Sunday 26 April 2015

Straw Potatoes?



Early potatoes pushing up their shoots.  Notice my homemade concrete path made with recycled pig slats.  
I took drastic steps before we went on our jollies to Portugal and covered my potato patch with old straw.  Here's a picture of them yesterday.  I removed the straw to one side and earthed up the soil over the potatoes and replaced the blanket of straw again.  This was done with my trusty four prong pike and azada.

There were frosts this morning and the air felt very chilly.  Never known an April so dry or so nice.  Talking to a farmer friend who was talking to another farmer, and he said it was like this years ago when he got married one April.  Then it rained all summer.  Hope this isn't summer?  What do you think?  

10 comments:

  1. Do you know this one ?
    If Oak leafs before Ash we are in for a dash
    but if
    Ash leafs before Oak then we are in for a soak.

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    Replies
    1. No I have never heard that one, Heron. Every season in a day at the moment. Thanks!

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  2. Unfortunately Heron's View the saying doesn't hold true, oak is heat sensitive, ash is light. Statistically ash has only come into leaf a handful of times before the oak in the last half century.
    Yes Dave, we have now recovered all our potatoes with straw plus the asparagus, we had quite a frost last night it has badly affected our wisteria, I just hope it recovers, now I'm worrying about the gooseberry bushes, the fruit is set but I don't know how a frost will affect them.

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    Replies
    1. It's been a strange April, Anne. Trees and shrubs are in flower which now which would be May in England. It gets very cold at night. The Irish call it something like: "scariveen". It means: "the wind of the cuckoo". I know the Romans called Hibernia, which means: land of eternal winters. Yet strangely enough they never visited here. Thanks!

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    2. How are your potatoes Dave? Ours have been frost bitten quite badly, even the ones in the tunnel.

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    3. Ours seem OK Anne. But we are on the Gulf Stream so it's probably a bit milder down here in West Cork.

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  3. Am enjoying sharing your veg gardening.....still not one seed planted here, and the land is still being tilled by our pigs!

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    1. Glad you enjoy reading the blog Vera. I think if you broadcast the pig tilled land with swede seeds in late May/early June. You will have a great crop. Thanks!

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  4. Actually Anne, the saying that I quoted, comes from Co. Offaly and has certainly borne true over the last twenty-four years.

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  5. The saying is European wide but it depends on what part of Europe you come from, Norway and Germany have it round the other way to Ireland and the UK.

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