Vegetables for the Irish garden by Klaus Laitenberger

New Organic Gardening Book

Onion sets

Had the ground prepared so early this morning I planted onion sets -stugon ? The supervisor recommended plenty of our own compost. 3 rows 25 cm apart and then 10 cm between each set. I was a bit generous with the spacing but I really want to have a nice crop. I even used a school ruler for accuracy (a bit OCD ?)
It hasn't been sieved so it was funny picking out the monkey nut shells from last year. the circle of life and all that....

He who cuts the grass!

He who cuts the grass cut the grass yesterday.

New rose bed taking shape

Some roses were bought last autumn and a few have been here for years. Today they got planted in a newly designated rose bed. 9 roses on 2 levels with 5 sunflower slabs making a dividing foot path. Some progress  in a stressful day. The ground seems to be goodish but they got lovingly planted in brown gold.
Mojo (a ginger cat) came to a good home this time last year - he was bold, wild and fun but today was his last.

Extending the veg patch

We covered some extra ground in autumn with black stuff to kill off the grass. Removed it this evening so loads more digging to be done. Plan to run a path through it as it wasn't that well layed out last year. Getting a little daunted !!

St Patricks Day 2011

Productive day in the garden yesterday. Traditionally the day potatoes should be planted but that didn't happen here. We started out slipping some sallies and shoving 2 dozen into a damp area of the garden - we'll see if they help with soakage and maybe keep down the nettles in that patch.

Spring cleaning ??

After much dithering and checking the net we went down the jeyes fluid route to clean the polytunnel.
80 mls of jeyes fluid to 10 litres of water does a metre square. Supposed to clean the soil of bugs and just in case our cat or worse a neigbours cat has been visiting.

peas, kohlrabi and beetroot

Planted a few veg seeds in modules. Eventually found a sugar snap pea variety. Hope to keep planting seeds each month to avoid the glut of last year. Successional sowing takes discipline and practice.
Planted Azure blue last yaer but let them get a bit big. Have more recipies on standby for this years crop.
Don't eat beetroot but my supervisor does !

New rose bed

Developing a new rose bed at the front of the house. 5 roses were bought in autum and were in tubs over the winter. The ground isn't great but we'll do our best - must do some reading on the best approach.

Summer fruit

Not so sure about the timing but I've pruned back teh 2 Goji plants.  They got very leggy last year and no fruit. This will be the second year. I'm going to see if the slips will survive so I can pass them on.
The 2 blueberry plants look fine after the winter outside.
I bought a little raspberry plant and got it into the ground over the weekend.

Tomato sauces on tap !

This time last year I was planting tomato seeds - Sungold (cherry), San Marzano (plum), Marmande (beef) and Gardeners delight. I had too many plants and it all got a bit much ! This year I'm being more selective and limiting myself to 12 plants. Won't bother with the beef varities. No tomatoes were wasted we made loads of sauce which froze well. bought 3 gardeners delight on saturday.

Lovely stretch in the evenings..

A new bed needs to be dug outside the kitchen window. The soil has been covered for a few years and is quite compacted. We have a bucket of seaweed to add a bit of life to it. The herbs have been bought so really need to get the ground in shape.

Chitting potatoes

I was sent off to purchase early potato seed didn't expect to find first and second earlies and a number of  varieties. Settled on a small bag of Duke of York.

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Garden planner software

I like this so much I will probably take out a subscription as they record your planting which will help with crop rotation next year

Sunflower seeds planted

Had a great display of sunflowers last year so decided to get this years planting off to a sunflower start. Sunflowers have a particular significance for us  - which I may divulge later. I also got a little packet of seeds from Sam - they gave them out at the Calender Girls show in Dublin last week.