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).

A work in progress..

Woke up yesterday morning to no rain, which considering the week we've had was a surprise.

And as the old saying goes 'make hay while the sun shines' I was up and dressed and out to the garden as fast as my legs could carry me (not necessarily true but I can pretend).

I've so many jobs to do in the garden that I try to do them all at the same time, so a bit of this then a bit of that.

But one job that is a bit easier to do when its not raining is filling the wheelbarrow with sand/clay/pebbles and moving it to the veg patch.

A few weeks back I laid down sheets of black plastic inbetween some of our raised beds to kill off the grass and weeds. The idea is to eventually get rid of all the grass inbetween the raised beds and have nice pebbled walkways around them (easier said than done).

I've removed some of the plastic to reveal dead grass and mud. Next step is to put a layer of sand down before putting the polythene cover, and then covered this with pebbles......

our Sapro Mira potatoe plants

Its hard work, and theres only so many barrow loads I can manage in the one day, this is one job that will take some time to complete.

On the other side of our garden our so called lawn is now a meadow, we havent been able to mow it due to it being so wet but we dont really mind because the wildlife are loving it.

Another job I had been planning to do this year was make a permanent structure to enclose our 3 Blackcurrant bushes, a fruit cage of sorts, but I think it will have to wait, because the berries are starting to ripen and the birds wouldnt be long about finding them and eating them all on us.
So I've just covered them in netting instead.

In the polytunnel all of our 20 Tomato plants (Gardeners Delight) are starting to flower, I have to say I am so excited. Even the four extra that I have planted in pots are flowering. Hard to believe that from such a tiny flower comes one of Mother Natures juicy mouthfuls.

Our love of the humble Potato

If I was to name one vegetable that I remember being planted every year as a child growing up in rural Ireland it would have to be the Potato.

Every farmer I knew had a field of spuds growing;  no such thing as first or second earlies or main crop in our house, it was one type of potato and that was it. No such thing as chitting either! the seed potatos that were planted were kept from the previous years crop to use.

It wasnt some small raised bed for the crop either but a half an acre, at least!
My father would have the field ploughed and the drills made using his tractor and plough. Then my mother would have the boxes of seed potatos placed at intervals along the drills.

With a bit of instruction myself and my siblings would follow our parents lead to plant our main veg. Its wasnt easy, I have memories of my back being very sore by the time those boxes were emptied and the day was over.
Its a bit different for our kids......(a few less spuds to plant too!)

 We (sorry the boys) planted our First Earlies the other day, Home Guards.
Now that they are down it is time to make another raised bed, for our main crop, which are still chitting on the bedroom windowsill!

Oh and heres a picture of a very welcome friend in our garden, hopefully one of many.