Time for Reflexion - and looking at seeds, with Klaus Laitenberger

The new website makes for an interesting read

It’s been a while since we have heard from the pioneering gardener Klaus Laitenberger from County Leitrim. You might remember Klaus has written two bestselling books on getting the best from our Irish gardens and has spent the last fifteen years learning the art and craft of vegetable growing and experimenting with different plants and techniques. Klaus has mastered the vagaries of boggy soils, high rainfall and the most common pests and diseases.  This research has now been put into his new website specializing in seeds that will flourish in the Irish garden.  The new greenvegetableseeds.com website is now stocking over 100 varieties of vegetable seed varieties. 

I spoke to Klaus this week who was hard at work preparing his own garden for the winter months. 

“I only stock the highest quality seeds of the best varieties of vegetables.  All of the seeds are particularly suited to Irish growing conditions and have the best flavour and the best resistance to pests and diseases.” He tells me.

Klaus feels that if we put so much effort into growing our own food, we may as well grow the most reliable varieties with the best flavour possible.  He continues “Having spent the last 15 years in Ireland I have experimented and trialled thousands of varieties and these seeds on the website are my favourites!”

Random Selection

I’ve picked these plants at random from Klauses collection of seeds he has in stock and are beautifully presented on the website.  I’ll definitely be choosing the tomato varieties Sungold F1  Sweet Aperitif  next year as these will be perfect for the tunnel. 

Klaus loves his beans and has a great selection of broad, runner and dwarf varieties. Most of the beans can be planted now in late autumn for an early crop Klaus also likes his cabbage and has 5 types of those too  and as well as bean planting at this time of year he stocks a great range of  oriental brassica salad  which can also be planted out now.

Most of the seed varieties are very reasonably priced at just €1.80 up to €2.80 for the more expensive to produce F1's . 

Time for reflection

I couldn’t leave Klaus without getting a few pearls of wisdom, so I asked him what he is doing in his garden this week.  “I’m reflecting on the current gardening year and to make plans for next year.  The more I plan, the easier it will be.  Some vegetable varieties do better than others; there is quite a difference between varieties in terms of taste, reliability, disease resistance and yield.  Some varieties also seem more suited to different gardens and growing conditions. I’ll start making my choices now.”

Klaus is also busy composting and covering problem areas with old compost and black plastic to kill the weeds and retain the nutrients.  I asked him if he had any advice for us about the issue of feeding the soil, it’s a fine balance between under and overfeeding and wondered if he could give me a few tips.  

“How well did your vegetables grow overall?” he asks me.   “Was there lots of leaf growth and small roots?  That means that too much nitrogen was added (probably in the form of farmyard manure).  Were your plants stunted?  The reason could be a lack of fertility or alternatively waterlogged soil.” Klaus wisely says that “We should always try to learn from bad years.”

He continues “Vegetables are certainly hungrier plants compared to flowers.  The reason is simple: you want to eat a cabbage or tomato for example and thus remove nutrients from the soil as we take vegetables into the kitchen.  So we need to replace these nutrients back into the soil and the best form is compost, composted manure and seaweed.  One of these will provide the mainstay of your soil fertility.  The advantage of these bulky organic fertilisers is that they do not only add nutrients to the soil but they also improve the soil structure.  They improve drainage, water holding capacity, prevent erosion and compaction.  The nutrients are also released in a slow release form.  You couldn’t wish for more!”

I ask Klaus when is the best time to do this “Now is a good time to get some manure and either compost it with your own compost or separately.  I would strongly recommend that you cover the heap to prevent leaching of nutrients.  Alternatively you can spread it straight onto the vegetable beds, cover it up with soil which has washed onto the paths and then make sure that you cover it all up with black plastic for the winter.” 

Claus concludes “You can also start planning next year’s cropping plan.” Which brings me back nicely to Klaus’s seed website greenvegetableseeds.com.  All the seeds you need for next year in one handy place.

Bulb Planting and Buying in the Sales

Harvesting the veggies will hopefully go on all winter

I’m still enjoying drinking the liquid feeds through the blender. So much so it’s inspired a whole new planting plan for the polythene tunnel. I have delved into the seeds that didn’t get planted this summer and sown very late crops of peas, spinach, cress, mange tout, lettuce  and ....  I’ve also been planting up chard, which certainly brightens up the place when the sun shines through the stems.  The idea is to grow the crops as a pick and come again variety. When the peas get to about 3 inches I’ll nip them off and use them as the base for the nutriblends. I’ve had them in for two weeks now and they have shot up to about two inches so they are nearly ready. If I’m lucky we’ll have fresh veggies to use for a while yet, even after the frosts if I’m lucky.

I found some carrots planted in pots that I forgot I had this week. They are small and a bit scabby but once they are put into the blended you wouldn’t notice. I have found another vegetable to put into the machine.

Still Sprouting

Just before the end of the summer I cut off a sunflower head to use as decoration. It’s been sitting on the wall on the patio for ages and I noticed that even these seeds have started to germinate. They are still in place and sprouting happily. I’m throwing those into the blender too.

The hanging baskets are looking a bit dishevelled at the moment so I decided to give those trim and tidy.  There are a few perennials that are still sitting there quite happily but the sweet peas have had their day.  I noticed that even these seeds are sprouting whilst still inside the pods so they have gone into modules in the propagator for growing on and putting outside in late spring. These are not edible so won’t be blended in the machine!

Seed Collecting

I have other seeds collected too. We had a good run on nasturtiums and marigolds this year and I have collected a couple of bags of seeds from the spent flower heads. I really should have saved some of the peas and beans but it looks like we have eaten them all, if I can find a few pods when I clear them up later I shall keep them. I like to leave the pea and bean plants in until they die down as they fix nitrogen into the soil keeping it balanced. I do have some tomatoes still hanging on the plants outside but I’m undecided whether to save the seeds of those as they weren’t the most “flavoursome” variety. I might save a few.

In The Sales

It’s full steam ahead for winter and spring planting and I have been busy in the sales.  Most winter/spring plants are half price in the shops and bulbs have been reduced in price. It’s my favourite time to shop.   

For the pot grown plants I chose primroses, biennial cineraria and dianthus combined, with a few variegated ivy thrown in. I actually only bought one ivy plant but managed to get four plants out of it.  Growers tend to put a few smaller plants into a pot than one large one.It gives the growers bigger looking plants faster, which benefits their cash flow and gives us the opportunity to do a bit of division. 

I have cleared out the geraniums from the baskets to make room for the new stock, potted them up in my terracotta pots and put them into the tunnel. They will keep flowering all through the winter if I can keep the frost off them. I might have to bring them indoors for a spell if it gets really cold. I didn’t change the soil in the baskets, but did add more compost and put in a bit of slow release feed. 

Bulbs

I bought a few bags of miniature daffodils and mixed regular varieties to plant as well as some other interesting types to interplant in clumps around the front garden. I have purple Allium, blue Muscari, white Brodiaea (like Alliums) and some pretty chionodaxa called snowglobe. Planted together they should give an attractive display in early spring. Bulbs too are something that wouldn’t be good in the blender as a majority of them are poisonous, apart from onions of course, I might try one in the machine.

Making an Autumn Leaf Bowl

My autumn creations being made from fallen leaves.

I’m really enjoying my art evening class course. We’ve moved away from paper, bleach, coffee and fabric dyes to clay. The idea is that over the next five weeks we will come away with a sculptured work of art depicting something moving. I originally was going to do a study of one of our dogs. I needed images from  360 degree angles but as soon as I point the camera at either of them they run off thinking I’m going to shoot them (that’s my theory anyway) So I am opting for something that stays in one place when it’s photographed, a car. Not just any car though.

Buy and Sell

Over the last few weeks I have spent quite a lot of time on internet buy and sell websites and online auctions and came to the conclusion that I shouldn’t.  I seem to whip myself up into a frenzy when I see something that looks good value for money and buy it. This isn’t usually an issue as it’s only a few cacti from Poland or a few house plants from Holland.

This week I surpassed myself (in the name of art) and bought 7 antique brass wheel hubs that came from horse drawn carriages. They are beautiful pieces too and all have the builder’s names on them, OGorman’s of Clonmel, Briscoe Dublin, Cleery and Breen and P. Hogan, Limerick. They are only small and fit nicely onto the table to be drawn. They certainly don’t move either when I try to capture their image.   

Impulse Buy

That’s not the biggest thing I bought his week though. I spotted an old 1965 Morris Traveller (for those of you that watch Corrie it’s Roy and Haley’s choice of motor)  This car was in Tipperary and looking neglected. I phoned the seller and asked a few questions (not enough as it turned out) then asked if he’d take Paypal – he did, and I got an old jalopy delivered to the door the following day. It’s rusty, smelly and rotten has lots of charm and nostalgia and will be ideal for my latest foray into clay sculptures as this thing isn’t going anywhere fast. 

I’m creating an image of the car sinking at 45 degrees into the ground with the back doors wide open like its screaming. It’s quite an accurate reflection of how I feel parting with money, too easily, on something that will probably end up being a chicken coop in the back garden. Jalopy or not though I have still spent a week polishing it! (Update- I sold it to someone who is going to renovate it to it’s former glory so we are all happy!!)

Autumn Bowls

My creativity knows no bounds this week and I found myself creating some autumn bowls made from fallen leaves.  I followed instructions from a video of a very happy looking person making their bowl in the glorious American sunshine. The glowing red maple leaves casting a warm glow over her face as she held it up to the camera. My attempt was a little less sunny, far more pva glue over me and even more cursing. I don’t know if you have ever tried to glue leaves together onto a bowl. It’s not that easy!  

Here’s how it was done:

I used a large glass bowl, cling film, WD40 (any household oil is good), leaves, PVA glue.

Firstly I had a walk around and collected some brightly coloured leaves, the bigger the better as I found out. I then cut off the thick stems as these would take forever to dry.

 I thought I would try both putting leaves around the outside of the bowl and then the inside to see which was the most successful, these were all stuck down with copious amounts of PVA glue. 

The leaves on the outside I secured into place with a sheet of cling film and on the inside I just pressed them down hard into place.  After a couple of days I removed the leaves from outside of the bowl, leaving on the clingfilm to keep the shape and put that and the bowl in a warm place to dry off the excessive amount of glue (I overdid it a bit).

They are not quite the bright coloured maple leaves that the demonstration recommended but my selection of beech and sycamore leaves picked up on the roadside look quite pleasing in the sunlight.  They are not particularly strong or long lived but they will serve as good fire lighters when I have finished drawing them for my art class.

We do have a very wide range of maples here, also known as Acers, these trees have wonderful displays of autumn colour. If you are lucky enough to have some near you maybe some of them could be made into bowls before being thrown into the compost bin.