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,