An Organic Lifestyle (Organic Growing Pains)

I collected Aoife from school and we went to the allotment, while Aoife did her homework in the tea room I did some quiet digging as it was a beautiful sunny afternoon. We are having a lovely Autumn at least but it gets chilly about 4.30 pm. I had turned over the ground here last week intending to cover it with  weed suppressant and move the rooted Globe artichokes over here.Now I am thinking I may turn it into a type of herbaceous bed with the G.A and lots of flowers for colour. This bed runs along the pathway between our plot and Angela & Peter's. We don't need a fence between us but a nice useful flower bed would be good. Some flowers still blooming on the allotment.These are Dianthus ( Sweet Williams) they are tiny but I don't remember any label on them saying miniature?!They have flowered all summer and continue to brighten the bed. Another aubergine on one of our 3 grafted plants, we have never had any success with these before but they have produced nic...

 Kevin and myself went out to the allotment on Fri afternoon, it was not just sunny but absolutely roasting! I watered all the plants in the greenhouse and it felt like a sauna. The tomatoes are ripening slowly.Harvest included: 2 courgettes lettuce Small Red Duke of York potatoes 2 cucumbers some french beans & small tomatoes blackcurrants,strawberries,red gooseberries & blueberries.The strawberries and cherry tomatoes went to Jack who eats them like sweets!.Not enough fruit to make a summer pudding so the gooseberries & blackcurrants were added to apples to make a summer fruit tart.The blueberries go on my cereal in the morning. The long green plant at the top of the photo is a Brussels sprout plant gone to seed, the 4th of 10 to go.It was brought home to the hens and I tied it to the fence.Within a very short time it was a skeletal shape hanging from the fence! Waste not want not. Kevin noticed some of the globe artichokes and asked to take some home...

We signed up with Suttons to trial some of their grafted plants , tomatoes,peppers,cucumbers and peppers.They were supposed to arrive mid March but did not arrive until nearly a month later. This Spring has been so unpredictable weatherwise that was not a bad thing as plants will not be going out to their growing positions for another few weeks.I still have not got to grips with the new Blogger to upload my photos correctly so these are actually in the reverse to the way I wanted them...oh well! This is a close  up of the graft on one of the tomato plants.When potting on tomato plants the soil is brought up to the bottom leaves to encourage new roots to grow to support the plant, with these it is advised to keep the soil below the level of the graft as the grafted plant can send out roots and cancel out the grafted root! Another grafted tomato plant.I waited for days wondering when our plants were going to arrive until one evening a neighbour came to the door bearing a b...

I went out to the allotment today for the first time since before Christmas which seems like months ago so much has happened and changed in that time. Sinead and Aoife came with me and spent some time checking out what had changed around the site since we last saw it. Zwena has some fantastic plans for the Hydro Farm not just for this season but the coming years, it will be a very exciting place to be! On 24th March Brown Envelope Seeds are visiting us and advising us on seeds and planting etc and we will also get a discount on the seeds we buy. They have been selecting over the years for varieties and individual plants that work here as they operate in West Cork. Their seeds are open-pollinated, or open source seeds, which means that you can save your own seed from them. The farm is certified by The Organic Trust so that the seeds may be used by certified organic growers. There are no chemical treatments carried out on the seeds or the plants they are harvested from. (IRL-O1B3-EU Symb...