A Film, Poem And A Song.

We watched  Mrs Lowry and  Son on Netflix  the other night.  Have you seen it?

I found it very grim up north.  I was born and  lived in the Northwest of England and  I remember the mills.  Some of them still working belching out smoke from the tall chimneys and some ruins in the countryside being reclaimed by nature.

Lancashire is very much like DH Lawrence's industrial/rural landscape.  Even a city like Manchester, England's third biggest city, you're only several miles from the open countryside and the moors.

Timothy Spall plays LS Lowry.  He was also a great character playing Brummie character Barry in Auf Wiedersehen Pet.  He often reminisced about he use to play table tennis in the West Bromwich Methodist league.  The things I remember.

Vanessa Redgrave plays Lowry's bedridden mother and she aspires to be a concert pianist and live in a middle class area.  She's not keen on his paintings either.

I thought the acting was brilliant and the accents were authentic too. Here's a trailer:

One scene in the film showed him painting an industrial scene whilst standing in the countryside.

It jogged my memory of one of my old poems.  I use to write poems about old mills and canal barges....  Here's a poem I wrote over thirty years ago.  I was walking through a rural valley and saw a shell of an old cotton mill so I wrote the following poem:

Ode To A Ruin.

Skeletal, unworkable,
A mill in retirement,

Ghosts of yesterday, disarray,
Pitiful nature's sad lament,

Crumbling  mortar, times slaughter,
"King Cotton" is no more,

Boulders fall, abstract tall,
Rumbling debris cascades pour,

Relic, melancholic,
History passing through stones fingers,

No workers sweat, just silhouette,
Their memory still lingers.

Wish I  could paint like Lowry did.  'Going To The Match' is my favourite painting of his.  It's outside  Burnden Park.  A ground I have been on.  The painting is now in the National Football  Museum and worth over 1.9 million Pounds.

There's  a great video by Mike Harding called 'King Cotton' featuring some of Lowry's paintings:

A Boot Full Of Plant Pots.

"Come here".

Shouted my wife.  I wondered what I had done wrong this time.  So I walked out of the field and met her at the car.

"Look what I've brought you".

Then the penny dropped in my mind.

My face lit up.  The car boot was full to the brim with plant pots.  Hundreds of them:

Guess who is going to be busy in my polytunnel dividing perennials and potting up plants?

It's a sad state of things when a load of plastic plant pots make you happy.  At least we saved them from the landfill for a while!

Busy Times.

A log delivery on Sunday night.  I got up first thing Monday morning and emptied the trailer.

 A wheelbarrow and a big bucket of bark.  I will use that on the garden or put it in the compost heap.

Number two son digging with the microdigger on the new Northsider garden.  I forked it over and planted it up with Phormiums.  I have since planted Shasta daisies,  Geraniumsand Fuchsia bushes, 

View from our back garden.

Taken today.  It's starting to look a lot like Christmas?  A garden even.  I planted an hundred perennials this very morn.  They cost me nuffink.  Cos I makes new plants by division and cuttings.  I'm not very clever but I can make plants.  Mother Nature  helps me too.

We also got a load of Fym and I applied some of this  to the veg plot.  At least I am not bored anymore.  Anyone else making a new garden or extending theirs?

A Thirsty Tale From The Polytunnel.

Short But Not So Sweet.

I was potting on plants in my polytunnel the other day.  I took a bottle of Sports Lucozade with me.  It gets hot in'Portugal' my polytunnel.

 I have another bottle of Sports Lucozade full of water from the wheelie bin I fill up with the hosepipe from the well.  I use this for watering small newly potted plants.

I had potted up thirty or forty plant pots and  I reached for the bottle.  Without thinking I had a good swig and it tasted very weak.  I think I mentally called it gnat's wee wee.  I had only gone and drank some cold well water that had been in the wheelie bin for the last few weeks.

Oh well! 

Thinking About Garden Mulches.

I don't give my lawns any weed or feed or use any chemicals on them.  They do get a tonic of my homemade garden nettle tea from time to time.


Some  times I remember when I worked on a golf course and I use to get a knife and cut out any rogue weeds.  Daisies are exempt from this of course.  Then every Monday I would put divots mix in the holes and flat them out with my feet.

Rosie the new Golden Retriever seems to like digging and chewing grass too.  Note to myself.  Repair where Rosie's been digging.

Any road.  The lawn clippings are chemical free so I use them for mulching my onions:

Here's my Japanese Winter onions covered in lawn clippings to mulch and feed and suppress any weeds.  I never have enough of the stuff.  Even the potatoes  get a covering  of grass over them.  I try to keep fresh clippings away from their stems.   It feeds them, helps retain moisture and suppresses the weeds.

I am thinking of using grass that  I strim around the new Phormium bed.  I might also try seaweed which I can can gather for free and it's only five minutes away by car.  I could buy a load of bark?

Do you have a favourite natural mulch that you use in the veg plot or on the borders?  Do you use grass?  Or is it only for medicinal purposes?😊

The New Phormium Bed And The Bench Gets A Lick Of Paint And Some New Cushions.

Number 1 son dug out me a bed on Friday night.  I forked over 5he soil and pulled out any socks and grass.   We are just dumping the grass at the side.  This will rot down and provide lovely compost/top soil.  Yesterday morning I planted it with some Phormiums I have in large pots.

 I think I will make this into a Phormium nursery and keep dividing them and replanting.  I was tempted to plant some perennials in this island bed.  But I think I will keep one type of plant per island bed. 

Weeds are going to be problem, especially grass seeds from the rest of the field.  So I am going to think of some organic mulches.  More about mulching tomorrow.  What do you think?  Am I mad or will it look good?

We've been busy bees and the bench I showed you the other week finally got painted with some anti rust paint. 

Red and blue are my favourite two colours.  Red for Manchester United or Labour and blue to remind us of the fabulous blue sky you see in the Algarve and the blue buildings.  Wifey bought two cushions from the German garden centre and beer retailer and supermarket.  See you tomorrow. 

"I've Got Azada Elbow!"

I started on a new garden project  yesterday.  "Mad dogs and Englismen go out in the midday sun" and all that.    Wait until its 20 degrees and start digging.  I told you I was bored.  You can see Digger Dave if you click on to the photo please.

Cuckoo flower in flower.  They like damp pastures.  Haven't  heard any Mr Cuckoos calling for a missus yet, have you?

This month is like May in reverse.  Absolutely gorgeous.   Ireland is a lovely place to live when it's not blowing a gale or chucking it down every day.
Below is the section of the field that I am going to make the new garden.  It's very long.

 I downloaded Monty Don's The Jewel Garden on Kindle last night.  I am interested in Longmeadow his Herefordshire garden which he made from a field.  That's my idea too.  It's  going to be a big project and it's going to keep me busy until things get back to normal if they ever do.  The missus says I've took over the veg plot with my pots of perennials so now it's time for a new garden.  Have you thought of making a new garden?  For summat to do?😊

I spent most of yesterday working in the 'new' garden digging off pasture with my Azada hoe.  Come three o'clock my elbow was killing me.  I have heard of 'Housemaids knee' and 'Tennis' elbow.  I think I've invented 'Azada elbow'!


Put Azada in my blog search if you want to know what one is!  Apparently its Spanish for hoe.

"I'm Bored".

For External Use Only!

You're hardly going to drink it are you?

Here's a song from the nineteen eighties sung by the Punk great Iggy Pop.  It's an appropriate song for how we all feel at the moment.

Did I see you pogoing?

  Do you remember the Old Grey Whistle Test?  Whistling Bob Harris and Annie Nightingale were great presenters.  

You Don't See Rural Tramps Anymore.

My dad use to tell me that an occasional gentleman of the road would call to the smallholding.  Asking for labour or a meal or even money.

I suppose some times they would be given a task like mucking out the stall or stone picking a field... ? My grandmother would invite the man in and she would cook him a meal and give  him some sandwiches to take with him.  She would also find an old coat, jumper or trousers and make them into a parcel for him and maybe even a few coins.  On his way out he would say;

"Thank you ma'am "

The tramp would go off down the road whistling a tune and off to call on another kind farmer's wife.  Some would show him the brush and tell him to

"Feck off".

I suppose he would be someone like the character in this Foster and Allen video:

".

Dead Easy Perennials Cuttings To Make.

I got up this morning and potted up some perennials, hoed the veg plot, did some strimming, split some perennials, watered the polytunnel  and veg plot and my plant nurseries  and decided to take some perennial cuttings.  Sedum cuttings to be exact!

Largish Sedum plants.  I love these perennials.  The Butterflies love them in late summer early  autumn.  When they are in flower it means winter is on their way.  They are members of the Stonecrop family and dead easy to divide or take cuttings.

You just take your secateurs or scissors and take some cuttings.  You can dip them in organic hormonic rooting powder if you like.  I didn't bother because they root so easily.  I just put them in compost filled plastic modules and watered them.  They will be rooted in at least three weeks.  Probably sooner in the polytunnel.



I pulled most of the leaves and the tip off and pushed them into the compost in the plastic modules.  Taking the tip off makes them bush out rather than being long and straggly.  You could even start them off in water if you want?

Here they are next to some I made earlier.  I sound like Valerie Singleton when she showed Blue Peter viewers how to make their very own nuclear power station out of six Ski yoghurt cartons and some sticky back plastic.  CELLOTAPE.

Go on give it a go and take some cuttings.

Barter Systems.

I have long been a firm believer in the barter system.  I think I once wrote here that I rescued an overgrown garden in exchange for a second  hand car.

The other day I did some gardening for my brother.  He wanted to pay me but I declined.  Then he gave me a bottle of Black Bush Mills Irish Whiskey and I took it home with me reluctantly but satisfied.

I have hundreds of perennials and I am good at gardening.  So they are two things I could exchange or barter for.  My wife is a very good knitter, especially babies cardigans.  A friend is swapping me a trailer of fym for some of my perennials.

I wish I knew somebody who had a garden and wanted it planted up or rescued from being overgrown.  I wonder if they could brew me some bitter?

The people long ago here in Ireland use to practice the Meitheal.   They would go to their neighbours farm and help them with the haymaking or potato harvest.  No payment would be made.  Of course they would all sit down in the farmhouse kitchen afterwards and have a good feed and drink but no money would be exchanged.  Even the Donkey would get drunk on Poteen and Porter and do a dance and sing a song or three.  When your neighbours hay  was ready to cut you would go to their farm and help them.   This was back in the day before people had lots of farm machinery  and you needed lots of help and everybody spoke to each other and ....



It's a pity we can't go back to those days again.

What would you offer to barter?

Freezer Bags Polytunnels.

One of my best ever investments must be the purchase of 'Portugal' my polytunnel.  Even on a showery day like today I spent the morning taking cuttings and potting them up and placing them in plastic freezer bags.  Fifteen freezer bags with zips for 99 Cents from the German garden centre and beer retailer.  I think they sell food too.

You don't  need to have a polytunnel to propagate your own shrubs and plants. The freezer bags will be used over and over again.  So plastic isn't all bad.

New Zealand Plants Growing In West Cork.

You will see lots of Phormiums growing in West Cork.  They originate in New Zealand and are also called Flax.  They use to be used by Maoris to make rope.  They are a plant that's got leathery leaves and don't mind salt spray.

I divided the one above today with my spade.  They are as tough as boots and I ended up with four plants.  They can cost anything from 12 Euros upwards.  But like most of my plants, I make them for free!

Four new plants in another of one of my plant nursery areas.  This one is near the compost heaps.  There's a lovely Dock growing on the right hand side of the photo.  Any one else dividing their Phormiums?  We have been in lockdown for four weeks and I have had enough of it.  I am sure you have?

Old Baths And Shower Surrounds In The Veg Plot..

Regular readers have seen my shower surround cold frame before.  Like most Northsider gardening projects, it cost me nothing to make.  It's just made of bricks and pieces of wood and the shower surround is placed on the top.  

I put some leeks in trays in it today.  You don't  need to go to Browse And Queue  to have your very own cold frame.  Builders skips or ask Civic Amenity staff if they will save you any shower surrounds?

Our Carrot bath greenhouse is working a treat and there are two rows of carrots growing in there at the moment.

Any one else recycling bathroom suites in their veg plot?

Dividing Bergenias and Grasses.

Spring is a good time to divide perennials and grasses..  You lift the plant and cut it in half with a knife or spade.  Replant one of the halves and pot up the other half with compost or plant it somewhere else.  I spend many a day dividing plants.

I dug up a grass and split with my tree saw and repotted them.  The polytunnel is also my potting shed.  Eight decent sized plants were made from the one clump of Carex.  At 8 Euros a plant in a garden centre,  I saved my self 64 Euros by propagating my own.  I made several small plants too.  The big plants are potted up and back outside in my nursery and the little ones are growing on in Portugal'my polytunnel.

Bergenias or 'Elephants Ears' cut in two.  This week is a good week for dividing your plants with rain forecast for the weekend.  

Dividing plants is much quicker than waiting for cuttings to root and grow.  I do make cuttings too.  If you divide your perennials in Spring or Autumn,   you'll soon have lots of plants to fill up your garden, give away, swap of even sell on a carboot sale.  That's if they ever allow us to sell them again?

Garden centres and hardware stores are open again in Ireland since yesterday.  So perhaps we can go car booting again?  

Potatoes Progress In The Polytunnel.

Here's the latest photos of our potatoes  growing in'Portugal' the polytunnel.   It's amazing the difference a bit of polythene makes to create a micro climate.  I water them at least once a day, sometimes twice!

The beauty of a polytunnel is you can garden even on a bad day outside when it's  throwing it down.

I feed the potatoes with organic poultry manure pellets.  This week I will place some grass clippings near them but not close enough to burn them if the grass is fresh.  Maybe let it decompose for a few days before applying it.  This works like a mulch and feeds them too.  The onions (winter and summer ones) get the grass mulch treatment too.  The lawns don't get any weed and feed treatments just a nettle garden tea feed now and again.  I get daisies in my lawns but I don't mind them at all.  In a couple of weeks the potatoes will get some nettle tea.

I am also awaiting a trailer or two of well rotted fym from a friend.  The potatoes outside and other vegetables will get a feed of it along with spudatoes in the polytunnel.  It's  a good idea to earth up the potato  plants with the fym, soil and grass clippings to stop the potatoes near the surface going green

Think I have said it before.  We lived in an upstairs flat I grew potatoes in a large flower pot full of compost in the front window.  They were scrumptious and showed me that you don't need to have an allotment or veg plot to grow your own vegetables. 

When your potatoes are flowering it means the tubers are forming.  They take twelve weeks to grow from planting.  Then one day you dig up the soil and find your hidden treasure.  You can tell they are new because you can peel them with your thumb nail. 

We only grow new potatoes because Ireland is prone to blight and I don't  even spray them.  If they get blight I strim the tops off the potato haulm.  I never put it on the compost heap though.

I hope I have wet your appetite and perhaps you will grow your own new potatoes this year be it in an allotment, a container or in the window of your flat.  

Nettle Garden Tea.

The Nettles are growing really well now.  Nettles have many uses: people long ago use to be flogged with them to cure arthritis, ropes and army uniforms and bandage dressings are other uses for nettles..  You can drink nettle tea, use it for a substitute rennet to make cheese, eat them, be it in a soup or instead of cabbage, or even in an omelette.  Nettle hay is adored by cattle,  goats and sheep.  It makes great compost and you can even make a garden tea with it.

"Where nettles grow.  Anything will grow." They are full of phosphates and iron and you can even grasp them with your hand like you do Dave.  I think  I like nettles?

Yesterday I made some nettle garden tea.  A homemade fertilizer to feed the plants and vegetables for free:

I cut some nettles with my hedge clippers and put them in a barrel full of water from our well.  Normally I would place them in an old pillow case and tie a knot and tie to the piece of green rope in yonder photo.  But I couldn't be bothered walking to our house and going in the 'hot press' or airing cupboard if you live in Blighty for a pillowcase so I just plonked them in the water and placed half a concrete block on them and they went "bubble, bubble" to the bottom of the water barrel.

I will leave them to decompose for a week or so and then the nettle water will be ready to be garden tea.  Probably bits of nettle will block the watering can rose and I should have placed them in the pillowcase that's still waiting for me in the airing cubpoard/ "hot press".

You need to dilute it 10 to 1 parts watter or water even.

Anyone else make garden tea out of nettles?

Happy Easter.

Dividing The Perennials

You know the Gardener's mathematical equation don't  you?

The only way to multiply is to divide.

So this is how I spend so many hours in 'Portugal ' my polytunnel office.  It's  getting hot in there too,  Yesterday I watered twice.

Eight Ajuga plants  waiting for me to split them in half with a very sharp fish gutting knife.sometimes you can just tease them apart with a little bit of gentle persuasion.  Go on give it a try.

Eighteen 'new' Ajuga plants potted up and none their worse for their ordeal.  Like ourselves they like a good drink.

Gardening is like the fashion industry, always changing and some plants like perennials are not so popular now a days because they are labour intensive.  A lot of people seem to  want a bit of grass, some shrubs or an hedge but they don't want any weeding.

 I love Cottage gardens with their natural informality and resemblance to a hand sewed patchwork quilt.  Nature doesn't work in straight lines.  Quite the opposite.  Have you seen trees planted on a golf course? All lined up like soldiers.

When we moved over to Hibernia "land of eternal winters" or Eire or Ireland its other names.  I brought a wheely bin full to the top of perennials.  I have been dividing them ever since and I have added to the collection too.  Plants are like rabbits.  They multiply exceedingly quickly.  It helps if you're a plantaholic and you are always propagating more new plants by cuttings or by division.  You can divide them with a spade or even the bread knife.

Spring and Autumn are the perfect time for division.  So why not get into your welly bobs this weekend and make some new plants?  The garden centres and markets are closed.  So dividing perennials or growing cuttings or growing plants from seed.  Is a way of getting around the lack of plants for sale.

I can't praise perennials enough.  They come back every year and you can make many plants for free.  What was it Del Boy said?

"You Plonker Rodney!"

No not that one.  The other Del Boy catchphrase:

"This time next year we will be Millionaires!"

Covering Up The Septic Tank Pipe For Nowt!

If you remember we replaced some of the sewer pipe a month or so a go.  I was going to buy a couple of ton of gravel and cover it up.  Then I decided to do it for nowt or nuffink.

I wanted it to be camouflaged but showing us where it is: a 'living 'sewer pipe.  So I got my shovel and dug my own 'borrow pit" or trench even at the bottom of the veg plot and duly carted and pushed copious amounts of soil via wheelbarrow.  Then I went to my plant nursery and planted 30 Cotoneaster horizontalis plants that I grew from cuttings last year.  Well we might make use of  them I can't sell them at a carboot  sale.

I also planted some Ajuga perennials to spread over the heaped soil while the Cotoneasters are growing.  I also planted some of my bamboo plants next to the septic tank to camouflage it.  It only took me six hours and my back didn't  half ache after all that digging andbarrowing.  Oh yeah.  I emptied the compost pile that Rosie was in the other day and filled the 'borrow' trench.  This will decompose and make find compost and replace the soil I took away.  Here's some photos:

Sewer pipe waiting to be camouflaged.  Notice the Phormiums in pots?  I split them last April.  April is a good month for dividing them because it's a wet month and April showers bring May flowers!

All covered up and planted.  It's good to do a garden project and spend no money in the process.  Must make some more Cotoneaster cuttings.

Have you done any garden or DIY projects cheaply or even for nothing?

Miles And Miles Of Empty Space In Between Us........ ......

Mr Yorkshire Pudding asked me to post a blog of where I live.  Here goes YP:



Here's some photos that I took a few weeks ago.  When it wasn't raining and Storm Brendan wasn't leaving his calling card.  Yeah they are more photos of the Sheepshead Peninsula here in Westus Corkus on the Irish  Riviera.  It's what I call my Northsider walk.  Some of it is on the Sheepshead Way and some of it's on roads.  My walk is approximately six miles long.  There is a bit of walking up hills but the views of the two bays, Bantry and Dunmanus are worth it when you get to the top.

A long  and winding road or boreen if you live in Ireland.

Bantry Bay and Beara Peninsula 

The rugged Sheepshead Peninsula.

A beach and Bantry Bay looking over to Hungry Hill.

A oak yellow Sheepshead Way finger post.

It  makes me want to sing that Leo Sayer song which contains the blog title.  or maybe you like the following video:

The lyrics are The Peninsula by Seamus Heaney.  Water and Ground in their extremity is one of the lines.  Mr Whasp a Sheepshead Peninsula musician made the video and sings The Peninsula.  The camera work is excellent too.  Enjoy!

Another Day In The Polytunnel And The Garden..

Yesterday was a wet and windy day on the peninsula.  I never saw a soul apart from my immediate family.  I potted on some perennials and pricked out sprouts and leeks and repotted them into trays and plastic modules which I reuse over and over again.

A new invention.  A shower curtain cover for the bath beds.  We're growing carrots in this bath this year.  The shower curtain should work like a greenhouse and keep any nasty creatures out.

Making use of an old fish box and a polystyrene packing case which we grew spudatoes in last year.  It just shows you can grow vegetables in any container and anywhere.  The missus came back with some cabbage broccoli plants from the German garden centre and beer providers.  Only two Euros for twelve plants.  They had sold out of the cheap 3 for 6 Euros compost, drat!

                                         
A rescued bench.  We spotted the frame of an old bench about a year or so in a scrapyard and number one son eventually got around to welding bars on it.  Number 2 son helped me carry it into place today.  It weighs a ton.  We placed it on the house gable facing my plant nursery and veg plot and Portugal my polytunnel.  It will be nice to have a cup of coffee or glass of beer or wine and watch everything grow.  I love bringing things back to life.  It's  a nice day today too.

A New Song By A Great Band.

I first found out about Bournemouth Celtic Rock band Blackwater County when I saw them at Wimborne Folk Festival in 2018.  It was in The Paddock and it was a glorious Sunday afternoon.  The beer tent served some fine ales too.  Ringwood Brewery ales if I remember.  Not your usual weak music festival stuff.

Any road they have a new video out.  It's very catchy and I keep playing it.  The track starts off slow but it soon gets going.  You might even dance. I have featured Blackwater County on here before.  I hope they make it big.

Here's  the new video:

Do you like it?

A Look At The Plants And Veg Plot.

I have been a busy bee and the veg plots are ready to grow vegetables and plants.

Who is that old bloke next to the polytunnel?  It's me of course.  Here's the hundreds probably thousands of plants that Mother Nature and me have propagated by division and cuttings.  They're ready to be sold or swapped or even bartered.  I once renovated an overgrown garden and the owners gave me a car.  What's the best barter you've done?

Another picture of me plants.  There's shrubs and herbaceous perennials. I was going to open up a plant nursery or get a stall on a market but this crisis means I can't sell them.  Why are plants and garden centres not essential?  I can't even get my wheelbarrow wheel fixed either or buy some vegetable seeds online.  The place has gone to seed.  Sorry couldn't resist that pun!

Inside 'Portugal' my polytunnel.  Even the path is full of plant cuttings.  It's become an obsession.  I am a plantaholic.

Weeding my Japanese onions.  I gave them a feed of organic poultry manure too.

I hope  you enjoyed the tour of my garden of Eden here on the Irish Riviera?  

Looking At Donkeys Through An Old Hedge.

We spotted these two donkeys the other week when went for a saunter.  I told them  two donkey jokes;

What's  a Blackpool donkey get for its dinner?

Half an hour😊!

.What do you call a donkey with 3 legs?

A Wonky!


Here's a funny cartoon about donkeys.  They have County Cork accents:

See you tomorrow.

A Canine Compost Pal.

Meet Rosie our new gardener.  She's  a Golden Retriever and likes walking and

compost making. I think she's rather beautiful  don't you?

Monty Don has Nigel and Nellie the Golden Retrievers to help him, we have Rosie.

Another day in the veg plot today.  I am becoming a full time stay at home gardener.

I Work In The Garden. My Wife Bakes A Cake.

I have been a busy bee in the garden every day.  I think showers begin on Friday.  I came in yesterday and my wife had baked a cake and it was a cake mix from the German garden centre and food store.  I ate the cake which only cost 2 Euros and drank a cup of instant Cappuccino.  The cake reminded me of children's birthday cake.  I am not complaining though.  You can't  beat home baking can you?

People are growing there own and baking this year.  If you have never grown anything please give it a go.  Even if it's a few plant pots of compost and a packet of seeds.  You will be amazed by the freshness and your bountiful harvest

There's even talk of doing some room painting next week when it rains.  Even painting our bedroom!  I haven't painted it for over five years and the last time I never bothered painting behind the wardrobes!  I might be living in the polytunnel  when  we move the wardrobes next week.  Where will I put everything?   Perhaps we can get a little man or woman from the village to paint it for us?

Is there any task you can't  or won't do?  I hate Hoovers.