Our Seeds have been ordered!

What better way to end January than with some seed ordering!

Here is our list of what we ordered, (from the lovely www.giyireland.com shop) and what we hope to grow successfully this year (for ourselves NOT the slugs!).

Beetroot 'Detroit Globe' :


We did not have much luck with our Beetroot last year as the slugs made their way through the seedlings I planted out, so this year I intend to sow all the seeds and hope for the best!

Cabbage, Savoy 'Vertus':


We grew Savoy cabbage last year and what wasn't eaten by slugs was fairly successful, so going to stick with these guys again this year. They produce a nice solid head, while the slugs can have the outer leaves!

Brussel Sprouts 'Brigitte F1':


Never tried growing Brussel Sprouts before, but my mother has had great success with hers, so going to give these a try this year. Fingers crossed for our home grown sprouts for Christmas!

Lettuce, Butterhead 'Sylvesta':


Lettuce has to be one of the easiest plants to grow. I always plant enough though to share with the slugs and plant at intervals too so that we try to have continuous Lettuce throughout the summer.

Salad Mix, Spicy and hot:

Every garden should have a pot for salad mix!



Carrot, 'Autumn King':

A total disaster last year, every time a seedling popped it's head up out of the soil there was a big fat slug waiting to eat it. This year I plan on sowing more than last year in the hope we get at least one or 2 carrots....

Pea, Sugar Snap 'Delikett':


A lovely addition to the garden, I planted our Peas too late last year to have anything more than a couple of pods that we ate every time we passed the bed.

Scallions, spring onion 'Ishikura Bunching':


No salad is the same without a few scallions!

Tomato 'Sungold':



We are trying a different variety this year, after 2 successful years with 'Gardeners Delight'.


We have a few more things to get, but I think I'll leave that for another day.

Our Feathered Friends

We have a few Bird feeders in our garden and I try to keep those feeders filled during the winter months. Not just to keep the birds happy but selfishly so we can see them on a regular basis. We just love to see them around the garden, and what better way to catch a glimpse than entice them with a bit of food throughout the year.

Every garden should have at least one feeder! you just never know what you might see!

Our resident birds include Coal Tits, Great Tits and Blue Tits, regular and cheeky!

We have one Robin and a couple of Blackbirds who visit our feeders too.

Then there is the Wren out the back who doesnt come near the feeders at all but sometimes we catch it sitting on the washing line or the wheelie bins looking in at us.

We also have one Dunnock, and at the side of the garden, in the trees we have a Tree Creeper (whom we thought was a mouse the first time we spotted it running up a branch!).

We get loads of Chaffinches, Greenfinches and Sparrows too.

And every now and again we get some 'blow ins' to the garden.

I thought I would stick up a few photos today for you to enjoy!

Pheasant

This fella visited our garden about two weeks ago to feed off the seeds that the other birds dropped while feeding from the feeder. It was the first time we had seen a Pheasant up so close, needless to say we were all delighted to see him, and he came back for another three mornings too.

Goldfinch

 The Goldfinch is a beautiful bird, they tend to visit in groups of 3/4. They visit us once or twice a week.

Male Chaffinch 

 A very regular visiter, himself and his Mrs.

Our Dunnock

Male House Sparrow
 

Female Greenfinch

Great Tit

Redpoll

This fella and 2 of his friends turned up the other day and I was lucky enough to get a nice few pics of them too. Very attractive posers.

Our Snow Garden

My Winter Poem

 by my son J age 8

 

Fantastic icicles on the trees

 

Fantastic snow falling on me

 

Fantastic snowmen looking at the light

 

Fantastic ice shining bright

 

 

 

I took my camera out on Monday to take a few photos; with snow covering everything the garden actually looked nice (instead of waterlogged).

 

 



The snow hiding the green covered tunnel

No work getting done today!
 

 

Hidden by snow instead of just weeds, looks prettier

The poor Daffodils have to pause growing again!

 

There is a queue for the peanut feeder!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Garden in Hibernation

Winter is my least favourite season in the Garden.

This is our third Christmas in our home and is definitely the wettest.

The entire garden is waterlogged (have the moss and reeds to prove it too).

This afternoon was nice and mild and I decided I would try and get a last blog post in before the New Year. I stuck on my wellies (I wasn't hopeful about how waterproof my walking shoes would be out there) and grabbed my camera to take note of the 'mess'.

And oh what a mess!!

Our poor Lavenders

Think theres something under there

So much for investing in copper tape!

Grassy wet muddy mess

In need of a wash

Goodbye 2012, looking forward to 2013 and getting more plans finished; the biggest one being drainage!!

Heres to a drier and slug free New Year!!

Something for a Winter's night in

This time two years I was telling a friend over the phone about the little blue berries that I had found growing on a few old gnarled and moss covered bushes, down by the shores of Lough Sillan.
Myself and the boys had been on an 'adventure' walk down a hidden lane not far from the house we were renting at the time.
I didnt know what they were; she thought they may be Sloes and if they were we could make Sloe Gin with them. I had heard of Sloe Gin before but it was one of those obscure things that you hear of but dont really know how it is made and I had no idea what a Sloe was.
So I did a bit of research on Sloes and after the first frost (its recommended to leave them until then)we hit off down the lane again, armed this time with plastic bags to collect these wee blue berries. As it turned out I didnt get much help from my offspring as these wee berries were on very thorny bushes, they are not called Blackthorn for nothing!
Armed with a bag full of them I made over a litre of Sloe Gin.

And that was the start of my love of fruit flavoured Vodka/Gin making. Last year we tried Plum and Sloe vodka (we prefered the vodka to the gin), both delightful liquers to drink and they came in handy as extra wee gifts to family and friends last Christmas.

This year because we have no Plums and there are very little Sloes in the hedgerows I decided to try out other fruits.

I halved our harvest of Blackcurrants (the rest will be made into jam when winter starts) and put them in a sterilised Kilner Jar, added some caster sugar...

Then the vodka..

 

Closed the lid tight and gave a nice shake from side to side.

Next fruit is Blackberries (idea courtesy of a fellow blogger, @edibleireland, who made Blackberry Whiskey last year ).

Have to give them a shake twice a day until the sugar has completely dissolved, then a quick shake once a week.
I will store them in a dark cupboard for about 6 - 8 weeks. After that I will strain the fruit (using muslin) and put the liquer into sterilised bottles for the Christmas. The wonderful thing about these fruit liquers is they can be left to mature for a year (or more if you can leave them that long).

Cant wait to try them out. I will post an update later on in the year to give my verdict on these particular fruit liquers.

Wooden Gates finished

A couple of posts ago I blogged about making a wooden fence, but without its gate.

Finally getting to blog about the finished product.

After a little bit of research I figured out how to put it together so that it wouldnt fall apart (well heres hoping anyway).

I put the frame together first before adding the fence posts.

Then put the hinges on and stuck it up!

 As you can sorta make out from the photo above I did place the hinges in the wrong place (left gate)on first attempt.

Next thing a latch, a drop bolt and a bolt for locking them.

I have to put another drop bolt on the left gate as there is still a bit of movement when it is very windy out (spotted it yesterday during a torrential downpour).

After that I have to dig out where the dropbolts are entering the ground (just a hole in the gravel at present) and put in a small rectangle of concrete to give the drop bolts a nice new solid home.

And thats it finished! no more goats entering the veg garden this way! and alot more privacy and security this side of the house.

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.