An Organic Lifestyle (Organic Growing Pains)

We spent today visiting Fota Wildlife park, a fantastic amenity right on our doorsteps. It is visited by tourists and locals in their thousands each year, there is the wildlife park which is charged for but the gardens of Fota House and the Arboretum are free to visit just pay a E3 parking charge on the way out. The entrance has been completely revamped since I visited last and these lifelike Giraffes greet the visitors The interior of the Orangery in the gardens has been restored, when I visited first this was almost derelict. The restored orangery which you spy through the trees The sunken Italian garden In the wildlife park, we spotted this Peahen with her chick The peacock preening himself, no babysitting for him! Not an African skyline but Fota!There are Giraffe, zebra, and oryx here. There are 2 seals ,this one was out sunning itself The beautifully restored Palm Walk. Why am I depressed? 'Cos he got the sweetcorn! There are islands in the lake where all sorts of monkeys li...

Sinead & Aoife with armfuls of Lavender this evening.I am going to try drying it in bunches this year as there is only so much I can do with the dried flowers. I have one bunch already in a vase on the windowsill to see if it will dry there. It struck me this evening while cutting it that there is a marked absence of bees around, last year I could hardly get near it as so many bees had taken it over each day. White Ghost pumpkin,according to the pic on the label it has a white sheen to the top of the pumpkin. Calabrese is setting nice large heads, we have cut 2 so far and they are delicious.I cut a cross on the stem after taking the head, it is supposed to encourage side shoots to grow. I gave the whole brassica bed a dose of rhubarb tea which is recommended to discourage white fly as the smell is foul and it confuses them?! It is made by soaking rhubarb leaves in water for a few weeks and the resultant sludge is rhubarb tea! Remember my mutant beans? They have now been put out on ...

More of the gardens at the Mallow Homes & Gardens show. There are 25 permanent gardens which get a face lift and/or make over each year.This gold fish is around for quite a few years and is the last remaining one in the pool.They knew he was there but this year they put various pieces of garden sculpture around the gardens and a heron pouring water was put next to the fish pool.The goldfish spent the time swimming and dancing in the oxygenated bubbling water, much to the delight of visitors A patio garden The Hobbit playhouse, erected by a company who make and design unusual playhouses etc all over the world. Courtyard garden with a vine growing for a few years it would be one of the permanent features which new designers have to work around. In the sales area, a lavender tree?! Unusual lillies Off Our trolleys, a catchy selling idea. Pots decorated in county emblems Dunsland garden centre had by far the largest sales area full of colour and plants of all shapes and sizes, Prop. P...

We have been very busy for the last few days putting the final touches to the Hydro Farm Project for the Mallow Homes & garden festival which opened to the public on Friday for the most successful festival yet. The unusual feature of this festival is,there are 25 permanent gardens and each year different people are invited to take over a garden and using the mature trees,shrubs, water features ,ponds etc already in place to completely invent a new garden around them. We had 5 raised stone beds this year plus the raised deck area. The great news is, we were completely bowled over to win a Silver Medal for our efforts! Our cottage garden bed, planted with flowers & veg The Feather garden with ducks,geese and a Cock & hen.The cock was very vociferous throughout the show and could be heard all over the showgrounds. A Blueberry tree which has reached the grand old age of 45!It was imported from Italy by Peter Dowdall of the Dunsland garden centre. It is hard to see the berries o...