TRY ONE OF THESE

“Here, try one of these” Nicola smiles as she passes me a ripe berry from the pod of a crinodendron tree in our garden, “They taste rather sweet”. The seed is dark brown with a soft white coating and looks like a pale version of a pomegranite seed. I duly pop it into my mouth, roll it around my tongue and swallow. “I didn’t know that these were edible.” I comment in a trusting manner. “Neither did I…. are they”? Nicola replies quizzically.

I enjoy trying new foods, but I am a bit wary of the unknown, more so since my five year old son started eating lupin seeds, after enjoying a summer of popping peas into his beak. This innocent act resulted in a desparate call to the poisons help-line and an anxious couple of hours wait on all systems alert watching for vomiting or other symptoms which would precipitate a mad rush to A and E.

Now Nicola is well trodden gardener and a family relation of ours and is up visiting from Dublin for a short while. “They taste sweet and edible and nature has a way of telling us if something isn’t for eating. Inedible seeds and fruit are bitter”. Nicola continues with the confidence of a person that has survived in the wilderness for years. “Let’s have a look around your garden to see what else we can eat.” She takes me by the arm and leads me down the garden while I discreetly check my temperature and wonder if my glands are swelling.

I know there are tasty treats in the garden, we picked a few wild rasberries which are very safe and the blackberries are a winner with everyone and very distictive, so no ambiguity there. “Rising food prices may make foraging a cheap way to keep the fridge full”. Nicola is telling me. “There are hundreds of plants growing in the wild which can be safely eaten raw or made palatable by cooking. Most people know what a stinging nettle looks like and try to avoid them, but eating the cooked leaves fills you with iron”. Nicola has found one of the the patches of nettles in the garden. “Nettles are best eaten when young in a soup - older leaves can have a laxative effect though so you know where to come if you are blocked up”. She happily tells me waving a stem under my nose. “The London diarist Samuel Pepys spoke of enjoying nettle pudding in 1661 so it’s not a new thing.”

I am begining to realise that Nicola has been studying the art of foraging for food.
“What can you do with these?” I ask her as a test, pointing to the rose bushes. “The Victorians used rose petals to add delicate flavours to their food but it is not done much now.” she replies instantly. “Most petals can be used for decoration but give them a good wash and don’t take them if they have been sprayed with chemicals.” Nicola warns as we venture further down the garden.

“Look at that dandelion,” she says pointing to a small victim in the crazy paving. “You can eat every part of the plant, though I wouldn’t fancy the fluffy seed heads, mind you you can use them for lighting the campfire”.

I am intruiged. Has Nicky been hiding in the woods all summer, living off the land? Nicola cuts into my ponderings.“The roots can be eaten like carrots and the leaves can be used in salads but are best picked in cool seasons or from shaded areas or they could be bitter. Dandelion is also used to make wine and there is the old dandelion and burdock drink. You can also roast the roots to use as an alternative to coffee if dried and chopped”.

“So what else is edible”? I ask. “Well”. Nicola pauses as her head turned in true Excorsist style to survey the area and then contuinues. “That wild rose hip is a great source of vitamin C. Hawthorn berries can be eaten, but I think have a nasty aftertaste, then there are sloes for your gin. Rowan (mountain ash) berries can be made into jelly and the Wesh make an alcoholic drink called diodgriafel that is supposed to be very tasty.”

“Hey this is good stuff, I might write about it for my article this week” I tell her.

“Well” she cautions, “you might want to add a disclaimer and probably a few words of warning. The common elder has edible berries but some people can react badly to them.”

“What else should I warn about” I ask her.

“Yew (Taxus baccata) seeds are regarded as one of THE most poisonous and deadly. I remember seeing a gardener suck on the red flesh and spit the seed out, but this isn’t to be recommended. The inner brown-black seed is deadly poisonous and must not be eaten.” Nicola warns. “There are loads of others, Bittersweet (Solanum dulcamara) from the hedgerows. Holly berries can be very nasty; Ivy has black berries that are very toxic”. Nicola turns her attention to a hypericum we have in the garden. “These plants have pretty berries too and are used in medicine, don’t try this at home though. The dogwoods you have are poisonous too”.

We are at the end of our walk. We have eaten marigold flowers and sorrel leaves, a few sunflower seeds and a plum like fruit from the red fuchsia bush. And, as suggested by Nicola, a few words of warning to protect myself in these health and safety mad times.


NEVER take any chances with berries.If you do not recognise a berry as being one of the edible onesDON'T PUT IT ANYWHERE NEAR YOUR MOUTH.

PS. Crinodendrons are part of the Lily of the valley family and classed as poisonous.

SEE WHAT OTHERS THINK TO THIS SAGA ON THE SELFSUFFICIENTISH FORUM.....SOMETIMES YOU CAN WRITE FOR THE WRONG AUDIENCE.....

CAROLINE'S GARDEN VISIT

The Swilly Gardening Club were out and about again visiting gardens around the peninsula. Don’t worry. Fifteen keen gardeners don’t just turn up in your garden and start sniffing the roses and poking their noses into the greenhouse, you will be pleased to learn. They are invited first.

This time they were out with Caroline McGonagle, who lives at The Rock on the way to the Illies. Caroline has been an active member of the Gardening Club for a few years now and her skills as a horticulturalist are becoming very apparent as she regularly talks about topical issues at the club. Her garden has a wide range of planting styles from bee gardens, water features, vegetables and alpines to bog garden plants. Her garden has a very long season of interest and there is usually something in flower at all times of the year.



GIANT CACTI
I missed the Gardening Club visit, so I decided to call in to visit Caroline myself to see her garden and pick up some gardening tips.

Of course it was raining, so Caroline and I started off in her hand built greenhouse. The good-sized structure is made from recycled double glazed windows and it kept the rain off of us as we waited for a dry spell. There were plenty of interesting plants in there, especially her collection of cacti. Caroline collects these tender, prickly plants and starts them off from little babies. The most dominant one at the moment is a big hairy white fluffy thing that it trying it’s best to poke out of the roof. “You can tell the age of the tubular cacti by counting the rings” Caroline tells me. “ They are not like a tree where they run along the inside, but up the length of the plant” she continues, pointing to her favourite one at the moment. “This one is about 16 years old and in that time had grown to about nine feet tall, you can tell if the plant has had a good year by the amount it grows in one season. It’s getting a bit too big now so it might end up for sale”. She smiles.





To brighten up the greenhouse, Caroline enjoys growing fuchsias and begonias in between the tomato plants. The tomatoes were ripe and ready and after I had my fill we decided the rain wasn’t going to let up. So we got out the brollies and made our way to the veggie patch.

GROWING WITH CONFIDENCE
With the present climate of food prices increasing it is becoming more important for us to grow our own vegetables. Hopefully there will come a time when it is seen as the norm to include a patch of home grown organic produce in the garden. Caroline has done just that, and is growing carrots, lots of spuds, salad plants, onions, peas, beans, herbs and a giant Pick and Come Again American cabbage. “One leaf will feed a family of four” Caroline tells me as she lifts up one of the bottom leaves. They are the size of a dustbin lid. Her raised beds are very simple and clean and because of the gravel paths, they will be accessible all year round without trailing mud into the house. “I feed my veggies with comfrey juice,” Catherine explains. “Putting the liquid into a bucket of water is a smelly job so my husband has come up with a great idea for extracting the juice from the plant with no odours at all”. Caroline explains how to make the fabulous contraption.

CAROLINES HOME MADE COMFREY PRESS

What you will need

Long plastic drain pipe with a 4 inch radius
Another pipe with a smaller radius of 90 mm
A flat disc with a 4inch radius to push into the larger pipe.
Rope and weights (bricks) or ratchet straps.
A large bucket

Take the long plastic pipe with a 4-inch radius. Into that place the comfrey leaves. Push a flat disc into the larger pipe and place the smaller pipe in. Push the smaller pipe down and compress the comfrey. Keep on the pressure by adding the ratchet straps along the length of the pipe or put the rope on top of the pipes and tie on the bricks. Place the pipes into the bucket and secure in an upright position.

As the leaves start to decompose the neat comfrey juice will seep out into the bucket. This can be diluted to use as an effective plant food. Caroline is devising a method to capture the liquid straight into a bottle, which can be stored for later use.

CAROLINES TOP TIP
Caroline loves small Acer trees and has a few in the garden. “The Acer palmatum and Acer Dicectum are lovely trees but can be a bit sensitive” Caroline begins. “When you feed them, don’t use tomato food. I have known a few people who have lost their plants, as there is something in the solution the trees don’t like”.

CAROLINES FAVOURITE
“My favourite tree in the garden at the moment is the Katsura tree (Cercidiphyllum Japonicum). It is one of the fastest growing trees but don’t let that put you off. It can be cut back every year. It has an illusive fragrance of caramelised sugar. It has the added benefit of being pest free”

Judging the Moville gardening competition

I’LL BE THE JUDGE OF THAT…

I am knocking on Councillor Marian McDonald’s front door in Moville as the church bells are chiming ten in the morning. I have been asked to judge this year’s, Moville Tidy Towns Gardening Competition and unlike the last time I did any judging, we are ahead of the frosts. We need to make an early start as Marian has to be in Greencastle at 12:30pm for the Blessing of the Fleet, so time is a precious commodity for her, as it always has been in her five years of being a local Councillor.

Marian welcomes me in “Hi Ian, sorry for taking so long to answer, I have just made my fifteenth phone call of the morning and I was a bit tied up”. Marian passes over the list of entries for this year’s competition. “There are fewer entries this year”, she tells me. “That’s because of the way we have put it together. Originally anyone could enter a garden from around the town that they thought was looking good. Now it’s up to the garden owners to put themselves forward”.

Marian takes me around the back of her house to the next-door neighbours garden. “Here is the first entry”, she tells me. I am peering over he fence, looking at Chantel Busack’s vegetable patch that has been carefully planted with scallions, carrots and rocket. Chantel has built a very tidy raised bed out of treated timber and built it up with very good quality compost. It is a good start to the competition.

We jump into Marian’s car. I have a rough idea what I am looking for in a well-planned and maintained garden and to make the job even easier for me, Marian has split the competition up into eleven categories, twelve if you include the random one at the end that awards a prize for the best hanging basket display around the town.

“Here’s the second stop”. Marian announced, travelling just 10 yards down the road as I am just about to finish buckling up my seat belt. “It’s Ard Foyle and its up for the Best Kept Estate. Very good again, no litter, plenty of colour, well cut grass. I scribble down a few notes that I am quite sure I won’t be able to understand when I get home and Marian starts the engine to go to our next stop.

BY APPOINTMENT
I am here by appointment and because it’s early, there isn’t anyone greeting me at the houses. It feels as though I am trespassing when I wander around stranger’s gardens unannounced.

“Take your time Ian”, says Marian from the drivers seat. “ It’s the front and back garden here and Sarah Anne has entered for the best vegetable patch as well as best pensioners garden”. Marian has just stopped outside Sarah Anne McLaughlin’s house and urges me on. The front garden looks promising with the immaculately maintained floribunda roses. I sneak round the back to inspect the veggie plot and very impressive it is too.

“Well hello”. Says a friendly voice. “I saw you coming up the drive, you must be here for the judging. Don’t forget to look at the apple trees, they have been really good croppers”. It’s my first face-to-face encounter with a participant of the competition and it is Sarah Anne greeting me wearing her floral nightgown. “I also have some fabulous cabbages and turnips and the new crop of rhubarb has been very successful”, she continues. “Don’t leave before I come out”, she says mysteriously as she slips back into the house.

I carry on my scrutiny of the planting and Sarah Anne re-appears. “Here take these with you”. She hands over two jars of homemade jam, one blackcurrant and the other gooseberry. “I’ve had a good year for all of the fruit and managed to make a load of jars”. I take the containers, wrapped discreetly in a brown paper bag. “Of course these are in no way my very first bribe.” I say with a smile, tucking the booty under my arm. If I was in a different business the brown paper bag might be filled with something a bit greener. I am more than happy with the beautifully presented jars of sweet fruit.

“Will you be coming to the Gardening Competition Presentation when we have it?” Marian asks me when I jump back into the car ready for the next stop. I carefully place the fruity jars on the back seat and say. “With friendly faces like Sarah Anne, you try and keep me away………..”

I will announce details of the winners when I get home and tally up the points.

FOR ALL OF THE PHOTO'S GO TO INISHINDIE

WASPS

WASP STINGS
I am sitting at the table in the kitchen nursing an injury. I was just doing some domestic chores when I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my right hand. It turns out that a sleepy wasp was hiding in the laundry and I had disturbed it. I quickly took action by getting a natural remedy from the kitchen cupboards. In my panic I got out the bicarbonate of soda and put that on it. It stung even more and it was then that it dawned on me I had got the whole acid- alkaline thing mixed up. Bee stings are treated with alkaline or bicarbonate of soda. Wasp stings on the other hand are eased by acid, or vinegar.

FIRST STING
The last time we were bothered by wasps was down in Tullyarvan Mill in Buncrana about seven years ago. We were walking along, enjoying the blackberries when my lad (who was about three at the time) accidentally poked his pointy stick into a wasp nest. It was a bit like something out of Winnie the Pooh as we were chased by a horde of angry wasps to the car accompanied by screams of pain. I think we had about forty stings between us, not including five on the dog. Michael had the most stings about twenty including several on his eye-lid. Even though I had only one sting, it was of course the queen of the nest that stung me so my injury was far more painful than anyone else’s (in my opinion anyway….).

I am still plagued by “First Sting Experience” When I was about four; a wasp went up my trouser leg and stung me. Now, my knees start itching every time I hear something buzzing past.

KARMA
The wasp saga today is probably Karma for what I have just done. I was in our new garden setting up a trampoline for the kids. As you can’t put them on a driveway or hard surface I thought near to the soft ground around the trees would be ideal as I could strap it down in readiness for the winter winds. (A neighbour ended up with theirs on the roof of their house roof last winter). As I was putting the frame together I noticed a lot of wasp activity on the ground and found there were two nests where I was working. The new safety net was also interfering with their flight path. Usually I have a live and let live attitude to wasps. They are beneficial in the garden and help to keep pests down, but I have the children to think of (and other peoples children), so I thought I would wage war and get rid of them. These wasps were the pests and like a ruthless developer I was prepared to sacrifice the environmental eco-system for the sake of “progress.”

RUN LIKE HELL…
The Internet gave me some ideas for getting rid of ground nests.

Leave the nest until the evening when the wasps are sleeping- destroy it with a spade and then run like hell…..
Pour diesel on it, and then run like hell….
Block up the entrance with a big glass bowl and run like hell…

And on the advice went…. Now, I am not one for running, let alone like hell, so I decided to get the Jeyes Fluid out. This method isn’t organic or caring for the environment but a friend told me animals hate it and it drives rats nuts, so I thought I would give it a go.

So just a few minutes ago I went out and committed the crime. So there you are I have just done the deed and the next moment I was stung. That’s karma for you.

ARE THEY BEES?
Now, there are going to be a lot of dopey wasps around in the coming weeks, as they all get drunk on fruit sugars. If you have buzzy things flying about outside the house and under the eaves then before you get rid of them check if they are bees or wasps. Honeybees will usually be collected by the Irish Beekeepers Association, so try giving them a ring.

HELP IS AT HAND
Methods to get rid of nests include a foam spray or a decoy nest (wasps are supposed to be very territorial). If you are not brave (or daft) enough to rid the garden of wasp’s nests then there is a company in Letterkenny called ISS Hygiene that could help. ISS are the company that Donegal County Council recommends when you phone them for help (Tel. 0749106900).

To keep the wasps away when you are tucking into the barbie, get a pretend wasps nest from a DIY store. They are only a paper bag shaped like a nest but the wasps stay away.

More on wasp stings and remedies here

ALLERGY FREE GARDENING

NOSE FRIENDLY PLANTS

For most of us the summer growth of plants and trees is a joy. For others it can be weeks of streaming eyes and blocked noses as the pollen count increases

If you have asthma or allergies, this doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the pleasures of gardening. In fact, there is a wide range of big, showy flowers, shrubs, and trees that shouldn’t make you wheeze, cry or sniffle with hayfever.

By choosing insect-pollinated plants, which tend to have heavier pollen that doesn't become airborne easily, you can enjoy hours of virtually allergy-free gardening.

What is an allergy?

An allergy is a physical response to an irritant in the environment that may cause the body to react in a variety of ways. Allergic reactions can occur year-round, including in winter. Types of reaction may include running or itchy eyes and nose, skin flare-up, breathing problems and headaches.

Allergy Facts

Most respiratory-related allergies are caused by pollen. Not all pollens are the same however. Some pollen spores, if viewed under a microscope, are basically smooth. Pine pollen, for example, has a more-or-less smooth outer surface. Others, like sycamore, have barbed surfaces. The latter type is the one that tend to cause the greatest irritation in eyes, sinuses and lungs.

Male plants are the most problematic since they are the pollen producers. Female plants, on the other hand, produce seeds rather than pollen. It's the flowering process, including the release of pollen that leads to the misery of allergies.

It's important to note that some plant species have both male and female elements within a single plant, while others are “only male” or “only female.”

Most pollen lands close to the source plant, so a heavily pollen-producing tree in your own garden, for example, will have a much greater impact than a similar tree planted some way away.


Tips for Creating an Allergy-Free Garden

Identify the culprits and take action. If it's feasible, remove the problem plant or tree entirely and replace it with allergy friendly plant.

If you can't remove the problem plant, keep it pruned back regularly.

With allergies, avoidance is key. When the pollen producers are flowering, try to physically avoid them. For example, if you have a problem plant at the back door, get in the habit of using the front door until the plant's flowering phase is complete.

Avoid planting pollen producers near windows that you're likely to open on nice days.

Avoid planting male (pollen-producing) specimens. Ask the staff at your local garden centre to help you select female plants. They're pollen-free and actually trap and remove airborne pollen.

If you're involved in a local planting scheme or know someone on the council, suggest avoiding plantings of male-only trees in publicly landscaped areas. Large numbers of male trees raise the pollen count substantially.

Get rid of any plants that attract mildew, rust or aphids. Plants grown in the wrong place will fail to thrive. Pest and mildew infested plants produce moulds, which produce allergenic spores. Cut these plants down, dig them up and replace them with plants that thrive in your garden conditions.

If the entire garden is shaded by trees, consider thinning them out or removing some to let in the light. Fresh air and sunshine will cut down on moulds and spores.

Keep your lawns well fertilized and mow them often. Lawnmower blades should be sharp; dull blades rip off the grass and the exposed surfaces are subject to disease - thus, mould and spores. Also, sharp blades put less stress on the grass, resulting in healthier lawns that are able to choke out allergy-causing lawn weeds.

Point to note
Remember, flowers with pollen that may not cause a problem outdoors can be a different story if brought indoors. Not only can pollen become airborne as the flowers age and dry out, but also the chances of coming into contact with pollen increase by walking past them


“Nose-Friendly” Plants

Female trees of any type. Some examples are: apple, cherry, dogwood, magnolia, pear, plum.

If you are growing your own bedding plants then go for the F1 Hybrids. These do not reproduce. Other annuals and perennials include: alyssum, begonia, cactus, clematis, columbine, crocus, daffodil, daisy, dusty miller, geranium, hosta, impatiens, iris, lily, narcissus, pansy, petunia, phlox, rose, salvia, snapdragon, sunflower, tulips, verbena, zinnia. Morning glories are a good choice for the allergy prone. Their pollen is not allergenic. Most flowering plants with trumpet- or tube-shaped blooms tend not to be as problematic.

Shrubs: Azalea, boxwood, hibiscus, hydrangea, viburnum. Low fragrance roses such as shrub or floribunda roses.



The key to an allergy-free garden is patience. A hard or garden relatively free of allergens doesn't happen overnight. Plant selection is key. Learn what species and varieties are safe to plant and which to avoid.