GARDENING COURSE

SPREAD IT AROUND
I’m outside and it’s wonderful. The sun is shining and the ground is dry. I was spurred on by the good weather last week to go out and collect a couple of trailer loads of very well rotted horse muck to put into the vegetable beds. I read an article recently that says bags of this stuff fetch up the €6. If that’s the case, I came home with €600 euro worth of poo in my trailer and I couldn’t have been happier.

DETOUR
I did take a slight detour over the border with the trailer. I used a lot of Highway Code hand signals when I was driving along (it’s usually other people who give me that hand signals, or gestures as I think they are more commonly called), as I wasn’t sure just how well the indicator and brake lights were working. I pulled into the B and Q car park, as I did, the few bags of old straw in the trailer left a bit of a trail. I got these to throw on top of the spud tops as they grow up, and I thought it was about time to get the seed potatoes.

“You’re too late mate.” Said the chap in the gardening section of the vast DIY centre. “We had earlies, and lates but they’ve all gone. There’s been a mad rush on them this year,” he tells me as I notice most of the salad vegetable seeds racks are empty too. “Apparently there was some chef bloke on the Late Late Show a week or two ago talking about growing your own, it’s made a big difference to the sales.” he says with a shrug turning back to his shelf stacking.

SPUDS
I spend half an hour choosing some seeds that are left. All my old favourites, including cut and come again salads, courgettes, mange tout and sweet peas and sunflowers for Julie. After I drop off the muck and straw, I take the trailer back to my friend. “I’ve left it too late for the spuds.” I tell him wryly. “Here” says Colm. “I have some left over.” He gives me four different types of seed spuds. I have Home Guard, from the Co-op, British Queens, Orla and some very special ones, that are almost a secret called Sarpo. These are a massive “as big as your foot” spud that has been grown in Inishowen by John Reilly in Malin. They are blight resistant and are excellent for our local climate. I leave full of glee planning to return the favour and give Colm some Kale seedlings in exchange, when they are grown.

SEEDS
I am getting our shed ready for the seed planting. It has plenty of light, as the back is made up solely of two very large, double glazed patio doors, which were taken out of the house some years ago.

I clean the tables and put a porous material down to retain the moisture. I am going to put my seed trays on top and I have treated myself to John Innes N°1 compost, which is very fine for seedlings.

CATTLE FODDER OR SAVIOUR?
I have tried to buy most of the vegetable seeds locally as the Co-op are stocking a good range this year, but I have had to go further a field for the likes of my Curly Kale. Still regarded as cattle fodder, we love it as a spring green. It can be grown in any garden and is ornamental enough to be put next to the roses and delphiniums in the herbaceous border.
ALL SET
So I am all set. I have got the spuds in. The raised beds outside are warming up with the sun and will soon be ready for planting out the herbs, carrots, peas, beans, spinach, onions, beetroot, spinach and a wealth of salad plants. Inside the makeshift greenhouse the trays are ready for the plants I like to start off indoors such as courgette, broccoli, and squashes. We lost most of our large seeds one year when we had them outside because of mice. I like to give these a bit more protection. This year too, Julie has decided to grow some alpine strawberries from seed, which might prove to be fruitful (groan).

LABELS
We won’t be short of labels this year either. I have made sure we have enough so there will be no doubt between the peas and the mange tout. I made loads of them by cutting apart old white plastic ice cream containers…. We all have our weaknesses.

ORGANIC GARDENING COURSE

Are you interested in setting up your own vegetable plot but don’t know where to start? Mary Reilly is going to start an organic vegetable growing course at her farm in Fawn, Malin (Greenhill Farm) and has recruited Klaus Laitenberger, who was the former head gardener at the Organic Centre in Rossinver and Lissadell house to come along and start us on the road to self sufficiency. The course dates have yet to be confirmed, but it won’t be long as everything is starting to grow quickly now and we need to have the beds sorted. Contact Mary now to get booked in. 074 93 70029greenhillfarm@eircom.net .

TOOLS

WHEN ONLY THE BEST WILL DO…
Twenty years ago I paid a visit to a peat processing plant in the midlands. I was with a group of horticultural students and the owner of the plant happily answered some difficult questions. One of them, asked by a lad who was very aware of the impending energy crisis asked, “How long will the peat last in Ireland?” The owner answered that we have loads in Ireland and “the company will have enough for at least twenty years”…. Well… that’s about now then.
Using peat-based compost in the garden has always been a recourse that was unsustainable and best avoided. Peat bogs store twice as much carbon as all the world's forest combined but every year an area of Ireland ten times the size of Monaco is dug up. A scary thought….

DOING YOUR BIT
When we go into the garden the last thing we need to feel is that we are adding to global warming and pollution. As we are tightening our belts it makes sense to save money in the garden, not by buying cheap rip offs of quality products that break or fall apart a week after you buy them. Buy the best, when you can afford it. This philosophy goes for the seeds as well as equipment. You will be far better off in the long run buying top quality seeds as more of them should be viable and give you a healthier crop. Buying top quality tools will also mean that they will last far longer, giving you better long term value and they are a lot safer. The last thing any gardener needs is for their tools to break, it can be very dangerous.

Here are some more tips to follow in the garden

Avoid nitrogen-rich fertilisers - they require large amounts of fossil fuel to make and emit nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 300 times more powerful than CO2

Saving money in the garden is important and if you can use your own compost to feed the soil, all the better. Add home-made compost (about a bucketful per square metre) to boost the amount of water and nutrients that soil can retain - and avoid shop-bought, based composts

If you have a small lawn, go manual - buy a push mower, they sound great and give you a good workout too. Swapping your petrol lawnmower for a manual can cut emissions by 36kg of CO2 every year - and knock over €35 off your fuel bill (as well as gym bills).

Choose sustainable wood for your garden furniture. Check the source first. Avoid Vietnamese garden furniture for example as most of it comes from illegally logged forests in South East Asia.

When you're paving, consider lower-emission alternatives to concrete. Made from recycled and reclaimed materials, they have catchy names like pulverised fuel ash or ground granulated blast furnace slag. Get low-carbon outdoor lighting, such as solar lights or LEDs

Get a rainwater butt and run it from the down pipes.

Discover plants that can withstand long spells of heat, including French honeysuckle, Lavender, Iris, and Salvia, and water infrequently but thoroughly, at the base of the plant
Avoid patio heaters at all costs; they are really wasteful… get a blanket instead.

Digging in a low volume irrigation system with a timer in a large garden can cut water use by half. It can save the time you spend watering the garden by about 90%.

GREAT GREEN GIVE AWAY
Trevor Sargent, the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Green Party) is launching a Get Ireland Growing campaign at the end of the month. He says “with the recession and the growing problem of food security, (this idea)…is finally gaining traction.” He continues. “People have started to realise that it’s much more economical to grow their own food and seed companies are recording record sales.” He is highlighting the fact that Ireland will not be able to import all of the food it needs and that countries like China and Africa, who currently supply us with onions and beans, will need to keep the food for themselves and says that the Get Ireland Growing Campaign is “aimed at everyone who eats.”

In the not too distant future our local councils should be getting information and merchandise to distribute to anyone interested in growing their own. We should be getting trowels, seeds, markers and gardening gloves.

IT’S THE COUNCILS REMIT TO PROVIDE ALLOTMENTS
Trevor Sargent and John Gormley, the Environment Minister, have been trying to convince local authorities to convert waste ground into allotments. “Under the Local Government Act of 2001, local authorities have a remit to provide allotments to people in response to any demand.” Says Sargent. So it’s time to vote with your feet. The Green party will be giving postcards to anyone who thinks an allotment is a good idea for their area can send it in to the local authority expressing their interest.

Polytunnels

GET AHEAD – GET A TUNNEL

I have developed one of my dog’s irritating habits. She always stares at me when I am eating a biscuit. I keep staring at my unfinished raised beds in the same manner anticipating that they will eventually dig themselves. If the dog stares hard enough and long enough, she often gets a result, but no soil has materialised in the new bed.

I am using the same technique to set up our old polythene tunnel, but alas that too doesn’t seem to be working. I guess this would take a major amount of staring and at the moment I am a bit too busy to stand still for that length of time. Maybe it’s just that my eyes don’t look sad enough or more likely I have to come to terms with the fact that it’s a piece of ground that I am staring at, not a soft hearted owner.

POLYTHENE TUNNELS
A tunnel is a great idea for the growing number of people around Inishowen who are deciding to go down the ‘Self Sufficient’ route, or even partly self sufficient. All you need is a piece of sheltered flat ground, a few hundred euro to spare and the urge to grow and eat quality organic produce that hasn’t travelled half way around the world to get to you.

SELF SUFFICIENT
A good number of gardeners around the peninsula own a greenhouse, and these are fine for growing a few tomatoes and getting the seedlings germinating, but if you intend to be self sufficient in fruit and vegetables, it is worth investing in a tunnel. Leaving your crops to the mercy of the weather is always a risk, and the warm covered plot a tunnel gives you, extends your growing season enormously and also increases the number of different varieties of crops that you can grow.

SETTING UP A TUNNEL
We bought our tunnel from a company in the north called Morris tunnels. It proved to be very sturdy and at the time would have cost us about €500 to set up. Morris do quite a narrow gauge tube but it stood the test of time as a lot of the strength seems to come from how well the plastic is put on. The plastic sheet is hard wearing polythene with UV inhibitors and allows 90% of light is transmitted through the polythene, and the light is diffused which prevents plants from shading one another.

Facing east to west seemed our best option in order to capture the greatest amount of sunshine during the winter months. This direction also helps if the prevailing wind blows. If you have a sheltered and restricted site though you might just have to put it up where you can. Be wary of the way the doors are fitted though, if the wind catches the door when you open it, you could be chasing it around the garden. We opened ours to the east, which seemed to work and avoided shocking the plants with cold air every time we went in to tend to plants.

FOUNDATIONS
Supporting pieces of wide gauge tubing were set into the ground three feet apart. I had to use concrete, as the ground was very soft. Into these went the galvanised steel hoops and hotspot tape was put onto the outside edge of the tube to protect the plastic sheeting when it went on.

PLASTIC
The plastic can either be put on in two ways. I chose to dig the plastic into the ground by means of a trench. This is a good method if the soil is stone free. If not the sharp edges can cut through the sheeting and spread quickly in a storm. The second method is to attach the plastic sheeting to the bottom edge of the tunnel by means of a long wooden slat. Both methods are good. It pays to get a few people in to help put the sheet onto the frame and do it on a warm sunny day, leave it to sunbathe for an hour or two to make sure that the plastic has softened and expanded. If it’s done on a cold dull day the plastic will get all floppy and flap about in the wind later. .

INSIDE
Inside a polytunnel it is possible to recreate a Mediterranean climate and therefore grow exotic fruits and vegetables here in Inishowen. The plastic traps large quantities of air so the inside of the tunnel stays warm and is less susceptible to changes in the temperature at night. Sometimes for extra warmth, bubble insulation can be used (recycled bubble wrap). This ensures a frost-free winter and an even longer growing season. The bubble wrap can be removed in the spring and then reused the following winter. I decided to have black webbing plastic in the tunnel initially as I was growing bedding plants. This was put down before the plastic went on so there were no gaps for weeds to get in.

VENTILATE
Ventilating a polytunnel can be a bit of an issue as fungal diseases can spread quickly if the air is too still. If you ever go into industrial tunnels you will notice big fans above your head. This is to keep the airflow going and reduce humidity. A small tunnel in the garden won’t need this but it does pay in the long run to get two doors, one at either end. Theses can be opened and closed as the temperature fluctuates during the day and night.

CAUTION
The other thing to take into consideration when investing in the tunnel is that it can be vulnerable to playing children, excited cats, and badly driven lawnmowers and strimmers. Once you have torn the polythene of a polytunnel, it can be difficult to control its spread. I am a bit advocator of Duct tape but no amount of this on the plastic lasts long if a hole appeared, there is far too much expansion and contraction.

MAKE YOUR OWN
You can make your own tunnels without going to a supplier, although it can be scary enough putting one up when you have all of the pieces to hand as you would in a kit. Some engineering companies will bend the steel tubing for you and you can use scaffolding poles for the bases. You will still have to buy the plastic sheeting though as it would be difficult to replicate the size by gluing plastic bags together. Savings can be made and it might cost you up to half the amount it would to buy the kits. Just realise that it will take a lot longer, so put some value on your own time to see if it’s worth going down that route. I have seen some very successful small tunnels made out of sturdy plastic water pipe. Again, when these are fastened securely to the ground and the plastic is put on they can withstand even the strongest winds, although you do normally have to bend double though to get into them.

ON A MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

I was on the train to my mother’s house in a small village in the country. I was living in a city and had no need for my own car, as everything I needed was close to hand (pubs mainly). If I did need to venture further a field I would use the public transport system as we had buses trains, trams and cycle paths everywhere if you wanted to go it alone.

My mission for the day was to dig up a large yucca that was slowly taking over my mothers’ driveway. She was concerned that the roots would undermine the foundations of the house. It was early March and an ideal time to be moving shrubs.

I had done a bit of preparation work earlier on in the previous year. About 9 months previous I had dug a circular trench one-spade width wide parallel with the leaf spread of the yucca. Then I had back filled the trench with sharp sand to encourage fibrous, feeding root growth, which would help the plant to re-establish quickly after it had been moved and re-planted.


MOVING THE LARGE YUCCA
The yucca was definitely too big for its spot so after a cup of tea and a chat with my mother to get the local gossip (the man at number 32 still sits on a kitchen chair on the pavement and supervises his wife as she washes his car), I carefully set about digging up the twenty year old ten-foot palm. The preparation work paid off and after about an hour of digging I managed to prize it from the side of the driveway and carefully placed the root ball, complete with fibrous roots, in a large industrial bin bag. I got loads of duct tape around it for strength, which sealed it up to keep the moisture in. The reason for this attention to detail was that the plant was coming home with me on the train to be pride of place in a communal garden in the block of inner city flats where I was living.

The journey back on the train was a bit uncomfortable as the train was full of holidaymakers coming back from a dull day at Skegness (it’s a place on the east coast of England a bit like Portrush but not as pretty …you can’t see the sea when the tide goes out.) The yucca had it’s own seat and I did have a few admiring glances, (well I think they were), to which I nodded in approval.

CENTREPIECE
I eventually made it home to the flat, having dragged the plant and large root ball for a mile through the city, leaving a trail of soil and bits of duct tape behind me, and set about digging a hole for the plant to be put into. It took a while, as I wanted it to be firmly set into the ground so the wind didn’t rock it about.

Moving any established tree or shrub is risky and sometimes, in my case, embarrassing. Any plant will suffer stress when uprooted, which often results in growth being checked. I was willing to take a chance with the yucca.

PLANTING THE MOVED SHRUB
Back in my garden, the hole I had dug was the same size as the root spread plus an extra 50cm (20in) wide and about 30cm (12in) in depth. I forked over the bottom of the hole, adding some rich organic matter to help establish the growth and reduce it dying back. The rootball was taken out of what was left of the bin bag that was protecting it and then I placed the plant carefully into the hole, spreading out the fibrous roots.

The old soil-mark on the stem of the yucca was the guide to the correct new planting depth. This would prevent replanting too deeply (one of the biggest killers of all plants). Equally, planting with upper roots exposed will damage most plants, so they were pushed well in. I firmed around the yucca, which gets rid of air pockets. Just for good measure I staked it with two poles laid at a 45 degree angle and tied around the plant stem and then watered it in.

FANTASTIC
It looked fantastic and set the garden off a treat, a truly great centrepiece that the residents will enjoy for years to come. It was getting dark by now so I went indoors, feeling as though I had done a good job.

Someone else must also have thought it looked good too. The following morning I got up and opened the curtains to admire my handiwork. The yucca was conspicuous by its absence and there was only a gaping hole to show where it had been.

I am not really sure what happened to the majestic centrepiece, as it was never seen again. There was a report of a white transit van driving away down the road at high speed very early in the morning…..
But there’s nothing strange or unusual about that….. is there?…..