!
Atkins did have onion sets and they are now planted. This year they are outside my kitchen window so I will have the pleasure of seeing them sprout and grow.
Daffodils are flowering by edge of my drive, they are the wild ones that Wordsworth wrote about, of course I don’t have ten thousand! However, I am glad to say my few are increasing.
The new Local Food Committee of Sustainable Clonakilty is forging ahead with Community Garden Project at Pairc a Tobair and lots of ideas. Watch for us in St Patrick’s day Parade!
Week ending 22nd February
The other day I found an old notebook, sort of diary, that I have been keeping sporadically over the years. I find I have been much further ahead other years,had parsnips sown and some potatoes in by this date. It must have been drier, now much too wet to sow seeds outside, however I have managed to put in one short row of Sharpe’s Express those most delicious of early potatoes. The mixed lettuce and cabbage in seed trays are doing OK on windowsill, this evening I pricked out some little lettuce plants.
I got a present from my sister in Scotland of Red Russia Kale seed, she told me it was excellent providing fresh shoots all winter. I am looking forward to trying it.
The Local food committee of Sustainable Clonakilty is busy, full of energy and enthusiasm, I expect you all know about the course that will be running all summer at Pairc a Tobair in Rosscarbery, if you want to know more, or sign up, ring Maria at 023 48963, it should be particularly helpful to new gardeners but of interest to everyone.
Week ending 14th February
Things are beginning to get exciting, longer days and better weather. The leeks I sowed about ten days ago are up, their seed tray is on a heated propagator in my utility room, now I must think where to put them next. It is such a joy that the weather is milder; I think they will survive on an outside window sill at front of house.With the better weather have been able to get a bit more compost spread.
I love broad beans they are so strong and survive the worst of weather, the Autumn sown Aqua Dulces are doing well, I earthed them up a bit during week as the wind had blown them around and loosened them. Today, as the ground seemed dry enough, I put in a row of Bunyard’s Exhibition, maybe too early, and maybe the mice will get them but always worth a try. I think I will sow a few inside in cut down milk cartons as replacements. I am saving all my milk cartons now they make fine containers to start things like courgettes, corn and tomatoes.
The other big excitement is the start of a local food committee in Sustainable Clonakilty. We are planning a Community Garden Project where people can learn to grow vegetables, harvest and eat them! This will be a weekly project from March to September. It will take place at Pairc a Tobair Rosscarbery (not Clonakilty I know but not too far away). It will be led by a qualified gardener on Wednesday mornings. The hope is that people will learn and be inspired and start growing food in their own gardens. Bookings by 2nd March and queries to Maria 023 48963 Email: paircatobair@eircom.net
There are lots of other ideas, which you will be hearing about soon.
Enjoy the start of Spring
Week ending 7th February
Despite general gloom, miserable weather and economic meltdown spring keeps creeping up on us, I see tiny little leaves appearing on my neighbour’s roses, primroses in my garden and frog spawn in the pond. Also chives and rhubarb coming to life again, very cheering.
On days when it was not raining I was able to do a few repair jobs, hammering in stakes that had loosened in the wind and putting up defenses against the ***** pigeons. Wind, which has blown over some of my sprouting broccoli plants, I find a much worse enemy than the cold. I am infuriated to find the hearts of my spring cabbages pecked out by the greedy pigeons. Old DVDs are now strung up to (I hope) frighten them and any bits of wire netting and cages pressed into use.
I did manage to cut down the Autumn Raspberries, a job for February. I have not many of these, they come in at the same time as wild blackberries and compete for my picking time and energy.
It is nice to contemplate the harvests of Autumn these cold and barren months.
Week ending 31st January, 2009
As I was feeding the hens, in the rain and gathering gloom this evening, the birds were singing loudly and the pond was boiling with frogs. So, though all garden work is at a standstill, spring keeps coming closer.
When I came to live here 18 years ago I made the pond and I was given two plastic bags of spawn from another garden pond. (It is illegal to take spawn from the wild.) Ever since, like a miracle, the frogs return year after year at this time to mate and spawn, I find it fascinating. Frogs are endangered throughout the world so there is a sense of relief when they appear. As well as diseases, some of the nasty chemicals we pour down our drains can attack frogs through their skins and kill them.
Last week saw the start of a new Sustainable Clonakilty committee dedicated to local food production, more about that as they start working.
I have set leek seeds in one tray in the utility room; perhaps they will give me early leeks next autumn. If it ever dries up, a job for next week will be to cut down the autumn fruiting raspberries. Lets hope for good weather in February.
Today I went with my daughter Katey to Hosfords and we bought seed potatoes, brought them home, and set them up in boxes to chit. So now with potatoes sprouting, days getting longer, birds starting to sing and a small feeling of spring in the air I feel it is time to restart the diary. Another good sign, I saw a large black frog in garden today.
We got Sharpes Express first earlies and Maris Peers second earlies. I think Sharpes Express the tastiest of potatoes although they do fall to pieces when boiled but steam very well. I picked up a leaflet that encourages us to sow some vegetables under cover in January, broad beans, cabbage, leeks, lettuce, onions, and early peas. It seems a bit early to me, but I might try leeks in a seed tray in the house as they need a long time to grow good and fat. Anyhow, it will soon be February and certainly the ground is too wet and cold to contemplate sowing anything outside. I also bought two nice new seed trays and soil based compost to use in them. The array of vegetable seeds is most tempting, but I resisted, having bought all I think I need.
Since I wrote I have had a new hen house made, the old one was almost rotten, luckily the fox did not discover how easily he could have scratched away a rotten board. The new house is of a slightly different design, one good thing being a covered area for the food so that it does not get spoilt by rain. One of my quiet old hens is laying an egg every day and I think the other will soon start. I was lent a horrifying DVD on factory farming this week and realise how lucky my hens are. After a long life eating meat I would find it hard to be a vegetarian, but this film would make me think hard about the lives of the animals I eat.
Anyhow, lets hope for good weather and bumper crops of vegetables this year which I can enjoy, and maybe eat less meat.
A happy new year to all gardeners, and all who read this diary. In December with all the festivities no gardening was done but now we are into lengthening days and the weather is dry, if cold, it is a great time to get started again. Of course it is not so pleasant working in the garden now as later in the year but anything done tends to stay that way, unlike later when weeds spring up when one's back is turned!
The dry weather has encouraged me to open my long compost heap, good compost but those colonisers, raspberries, have invaded one end and of course have flourished. It is a bit of a bother digging out their roots. After spreading the compost I am forking over the ground - I never dig. Cheering to see the autumn sown broad beans looking well, also sprouting broccolis and I am harvesting good leeks.
Down by my front gate a primrose is flowering, also celandine. I feel sorry for those plants at the bottom of the garden under the street lights, they never really get an opportunity to sleep and certainly are earlier because of this.
Enjoy the dry weather and never mind the cold.
Christmas holidays 2008
Like many gardeners, Jennifer will be taking a break over the festive season, when there is not much to do in the garden other than feeding the birds. She will resume in January and wishes all her readers a happy, peaceful Christmas and energetic and productive gardening in 2009.
Week ending 6th December
I looked out my kitchen window first thing this morning and there was the beautiful fox . He/she had knocked over the bucket that was over the hen’s food bowl and was licking it out! Our eyes met for a moment and then he was gone. (Hen’s food bowl is taken out and put under bucket each evening to discourage rats) The cold weather is no doubt making the wild animals hungry and daring.
