Mulching With Leek And Dock Leaves.

Japanese Onions mulched with Docks and Leek leaves today.

I have been thinking.  "Oh no!"

I will have to have a lie down.

One likes to experiment with different mulches in the veg garden.  Previously I have used, grass, hay and straw and fym to mulch the beds.

Today I experimented by using dock leaves and leek leaves.

Rather like how trees in forests shed their leaves and blacket the ground and keep it warm and provide plant and tree food.

I thinks it is Mother Nature composting.

Hopefully the worms and anaerobic bacteria will take the mulches into the garden soil and 
 provide plant food for the vegetables?  The leaves should also suppress any weed growth.

There are not many falling leaves near me.  I might go bagging leaves in a woods this Bank Holiday weekend?  Only Ireland could have a Bank Holiday werkend in October?

Anyone else use weeds or leaves for mulching?

Anyone got any leaves they don't want?  I will give them a good home and compost and mulch my veggies with them.

Don't take your leaves to the tip use them for a mulch or compost them.

 

Our Plastic Raised Beds Planter Vegetables Progress.

Organic veg growing in repurposed plastic raised beds.  The leeks don't mind living in an old heating oil tank.  They taste delicious in our home grown and home made leek and potato soup.

Leeks doing well.  

Japanese or Winter onions growing in old baths.  They need weeding.  That's fym top dressing for you.  I don't mind the weeds.  It shows your ground is fertile.

Swedes.  I pick the leaves for the rabbits.

More swedes growing in cut down IBC tanks.  I of course drilled holes in them all.

The fish box container allotment in the polytunnel.

Celery for the rabbits and yours truly.

Brussel sprouts.

Japanese onions growing in a wooden decking planks raised bed in the polytunnel.

I gave the rabbits an hearty Celery breakfast.  There is only them and me that likes it.

The old oil heating tanks, IBC tanks and plastic baths and wood raised beds have been a great success for growing my veggies this year.

They drain well and the growing ground is nearer to you.

Once again my plastic raised beds demonstrate to me that you don't need to have a garden or allotment to grow organic vegetables.  All you need is something to grow them in.

Another thing is you spend your time weeding just the growing areas.

Anyone else growing their bed in raised beds instead of on the flat soil?  

They are easier on the back and they drain quicker than the ground and it some times very full water table.

I am getting older and I am trying to make my vegetable gardening easier.  I never want to stop growing my own and it's the only way of getting "fresh" vegetables and organic ones at that!

Lucozade Mini Greenhouses.

 I have been taking lots more cuttings over the last few days: Cotoneaster, Hypericum and Rugosa rose and Photinia or Red Robin cuttings to be precise.

If I took the fully intact Lucozade plastic bottles to the "Return" machines in all the Irish supermarkets.  I would get a receipt for 25 Cents per bottle.

Incidentally I was reading online the other day and it said none of the "Return" paper receipts can be recycled.  I suppose it's the ink?  🤔

There are also no machines petfood tins or one for bottles.

Instead of taking the bottles back I have cut the bottles in half and made cuttings cloches or mini greenhouses out of them.  

They retain the moisture after watering them and protect tender plants from slugs and snails damage.

My plastic plant propagation method is a good way of making new plants for free.

Anyone take cuttings?  I seem to make them most days at the moment.  Perhaps I am a plant propagator addict?  

A Cheap Ceramic Plug Heater.

A ceramic plug heater that only cost 10 Euros.

Number one son and his girlfriend came back the other night  with some electric heaters and shopping for the cats and dogs and us from a certain discount supermarket near us.

The small ceramic plug heater is only small and costs 22 Cents or 14 Pence an hour in England to run.  It's not that big going off the size of the plug socket, but it does  gives off tremendous heat.

It reminded me of that joke about a poor family who used a donkey jacket (poor donkey"!) for a blanket.  The mother says to her kids: "Don't call it a jacket call it an Eiderdown".  A while later. Mother is entertaining  posh guests downstairs and her son shouts down the stairs: "Mum the sleeves fallen off the Eiderdown".

It will be great turning on the plug in the morning and getting warm whilst we eat some biscuits and have a brew.  Real ground black coffee of course!  I can't stand the instant stuff. 

I will post  another keeping us warm post another day.

Here's an old rock song favourite of mine:

 

The Price Of Coal, Logs And Kindling.

 Taken from the outskirts of  a Cork city garage forecourt on Monday afternoon.

I read online that the Irish government puts 5.85 Euros carbon tax on a bag of coal or solid fuel.

They are putting another 80 Cents on a bag next Spring and 17 Euros on a tank of heating oil.

We are burning wood offcuts from a boat thats just had a revamp.

I hope it's not a cold winter like 2010.  How much do we spend heating our homes from September to March?

I haven't ordered any oil yet.  We light the stove in the front room and have put more blankets on the bed. 

I read also a certain supermarket is selling a really cheap electric heater that only costs 22 Cents an hour to run.  I am thinking of getting one.  Anyone know if they any good?

If you fancy an hot Toddy nightcap remember you pay 11 Euros in VAT on a bottle of whiskey or whisky if it is Scottish!

Annoying Weeds.

My weeding bucket containing Couch grass or "Twitch".

I inherited this weed when I turned a cow pasture into my vegetable plot over twenty years ago and made it into my allotment in the countryside next to the sea.  

Couch grass or "Twitch" is a nuisance and pernicious weed and a lot of new allotment holders soon learn they have inherited a lot of such weeds.

Rotovators break up the grass and make lots of little plants.

I have seen it survive being smothered by black plastic sheeting for months.

Some people would use glyphosate weed killers to destroy it.  I am an organic gardener and for me this is not an option. Plus I believe glyphosates cause Cancer.

I live with the weed and compost the roots.  If I had a bonfire I could burn it.  Onions love the potash from wood ashes.  Some weeds you just put up with and pull them out and throw them away or compost them

Another option would be to plastic sheet the area and make raised like mine in another days post.  You could import topsoil and well rotted fym and fill the containers.  Hopefully not importing any annoying and pernicious weeds.

What annoying weeds are the bane of your garden?  How do you control them?   I very rarely see Rosebay Willow Herb growing in Ireland.  I wonder why not?

 

Digging Up The Well Rotted FYM From Scruffy Allotment Corner.

 

Scruffy Corner.  Here lives a big pile of fym.  It was recently covered in weeds and nettles in particular.  

"Where nettles grow.  Anything will grow".

That is an old country saying.  I suppose I could have covered the pile with a sheet of black plastic to make it sweat and kill any weed seeds?

Garden videos and books will tell you should turn your compost heap and not let it get too wet.  I just left it for twelve months to decompose and the worms and the beneficial anaerobic bacteria did the rest.

See all the lovely wriggly brandling worms.  It takes me back to my Coarse fishing days.

Black and brown gold.  Lovely friable compost and all for free.

Do you have a scruffy corner in your allotment or garden where you store your fym, weeds and grass clippings and weeds?  Plants love Mother Nature made compost.

I spent four hours potting up and making cuttings today.  Gardening need not cost you any money if you use organic methods of feeding the soil and propagating plants.

Nasturtiums Grazing Piglets.

 It seems I am not the ones who likes growing and eating organic vegetables.

They are grazing the Nasturtiums that have self seeded under and along the green windbreak netting that is supposed to protect my polytunnel from Westerly gales from the Atlantic.  That's the windbreak netting mesh I mentioned about on your blog the other day JayCee. 

I noticed something had walked over my wooden decking plank Japanese onions raised bed and grazed my Brassicas yesterday .  I thought to myself:

"The slugs and snails have been busy".

Now I see who are the real culprits.

Our free range pigs like to pick their own whether the crops are ready or not.  

"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?