My Long Grass

I say grass, you say.....green? Here are a selection of grasses from my garden.

I've left quite a few wild patches in the lower back garden, where I have my vegetables.

You can find nice things in there like this 7 spot ladybird:

I get a lot of birds feeding from the seeds, including goldfinches and sparrows. Not so easy to get a photo of that.

Flowers From Seed: Lupins

I love lupins for many reasons. 

1. They are easy to grow from seed.

2. As you can see from the photo above, they are insect pollinated.

3. They are biennials so they do not flower until their second year. However the leaves are so attractive that even alone they aesthetically earn their place in the garden in the first year, and when they do flower in the second year, it is massively rewarding. They are tough enough in that first year to overwinter in the garden.

4. The flower spikes are majestic. They are reminiscent of the lovely foxglove and delphinium.

4. They often come in a mixed colour selection so waiting to see what shade blooms after a year is like waiting to find out the sex of your baby....kind of, a little.

5. They are legumes, like peas and beans, and like their frequently tinned relatives, they can take nitrogen from the atmosphere and secure it into the soil. Nitrogen is one of the three main nutrients required for healthy plant growth, along with phosphorus and potassium. This is a great reason to grow them in your vegetable beds, particularly with nitrogen loving plants like spinach, cabbage and broccoli.

Get growing lupins!

Flowers From Seed: Calendula

If you are going to raise one flower from seed in your garden, may I suggest Calendula. They grow very easily from seed and are tough as nails despite their other-worldly incandescence. I planted this "Indian Prince" variety last Spring. They are not in a flower bed but in a mass of long grass and thistles and regenerated themselves after winter looking better than anything you could buy in a garden centre. Considering the price of the seeds and potting compost, these flowers probably cost a few cents to bring into existence. They are nectar and pollen rich so useful to insects, which should be the main purpose of a flower. They last ages as cut flowers too. They are used widely in herbal medicine and skincare products so you could awaken the inner alchemist inside you and brew up some tinctures and teas.

 

I didn't use any filters, they really look this good, especially against the grassy background.

Pea Day Battle

Peas are supposed to be easy to grow - and they are - but they can also be difficult! These difficulties, namely stolen seeds (I am watching you pigeons), are easily overcome but I still found myself with an entire row of seeds disappeared. Now before I completely blame the wildlife, I also had seeds that rotted in containers and I'm not sure why. Over-wet conditions is the obvious reasons. I had read that pea seeds need a lot of moisture to germinate but perhaps that is not accurate. The seeds were only a year old so should still have life in them.

Anyway I purchased fresh seeds (Irish Green Pea and Sugar Snap - not easy to obtain with the massive demand at the moment) and sowed another batch outside in a window box which I wrapped in netting. They came up beautifully. This week, when the plants were about 2.5 inches high, I planted them in the same spot as the evaporated seeds and covered them again with the netting by securing it on to the wire frame support that they will grow against.

Then I planted another batch of seeds in the now empty window box and made a protection run for them using another wire frame resting against the already standing one flanked with my potted cherry trees and held in place with containers of potatoes. 

I can just imagine a few hens running in and out that wire run - perhaps the next step for me.

Garden Diary: 2nd May 2020

The food garden is picking up. It's mainly beans, potatoes and raspberries showing significant growth.The big plant to the front is a flower, Yarrow, which will be good for pollinating insects, who in turn will hopefully repay me by eating the aphids that are certain to attack the beans.

For the longest time it was too early to plant anything outside and all of a sudden, it's May! I planted some peas today and when I was writing the label I noticed the month and thought, finally parsnip time! I had a spot reserved in the same bed as potatoes, carrots and beetroot and I spent a bit of time breaking the soil down to crumbs before sowing the seeds. In a few weeks I'll do another sowing.


Back to the peas, my pea seeds are disappearing. I know birds are a major pest outdoors but even my indoor sowings seems to be evaporating. I'm reading now and wondering if I need to water them more. Anyway the seeds I sowed today (Irish green pea from Brown Envelope Seeds) were put in a window box with an net wrapped around it so if these fail, I'm out of ideas.


I am spotting new carrot seedlings every day, thankfully. I was starting to get worried about my 5 year old seeds.


Beetroot is coming up fine and I successfully transplanted some from seed trays but I fear how much damage the slugs will do. We have a ton of brambles in the garden, I might try laying some down to block easy access. Actually, no time like the present. Be right back......

Okay I did it, beetroot protectors that look like satanic symbols:





My pak choi and wong bok never materialised but I have more planted in seed trays so all is not lost yet. I also have purple sprouting broccoli, leeks, courgettes and cauliflower in trays, slowly germinating.

That's all I can think of. Happy gardening.

Garden Diary: 9th April 2020

It has been very warm and dry lately. The late evenings and nights can still get cold, but tonight was the first time when I did not feel any bit of cold approaching with darkness. It's the second night this year that I did not light a fire. It's all over the news now and goes without saying, but should you be reading this years down the line I'll have to point out that we are in a lockdown at the moment to curb the spread of Covid-19 or Coronavirus. Apart from rare trips to the shop for food and walks within 2km of the house, I am at home all the time. It's definitely a test of how well equipped a person's house is. I am very grateful for my massive compost heap and my boxes of seeds. I have lots of plant pots too but I seem to be using old plastic fruit containers mainly as they are ideal for seed sowing, with drainage holes and all.

Some recently sown seeds outside including cabbage, pak choi, leeks, various flowers and beetroot:

I have been referring to Klaus Leitenberger's book Vegetables for the Irish Garden this season and his recommendations for outdoor seed sowing times is much later than what seed packets (often of UK origin) would have you believe. I have seeds planted in the porch but I do prefer to wait a bit later and do most of it outdoors. Once the temperatures have risen beyond likely risk of frost, our combination of sun and rain usually provides quite an agreeable habitat for seedlings.

In the porch are spinach, peas, early cabbages, pak choi, leeks, borage and sunflowers, all planted between 14-17 March. Only some peas and sunflowers have germinated as of today.  I've been taking them outside during the recent warm days to feel a bit of direct nature on themselves (make them feel like free plants!) and back in again in the evening. In the last week I have also done an outdoor sowing of the above vegetables. It will be interesting to see how indoor fares v outdoors.


Seedlings in the porch:

In the vegetable beds, the broad beans are the forerunners as usual. Some were planted in December, others in March. My Achillea are looking healthy and I cannot wait to get some flowers. These plants were grown from seed last year but were slow to grow and then halted over winter. They are thriving now and as they are perennials, it is worth the wait. Peas are planted beside a wood and wire frame and protected with lots of small twigs to deter birds (it is pigeon country here, lovers of peas!). Garlic has been planted around the edge of the beds but I am not feeling encouraged by the growth so far. I am annoyed with myself for not sourcing good quality bulbs and not planting in late Autumn. I guess my beds weren't ready at the time, I'll have no excuse next season! Also sown are corn salad, pak choi and wong bok (a Chinese cabbage). Last year's pak choi were magnificent, I'll be deeply sore if I cannot replicate my success this year. Raspberries are in there too.

The beds with most activity plus containers in the background growing queens potatoes (the lifebuoys were found floating at sea):

Other perennials I am excited about are coneflowers which have a similar story to the Achillea. They were planted from seed last year, didn't amount to anything and never made it from the pot to the ground. I wasn't sure if they were still alive, as they hibernated in pots over winter in the porch but they are coming back strong and I cannot wait to get them into the garden beds.

I have planted Queens potatoes in the same bed as Early Nantes carrots, and parsnips will also be sown here in a few weeks (not pictured).

In the front garden, my tulips are looking good and an area of grass I stopped mowing last spring has brought lots of primroses. My perennial flowers are starting to come back:

The same patch ten days previously:

Anything else......oh yes I planted courgettes today and they are residing in the porch.

Actually some musings on compost....it is very difficult to buy compost at the moment. I'd love to have some good quality seed compost but have to use what I have in the garden so I am taking the stuff from the back of the heap. As we only moved in here a year ago, it is not my making. It is very crumbly and reminds me of a forest floor. In the Autumn, this part of the heap is covered in mushrooms, which I  *THINK* are Clitocybe nebularis, or Clouded Agaric. Good edibles apparently if you are not in the percentage of people that can get awful gastro problems from them. I have no idea if this soil is suitable for seeds but it will have to do.

Garden Diary: 16th March 2020

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.