An Organic Lifestyle (Organic Growing Pains)

A couple of hours spent on the plot today, yielded an onion bed or almost an onion bed.Digging out skutch grass is back breaking and time consuming, not to mention the stones! We have a lot of plants in pots waiting their turn to get a home but with our time constraints its slow going and time is running out for the plants.  All of the potatoes are up and have now been earthed up twice, they may have been late going in but the recent combination of heat and rain has driven everything up. The onions loved the polytunnel but today they have been put outside to harden off. They are in the shelter of the polytunnel as this new plot is a very windy spot.The modules have worked well and the onions will planted out with very little if any root disturbance. This pic was taken last week when they were inside with the tomato plants and sweetcorn which by today had really put on a growth spurt.  Lettuce was transplanted into the border and a row of ...

The allotment is beginning to take shape albeit very slowly, due to time constraints and the weather, but today the sun shone and I had time to spend there even though it was a bit wild and windy.The top third of the plot is now productive! The carrot bed in the centre was remade as the boards of the previous one was nearly rotten so leaving the bed more or less intact, new boards were put in place around the sides.There seemed to be an awful lot of earth so most of that was shovelled over on top of the potato drills this morning. I got 2 bags of sharp sand and a bag of compost from the home compost bin and dug it into the bed and removed what seemed like hundreds of stones from the bed.Carrots like light sandy soil which is loose and as stone free as possible, they are the divas of the vegetable world! I planted 2 rows of 'Carrot Purple Haze' which has a purple hue to the skin, and 2 rows of Early Nantes from Quickcrop. I had space to plant 1 row of beetro...

I took the weekend off so decided this evening once the rain had dried off to get some onions started. I know they should be in by now but the area earmarked for them is under a sheet of plastic until we get time to clear and dig it out for them! I planted them into compost in module trays so they will not have their roots disturbed when planting out. The modules are in the empty tunnel for the moment, it may as well start earning its keep. The heat may bring them on as they are behind other onions I have seen planted already. There is condensation in the tunnel each time we open it up which will create humidity which may or may not be a good thing?! Its our first time using a tunnel so this season is going to be a learning curve. All of the seedlings on the windowsill are well up and will need repotting into separate pots now from the seed trays, more about that soon.

The polytunnel is in place but the ground needs to be dug out and enriched before bringing out our tomato plants.They will not be ready for another few weeks anyway as they are incubating on one of the bedroom windowsills. I had been on Done deal a while back looking for a polytunnel and after investigating various models re: prices etc I settled on one and when  I clicked into their website I found the company was based a few miles away from me!I phoned them up, got directions to their store and son Billy (who is growing with me again this year) did a road trip and picked up our tunnel for €129.00. We got it erected in about 2 hours on Sunday .The measurements are in metres but it is approx 9'x6' in good old Imperial! If anyone is interested the company is based just outside Carrigtohill, Co Cork and their website is www.inthemarket.ie .    The two raised beds are being replaced as the timbers are really rotted and while we would probably be able to use them this ye...

Jack came to the allotment with me on  Wed, it was sunny but cool. I told Jack there was pirates treasure buried in one of the raised beds and it kept him occupied for ages digging! One side of the overgrown plot had been dug over by a mini digger and sods were piled up roughly around the edges. I spent the time digging a trench around the edges and sinking some tiles I had found languishing in my shed at home, hopefully it will deter some of the skutch grass roots from finding their way onto the plot, fingers crossed anyway! We bought some plants to fill up a pot which we found buried under the grass, they are to attract and feed the bees who live..... here at the end of the line of plots! The Beekeeper paid for the plot just to keep one hive on it, I hope it will be a case of live and let live for the summer months. The bees seem to be dormant at the moment with just the odd one buzzing around. The weather has changed drastically today with strong winds and lashing...

 New season, new allotment! I have been a very lazy Blogger and then became a very absent Blogger. I cannot believe how long it is since I logged in.I have debated with myself whether to even bother continuing with the blog as it is easier to FB photos as I take them, and Blogger has not gotten any easier since the last time I used it. As regular readers will know I left the Hydro Farm allotments where we had a plot for 6 years and where I began plotting and blogging.D. Kathryn moved so S.Billy came in with me and we took a plot nearer to home, got it into shape and productive but had a few problems and again thought of giving the whole thing up but have now moved to another allotment in the same area more or less and will give plotting and blogging another 'go'.  It is a very secure site but some very overgrown plots on it, we picked one and then discovered there were two raised beds buried beneath the grass ( see header pic) We cleared one bed and covered it with envir...

The clocks have gone back to 'old time' to herald the beginning of winter, I'm not sure how many countries actually do this. I always liked the idea of long evenings by the fire , curtains closed and I could knit in front of the TV, the eyesight does not lend itself to much knitting anymore but I still enjoy the cosy glow of the fire.  The children look forward to Halloween, how many of you know that it is a very old pagan festival which had its origins in Ireland long,long ago?!You can read about it here  The unexpected delivery of a bag of crab apples led me to doing something I had never attempted before, making crab apple jelly ! I had read some recipes over the years but the mention of jelly bags, muslin and jam thermometers always put me off. I Googled and came with  simple recipes on the BBC Good Food website.  I used a white pillow case suspended from the ironing board (opened) .The fruit when cooled a little was put into the pillowcase, tied a...