"Don't Be Late".

 It's that time of year when "Me, myself and I"  ( Joan Armatrading song) and my  old friend email each other about ideas for festivals and line ups next year.  He lives in Poland and I live in Eire.

I am sure the organisers of Cropredy and A New Day Festival could do with a few suggestions?

My first suggestion would be Canadian Prog band Saga.  They must be one of the best and most underrated bands in the world.

Great rock fans like the Germans appreciate so many rock bands that seem to go unnoticed in Britain and Ireland.  

So many rock bands tour Germany and not here or England and the other home countries.  Imagine being big in Germany or Japan and not in Britain? If I had been in a band I would be big in Iceland or Lidl😊.

One band who I would truly like to see tread the stage boards of the above mentioned festivals would be Saga.  Their lead singer comes from Wales and perhaps they will play Killarney or Cork?🎸🎶🎤?  

Is there a rock band you would love to see play live at a music festival?

I will offer more festival headliners suggestions on some other posts.  I don't want to be called a "one trick"pony blog writer.

A smallholding post tomorrow.

The Plastic Bottle Cloche Plant Factory.

 

Plastic bottles cut in half and turned into plant cloches.  They act like mini greenhouses.  Retaining moisture and protecting cuttings from predators like slugs and snails.

I have made lots of shrub cuttings using the plant cloches.  

The ones above have all rooted. I have taken the plastic bottles off them and I will use them to propagate more cuttings.

There are Cotoneasters, Hydrangeas, Hypericum, Hebes, Rugosa roses and are rooted cuttings propagated from our gardens.

You don't need money to make plants.  Anyone else making shrub or hedge cuttings?

More Hedging Cuttings.

 I gave a Laurel hedge a good cutting back last week.

Of course I saved some of the trimmings to make hedge cuttings.  There are over twenty of them.

Laurel hedge cuttings planted in sand.

Normally I place my cuttings in my homemade compost/well rotted fym. 

I thought I would use sand this time for a rooting medium.  I don't use sea sand because this contains salt and the plants will not like it.

Apparently Laurel is poisonous to animals and us human folk.  It gives off a Cyanide gas if you chip it in a wood chipper.  

I know if you don't cut it back it can grow up to forty feet high.  It also is not very fond of living next to the sea.  Oh well!

It will be good to compare rooting with compost and with sand.

This time of year is a good time to take cuttings.  Just dip them in organic hormone rooting powder and plant them in a pot and overwinter them in a greenhouse or polytunnel.  All they need is a drink now and again.

It's a good and cheap way of making hedging for nothing.

Anyone else making hedge or shrub cuttings at the moment?

Medieval Buttevant And Napoleons and Wellington's Horses Marengo and Copenhagen.

 We stopped at Buttevant a couple of weeks ago.  It's a very old town that goes back to Norman times.

It's half way between Cork city and Limerick.  If I see an old castle or Abbey or church or fortified house.  I just have to go and have a look.

Cahirmee horse fair is held here every year.  This fair goes back to ancient times.  Both Wellington's and Napoleon's horses were purchased at Cahirmee.

Here's some photos of the town:

Quintessentially quaint rural Irish pub.

Modern art.

Ancient Norman named who ruled around here.  There's Barry's Tea company in Cork.  My grandparents favourite tea. I wonder if the Barry clan founded Barry's Tea?

A kind man was just about to park his car in front of the mural and he saw me taking a picture and he stopped and waited while I took it. I put up hand to wave and thank him and he did the same.

Ancient dove cote.

Ireland is so full of ancient history.  All you have to do is explore.  I liked Buttevant.  Hope you did?

The Veg Raised Beds Worked In The Deluge!

 We had very heavy rain in West Cork on Saturday. 48 Millimetres in 16 hours to be precise!

I reluctantly late morning ventured outside to get some vegetable leaves to feed the rabbits.

A lot of the veg plot was under water but my raised beds and vegetables were non plussed with the biblical deluge.

Here's photos of them taken on a much drier day:

Ex central heating oil tanks repurposed into plastic raised beds.  They will last us out.

"Me and my shadow".

You can see some of my repurposed plastic baths and oil tanks.  We cut the tanks in half and I drilled holes and filled them with fym and my homemade compost.  

We also have wood raised beds made out of some old decking planks.

My raised beds made from planks and from old oil tanks cost me nothing.  I bought the damaged baths very cheaply from a local builders merchants over ten years ago.  I think they virtually gave them me to take them away in fact.

More raised beds.  The white ones are IBC tanks cut in two and drilled for drainage holes.

I honestly believe raised beds are the way to go with our recent very wet Autumn, Spring and Winters.

There is not so much to weed and you are cultivating a couple of feet off the ground.

Are you thinking of getting or making some raised vegetable beds?

Are you a Womble vegetable gardener like me?😃

Recycled Wood Logs On A Washout Weekend!

J bought some recycled wood logs for 4.99 yesterday.

Apparently the pieces of wood are mechanically pressed together with no additives or glue and you end up with your very own recycled wood logs.  I have read there are some of these wood products that are made abroad and contain glue to hold them together?

I think it is good way of recycling wood and they give off good heat.

The instructions on the plastic packaging tells you to break the log into 3 and place a firelighter under them and light them.

Anyone tried them?  Any good?  Much heat?  I think they are ok.  I used my last bag of logs that I bought at a carboot sale recently.  A manure (fertilizer) bag for for 5 Euros.  

It's another wash out weekend here so we won't be going car booting this weekend.  At least we have our German supermarket, garden centre and beer providers to supply us with wood to keep us warm.

We don't have street lights or pavements or public transport in the country side next to the sea.  But we do not have to live in a smokeless zone and we can have a lit stove or open fire.

Have you used these recycled wood logs.  How do you keep warm?  Are there any good cheap electric heaters you recommend?  Oil is very expensive to fill a tank.  

I love alot fire in a stove.  I can day dream and watch the dancing flames.  The door is shut and it's  safe to go to bed with it still lit unlike an open fire.  Although we usually let it die down before retiring for the evening.

Remember this?

 

A Can Of Rust Bucket.

 Regular readers will know that I often say/write on here that I like real ales and bitters.  The highlight of my recent trips to Blighty have been sampling the beer. 

I don't think Hops are native to Hibernia or Ireland and bitter making never took off like it did in Blighty.

J was in Lidl yesterday talking to a man stocking the beer shelves.  She said that I like Newcastle Brown Ale and other English beers.  

We find it very difficult to source such beers especially after Brexit.  Yet the shelves are full of beers from all over Europe.  You can even buy Super Bock which we have drank on our holidays in the Algarve.  

The man recommended the beer in the above photo.  It's called Rust Bucket and originates from a brewery that started on a farm in County Donegal.

The can of Rust Bucket cost 3 Euros or 2 Pounds eighty four:

A pint of Kinnegar Rust Bucket in a John Smith pint glass.  Kinnegar is the name of a beach on the Wild Atlantic Way.

What did you think Dave?

Good question Dave!  It tasted very hoppy like the Kent beers I have drank on my 3 visits to A New Day Rock Music  Festival near Faversham.  It's 5.1 strength.

It makes a change from Carlsberg.  I wouldn't mind half a dozen of them this weekend when we get another down pour like last weekend.

Are there any craft breweries you recommend?  

Does anyone make their own Homebrew?  I knew a bloke who used to make it  and sold it for ten bob a bottle.  What an entrepeneur and service to the community.🍺

What We Had For Our Tea Last Night.

 

The veg plot keeps on giving.  A swede and a leek.   The leek became leek and potato soup today.

All grown from seed and planted in my plastic containers and wooden planks raised beds.  I piked lots of buckets of well rotted fym into the beds and weeded and watered and they rewarded us with our fresh, organic and homegrown vegetables.  What more could you want from your veg plot?

J went to town and to Lidl and came back with 2KG of Orla Organic potatoes for 2.99 and a "big" chicken for 6.99.  Total 10 Euros for four of us.  Or 8 Pounds thirty three if you live across the Irish sea in Blighty.

For those of you who weren't very good at Metalwork.  That works out at 2 Pounds each per person.  Not bad for a nearly organic and homegrown tea.

The Diary Of A Plant Making Anorak.

 You know you are a bit of an obsessive when you are out in the garden and polytunnel at seven in the morning. 

You are moving about plants and topping them up with soil and well rotted fym and even counting them:

I counted 180 potted Griselina (New Zealand Privet) hedging plants the other day.

I have already planted over twenty other ones around the gardens this year.

I will probably sell (hope to!) them at a carboot sale this Autumn.  They are already potted up and can therefore be planted at any time of year

Regular readers know I have  hundreds of free plant pots and I have a constant supply of homemade fym/compost. 

A part from some organic hormone rooting powder and my time.  Which I have lots of!  It costs me nothing to make new plants.

I can see myself making plants for the rest of my days.  Living in the countryside next to the sea.  

You have got to have an hobby or you would be very bored. I suppose I could always grow vegetables? Oh I do that already.😊

Cheap Japanese Sausages.

 J came home with a pack of Wagyu sausages the other day.  She paid 1.49 for them!  You always find cheap stuff in the reduced items area.

I ate them with some of my hot spicy sauce.

According to Professor Google "Wa" means "Japanese" and  "Gyu means "Cow".

Apparently there are four breeds of Japanese cows.  

It was a shame I didn't have my Japanese winter onions to eat with the sausages.

They tasted like beef sausages do.  No different to what we normally eat.  But there was nothing wrong with them.

Have you tried  "Wagyu" sausages or beef?

Home Sown And Home Grown And Homemade Fresh Tomato And Onion Soup.

 Yes another soup post.

I helped make some tomato and onion soup for our dinner this morning.

We grew the onions from sets and the tomatoes from seed.

The tomatoes have been reddening on a table in the polytunnel for a couple of weeks.

Regular readers will know we froze a load of ready chopped onions a few weeks ago.  All we do is open a freezer bag and drop the onions in a pan with the tomatoes.

Twenty minutes later we liquified the soup and sat down and ateour fresh soup.  It was lovely.

I lit the front room stove again last night.  We are only burning logs in it at the moment.  Could do with the Irish goverment reducing the carbon fuel taxes in this weeks budget. It's 36 Euros for 40Kg of solid fuel or 18 Euros for a small bag.

Anyone else making soup and are you lighting your stove to keep warm at night?

"I Hated You, I Loved You, Too".

 We watched "Emily" the film about Emily Bronte the other evening.  

It was very enjoyable and certainly a different take on a parson's daughter from the West Riding of Yorkshire.

Patrick Bronte looked like the pictures I have seen of him in Haworth Parsonage.  But wouldn't Reverend Brunty (real name!) still have some of an Irish accent?

Also I don't think Branwell would not have said to Emily:

"Give it some welly!"

Nearly 200 years ago, do you?

I did enjoy the film though.  Emma Mackey is a big Wuthering Heights fan and you can tell this with her brilliant acting performance.

If you have read the novel you will think the film is biographical and Emily lived the passion and tragedy to be able to write the book.  She also posessed vivid imagination writer skills and often walked on the moors to Top Withens to get her inspiration.

Wuthering Heights is the only Bronte book I have read.  It's a love story that goes beyond even death.

It must be over thirty years since I last went to Haworth and retraced the Brontes steps and had a pint or three in the Black Bull where Branwell used to drink.  I walked the five miles to Top Withens and a Japanese young lady walked passed reading Wuthering Heights.  What a wonderful thing to do.

If you are fan of Kate Bush and the Bronte family.  I would watch this film.  The blog title are Kate Bush lyrics from her rock classic hit song:

I would love to have seen Kate Bush.  Have you seen her live?  Have you seen Emily the film?

Carboot Selling Or Not.

 We got up early last Saturday morning to go to a car boot sale some one had seen advertised online.

When we got there the gates were locked.  How strange we thought.  Then we checked the date of the sale and it is not until flipping October!

Last Sunday morning we went to another carboot sale that was open this time!  I emptied the van of plants and bric a brac..

My self propagated plants.

Business was very slow and disheartening.  One lady asked me how much were my Sedums?  I said:

"Two Euros fifty".  

She didn't answer and walked away.

They are at least 4. 50 in the garden centres.  Some are six Euros even!

It was a very disappointing morning.  We only  took 24 Euros.  We wish that we had stayed in bed for the weekend.  

Carbooting is like fishing.  Some days you catch and some days you don't!

I am sure if I had been carbooting in England I would have sold all my plants.  Isn't England a nation of gardeners after all?  Or is it shop keepers?

I don't think we will be carbooting this Sunday.  It's a bad forecast for very heavy rain and flooding.  I guess its the start of gale season?

Fishbox Vegetable Growing.

 

No not the name for a prog rock band.  Although it's not a bad name for one🤔.

I recently moved the fish boxes into the polytunnel to grow vegetables this Autumn and Winter.

I filled them with well rotted fym and compost.  Then I got J to sow some seeds in the fish boxes.

There are carrots, peas and lettuce happily growing in the boxes. 

I put mesh over the lettuces because Socks the cat keeps sleeping on them at night.  Have you got a polytunnel cat?

I often write on here that you don't need to have an allotment or garden to grow your own organic vegetables.  All you need is something to grow them in.  You can grow them anywhere. 

Mother Nature Gardening.

 I went down the boreen to collect some Nasturtiums for the black pig and the rabbits tea.

I noticed peas growing through a old gate lying next to the veg plot.

They must of fell out of last years compost pile or they are garden escapees like the Nasturtiums from the veg plot.

I think this could be an exhibit in the Tate Modern or a show garden at Chelsea Flower Show next year.

Isn't Mother Nature amazing?

Three Packets Of Japanese Onions And Seven Planted Up Raised Beds Later.

 I planted up SEVEN raised beds of my winter onions yesterday.  

The photo is the new raised bed I made last week.  I planted the onions six inches a part to hopefully get bigger onions.  

Our freezer is half full of onions we grew this summer.  They are chopped and sliced and placed in freezer bags and perfect for soup and meals this winter.

Yesterday we made our own leek and potato soup.  It was lovely.

We definitely like our Alliums.

What are you planting and harvesting at the moment?

Shopping For Japanese Onions.

 We had a run out and stopped in The Range and looked for Japanese onion sets for sale.

I managed to buy 3 packets for 8 Euros.  Which was a real bargain.  Other garden centres were charging 5.99 for their winter onions.  

I opened a packet of the onion sets out on to the coffee table and I counted 66 onions sets.  Don't I have an exciting life?

We have 3 packets so we should have at least 189 onions next year.  My new hobby is counting onions.  It's got to be better than knitting?😀

I also bought a packet of Spinach seeds for ninety nine Cents.  I will sow these in a raised bed in the polytunnel.  If we get a glut of it I will feed some to the livestock.  They love organic vegetables like we do.

Japanese or winter onions originate in Japan and hard winters do not trouble the onions.  Its great to see your Japs poking their green stalks through the snow and you know they will come to no harm.

We have been growing Japanese onions over thirty years and they are ready to harvest in June.  We often pick them when they are young and before our summer spring planted onions are ready.

If you have a spare veg bed I would definitely recommend you grow some Japanese onions.  Garlic bulbs can also be planted now:

A plastic bath raised bed planted with Japanese onion sets.  I planted 3 raised beds in total.

I have two more bags to plant.

If you have never grown Japanese winter onions before.  I would definitely recommend you buy some and plant them this Autumn.

Plastic Cloche Bottle Plant Propagation.

 Some of the many plastic bottles I have cut in half and made into cuttings cloches this last month or so.

I will use these over and over again before they go for recycling.

I find them very useful to protect tender vegetable plants and they make very good mini greenhouses for plant cuttings.  They trap the moisture after watering.

Newly rooted shrub plants.

I checked on some of the new cuttings yesterday which I had made over a month ago.

After removing a few weeds from around the cuttings.  I gently tugged on a plant or two.  They didn't move and have obviously rooted.

It is worth lifting up the plant pot and looking for emerging roots coming through the drainage holes.  

Any road or any way.  We have new Hebes, Rugosa roses, Hypericum and Hydrangeas shrubs for the garden for next years garden.

This is one way of repurposing plastic and using it for free and to propagate plants.

Now is a good time to take shrub cuttings and divide perennials if they get regularly watered.

Going off the latest weather forecasts.  They will get plenty of watering next week.  At least we have our polytunnel  to keep dry and even its cover is made of plastic!

I took 20 Hydrangea cuttings this very morn.  I am short of 10 plastic bottles to make plastic plant cloches for them.  

Somebody I know keeps taking them back to Lidl and placing them in their "Return" machine.  This prints out a receipt and you take it to the checkout and they give you 25 Cents for a plastic bottle.  Do they have the machines in Blighty and the states yet?

You get 15 Cents for a undamaged beer can.  However there is no machine facility for glass bottles of pet food tins.  

Anyone taking shrub cuttings at the moment?

Dog Legged Raised Bed Number 23.

Yeah you're right.  Another great name for a Prog band.

I made another raised bed the other morning.

I rescued some old decking planks from under some overgrown nettles.  They now reside in "Scruffy Corner".  Where I dump vegetation to decompose.

Then I made a rectangle with a triangle end.  Yes it's not perfectly square more of a dog leg like a fairway on a golf course, but its the raised bed function rather than being aesthetically pleasing on the eye.  

The pointy shaped raised bed.

I used no nails or screws and sledge hammered kitchen drawer metal sides and timber plank off cuts to hold the sides in place.

Fortunately the new raised bed is next to a big pile of well rotten fym that I keep digging out to top the raised beds in the veg plot and polytunnel.

So it did not take me long to dig and fork and fill up my new raised bed that I made for free or "nowt" or "nuffink" even!

All ready to plant up.

What are you going to plant in September?

I always buy and plant Japanese or Winter onions at this time of year.  I also plant garlic bulbs and see if I can source some Spring cabbage plants.  

I could also sow spinach and more lettuce in the polytunnel.  I might have look for some broad beans to plant now in the tunnel and outside in the raised beds.  

Are you sowing and planting any vegetables?

Using Black Plastic On The Veg Plot.

 

A big sheet of black plastic.

I dismantled my bean wigwam and dug up the rest of the potatoes on Wednesday.

The weathers  been glorious and I have managed to get so much done in the polytunnel and veg plot.

One area where I don't have my plastic raised vegetable beds is a bit weedy after my trip to Blighty.  Years ago I would have cleared the weeds or forked them and used them for a natural green manure.

These days I cadge second hand black plastic used for concrete and I have used pit silage black plastic in the past.  This soon blocks out the light and the vegetation dies off really quick.

This method is very useful if you  take over a overgrown allotment to rent.  You don't have to cover it all.  Just cover what you can and after a few months you will be able to cultivate where the cover was and then move it to the next area.

I have saved myself quite a bit of work.  Some one thinks I have covered it to make another plant area nursery like I covered two lawns with plastic and my perennials and shrubs.  What ever gave them that idea?

Do you put your plot to bed with black plastic? 

 Carboard also works easpecially if you cover the cardboard with compost or well rotted fym.  Just remove any Cellotape first.

You could always dig off the vegetation and compost it or even dig trenches and 'bastard trench' your plot like they did when it was "Dig For Victory".  

I have used all the above methods but I am starting to think black plastic is the easiest way.

Do you use black plastic sheeting in your veg plot?

The Repurposed Plastic Allotment.

 The next two posts are about repurposing  plastic in the veg plot.

Regular readers have seen some of my plastic raised beds before.  Plastic is not going to go away and I intend to use it around the veg plot to save it immediately  going into landfill...? 

During this Irish Indian summer of the last week or so I have been moving some of the baths to the other side of the polytunnel to make a flat area for some new potatoes next Spring.

I counted my plastic old heating oil tanks that we  cut in half and my plastic second hand baths.  There are twenty two up to now and I am still collecting.

There are also six wooden framed raised beds and two old back wheel tractor tyres in the polytunnel.

There are also fish boxes, a old washing machine drum and my grandma's old Belfast sink.  I will show you them on another post.

Now I am into the sixties I am going more for raised beds.  The soil is much deeper, you are not bending or stooping down, two foot six high gardening and you are not having to weed every inch of the veg plot.

Anyone throwing out a plastic bath or cracked plastic oil tank?  I will give them a home and tlc retirement on a West Cork smallholding in the countryside next to the sea.

Like I always say.  You don't need to have a garden or allotment to grow your own veg:

My lovely leeks in a cut down oil heating tank filled with topsoil and fym.  

Beetroot, leeks and swedes.  The tops are a bit dog eared because I feed the leaves to the rabbits, hens and ducks and pigs.

A cut in half IBC tank.  Not very rigid but the leeks are loving it!  They taste good to.

Me and my shadow and four baths I have just emptied, moved and refilled and my Japanese onions will being planted in.

Did I tell you I have twenty plastic repurposed raised beds? They will last me out and I will probably never NEC to replace them like you do with wooden sided raised beds.  Although railway sleepers last years but they are expensive and my plastic raised beds cost me nothing and need no maintenance.

Got any old baths you don't want or heating oil tanks?  Are there builders skips near you?  Any growing treasure?😀

Anyone else use plastic to grow their veg?