New Fruit Beds

I've been doing quite a bit of work in the garden the last week, mainly digging out compost from the big heap. Some of this stuff has been sitting there for years and is almost black. It looks good and I hope it's not full of weed seeds, although it probably is. 

I have a lot of new perennial plants for the garden, largely trees and hedging (you can see a list here) and ordering is so easy but when I see them all laid out in front of me, the task seems bigger. Everything was put straight into pots but I don't want to wait long before I get everything in the ground. I want most things to go into our existing hedgerow which is between us and our neighbour. The hedgerow is a mix of planted trees and shrubs, wild plants and brambles and dead trees. I want to mix in the new plants, without creating too much disturbance. Even though some of the trees are snags (standing dead trees) and it's very overgrown, it is a fantastic habitat for birds and insects and hopefully small mammals (a hedgehog was spotted in the garden). So my dilemma is how to insert new plants and allow them to compete with the existing growth. I'll figure it out.

What I have done is made a new bed for my strawberry plants using my own compost and stones from the garden, laid over sheets of cardboard. I actually extended it after this photo was taken thinking my 10 plants could use more space. I've also put straw on top. The reasoning behind the stones is that they will absorb heat during the day and radiate it at night, keeping the plants a bit warmer than if there were no stones!

I'll put in the plants in a week or two.

Today I planted my raspberry canes (Glen Ample - summer fruiting) in a new area that I previously prepared using cardboard and my own compost.

I have 10 canes. In the garage are long pieces of wood waiting to be cut and built into a support frame and hopefully I'll be updating this post with a photo of the installed support next week! And photos of the strawberries in situ.

Purchases Made for the Growing Season 2021

I made three deliciously satisfying orders in the last two weeks and now I must stop. I purchased the seeds from Green Vegetable Seeds, which is the business of Klaus Laitenberger who is very knowledgeable and sensitive to the particulars of the Irish climate. The rest were bought in Future Forests in Bantry, which is the most wonderful business and I will go no further than them for any of my trees, fruit and shrubs going forward. A lot of my existing seeds were grown and harvested in Skibbereen by Brown Envelope Seeds and others were generously free from GIY Ireland. Enjoy reading my additions to my inventory.

Trees

I focused on fruit and native trees and purchased everything bare root, which is cheaper and easier to transport.

1 x Irish Peach apple tree (I already have 1 x Bramley Seedling and 1 x Beauty of Bath)

2 x pear trees (1 x Concorde and 1 x Doyenne du Comice)

1 x Stella cherry tree (I already have 2 x Reginas)

2 x Hazel

2 x Hawthorn

2 x Sessile Oak

2 x Rowan

Shrubs

3 x honeysuckle

4 x holly

2 x wild rose

2 x dog rose

We have a lot of trees and shrubs in our garden but not many to be overly excited about. The Elder trees are extremely important and can be used by us, as well as the wildlife. We have some crab apple trees that haven't done too well the last two years we have lived here but last Spring was quite dry and windy so it might have affected the blossoming. Other trees did poorly last year also. We have lots of tall conifers (I think Leyland Cypress) which are great for privacy and wind protection as we are quite high and there is a (lightly used) lane running behind our garden. The view would be fabulous without them but I have to thank them for giving me an extremely sheltered area to grow food. There are lots of gaps and dead trees (conifers that were severely pruned before we came along) to one side of the garden and this is where I am concentrating on. I want to create a mixed native hedge that is good for wildlife. We have contoneaster in the front garden which supplies the bees with flowers in the summer and then produces berries in the winter that are very popular with blackbirds.

Soft Fruit

10 x Glen Ample raspberry canes (I already have 2 x Autumn Bliss)

10 x Elsanta strawberry crowns

1 x rhubarb

Vegetable Seeds/Tubers

Potatoes - Miranda for first earlies and Pink Fir Apple for maincrop

Tomato - Kalavrita

Spring onion - Ishikura Bunching

Parsnip - Javelin F1

Carrot - Chantenay Red Cored

Kale - Nero di Toscano

Courgette - Nero di Milano

Jerusalem Artichokes

Cucumber - Passandra F1

I already have garlic, broad beans and purple sprouting broccoli growing. 

My existing seed collection contains:

Leek - Solaise Blue

Pak choi - F1 Rubi and F1 Yuushou

Peas - Sugar Snap and Irish Green Pea

Carrot - Rodelika and Autumn King. I wasn't impressed with the flavour of my carrots this year so I am changing variety

Tomato - Sungold

Lettuce - Baby Gem and Mizuna

Beetroot - Detroit Globe 

Squash - no idea of variety, I harvested the seeds from a squash I bought at our local farm stall.

New Zealand Spinach - this was a staple of our meals all through the summer, autumn and early winter, until the frost killed it. It will grow as a perennial in mild climates. It is a very fleshy leaf that has to be cooked before eating as it contains oxalic acid. The reason I chose it over standard spinach that can be eaten raw is that it is the one spinach variety I can buy that is bred in Ireland, by Brown Envelope Seeds. Sacrifices for keeping it local!

So I have a lot of work ahead of me this year. I have been gardening long enough to know just how much work is involved in growing a wide range of vegetables. I won't be planting everything at the same time. I think I'll keep the details of the sowing times I have in mind for another post.

My Garden: 20th May 2015

My pet rabbit is still wild in the garden until we finish making her run. 

She is decimating everything, even the plants she doesn't eat - she likes to lie across my lavender. My vegetable garden is so sparse compared to recent years. The only upside is that it is changing my focus from the usual vegetables to other plants such as fruit trees and container grown flowers and veg.

Aren't these lupin seedlings so pretty?

Here is the only Scented Nightstick that survived but I have some planted in a border, although I'm not sure of they are coming up.
I really hope they do because they are just outside the backdoor and I am really looking forward to sitting outside after the sun goes down and enjoying that gorgeous smell they release at night.

Pods are emerging on my lonely broad bean plant. I had very poor germination rates this year but my seeds are a few years old:

I planted a Conference pear tree in November to act as pollinator to my Williams tree that I planted (I think) four years ago. It has done it's job because judging from these swollen flowers we might have our first pears this year!


This is the Conference:

And the Williams:

My comfrey has started flowering and this will bring many bees to the garden: