An Organic Lifestyle (Organic Growing Pains)

I got some photos of the awards winners at last! The basket of mouthwatering veg was a prop brought by the photographer and not grown by me, he also brought spades ,gloves etc. All of the award winners, this is the first year of the awards so we are all inaugural winners!There was an award for novice gardeners,community gardens, allotment providers and experienced gardeners.Each category had 3 winners, receiving certificates and medals with the outright winner in each receiving a cheque also! I am no longer at home in the mornings so the computer is only accessed in the evening when I have time and having a Spanish student who spends the evening on the computer has seriously curtailed my time online!I will be back to sole use of the computer after this week as he is returning home so I will have time to visit everybody again. Gardening has also been curtailed due to the cold and frosty weather some parts of the country actually had snow yesterday! Leeks and turnips are being used and s...

I took these photos on Monday last when we were still enjoying sunshine.This week has ended with torrential rain which is forecast to continue through next week as we are in the middle of a deep depression causing higher than normal rainfall for the first 2 weeks of July, Oh well another 'normal' Irish summer!The slugs have ideal weather conditions, humidity and rain. These are some of the tomatoes in the greenhouse which have set fruit, rain or no rain today I have to go out to water them, it is very easy to forget about plants growing indoors when you are looking out at falling rain. The harvest that day,spring onions, lettuce,the last of the mange tout which have now been cut down and added to our compost heap their roots were left in the ground to add nitrogen.A few dwarf broad beans which will be going the same way as the mange tout soon.Raspberries and some strawberries which were turned into muffins, I have an Italian student at the moment who will have chocolate cupcake...

The garlic continues to be plagued by rust,I have been cutting off the affected leaves and watering diligently as it is very dry and even though they don't like having their feet wet they do require watering in very dry spells and they are under enough stress at the moment!The new green leaves shoot up only to develop the tell tale rust spores after a few days. I went back to last years rust episode and read the advice given then,do not give a nitrogen feed of any description, spread sulphate of potash to harden up the bulbs and spray with a sulphur based fungicide.I searched the garden centres here but no sulphur based spray to be had, due to the banning of quite a lot of gardening products. I did eventually find a sulphur based powder which is shaken on to the plants and they can be harvested safely after 10 days.I read the description on the bottle which says it is for use on edible and flowering plants, hardening bulbs for storage and preventing rot.They have been treated now s...

I uploaded these photos last night but the computer gremlins slowed it down so much I gave up so here goes with second attempt.The sun has finally arrived but the down side is watering has become very important as most plants are just starting off and seeds need moisture to germinate.I filled a wheelie bin with water one morning when I was on the allotments alone we can use this with the watering can at busy times.Most people are going out in the evenings to water and the flow slows down when a number people are using it at the same time. The salad bed is filling up with the spring onions, lettuce and swiss chard. There is iceberg and butterhead lettuce, it is still covered with fleece at night and will be for another week at least. The onion & carrot bed, I swear these weeds were only a couple of inches high on Thurs when I was last out! I had hoed the bed when the onions had put on some growth but then set carrot and parsnip seeds so we could not weed until they were up enough to...

Some photos of the plot, I remembered to take the camera today!The rhubarb bed was extended last week and I bought 3 new plants.They are Timberly Early, 6 plants might seem like a lot but we all use rhubarb and love rhubarb crumbles with cream! The one I moved a couple of feet suffered no ill effects and is growing nicely The work in the greenhouse, instead of pots which dry out quickly we are putting the tomato plants directly into the soil.I pulled back the membrane and gravel and the soil underneath was in very good condition. I cut down a scaffolding board and piled up a load of manure to top up, all it needs now is some compost and it is ready to grow. I will put in some spinach and lettuce while waiting for the tomatoes to go out. I bought a new gooseberry bush to replace the one the sawfly decimated 2 years ago. We missed having gooseberries last year. hard to see but this blueberry bush is covered in buds, the other two have some but are not as healthy looking as this one.The w...

This morning was bright and sunny with a definite hint of Spring in the air so I paid a quick visit to the allotment to check how we had fared over the cold weather, I must say not bad at all!I pulled aside some dead foliage from the rhubarb bed to find nice fat red shoots about to burst forth. The severe frost was supposed to be up to 36cms deep but it has not checked the growth of these. I am surprised as they had not been covered with any manure over the Winter, we had extremely wet weather in Autumn when we should have been doing the last of the digging and covering so the rhubarb has been uncovered in the coldest spell we have had for years. I am going to pay a visit on Friday morning with suitable work wear to cover it with manure now, as we are forecast another severe frost over the weekend. I picked up a fork and stuck it into the ground expecting to hit frozen soil and I nearly tumbled forward, the ground is so soft!The frost has broken up the sub soil I think and the thaw has...

A quick visit to the plot to assess any damage done by the recent storms, not all bad but our poor scarecrow did not fare too well even though he is still standing.The cross piece for his arms has come loose and is only held up by the coat sleeves for now. He is standing on a plot we used for onions and since harvesting we have been covering with waste leaves and weeds plus a sowing of a green manure called Phacaelia. He is now nearly knee deep in a nice organic mixture which will be covered (soon) to rest for next year. The bed behind him has been covered with plastic and we have put on horse manure ,weeds,grass etc and when the cover blew off in the storm I was delighted to see we have a lovely dark organic bed with everything well rotted down.The plastic was pulled back over it to continue its good work. The Brussel Sprouts also took a battering and the netting blew completely off but there was no bird damage to the stalks.Some of them nearly blew over but the sprouts are growing ni...

I spent a couple of hours on the plot on Tuesday in watery Winter sunshine. I dug out the row of parsnips and got the surprise of my life to see we had some fine specimens!I pulled the remaining few white turnips, a solitary leek and a good bucketful of sprouts. I also dug up the last of the Kerr's pinks potatoes and some of the Golden Wonders. It was when I loaded the photos to the computer I realised I had not taken a pic of the pops. After the spell of heavy rain they were covered in muck so were not very photogenic anyway.There is now a lot of slug damage to all of the potatoes so next year we will take my brother in laws advice and only grow first and second earlies.Potatoes are very cheap in the shops now and if the cost of blight spray etc is taken into account then these are very expensive spuds for very little return. The full parsnip harvest, all shapes and sizes but a wonderful smell and taste.The largest weighed in at 600grms! We only grew one row of them, some of the f...