An Organic Lifestyle (Organic Growing Pains)

I have been on holidays abroad, enjoying the summer sunshine here at home, spending days on the plot  and while taking some photos did not turn on the computer to upload so, not to bore anyone, collages are the way to go. Various harvests, you will notice courgettes feature in all of them, but getting more colourful as the season progresses! Beetroot,carrots, courgettes,cucumber, chillis,Kale,lettuce,Mange Tout,onions,sweet peppers,sweetcorn and potatoes, not bad for such a late start on a new plot! The onions drying in the sunshine.Chilli peppers (our first attempt ever at growing these)!Tomatoes reddening on the vines at last, our first red pepper is in there too! I love how colourful the harvest gets as the season unfolds. The  story of our pumpkins. they were started off in pots at home and repotted as needed, they were  finally planted out on the plot in early June.Clockwise from top left is their progress, it was slow until we got some heavy downpours ...

 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...

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 ...

 Sat morning looked promising so we set off to do a bit of plotting. GS Callum came to lend his expertise and I think thoroughly enjoyed working in 'his' garden! This is our second raised bed which is earmarked for the cucumbers which are languishing on my bedroom windowsill while waiting for the right conditions. It will be filled with horse manure from our previous allotments on  the Hydro Farm  which Zwena has very generously said we can use.It will create a 'hot bed'  for the cucumbers, then the problem will be getting Callum to dig elsewhere! Having a look around to see where else he can lend a hand?! Tea break is a very important part of gardening! The sand table was on our previous plot and it has been relocated also as we have a few mini gardeners to be amused. We could have the best watered plot on the site!The site is fairly sheltered on most sides but the incessant wind we have been having dries out the ground faster than we ...

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...

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 ...

We are officially in the second month of autumn and our weather is still holding apart from a few thunder showers on Sun & Mon.I made pasta sauce last week (previous post) I had appealed to Nic nipitinthebud blog for recipes and she gave me one for Passata. I had said the sauce could be combined with passata for lasagne or spaghetti. I have not used the water bath method of preserving but used Nic's recipe from the River Cottage cook book and I must say it was simple, I only had 3 jars maybe with more it would have been more complicated! I read matron's comment about roasting tomatoes so I discarded the clear liquid left in the roasting dish.The recipe calls for putting the toms through a sieve but I only have one for sifting flour. I spent a fiddly few minutes skinning the toms and then used my hand blender to make a puree before reheating.Definitely worth the effort as it smells devine. The sweet corn in the bag are small cobs which I cleared from the plants,leaving only...