How To Be A Smallholding Millionaire. ( Making New Plants In A Wet Summer.)

 I made an hundred new perennial plants this week.  I sold another sixty last week.  I reckon I could be a millionaire if I made a million plants and sold them for a Euro a piece.  If I let them grow for a few months.  I would only need 500000 new plants at 2 Euros a piece.

But seriously folks.  I have been taking advantage of the mixed weather and made lots of new plants and cuttings.  We haven't had the heat wave here in Ireland.  So I thought I would make the best of the sun and rain.  The sixty Euros I got paid off my brother, paid for some beer tokens and the supper.

Dividing perennials and making cuttings is a great way of making yourself a few bob from the garden.  I might sell them on a car boot sale one week.

A raised nursery bed for Dogwood and Pyracantha cuttings I made last winter.  A Cranes bill Geranium seems to have seeded it self with them.

Anybody else make new plants and sell them?  I am always interested in different ways to diversify on the smallholding.

Smallholding Made Garden Weeder.

My hands are burning with nettle stings while I am typing this post.  This morning was spent weeding the veg plot.  Number one son knocked me up this home made weeding tool.  He's got a photograph memory for making things/ "fings"!  

We have a bought one (somewhere) that he looked at for a second.  Then he returned 5 minutes later with his home made weeder.  It consists of an old screwdriver, three three inch nails and some blobs of weld.  

It's my main tool for weeding.  Just the weeding tool and a home brew plastic bucket for the weeds to be dropped in.  Oh what fun we have weeding our plot.  Next time I will talk about interesting wall paper patterns.  Can you still buy wood chip wall paper?

Any body else make their own tools?

Shopping For Tractor Parts In The Dismantling Yards.

If I was a painter I would tour old farms and dismantling yards painting pictures of old vintage tractors and farm machinery.  We went to a tractor breakers the other day and we walked passed hundreds of dead and live tractors.  

There must of been millions of pounds (Punts) spent on  this agricultural machinery over the years.  It was a rather surreal experience to see such a sight.  I even felt a tinge of sadness for them.  Old and loyal servants discarded and broken for parts.  The sight of the old tractors moved me to write this 2 line poem:

The Old Tractors Lament.  

My coat of paint is now painted in mother natures rust

Please somebody buy my parts before I crumble into dust.

_____________________________

Some old Fordson Majors or Dexta's.  Sadly they are probably gone passed the point of being returned to back to their former glory.  Vintage tractors are like land.  They are not making it any more.  Number one son came away with his tractor parts and he was very happy with his newly found treasure.

Anybody restoring any tractors at the moment?  What's your favourite tractor?

Joke:  What do call a man who use to like tractors but he doesn't anymore?

An extractor fan.

Flower Arranging On The Smallholding And A "Nice Cup" Of Nettle Tea.

We have stopped buying flowers and collect and cut our very own from the smallholding garden.  The brass container is hiding a glass vase.  There are Calendula, Nepeta (Domino won't leave the Cat mint alone) 

"Loved by cats hated by rats"

And Valerian.  

All of them have medicinal qualities: ointment, euphoria stimulant for cats and Valerian is great for calming the nerves and inducing sleep.  Have you tried Valerian tea bags?  I am getting into herbal teas.  Nettle tea is said to be good for arthritis sufferers.  All you do is cut some young nettles and infuse them in a cup of boiling water for a few minutes.  I added some Lemon Balm leaves to make mine a bit more nicer tasting.   You can eat the nettle and balm leaves. 

Do you have any herbal tea recipes?

A Day Out Shopping For A Cordless Grinder And A Visit To A Garden On The Ring Of Kerry.

Monday morning was a quick brew, give Fido her two chocolate biscuits (wages for ratting!) and check the moo cows and set off for Lidl.  We travelled over the tunnel roads from Glengariff to Bonane.  Of course I sang 'Whiskey In The Jar' going through the stone tunnels:

"As I was going over the Cork and Kerry mountains.."

Then we crossed over the bridge and parked up at Lidl.  Number one son had alerted us that they were selling battery grinders from today.  There were only 2 left.  So he bought them both and looked like a cat that had just got the cream.

We decided to go for a ride around the ring of Kerry and visit Kells gardens.  Any excuse for a blog subject hey?

Here are some photographs of our visit on such a beautiful June day.

Stone Buddha.  Appropriate for the peace and tranquility.

A summer house to die for.  I would love such a magnificent construction at my smallholding.  Even if it rains you can sit and read or even have a drink.  Is it that time already?

Carved seat made from a fallen tree.  

A dinosaur tree?

Flipping heck!

Aren't they clever sculptures?

Magical tree fern forest.  Have I told you I love tree ferns?

A Tree person sculpture.  

Enormous Arum lilies.  We have some that use to belong to my grandmother growing in our garden.

Dingle bay.

Communication signposts.

Wonderful Gunnera specimens.  See their reflections in the water?

Magnificent rhododendrons putting on a great floral display.

All Is Safely Gathered In.

Well we made our small squares bales of hay.  The baler man arrived about 5.30 PM and we had them all in by 11.15 on Tuesday night.

It looks like there is only about 50 hay bales stacked in the shed.  We got quite a bit more than fifty from the 3 fields.  Can you guess how many bales we made?  Not forgetting the fields never got any fertilizer ("bag manure") or cow slurry this year.  That's still waiting in the cow shed.

Number 1 son wants me to put it out and go for a second crop and we can sell them.  I said he can do but we will sell them in the field.  I am not humping xxx bales again this year.  At least I had the sense to wear a glove when holding the twine on the hay bales.  It must of been all those years riding on the back of the couch watching those cowboy films when I was knee high to a grass hopper.

So folks.  How may hay bales did we make?

1970's Hay Making In The Twenty First Century.

"When we were young.  You shone shine like the sun."

The old mental juke box keeps playing a certain Pink Floyd song in my head this week folks.  

"Shine on you crazy diamond".

Number 2 son took these photos from his mum's mobile phone.  They are absolute crackers!   Number one son is hay tedding with the Ford 4600.  She looks like new.  Him and his tractor mechanic friend and a little help from (little old me) restored her back to her former glory.  She's been sandblasted, painted and split in two and put back together again.  Isn't she a beauty? 

Gosh how I love the smell of hay.  Takes me back to the late sixties/early seventies.  When my dad would take his 'wakes' holidays from the mill and go and hay make on his parents farm.  Piking hay by hand and carting it away to be stacked in one big hay stack.   

We don't have an horse and cart but we are making hay like they did in the seventies.  Before the round bales of silage came to town or even the countryside.  Supposed to rain on Saturday.  Lets hope we get our hay bales in the barn before then.  Will post photos of the hay baling!