A bit of growth - finally.

*blows the cobwebs from the blog*

It just feels like it was the longest and coldest Spring ever didn't it?

Maybe it is just me but it seems everything is much slower growing this year than last. Even the slugs are slower! (which is great, I am not complaining!)

So in between showers yesterday I took my camera out for a 'walkabout' to capture a few things in our garden.

When out weeding the other day I came across this sapling at the side of our house, and after a bit of research (my youngest sister) it has been identified as a baby Ash tree ! No idea how it ended up here as it certainly wasn't planted here by the previous owners and there are no Ash trees anywhere in our locality. Just have to thank Mother Nature I suppose. Now we just have to find somewhere to plant it.



Ash sapling

 After planting our seed potatoes we had a few left over so my partner decided she would like to plant some for our patio, so two seed Red Duke of York potatoes were planted in an old pot. And they are thriving!

The ones in the raised beds are coming along nicely too..

Red Duke of York

Our other potatoes, Sarpo Miras, look like they are never gonna grow, but when I looked a bit closer I found them starting to peep through at last (just hope there has been no frost this week because I didn't top them up with soil).

On the other side of our garden our Rhubarb is flourishing, and we have already had two Rhubarb tarts from this lot!

And the Strawberries in the polytunnel are coming along nicely too! the bigger ones to the front of the picture are in their third year, the smaller ones their second year. Looking forward to some yummy fruits soon!

And last but not least (a rain shower sent me back indoors) our three Blackcurrant bushes are also thriving, and are getting a few visitors too! Heres one fella I caught working away...

Spring has finally sprung!

At long last I feel like it is Spring; the spuds are down!

It has been so cold and the garden has been so un-inviting the past few weeks that I was beginning to think we would never get our potatoes planted.

Two weeks ago I ordered top soil to top up our old beds and fill a new one. It is a shame really that our own soil has such heavy clay but having raised beds is brilliant for a garden that tends towards waterlogging!

Four tonnes of soil arrived and a new raised bed made, the last of the 16ft x 4ft ones that we planned on having in the garden. Thats six altogether now, plenty of room for crop rotation!

I got the boys out doors last week (thank God for Easter break!) to help me with the weeding while I started emptying the top soil into our new and old raised beds.

It wasn't the easiest of weeks for working out there; we had a few showers of snow sending us back indoors once or twice. But it had to be done!

Yesterday was a lovely day; not too cold. So we managed to fill the new bed and plant our Sarpo Mira potatoes in it. These were great last year; blight resistant and we got a good yield from them.

 In another bed we planted our Red Duke of York potatoes (earlies); never tried these before so hoping we get a nice crop from them, even if they are being planted very late....

Our Peas are up too, it is so lovely to see them sprouting, they are so cute!

The Sungold F1 Tomato seeds I planted are up too (all 8 of them) but I think I need to buy a few more seeds; don't think 8 plants are enough (we had 20 last year).

It looks like a gorgeous Spring day out, and theres loads of work/gardening to be done, hope it is gorgeous where you are too!!

Happy Gardening!!

Chitting time!!

Yes, it is that time of year again.

The egg cartons have been saved over the last few weeks and the seed potatoes have been selected and purchased.

This year we have decided to try out Red Duke of York for our First Early crop. The guy at the local garden centre maintains they are worth a try.

For our Main Crop we are going with Sarpo Mira again. We had a successful crop with it last year and it is blight resistant (and didn't drown in all the rain).

Egg cartons make the nicest beds for little seed potatoes to chit, eyes up!!

All the nice wee spuds in a row; our bedroom window sill full of chitting potatoes!

And our seeds arrived in the post from the lovely people at www.giyireland.com .

Hopefully next blogpost might be about sowing some seeds (must go get some potting compost).

Garden reflection

I love Spring, and the Summer isnt too bad either, both full of colour and growth.

I love all new things regardless of what they are.

But Autumn is different, its about harvesting and easing into the hibernation that is Winter.

Its also a time of reflection, looking back at what I did grow, or tried to grow, how it did and what I might do differently next year.

This year was a bit tough for growing vegetables and not just for us, for all gardeners from what I have read in blogs and on twitter - it has been such a wet year that the slugs took over, they came and destroyed nearly everything in their path.

In our garden they started at the Rhubarb in the Spring, and every evening I went out on 'slug patrol' picking them off the leaves and putting down beer traps.

Thankfully the Rhubarb survived and I have been harvesting it since (and baking plenty of Tarts).

Yummiest in a Tart

Then the slugs turned their attention to the Carrot seedlings.......they ate everything, not a carrot survived.

After that it was the Onions turn, they didnt do so well either. It seems that Onion greenery was this years delicacy in the slug world and so the beer traps and my evenings of 'de-slugging' were needed again. I think I lost that battle.

I do believe the slugs had more beer this year than myself!

We have lovely Onions (albeit small) but because they have no green stems left they wont store very well unfortunately.

Sarpo Mira spuds/wee Onions

The Homeguard potatoes got blight and the slugs helped 'clean up' so the harvest was very small.

But the Sarpo Mira potatoes which are blight resistent did very well (as well as expected considering how wet the soil remained all summer) and I havent found any signs of slug attack either.

We are still harvesting them, but I must harvest them all this week and harden them off in the polytunnel so they store better.
I pulled this mutant one the other day, gorgeous isnt it? not.


Mutant spud (size of tablespoon)

The Parsnips are actually doing very well, (slug free) but I think the soil has been a little too fertile for them so they are all very leggy. I am learning, slowly.

Spindly Parsnips

We also tried growing Beetroot this year but they failed miserabley.

Have to start planning next years crop soon. Think its time to start ordering seeds.