I’m famous!! Well, not really. Last week my blog was featured on Freshly Pressed and since then I’ve had many thousand views, hundreds of comments and some lovely new followers. thank you all for your kind comments, and a big hello to any new readers. I was particularly pleased with the busy week on my blog as it’s been a horrible week here in Dublin and I’ve been mostly unable to get out to the plot. The weather has been horrendous, stormy, cold and depressing, more like winter than late spring.
Most of my week has been spent cooped up at home, grateful for the roof over my head. On wednesday, we had gale force winds and rain, the likes of which I haven’t seen since the floods in October. I was grateful for all my work the week before to prevent the wind from causing too much damage to my plot.
The wind died down for a few hours on Saturday and I got a chance to visit the allotment. When I arrived on site, I despaired at the sight of one of my bamboo wigwams, lying on it’s side, at least, that was until I looked around me and realised I had gotten off lightly. There were no longer any plastic greenhouses on site, or at least none that I could see, it seems the wind had destroyed them all, along with the seedlings inside, some of them were just a mangled mess of twisted steel frames with the plastic coverings long gone. Then, I realised, there were a significant number of sheds, lying on their sides, knocked over by the strong winds. I heard another plot holder found their shed on the other side of the field. Plots were missing gates, netting was flying around in the wind and I managed to escape with a bit of wayward bamboo and some damage to my rhubarb. Lucky escape.
We took the break in the bad weather as an opportunity to plant my main crop potatoes. I’ve had these sitting on my windowsill for a couple of months now so I was happy to finally get them into the ground. I planted some early potatoes in March and they’ll be ready in late June/early July, my maincrop spuds won’t be ready until October though as they need longer time in the ground.
Despite the bad weather, everything seems to be having a growth spurt on my plot. The early potatoes are growing strong and I will need to earth them up soon. My onions are doing really well, I had to weed them the other day, the weeds seem to be flying up too and onions hate weed competition. My Dad shared a great tip with me last week, an old dinner fork works great for weeding onions, It cuts the weeds at surface level and is the perfect size for reaching between the onions. Genius!
I noticed some seedlings poking their heads up in a few of my beds. It can be hard to distinguish them from the young weeds, and at first that’s all I though they were, but on closer inspection, I spotted beetroot, chard, brocolli, scallions, spinach and rocket all starting to grow. I also noticed some salsify seedlings, which I only planted two weeks ago and was very surprised to see them up so soon. My peas are doing well, my raspberries canes have new buds on them and the two artichoke plants I was so concerned about seem to be doing better than anything else on the plot. Despite the bad weather, the garden continues to grow.
Tomorrow is the first of May, or Bealtaine as it’s known here in Ireland. It’s traditionally the beginning of the summer season, when the animals would be sent out to pasture. In medieval times, they would light giant bonfires in hope of a good harvest that year. Today, we had the gas fire on in the house, not quite the same. I’m hoping for an improvement in the weather, right now it doesn’t feel very much like summer. Although, the sun is peeking its head around a cloud at the moment and the weather forecast tells me it’ll be much drier and milder this week. Fingers crossed.
I know the despair. Last year, we lost two wonderful tomato plants to the wind.
Glad to see your allotment is doing well, otherwise.
I’m so happy that your plot wasn’t ruined, and that things are sprouting nicely. Happy Beltaine!
Your plot is looking good considering! The weather has really been awful lately, it was bad here Sunday but after reading your post perhaps not as bad as first thought! Congratulations for featuring on Freshly Pressed.
Karen
Thanks Karen. The weather’s clearing up a bit thankfully. I spotted your blog on Freshly Pressed a few minutes ago too, Congrats! Great to see some gardening blogs on there.
Oh no! And I thought our plot was exposed to the winds! Looking great windiness aside. 🙂
Thanks. I think my plot is particularly exposed as it is a new site and not much is established yet. hopefully by next year, the plots will all have a bit more structure and break the wind a bit more.
Thanks = hopefully the slugs will leave the sunflowers alone til Saturday!!
I hate the wind too, always so destructive. My shed took a tumble last year; it’s now screwed to stakes which are buried in the ground and has guy ropes tying it to fence posts! My rhubarb has been shredded by wind and hail too. Things will recover though, onwards and upwards. Lovely blog post by the way.
Thanks Orlaith 🙂 The weather is suposed to clear up considerably this wek so here’s hoping! Good idea on the stakes, getting my own shed next week hopefully so I’ll be taking that idea! Looking forward to your plant sale this weekend.
It’s been rather windy here too, but not nearly as bad as it’s been there. Glad to see you didn’t have too much damage.
We’ve gone from summer weather two weeks ago, then back to freezing temperatures this weekend. The little seedlings don’t seem to mind though! They are amazingly resilient.
That’s crazy wind! Hope things settle down. I didn’t realize how big your garden was…. It sounds absolutely amazing!
Sorry to hear about the wind damage! Best of luck with the rest of the season. I love the information about Bealtaine. I never knew that.
We’ve had do much rain, rain, rain! A few gales too but no damage to our garden – sorry to hear about your damage!
Thanks, it’s not too bad thankfully, many people had much worse luck!
I’m thinking twice now about putting a shed on my plot! Congrats on being freshly pressed… I’ve been away from the blogosphere for over a week and have missed a lot!
Thanks Val. I’ve been thinking about getting a shed, I think I will but I’ll be taking very good care to weigh it down and tie it to some stakes!
I am enjoying your blog, Fiona! I thought our March weather was bad in Los Angeles. I’m surprised so many thing are growing in your plot with all your bad weather!
How much total space do you have, by the way?
My plot is 100 square metres so it’s big without being too big, the perfect size for my needs.
I’m glad there was so much bypassed by the winds. The fork idea is brilliant! *note to self* 🙂
Oh my. Good to hear that you didn’t sustain any devastating damage. Wigwams are an easy fix. 🙂 Continued good luck. Looks like things are growing well!
sure wish we could plant! 🙁 too cold yet here…even snowed yesterday and today…:( love the idea of a fork weeder…we’ll use that this year!