I've taken over the front porch for my seedlings and instructed everyone to use the backdoor. Last year I planted my indoor seeds on the south facing window sill of the garage but it was too much sunlight for the delicate baby plants and the spiders, christ the spiders that made their homes in and around the module trays. I am a friend of arachnids and very respectful but there are specimens living in there that are historical and huge. Anything massive I find in the house is released into the garage (thankfully not adjoined) and I'm not too eager to meet them again. At the moment I am pulling out empty pots from a big cardboard box and am physically shivering in fear what is living among them.
I am mindful that April to May is really the ideal time to plant seeds in Ireland and if you wait until then, the outdoors will take care of them for you, but for hobby sake I have planted some spinach, peas, leeks, pak choi and cabbage indoors. These are all quite cool weather plants and are some of the best choices for early planting. I've also planted sunflowers, borage and corncockle.
I've used egg boxes for cabbage and toilet roll inserts for leeks.
The little plants you see are Echinacea pow wow (coneflower) that I grew from seed last year but never made it in to the ground and never flowered. These are perennial plants, which any gardener knows are worth a lot, so I can't wait to get them into the garden and hopefully enjoy some flowers this year. They should attract a lot of butterflies. Last year my wallflowers and sunflowers were my strongest butterfly charmers.
I have broad beans coming along outside, following planting in December, and garlic is poking it's head through the soil. Perennials are the raspberry bushes. Once early April comes I will plant potatoes, early carrots and beetroot outside, plus additional sowings of spinach, peas and pak choi. May will welcome sowings of parsnips, courgette and purple sprouting broccoli plus more salad leaves, peas and beetroot. There is probably more but that is really a good choice of plants for us, based on what we eat. I'm forgetting herbs... coriander and thyme must go in. I think I have outdoor basil seeds that did well for me before. Oh I have a big rosemary bush out the front that I use all the time, including for the chicken and roast veg that I just took out of the oven.
That's all I have to say right now. Good gardening.
Just came aacross your site.... how inspiring!!! I live in Carrigaline too and was looking for a source of home made jam, like now, but what you're doing is important. Go you! (btw do you sell your own jam??)
ReplyDeleteThanks for your lovely comment Carrigaline person! I don't make jam usually, just chutneys and relishes but I eat too much to ever have enough to sell. There's a great country market on every Friday morning in the pipe band hall, behind the church on the main st (although it's suspended at the moment like everything else). Failing that, Supervalu are pretty good for stocking local small producers. If you wanted to give it a go, there's marmalade recipe on the blog that's really easy and nice.
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