A Van Full Of Plants.

We loaded up our little van and we went carbooting over the Irish bank holiday weekend with my shrubs and perennials that I have lovingly propagated myself.

Not Van Morrison but a van full of some plants😀👍.

I have always believed everyone should be able to afford to buy plants and have a nice garden.  

Or even be like the old gardeners of old or myself.  

Gardening doesn't need to cost money just tlc and lots of your time!  I only sell my plants  cheap.  The average price was only 2.50.

We got up at 5.30 on Saturday morning, paid our ten Euros pitch and took only 45 Euros.  Which is only 35 Euros if you take off the ten Euros pitch fees.  Forgetting about diesel ⛽️ and our breakfasts.

We met some wonderful people and had some great chats and I gave a few of my veg and plant growing tips and talked about my repurposed raised beds and baths. J sat knitting and had lots of conversations about knitting and showed ladies her many photos of her knitting work.  She made a few contacts for knitting patterns and wool..

It was a enjoyable morning but disappointing plant sales yet again.  Perhaps next time I will have a mixed bag of car boot treasure and just a few crates of plants?

We didn't go plant selling on Sunday.  We did travel to two carboot sales.  I will post what we bought in another post.

Did you go carbooting selling or buying at the weekend?

After the lockdown it's good to go to a carboot sale and chat and sell some of my plants and help raise some funds for a good cause.

Repurposed Planters.

 I spotted these planters outside a supermarket the other day in Kerry:

Sheep or calf nuts troughs looking elegant and filled with seasonal bedding plants.

A wheelbarrow with a flat tyre.  The Ancient Chinese invented this physics defying gravity one wheel contraption.  It looks very nice full of bedding plants.

Note to author of this blog.  Must source new secondhand wheelbarrow.  Yours is on it's  last legs or wheel even.  Far too much carrying fym, concrete blocks and concrete and compost and top soil!

Don't plants brighten up the dullest of containers?

Old Worlde Tools At The Carboot Sale.

 

Farm and turf cutting tools from yester year.

I always look at what tools are for sale at the carboot sales.

I immediately recognised the potato 🥔 fork on the right.  It's got steel baubles on the bottom of the fork tines.  This prevents the potato digger from puncturing the new potatoes.  I often put my fork through them.

The man wanted 40 Euros for it.  I wanted the potato fork very much but I wasn't paying that for it.

Next to the potato 🥔 fork is a slain.  That was or can be used for digging peat or ' turf' they call it here in Ireland.

The slasher with the long handle was used for cutting brambles and briars.  

All very useful tools that require hard physical work.

Dropping Off Piglets And A Walk On A Beach.

 We headed over to Kerry to drop two piglets of ours off to the Maharees in between Brandon Bay and Tralee Bay.

Our piglets over look Bantry Bay and now they have gone to the seaside in County Kerry.

I have featured the Maharees on here before it's a sand dune peninsula scattered with houses and winding boreens, pubs and caravan parks.  

I have camped there a few years ago when we walked a lot of the Dingle Way.  One stretch of the beach from Cloghane to Camp was 12 miles long sand.

After settling in the piglets in their straw bed we set off back and stopped at a little beach on the Maharees.

Bronte went for a run and a swim.

All that seaweed strewn along the beach.  My veggies would love all that natural fertilizer for free.

Bronte having the time of her life.

Nasturtiums growing amongst the rocks protecting the road from the heavy tides in winter.

Straw bales waiting to be collected in the fields.  They looked like they had been there a while.

There are so many virtually empty beaches in Ireland.  Far away from the madding crowd.

 

A Hair Dog Hair Cut And Dog Hair Compost For The Raised Beds.

 

Bella also called "Thumper" is a Newfoundland.  She looks like Bo Derek in 10 when she's been for a swim and drying off.

She reluctantly agreed to having her coat trimmed the other day.  It really is far too hot with such a thick coat of hair.

After her hair trim.  "Who cut your hair?  Was it the council?"

A trug full of dog hair.  It's not my grey head honest!

What did you do with it Dave?  Obviously I did not throw it away.  I decided to make dog 🐕 hair compost.  

"Dog Hair Compost?"  " Didn't  we see them play at Stonehenge free festival in 1986?" 🤔  " No we went to "Hair" the musical!"

Yes you are right regular readers.  I took it to my veg plot and used it to fill up one of my repurposed raised beds.

Apparently according to the Tinternet and Tweb.  Hair is full of nitrogen and makes very good compost.

Anyone else use hair to make compost?

A Tribute From A Yorkshire Tractor Boy Who Had A Kerrang Subscription.

 I have been watching many Ozzy Osbourne You Tube tributes.  

The following Ed Sheeran video I found/find very moving.  God bless Ozzy you are a working class hero:

It's Buddleia And Butterflies Time.

 When I moved to Ireland twenty four years this week.  I brought a wheelie bin full of perennials and shrubs that I had propagated myself by division and cuttings. 

I still have a lilac or purple Buddleia that I rooted from a cutting I took when we lived in Cheshire.

Last year I planted one of its cuttings in another part of the garden.  It's grown immensely just like it's parent plant and it's currently flowering and attracting butterflies 🦋 like Red Admirals.

Butterfly,Buddleia and hmm, me finger.

They originate in China.  French missionary and botanist Armand Davidii brought the seeds back to Europe and the Buddleia is named after him.

Some people say they are another invasive species like Rhododendrons are.  

I have seen them growing in derelict bomb sites and in the train tracks at Temple Mead railway station in Bristol.  

I like them.  They are easy to propagate and you often find volunteer shrub plants growing in different parts of the garden especially in gravel.

They grow very large but there are small dwarf varieties.

If you want to attract butterflies in the garden.  I would recommend you plant a Buddleia.  Sedums also attract them.

Do you have Buddleia and butterflies in your garden?

The Nicest Thistle In The Garden.

 Our first globe artichoke flower:

Isn't she pretty?

I grew my globe artichokes from seed last year.  A lot of gardeners like them for their architectural structure features.   

I cooked or steamed  a couple of their unopened heads or flowers the other day.  It was OK 👍  with a some what nutty taste but nothing to write home about.

Globe artichokes ready for steaming for forty minutes.

You Tube videos suggest eating them in a mustard vinaigrette dip.  I just added them to my corned beef salad:

Thr globe is at the top of the plate above the lettuce and the tomato.

We bought the tomatoes and tin of corned beef from Lidl.  I grew the globe artichoke, lettuce and onions.

I washed it down with a tin of Carlsberg.  Will I ever see English beer again in the supermarkets over here?  

The globe artichoke is a perennial and I will probably have a go at dividing it soon.  

It's got to be the nicest cultivated Thistle that I have ever seen.

Weeding Around Trees

 I spent half a day this week hand weeding and pulling grass from around a recently planted native trees area of a West Cork farm.  

There is a scheme in Ireland called Acres.  If you join the scheme the farmer or land owner will get a payment for five years.  I believe it's a very good payment to plant trees on your own land.

The trees have got to be native and every year I am employed to weed and pull grass around them.

A hawthorn tree after it weeding operation.

I was sweating like mad but thankfully there was some what of a breeze and I took two small bottles of Lucozade with me to quench my thirst.

Unfortunately you can not strim around the trees because you would ring bark them and kill them.  Like wise you can't graze the long grass because there are no plastic rabbit guards around the trees and livestock would ring bark them 

So I spent the best part of four hours day dreaming, getting bit by Doctor flies and my uncovered arms were scratched and bleeding and I had to listen to my thoughts for a few hours.  

Ozzy Osbourne played on my mental jukebox for the duration of my task.  Who needs to play music when your head plays it for free?

It's a hard job but someone got to do it!

Would you hand weed lots of native trees for a few beer tokens? 

"Wondering Will Mother Earth Survive...

I never got to see Ozzy or Black Sabbath sadly.  I once saw Ronnie James Dio at the Monsters Of Rock festival at Castle Donington.

I remember in my mid teens my friend giving me the Black Sabbath album: Never Say Die on cassette tape.  I was hooked.

What a sound.  Black Sabbath were brilliant and they created their own rock genre: Heavy Metal.

One of my gardening customers texted me the other night informing me that Ozzy had left the earth stage and gone playing the greatest rock festival in Heaven or even Hell? 

Ozzy was a working class hero with tons of talent and that wonderful English sense of humour.  I spent hours yesterday watching You Tube videos of him performing his songs and his reality shows like: "At Home With The Osbournes" and his appearances on chat shows like: "Parkinson".

I played the following song by Ozzy yesterday and the tears began to roll down my face.  I never realised how much a rock icon he was.

" Dreamer" reminds me so much of John Lennon.  

 Ozzy claimed the Beatles inspired him to join a band.  The rest is history.  Thanks for the music, anecdotes and all the laughs you gave us all Ozzy.  A rock fan across the sea in Ireland.

Roast Japanese Onion And Beetroot For Our Tea.

A picture of one of newly peeled my Japanese onions 🌰.  They have been mighty this year.  
 

A beetroot and the same onion.

We wrapped them in silver foil and placed them on a metal tray and roasted them for about forty minutes.

Then we tested them by pushing a metal skewer into them to see if they were soft enough to eat.

They were ready to eat.  We ate them with some of my redina lettuce  leaves and beef burgers.  They were 😋 delicious. 

Any oneelse roast their onions and beetroot,

Vegetable Scenes From My Repurposed Raised Beds.

 I was weeding my repurposed raised beds the other day.  All the fantastic sunshine 🌞 and now the rain is helping the veg and weeds grow rapidly.

I have at least twenty seven repurposed beds and I am always looking for more to  repurpose to grow veg in.  Here's some photos for your perusal dear blog readers:

Globe Artichokes growing in half a repurposed heating oil tanks.  They are looking at the sea in the distance. 

Summer onions.

Red cabbage. 

Brassicas in the baths.  We are growing kale, cabbage and swedes.

Japanese Onions growing in the baths.  They get planted in September and grow through the winter and spring and we usually harvest them in June.  They have been absolutely crackers this year.

Swedes growing a wooden raised beds.  I made it out of old decking planks for nothing as per usual. 

Raised bed.  The fork marks where the next colander of potatoes 🥔 will be dug.

A weedy brassica raised bed.

Beetroots and perennials like Ladies Mantle or Alchemilla Mollis and Bergenias or Elephants  Ears.

Red cabbage, beetroots and leeks.

Chives, redina lettuce and a few weeds.  

Tomatoes 🍅 🍅 and nasturtiums.

Leeks and weeds growing in a cut in half IBC tank.

Leeks.

Onions 🌰 🌰  growing in a mussel crate that I found on a beach near by where we live.

Once again my repurposed raised beds and containers remind me that you do not need to have a veg plot or allotment to grow yourown own vegetables.  You just need something to grow them in.  

Inside The Plant Cuttings Factory.

 A couple of hours taking cuttings in the rain.  Led Zeppelin 'Fool In The Rain' began to play in my mental jukebox.

My bottle cloches made from plastic bottles last year.  If I had took them intact to the 'Return' deposit machines in our supermarkets I would have claimed back  25 Cents a piece for them.  Have you got the ' Return' machines in Blighty and other overseas countries yet?

My repurposed bottle cloches are brilliant for 'striking' cuttings.  They keep the cutting moist and store the water when the rain or myself waters them.

Anyone else make cuttings this way?

Repurposing Weeds In My Repurposed Raised Beds.

 

Weeds being used to fill up one of the raised repurposed beds.

One of the problems of filling raised beds is the shortage of topsoil and compost to fill them.

Regular readers of this blog know I repurposed my raised beds by cutting old plastic heating oil tanks and drilled drainage holes in them.

Then I use the German Hugelkultur method of filling the bottom with logs, shrub twigs and branches and then I forked in home made compost and our fym and I have been weeding the veg plot and filling up two beds with them.

I  then topped them up with tubs of fym and will plant them up next spring/summer.

Uncovering the tarp on this year's fym.  It's still quite smelly but there is evidence of worms 🪱 worms 🪱  so it must be cool enough for them to live in it.

Repurposed oil tank raised bed topped up with 4 big tubs of fym.  It will be well rotted and ready to plant up for new potatoes 🥔 😋  next Spring.  I may even cover it with a tarp or old cardboard and use it for a plant stand for my potted perennials.  It will also hopefully work like an hot bed and make them grow.

Anyone else use weeds and fym to fill up their raised beds?

You don't need to buy topsoil if you use organic natural materials.

It's Hydrangea Cuttings Time Of The Year

Remember the pink Geranium I bought a couple of weeks ago?  I made seven new cuttings from it today.  I paid 7 Euros for it at a garden centre.  So if mine all "strike" roots I will have 49 Euros of 🪴 plants for free.  

I mixed some grit sand with top soil and used the dibber to plant my cuttings in.  They will root from a leaf node and I cut back the leaves to reduce the need for water to them.

I reused my plastic bottle cloches from last year.  You can see my wooden dibber, scissors ✂️ and trowel.  That's all you need for your plant propagation cuttings kit.

 Seven new plants hopefully.  Now we are getting the heavy showers and rain and I will water them regularly.  They should be OK and not burn up.   It's good to feel a bit cooler and make use of the Saint Swithin's rainy weather.

Anyone else taking softwood cuttings at the moment?  I have made thirty new Hydrangea  cuttings up to now.  Perhaps Saint  Swithens is the patron saint of Hydrangea cuttings?

Flowers In Killarney.

 I always like seeing flowers in town centres.  Particularly shops that pay for floral decorations and patiently water and feed the flowers all summer.

Here are some of the floral delights we saw in Killarney town centre on Saturday:

Flowers over in the windows over the shops.

A nice floral display for a local bar.

Geraniums floral displays.

Hydrangeas next to the Pelican crossing.

Well done Killarney for your floral efforts.  Does your town or village or city put on a floral effort?

Costa Del County Kerry!

 We went to The Kingdom or County Kerry on Saturday morning.

The car temperature was reading 27 degrees 😳.  Unbelievable!

Instead of going for a stroll on a repurposed railway line we went to the beach instead.

I have featured Fenit on here before.  It reminds me of a English beach in the 1950s.  Something like Ma and Pop Larkin might visit.

It was absolutely such a perfect day.  The sun was shining down on us.  Bronte and ourselves had ice cream and God was in his heaven.

Here's some photos for your perusal dear readers:

Fenit beach in Tralee bay.

Bronte gazes at the sea view.

Do you think the bull can read the sign?

Bronte having a paddle.

"Time for an ice cream 🍦😋. "

Who needs to go somewhere out foreign like Portugal 🇵🇹 or Spain 🇪🇸?

The world and his wife enjoying the rays.

Almost Azure sea.

A lovely day in July 2025.