An Organic Lifestyle (Organic Growing Pains)

 Today's harvest from the allotment, it was not very colourful until I added the carrots and beetroot from the raised bed.I cut down the Broad beans and stripped the pods which are filling the bag on the left.I just cut the stems leaving the roots to rot down in the ground as legume roots are rich in nitrogen. There are 7 courgettes! Time to start making soup I think. The carrots from the covered raised bed are really tasty, these are the Sutton's baby veg which we are using while young and tender, leaving others to mature. We are coming to the end of our new potatoes, these are old reliable Home Guard, there are more beetroot and 2 nice  size heads of Broccoli. A few weeks ago we didn't think we would have anything much to take home as we started so late but the heatwave helped and dare I say it , those nice soft summer showers!  The tomatoes in the lean to tunnel are just about OK, not a lot to harvest at all.I have almost stripped all the leaves and branc...

 This is son Billy's first year plotting with me, he had said they use quite a lot of courgettes and was looking forward to seeing them grow and picking fresh ones.I thought you will have some job coping with a glut so just put in 3 green and 1 yellow courgette plants.They have been very slow with the cold nights we had been experiencing but this week they have been reaching glut proportions! The smaller ones were almost overnights and the larger one was deemed a bit small the previous day! I wanted to make some Comfrey 'tea' to feed our new plot. We always had it on the Hydro Farm  so while I was in Blarney recently I paid a visit to catch up with plotting friends. I met Zwena, Rosie & Tom and came home with an armfull of Comfrey which grows wild  there and some rhubarb ! Comfrey should really be used before setting flowers when it is at its most potent but as with everything else this year I am like the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, I am ...

The Broad beans have begun producing, this photo was taken a few days ago so they have gotten a little bigger since then, the quandary  now being when and how to pick and cook them?! Today, 3 onion beds weeded,fed and watered with the paths in between clipped with a hand clippers. We were going to dig out the paths and cover with 'something' but regular clipping will keep them tidy.There are 2 white onion beds and one red, they seem to be in varying stages of growth even in the same bed as can be seen in the top bed in the photo! The courgettes are really taking off, even though none have reached an edible stage yet there are lots of blossom. The sweetcorn is about a foot high and developing nicely, it is hard to see them properly here seen through the netting to deter the very determined Cock Pheasant from getting in. The small green plants around the edge are dwarf French beans, they are planted around 2 sides of the bed. The lean to tunnel is fulfilling its ...

 I have been up to the allotment for some time each day, watering & weeding.I had noticed some of the peas being chomped not from the bottom as in slug attack but the tops and edges of the leaves. One of the other plotters informed me its being done by a cock pheasant who lives in the next field! I have seen him in the allotment field but not near the plots, he obviously bides his time! I covered the entire pea and broad bean beds with netting, hopefully he will be stopped before he does too much damage and they will have time to recover. The other plot has the peas in a row and he has decimated the whole row of them maybe past recovering. The raised bed with 4 courgette plants, 3x green and 1x yellow, this got a dressing of horse manure from the Hydro Allotments to create a hot bed  for them and they are putting on a growth spurt with the brilliant sunshine warming them up. I sprayed the potatoes against blight yesterday, maybe I'm paranoid but this spell of re...

The Broad beans are all heavy with blossoms and the Bees are loving them, this one is deep purple. I planted Meteor Broad Beans straight from the packet?! Crimson Flowered beans, I had kept a few seeds from last year when I sowed some beans which Matron had given to me the previous year What I would call normal coloured blossoms, white with a purple centre  Pale pink, maybe a cross between the others ?! The Bees as I say are loving them and their humming as they go about their business is a back drop to any time spent there lately.  S. Bill has found a very good excuse for regular coffee breaks! These snazzy bags of used coffee grounds are free from Java Republic, complete with instructions and advice (click on photo to enlarge).One of our plotters also has access to unlimited coffee grounds and said we can have as much as we want so slugs take note!  The new Blog header is GS Callum taking home our first harvest from the new plot !...

 Lettuce of varying colours and stages of growth under the plastic cloche. Spinach at the very far end is coming on slowly.  Blossoms are coming out on the broad beans, these have really taken everything the very unseasonable weather has thrown at them.They are not quite as tall as I would expect but hopefully they will continue growing while producing blossoms and pods. Semi permanent brassica cage in place today, not a very pretty sight but hopefully (a word we seem to be using a lot of this year) a useful one!  More rain with some sunshine today, other parts of the country  have thunder & lightening so we shouldn't complain down here! I have worked out an easy method of uploading photos and text, just do one photo at a time, Simples! Networked Blogs have been sharing my blog onto FB almost as soon as I hit the publish button. I found with the last post it took nearly 24 hours to do it?! I think it is now one of the services on FB payment plan!

The plot is taking shape but the weather is not helping, which is everybody's complaint on this windswept isle.In view on the left side are onion beds, 1 red baron and 2 white then potato beds.Across the back fence are raspberry canes ,rhubarb and globe artichoke ,all moved from the previous plot at the Hydro Farm. White fleece, back left side is covering one of Billy's raised beds. I sowed carrots, Pak Choi and beetroot in the bed today and covered with enviromesh, even the carrot fly may be deterred with the cold weather, but covered the bed 'just in case' ! The second raised bed is empty awaiting top soil and manure to sow courgettes which are on the bedroom windowsill as I speak hoping the weather will improve before June to put them outdoors. There is a space left beside that bed to take the Sweetcorn which are struggling in the back garden at the moment. I had moved them outdoors at home to harden off but had to cover them today with fleece to protect th...

 Posts in position for the wire fencing because we have been told that rabbits are also a big problem up here!Billy dug a trench along the fence line to bury the end of the wire to stop said rabbits from tunneling underneath. Windbreaker was then added for extra protection for plants as it is a wide open field! It is hard to see in this pic but the first permanent bed is in place across the back fence. I slipped 4 raspberry canes, 3 stools of rhubarb and 1 Globe Artichoke from the plot in The Hydro Farm. The shed has to be put into place this weekend before digging out the other beds ASAP! Potatoes are still chitting in the shed. Onions are waiting to go in. Seedlings are backing up at home waiting to be hardened off  Seeds planted today were Sugar Snap.These handy little seed trays had grapes in them, nice and high with air and drainage holes already in place and a  lid to act as an incubator Two of them just fit nicely into another reusable...

Cauliflower & cabbage plants, these were bought and potted on into larger pots and will be repotted probably twice more before going out into their permanent plot.They have been netted against the birds which would love a taste of some nice green veg to vary their winter diet.  Our seed potatoes chitting in the shed, not a whole lot but we don't have a lot of space and it will be late by the time we get them in  The rhubarb which I broke off  the big plants we had on the Hydro, I have one in the garden here which is growing fine these got 'a touch of frost' the other night and are looking a bit sorry for themselves I set to on the seed box last night and discarded out of date seeds and opened packets.I had been tidying out one of the spare rooms and came across a gardening journal which I had started last year. I start one every year but then forget about it! I was amazed at the amount of seeds I had already sowed by this time of the year so we will have ...