Blue Beds, Blue Hands

Posted on April 22, 2013 by FionaGrowsFood

It’s amazing the difference one weekend of hard work can make in the garden. Last week, I was beginning to panic at the lack of progress on the plot this year, I’m at least three weeks behind with my planting and the place was looking very bare and brown and boring. Something needed to be done.

My new herb garden

The sun was mostly shining this weekend, with the exception of some lovely rain showers and the temperatures are finally up after what was the coldest March on record. Last week I dug up the terrible wasted area outside the shed, this weekend, I used the space to create a small herb garden. I planted rosemary, sage, lemon thyme, French tarragon (avoid planting Russian tarragon if you can, it has very little flavour), chives, lavender plus some echinacea, chamomile and bergamot. I also have some mint and lemon balm (bee balm) from last year and after saying I was not going to plant borage this year, I found a borage plant growing under my artichokes, it obviously wants to grow so I might as well let it. I’m also going to add some parsley, basil, coriander and caraway later in the year. It looks a bit bare at the moment but should be a lovely addition to the plot once it’s established.

The shed area, big difference from the mound of weeds and rubble that was here two weeks ago. I love that you can see a neighbouring plot in the background with its lovely neat drills.

I had been meaning to treat the wood on my raised beds for a while but kept putting it off. I decided this weekend that I should get around to doing it as the beds were looking a bit worse for wear after the winter. I toyed with the idea of getting a natural colour wood stain but I eventually chose a bright blue, I wanted to give the plot a bit of personality and thought blue would be nice and bright during the lean months when there’s little colour in the garden. It took me hours to do but it was well worth the effort, I’m hoping to add some more blue later, maybe a blue gate. Though maybe next time I’ll wear gloves, my hands were an almighty blue mess when I was done.

Blue Beds

Blue Hands

Having painted the beds, I spread a mountain of bark mulch along the paths, these had just been muck and weeds before so I was very eager to do something with them. It really makes a difference to the plot.

I’m planning on using the empty bed in the left foreground as a hotbed.

The entrance to the plot, definitely an improvement

I planted very little at the weekend, just some beetroot and radishes. Next week I need to get my peas and beans planted before it gets too late. Despite all my hard work, there’s still a huge mess to deal with next weekend, one whole end of the plot needs to be dug as it’s where the legumes are to be planted. It has been started but it’s a big job. It’s the embarrassing messy end of the plot and it must be conquered, especially now; no point in having pretty raised beds and a big pile wasted ground beside them.

Also, there’s not much point in having pretty beds with no veggies so this week I’m going to do some serios planting, excited!!

Spring Clean

Posted on April 13, 2013 by FionaGrowsFood

This morning, I went out to the plot with the intentions to plant and dig and weed and do those things which we as gardeners are meant to do, but I took one look at the plot and decided before I could reasonably do any of that, I needed to clean up my act. Amongst all my weeds and muck, raised beds and shed, there’s an awful lot of dirt, and I don’t mean muck (we all know there’s plenty of muck) I mean rubbish. Flyaway netting, torn remnants of weed control fabric, shards of bamboo, even old cloches, just rubbish. The allotment was never going to start looking nice if I didn’t deal with all that rubbish first, so I got into cleaning mode and began to tackle the messy parts of the garden.

Underneath it's nice exterior, plot p26 had a dirty underbelly, like the gotham city of allotments.

Underneath it’s nice exterior, plot p26 had a dirty, seedy underbelly, it was like the Gotham City of allotments. Only the work of a superhero like Batman could weed out the grime and corruption.

You may remember I made a new years resolution to clean my shed. Well, I did it! Three months later but I finally did it, and boy was there a lot of mess in there. I threw out empty compost bags, plenty of torn netting, old bits of fleece, broken pots, empty water bottles, I found a pair of socks in there (seriously, no idea where they came from). My shed has been returned to it’s former glory, though it is in dire need of some prettying up. New mission: pretty up the shed.

I also decided to tackle the terribly wasted area outside the shed. Last year, most of my effort went in to my raised beds, installing fencing, getting the shed and of course getting to grips with growing my own food. Quite a lot of space on the plot went unused, particularly the area outside the shed, which is fairly big and has a lot of potential. I’d guess it’s about ten square metres of my plot which was just grass, rubble and weeds. So, I got out my shovel, and started to dig. It took me the best part of two hours but I turned over all the soil and raked it out to make it even, there had been a slope down toward the shed which was driving me mad. I sectioned off half of this area and began to work the soil and marked a layout for a small herb garden. The rest I covered with weed control fabric, I’m hoping to get either gravel or some paving stones to make a patio but I can’t decide which.

My future herb garden, a work in progress.

I decided I needed a break from manual labour and so, I sat on the edge of one of the beds and planted my parsnip seeds. I had manured the soil pretty well last year and covered it for winter and what a difference it made. The soil in the bed was soft and fine, a far cry from what it had been last year. I planted three short rows of “Gladiator” parsnips, a variety I had to grow after tasting some last year and falling in love.

The weather took a bad turn after a few hours so I decided to call it a day, not before I had a little look around the plot. There’s life beginning to creep in again, the cold days are getting very slightly warmer and there’s more light in the sky during the daytime hours. My artichokes are growing back after the winter as are my raspberry canes, which last August, I thought had died. There are buds on my blueberry and gooseberry canes, the garlic seems to have finally started growing and my onions are beginning to sprout.

Garlic

Right now, the king of the plot is my rhubarb. I finally picked some today. It was defenitely the highlight of my gardening year so far.

Rhubarb

This should make a nice crumble

What The Fliuch?

Posted on March 29, 2013 by FionaGrowsFood

View from my window on Tuesday

The weather this week has been almost unbearable, at least it has been for gardeners. We’ve had cold, some freezing cold, sunshine cold, snow cold, wet cold, a little-bit-less-cold-than-yesterday cold, then back to snow cold. Today is the 29th of March and it is currently 3 degrees celcius outside. Three! This time last year we were experiencing a bit of an unusual hot spell, I was at the plot every day in a t-shirt; so this year I’m getting very frustrated at the lack of gardening. Somebody may have to restrain me before I eat all of the easter eggs in Ireland in an act of despair.

I have done, literally, no gardening since I planted my onions two weeks ago. Even my seedlings on my windowsills won’t grow as there’s no light in the sky. Last weekend the rain was absolutely torrential, constant rain causing floods country wide and making every one very miserable. There were dark grey clouds for six consecutive days. This week, it has been mostly snow, rain, sleet, some rain, some snow, more rain. Today is thankfully a bit drier. It’s a long weekend this weekend, I do have to work tomorrow but have a half day. I will be visiting the plot come hell or high water (likelihood of high water is great). Or even snow. At least I have these bad boys to keep me warm.

The warmest mittens in existence (possibly)

For those of you wondering about my title, “Fliuch” is gaelic for wet. And yes, it rhymes with the F word.

Lá Fhéile Pádraig

Posted on March 17, 2013 by FionaGrowsFood

Happy St Patricks day from a cold, wet and snowy Dublin. Today is our national holiday and I suppose we are lucky that it is celebrated all over the world but there’s nowhere I’d rather be than here in Dublin, the weather might be terrible but that won’t dampen our spirits (especially if those spirits are whiskeys, vodkas or rums). I tend to avoid the city centre on Paddys day, the parade is great for the kids but I’m not a huge fan of the crowds of drunken idiots. I had planned to spend the day on my plot but the weather is far from being gardening friendly, it’s cold and wet with heavy snow and sleet showers.

St Patricks Day is traditionally the day to plant your first earlies but I’m not growing spuds this year. I did visit the plot yesterday morning in the glorious sunshine (I’m beginning to see why we call it “March many weathers”).

Whiter than white “Snowball” onion set

It was bright and warm yesterday morning, the sky was blue and I spent a few hours on the plot, getting my soil ready for my onions. I planted two types of onion and some shallots. I planted some Red Barons, which I had great success with last year, I also planted some shallots, a variety called red sun which have lovely pink flesh and are slow to bolt. I planted a variety of white onions called Snowball which are lovely pure white onions with a mild flavour. I also have some 50 Stuttgarter sets to plant later this week. I realised after planting my onions that I had no netting to protect them from the pesky birds, who love plucking onion sets out of the soil, so I covered them with some fleece which I had. I’m glad I did now, while onions don’t mind the cold, the frosts can force onion sets out of the ground.

Onions ready for planting

All wrapped up

The plot still looks very bare and messy, it’s going to take some serious hard work to get it the way I want it. Good thing I love getting out and digging because there’s plenty of it to do over the coming weeks.

I hope you all have a great Paddys Day and don’t get too drunk, if you were planning on planting your spuds today, maybe hold off for a few days or you’ll freeze your hands off.

Lá Féile Pádraig Shona Daoibh.

A March Miracle

Posted on March 3, 2013 by FionaGrowsFood

Yesterday, something miraculous happened. I woke up early (yes, on a Saturday, I was as surprised as you are) and the sun was pouring through the window. For a moment I thought I was dreaming, until I looked out the window and there it was, high in the sky, yellow as the daffodils outside my door and I realised, spring is finally here.

I’ve been stuck in a winter rut. I haven’t been able to find the motivation to get up and go out to the plot in the cold and dig and weed and freeze my bottom off. The sunshine was like the flick of a switch, my mood instantly changed. I was all of a sudden itching to go to the plot, plant some seeds, do some digging and get some much needed fresh air.

So, off I went, Dave in tow, to put on my wellies and get to work. Unfortunately however, my wellies had been left out on my last visit, they had been caked in mud and I left them to “dry out”.

My “Dried out” wellies

After much slagging from Dave about my waterlogged wellies, we got to work. First port of call, was to move the raised bed that I grew my carrots in last year. When we first built the six raised beds, I had already planted my onions in the spot where I wanted to put one, so instead of disturbing my onions, we put the bed elsewhere for the year. It looked out of place where it was however, so we decided to move it so it was in line with the other beds. Dave dug the muck out from the edges and we lifted the bed to it’s new location. We did have a little “incident” however, and the bed is now in two pieces. With the bed moved, we had a grave-like pile of muck left behind. I’m sure the neighbours thought that Dave had met an untimely end after said “incident” with the raised bed.

I made short work of the pile of muck, I transferred some of it back into the raised bed and used the rest to fill two brand new one metre square beds which went in it’s place. These little beds might only last me a year but they’re very handy and just what I needed to fill up the now empty space. I planted my garlic in one. I know it’s about two months late but we’re still getting enough frosts for it to get the cold snap it needs to start off and maybe I’ll get some small bulbs. It was the first thing I planted on the plot this year and it gave me a thrill. Next week I’m hoping to plant my onions and shallots too.

The new beds

I also took the opportunity to use up some of the billion pine needles I have in the shed, left over from great Christmas tree Massacre of 2013.

Dave the monster

The day we took down our tree, Dave, the heartless sod, took it outside and ruthlessly hacked off all the branches with a knife. We decided to recycle the tree ourselves instead of dumping it, or doing as most people do and letting rot away in the back garden until mid-summer; we bagged up all the branches and we now have six black sacks full of pine needles and braches in the allotment shed (which I still havent gotten around to tidying). Yesterday, I used one of the bags of pine needles to create a nice mulch for my blueberry bushes, which I noticed yesterday have lovely green buds on them. Blueberries love acidic soil, and while my soild is slightly acidic already, it does no harm to help them along. Pine needles are very acidic, and are excellent for using as a mulch for blueberry plants.

Before going home for a much needed cup of tea and a pat on the back, I had a little drool over my rhubarb, it’s looking very healthy. It’s hard to resist pulling off a stalk and munching away, but in just another few short weeks, I’ll be making rhubarb crumble. Yum.

New Year’s Resolutions

Posted on December 30, 2012 by FionaGrowsFood

Its coming to the end of 2012 and my first year as a novice gardener. Inevitably, I’ve been thinking about the year past and the one to come, the mistakes I’ve made and the lessons I’ve learned and I am looking forward to another year of being schooled by mother nature.

I’ve also been thinking of my new years resolutions for 2013. New Years resolutions can be very hit or miss, some years I’ve had great successes, like the year I decided to quit smoking (four years on, I still haven’t touched a cigarette) or the year I decided to learn how to drive. Most years, I make one or two resolutions, just for the sake of it and I know that they are destined to fail; like eat less chocolate (laughable) or get fit (hilarious).

This time last year, I had no idea I would be growing my own fruit and veg, that I would spend hours cultivating a small piece of land, that I would grow perfectly straight carrots and imperfectly round peas. So, this year, instead of a list of ill thought out resolutions pertaining to me looking fabulous in a bikini; I have drawn up a few lists of tangible, achievable goals and tasks that should be easy to achieve (I hope). This is my list of New Years Gardening Resolutions for 2013.

1. Tidy the shed! Properly, and keep it tidy for at least a week.
2. Move the poorly located raised bed to a new location so the plot has a better layout.
3. Grow beans, the one crop I really want to try in 2013.
4. Grow garlic.
5. Don’t kill my courgettes by planting them out too early.
6. Plan the plot properly, use up all growing space where possible, instead of leaving ground unused.
7. Make some jam.
8. Build a small herb garden
9. Make time every week to visit the plot, rain or shine.
10. Install a water butt.
11. Learn to prune fruit bushes, I haven’t got the foggiest about it.
12. Hang a proper gate.
13. Keep on top of the weeds instead of saying “I’ll do it next time”, only to find they have taken over.
14. Grow parsnips.
15. Finish putting bark mulch on the paths, I started in September and never quite got around to finishing it.

Everything else would be a bonus. I’m going to make it my mission to tick off this checklist in early 2013, lets see how it goes, I’ll probably still be cleaning the shed this time next year.

Happy new year to you all, wishing you the best for the new growing season.

Here’s hoping we see more of this chap in the new year too

Merry Christmas

Posted on December 24, 2012 by FionaGrowsFood

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Peaceful New Year from Plot P26

The plot in glorious winter sunshine. Not how I expected it to look mid-winter.

I know I haven’t been blogging much lately, I’ve had a very busy few weeks, I moved house and work has been crazy. I haven’t hung up the gardening gloves however and I’ve plenty to write about in the new year. Hoping you and yours enjoy the season.

Fiona

A Nice Surprise.

Posted on October 1, 2012 by FionaGrowsFood

Today, I learned that I am a finalist in the Best Eco/Green Blog category of the Irish Blog Awards. What lovely news! I’m quite shocked really, considering I’m not only new to blogging but also to gardening and only taking baby steps in to the great world of green living. There are some other wonderful blogs nominated in the category, well worth a read, I’ve linked them below. Wishing my fellow nominees the best of luck.

http://greenjamjar.com/

http://selfficiency.wordpress.com/

http://greensideup.ie/dees-vegetable-blog/

http://patentpendingprojects.blogspot.ie/

iCarrot

Posted on September 9, 2012 by FionaGrowsFood

This is what it’s all about, biting into your very first ever homegrown carrot and realising, you’ll never feel the same way about carrots again. It’s the most delicious carrot I’ve ever eaten. In fact, I may just grow carrots on my plot next year and nothing else. I’m considering starting a carrot related advertising campaign to entice people to garden but I think a certain famous company which shares it’s name with another healthy food (I’ll give you a hint, it’s not an orange) might take issue with my slogan.

If you don’t see me for a while, I’m probably busy being sued

Seriously though, grow carrots. Grow them seriously, or for fun, just grow them. I planted my carrots late. In fact, I forgot to plant carrots until the second week in June and wasn’t quite sure they’d even germinate. I had very palpable fears about the carrot root fly, I’ve heard and read some scary stories. Horrible creatures that burrow into your carrots and eat them from the inside out. I’ve had Night of the Living Dead Root Fly nightmares. Plus, we haven’t had the best summer for carrots, so my hopes weren’t very high. Imagine my delight when today I decided to pick some to see how they were progressing and what I ended up with were delicious, crunchy carrots. I of course, ate one straight out of the ground, muck and all. Cue many happy and appreciative noises which I’m sure raised a few eyebrows among my neighbouring allotmenteers. Oh, and another thing, my carrots are straight, very straight, and long. Obviously the 6 hours myself and Dave spent sieving a tonne of soil (literally, a tonne) for the carrot bed paid off. All that hard work, that hot March day, breaking our backs wheelbarrowing soil to the plot, cursing ourselves, sieveing for hours, raking, raking, more raking, it was totally worth it.

Of course, the carrots aren’t the only crop we’ve harvested this September but they are definitely my favourite. We’ve also had, borlotti beans, celery, red cabbage, spinach chard, peas and of course my onions, which have been drying away in the back garden for three weeks and are nearly ready to eat. I did have to rip up my ridiculous perpetual spinach and swiss chard today as they were taller than me and had bolted, and were quite frankly, a disgrace. I might plant some more for over the winter months.

Spoils

Me with one of my red cabbages

Pretty Artichoke

September isn’t just harvest season though, there’s plenty of jobs to keep me busy in the garden. Of course there’s weeding, because, well, there’s always weeding. There’s plenty of tidying and maintenance to be done but there’s also plenty of planting. It’s time to get the garden ready for overwintering crops, winter onions, garlic, winter lettuces, spinach and of course spring cabbage. Today, I planted two blueberry plants, which are one of the things I’ve known from the start I wanted to grow. These are best planted in autumn, in acidic soil, the lower the pH the better, but around 5 is perfect. I did measure my soil pH in March and the reading was 5.5, so hopefully the bluberries will do well. It does help to aid them though, a good mulch, bark, grass cuttings, leaves, whatever you can get your hands on, and the pine needles from my christmas tree will definitely find their way to my blueberry bed.

Blueberries

September also sees the arrival of the brand new community room on site, it’s a lovely big room, with a fridge, microwave, tea and coffee and snacks, and of course, tables, inside and out, to take a well earned tea break when the work gets too tough. It’s a great way to meet fellow gardeners too, I have hopes of making a few friends here.

Community room

I did attempt to make the plot look a bit nicer today, I spread some bark mulch around the path near my fruit section of my plot but it took about 400 litres to cover a tiny area so it looks like it’ll be a while before I can do the whole plot. I also attempted a makeshift patio area. It’s not great. I had visions of a lovely decking area with potted plants and a table and chairs. In reality, I placed some planks of wood on the ground, thats about it, but it’s a start, I would put up a photo but I can’t bring myself to do it, it’s that bad.

Bark is better than weeds

September is also planning time. Get planning. It’s amazing how much a planting plan will help in the early spring.

As for carrots, if you’re not growing them, do it next year, you’ll thank me.

Hunger

Posted on August 26, 2012 by FionaGrowsFood

Yesterday was, supposedly, National Potato Day. It’s the second year of the attempt to turn our appreciation for the humble spud into a national holiday. I can’t really see it taking off, it’s not easy to start a whole new holiday. Although, the brains behind it, might benefit from studying the success of Arthurs Day, the celebration of Guinness that began three years ago as a once off anniversary celebration and was so successful that it has become an annual event. That, though, might have something to do with the appeal of drinking pints and pints of the black stuff at reduced prices and Guinness’s ever brilliant advertising campaigns encouraging us to paint the town black.

I can’t quite see national potato day having the same appeal, crowds of people coming together to eat some spuds, somebody would most likely bring poitin and everyone would just get drunk and lament about the famine, because, lets face it, it’s next to impossible to get Irish people to talk about spuds without mentioning the great hunger.

Inevitably, I got to thinking about blight, and the effect it had on my plot this year. Both my earlies and my main crop spuds were hit, reduced to nothing in the blink of an eye, and the once greenest pride of my plot, now lies bare, unusable for spuds for the next few years. That’s ok because I can grow something else there next year, it’s not a big disaster.

Digging up the blighted spuds was a bittersweet task. I couldn’t help but think about all of those people, poor and hungry, relying on their crop to sustain them, dying of starvation when the blight hit. Slaving away in workhouses for a morsel of food, only to die of hunger and exhaustion anyway. The cloying sickly sweet smell of the rotten potatoes, the soft black tubers, how it must have felt when their crops failed the first year, the second and the third. The struggle to feed their children, to keep their children alive. Leaving on the coffin ships, their only hope of survival, only to die of hunger or thirst or typhoid on the way to their new lives.

Today, I visited the Tall Ships Festival in Dublin. It was a wonderful event, the city was packed full of tourists, families, all having a great time down at the docks in the sunshine. While I was there, I saw a queue as long as I could see, for the Jeanie Johnston, a replica of one of the coffin ships, which made sixteen long voyages across the atlantic, full of emigrants leaving for a new life; and I thought to myself, we are so lucky to be here. Last year, myself and Dave visited Westport, Co. Mayo, one of my favourite parts of the country, and while we where there, we visited Croagh Patrick, and the National Famine Memorial monument at Murrisk at the base of the mountain, the bronze coffin ship with bones and skulls as its rigging, and it haunts me, that memorial, it aways has. It haunts me just how many people died on those ships, they knew death was inevitable and they went anyway, to escape the hell of hunger.

And as a new generation of Irish people leave these shores, looking for an escape from the hardships of our current economic climate, I realise, just how lucky we are, to know we’re not going to starve to death, to know we won’t die on the way to wherever it is we go. To be able to wait in line to see a coffin ship for fun and to be able to leave it alive. To be able to take pictures of it on our smart phones and drive home in our cars. To be able to have holidays, to have roofs over our heads, clothes on our backs and warm food in our bellies; and it makes me angry to think, just how far we’ve come to appreciate so little.

I thought of how very lucky I am, to be able to grow potatoes on a small plot of land and not see blight as a death sentence but as an adventure, and of just how much something as simple as some blighted potatoes on my allotment, can open my eyes to so much more than I ever thought it could.

Fiona Grows Food

Mucking about in my garden

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