Starting Off Parsnips Seeds In The Kitchen.

Yes I blogged on the same subject last April if you remember dear readers?

Traditionally the old gardeners books in England always said to sow your Parsnips seeds outside in February.

We have a lot milder temperature wise Februarys in 🇮🇪 Ireland but the last few winters have been exceptionally windy and very very wet.

I got my seed germination idea from Ivan's Allotment on good old You Tube:

One Chinese takeaway away tray or a Tupperware one.  Place some damp kitchen towel in the bottom and scatter your Parsnip or any of last years vegetables seeds on the paper towel.  Then place the lid on the top of the container and place it somewhere warm like on top of a cooker hood.

Usually Parsnip seeds can take 28 days to germinate.  This method will ensure that your seeds will be sprouting with tails within 6 to 7 days.

Heat and moisture play such a big part.  You don't need to sow them in the allotment soil and place a plank on the surface to keep them dry.

There is a lot to be said for indoor gardening.

Starting Sowing Vegetables In The In-house Potting Shed.

Now my polytunnel is in a ground/plastic under repair position.   I have decided to start my seed propagation indoors.

This was no mean feat and it took us the best part of an hour to move the flotsam and jetsam and detritus of every day domestic life like black bin bags full of clothes.

Spare boxrooms are like sheds.  The more you have the more you will fill them.

Any road any way:

🌰 Onions ("Snowball") sets pressed into plastic planting modules half filled with potting compost.  This method works far better than pushing the poor onion sets in the cold and very wet soil.  We'll have a look at their progress in a few weeks.

We also sowed 🍅 tomatoes,  leeks, lettuce and cabbages.  

Then we sprayed them with a mist and cut along the seam of a polythene bag and covered up the trays.  Hopefully the dogs and cats will leave them alone?

Anyone else making their spare bedroom into a chitting room/potting shed?  It's got to be better than rebuilding your motorbike in the front room or kitchen?

I feel my pre spring growing itchiness stress wearing off after our indoor sowing adventures. 

This will be the third incredibly wet winter on the trot.

Buying Compost At A Home, DIY And Gardening Store.

 We went in Woodies in Tralee for some compost.

I opted to purchase two bags of compost for 15 Euros.  They are 9.99 on their own.  So I bought the two bags:

60 litre bag of multi purpose compost.  We are always after a gardening bargain or two?

Is it me or are the shops adding a pound or Euros to every item this year?

I am going to start off some vegetables seeds and plant onion 🌰 sets in compost in plastic modules in the "Chitting Room" or small bedroom this week.

Conditions are very wet and not very warm outdoors.  Plus I have no indoor gardening shelter since Storm Eown caused havoc recently to my polytunnel cover.

We noticed lots of storm damaged derelict old houses, agricultural buildings and fallen trees on our travels at the weekend.

I see little point in planting onion sets off in cold and saturated soil when I can start them off indoors in plastic compost filled modules.

We also plan to begin sowing vegetables trays this week.  We will keep them in doors for a few weeks before planting them outside and harden them off.

Anyone started planting and sowing yet?

First Carboot Sale Of The Year.

 Plants and bric a brac for sale.

We travelled two and half hours to county Limerick to a carboot sale on Saturday morning.

It was trying to rain and most booters decided to walk backwards and forwards carrying their wares inside a community hall.

We decided to be brave and decided to empty the van and tough it out.

One woman asked me if I would sell a print painting with a neatly carved frame for 3 Euros?  I said that I wanted 5 Euros at least and the frame was worth that.  The lady said it wasn't worth it would take a lot of cleaning and walked away.

Carbooting reminds me of my old coarse fishing days.  Sometimes you catch and some times you don't.

A cheerful man  asked me how much my plants were and I told him what species they were and their price.  The man bought four off me for twenty Euros.  I gave him a plant for free.  He was really made up and patted me on my back.

That's all we made: 20 Euros.  Then I paid the carboot lady organiser 12 Euros for our pitch and we were left with 8 Euros!

What a waste of time.  Perhaps we has tried selling to early in the year?

I won't be going there again.

Last year at a carboot sale a fellow booter told me had done a carboot once and never sold a thing and he paid ten pounds to sit in a carpark for the morning.😄

Empty Houses And Empty Rooms.

 An old homestead dwelling not resided in since the Great Famine.

This is one of the old ruins that I often walk past and think about on my hill walks near where we live.

I have read there are over 110,000 derelict properties here in Ireland.  If you look on Daftie  you will see properties in places like county Kerry for 50000 Euros or less.

There is a empty houses government grant of up to sixty thousand Euros to renovate such properties.  Some councils do not always give planning permission especially if the property is isolated and there is no infrastructure like a council road to the property.

I have also read that the owners of some of the ruins emigrated overseas and died and no one knows who owns the properties.

I think it's sad when I see old buildings fall into disarray and get covered in Ivy and the gales demolish them for ever.  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

In my almost a quarter of a century living in rural Ireland I have seen parts of the building in the photo disappear.

'Empty Rooms" by the great Gary Moore plays on my mental jukebox when I think of such derelict and unloved properties that people once called home.

Filling Up The Repurposed Raised Bed And Weeding.

 A busy day on the smallholding veg plot:

I filled up the repurposed oil tank this morning with fym and home-made compost and topsoil.

Then I went weeding and forking over the raised beds made from planks, old tractor tyres, fish boxes, plastic baths and old heating oil tanks.

IBC tanks.

Old barrel.

Old plastic baths.

The long bed is made out of old decking planks.

The corridor of raised beds.

Plank raised beds with Japanese onions 🌰 growing in them.

Even more raised beds.

The long raised bed.  We grew tomatoes there last year and peas.

Old Ford 3000 tractor tyres.

I finished my gardening at 3 o'clock this afternoon.  It had just begun to rain.  I counted 45 raised beds including the fish boxes and tyres planters.

Apart from moving a lot of perennials in the polytunnel and taking up the black plastic tarpaulin and digging it over for new potatoes and adding seaweed and fym.  That's my winter veg work done and ready for the planting season.

Are your beds and veg plot ready for planting?

More Repurposed Raised Beds For The Veg Plot.

 Number two son drilled me some drainage holes in half a old plastic heating oil tank.

Half an heating oil tank.  Drilled for drainage and put into place in the veg plot.

Once again I will practice the German Hugelkultur gardening method and half fill it with shrub prunings and fresh fym.  Then I will fill the top half with well rotten fym, compost and topsoil.

Soon they will be raised beds like the ones below.

Old IBC tanks cut in half and planted with leeks.  We love our homegrown potato and leek soup.

Old plastic baths repurposed and used for growing vegetables.

More cut in half heating oil tanks and a bath.

Raised beds are great for drainage and the soil is at least at knee height.  Some are at waist height.  This is very good for people with bad backs and none of us are getting any younger are we?

Once again may I add that my repurposed raised beds are suitable for anywhere.  You could even grow vegetables on concrete.  Don't worry about not having a garden or allotment.  Get yourself some repurposed oil tanks and old plastic baths.