Kitty's Hedging Her Bets!

 

Kitty Tiger who also sometimes is called Tiger Kitty going for a saunter next to 62 Griselina hedging plants in pots filled with my homemade compost.

It's getting  a bit too late for planting bare rooted hedging now because the plants like to put down their roots at this time of year.

Some one I know requested 75 of my  hedging plants.  I had a look round my plant nursery and managed to rustle up 62  plants.

I will spend a few hours in next week's rain planting my plant pot portable hedge. 

I've planted some more cuttings to make up for the 62 that are going to be a new hedge.

It makes up for me not being able to go carbooting on a very wet Bank Holiday weekend.

Weather With You.

 According to Met Eireann.  February was the fourth driest on record and March was the wettest ever.  March 2019 was the second wettest on record.

Yet people still dispute global warming and climate change. They say its Woke.  It's not it is reality!

 I know the Roman's named Ireland the "Land of eternal winters" and it's not called the Emerald Isle for nothing.  But:

Starting tomorrow we are in for seven days or more of rain.  It looks like April showers will bring May flowers or be another wet month on record like March.

I looked at the Algarve nest week and it's Scorchio with temperatures of 25 and 27 degrees.

I wish I was there!  

We Saw The Easter Bunnies.

 We had a ride out over the tunnel from Glengarriff to Kenmare among the Caha mountain range. 

Thin Lizzy began playing in my my mental jukebox again:

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

We decided to walk round Kenmare town centre and we looked in shop windows and saw these Easter bunnies:

Aren't they nice?

Full credit to the shop people to going to the trouble of dressing their shop windows for Easter.

Fancy a pair of trousers with rabbits on them?

Hope you all have an happy Easter in blogland!

April Is The Month For Dividing Phormiums.

Phormiums or Flax are native to New Zealand and Australia but they are also very common in West Cork.  

Their leathery leaves are salt resistant and ideal for coastal gardens like mine in the countryside next to the sea.  They also make a good architectural feature in a border.

They are also quite expensive and can range from a fiver to forty quid for nice large specimens.  

Being a tightwad smallholder/gardener I don't pay those garden centre prices and I make my own plants by dividing the plants at this time of year 

You take the plant out of the pot or dig it up if its in the garden and take out a trusty old bread knife or old saw or even use your spade like I did and made myself 10 new plants.

Anyone want one?  I will sell them for five Euros each to you.  That's deferred gratification of 50 Euros from a carboot sale in a few weeks.  Not bad for less than an hours work dividing and replanting them in pots filled with my homemade compost.

"Who Lives In A Smallholding House Like This?"

 We have two piglets living in the Conservatory with us at the moment.  

An old sow we bought in piglet farrowed the other day.  Sadly some of them were born dead but these two below survived.  There's an old country saying:

"Where there is livestock there is always deadstock".

So very true!

The sow who I named Florence and the Pig Machine had no milk so we decided to bring them in an put them under an heat lamp in a cage. I remember my dad telling me that my Grandmother use to nurse young lambs and pigs next to the range in the kitchen.

We are giving them Lamblac powdered milk in baby bottles.  They same stuff we feed the lambs.  They are flying it by the way and feel heavy when you pick them up.

Number one son rigged up an Heath Robinson system of propping up the bottle to make a 'self service' drinking station for in the night and during the day. 

It's early days but they seem to be doing fine now.

"On Their Way Up!"

 No I am not talking about football teams getting promoted.  Although I do follow Middlesbrough this season after a certain ex MU player became their manager.

I am writing about the seed potatoes growing in the compost filled potato bags we planted recently.

It's great to see that Summer is on the way and we will be eating our new potatoes before the outside ones are ready to dig.

We will be eating before we say : "It's too hot for potatoes" and "Is it hot or is it me?"

I covered up the potatoes shoots with the last of my Lidl John Innes compost.  I go through compost like nobody's business. I went for some more today and they had sold out.  

Oh for my fym to decompose and I will have tons of free compost.

Are your potatoes 🥔 shoots emerging yet?

"It's Not A Garden Centre Though Is It?"

 

We went selling at a carboot sale for a change instead of just purchasing stuff.

We took turns to have a look round and I managed to escape from wifey and  made some purchases foe myself like two trugs for weeding and carrying firewood and an old soil sieve and a sack truck.

I even sold some of my perennials and an interested lady took our phone number and she wants more plants taken to a carboot sale for her.

The sun was shining for a change and a lady asked me how much was a bamboo plant was for sale?  Giving it my best sales pitch I said:

"If you wanted the same bamboo in a garden centre it would be at least 27 Euros'.

But I will let you have a plant of it  for two Euros. 

The lady replied:

"But it's not a garden centre is it?"

Then she walked off leaving me with my cut-price car boot sale bamboo plant!

Life.  If I could only purchase one!😊