Soil Care

Poor soil with courgettes struggling

My lads were making choc chip cookies last week and they missed out one ingredient, not something obvious like chocolate either. We didn’t have any vanilla essence. This made a really big difference to the final taste and instead of them being eaten as soon as they were taken out of the oven piping hot like they usually are, they were left on the kitchen table.

Our dog hasn’t got such a critical palate though and managed to eat the whole plateful in just a few seconds after the lads walked out of the room. They will complement the pound of butter she ate last week.

Good soil, the courgettes are thriving

Soil care

Soil, just like ingredients in baking, needs to be mixed in just the right quantities to make plants grow well. Getting a good loam (soil structure) to hold plants in place and store nutrients until the plant roots need them requires a mixture of sand, silt, organic matter and clay. In my experience, most gardens have a varying mixture of both good and poor soil. In our garden, we have an area where the bulk of the vegetables are being grown. We set up the raised beds and added loads of organic matter such as well-rotted horse muck, and the contents of the compost bin (lovely stuff). At the top of the garden we cut a long narrow bed out of the lawn to increase our veggie produce. This bed is very near to a mature escallonia hedge and willow tree, which both starve the bed of water, light and nutrients. We also had run out of our horse muck and compost so it this bed wasn’t so well fed –just a few handfuls of chicken pellets We planted the same batch of courgettes into both the good growing area and the poor bed. The lush leafy growth of the healthy plants compared to the diseased looking stunted growth of the courgettes in the nutrient and water starved one makes for interesting comparisons between the two areas.

Weeds

Weeds are also a good indicator of how a soil is performing. There are some types that like to grow on nitrogen rich soil, such as nettles, whilst others take over poor ground without competition from rivals. We were on Inishtrahull Island last week with the Inishowen Organic Group and I saw a large area on a hillside that was just covered in daisies. There was no soil to be seen and the plants were seemingly hanging on to the hillside by wrapping their roots around the scree, hardy or what?

Summer Bedding - Getting it right

Getting the right mix of soil is very important in summer bedding plants and containers. There are generally a lot of plants in a very restricted area, especially in hanging baskets. A container might have ten plants all battling it out in soil that would normally be used for just one plant. Most shop bought composts only have enough nutrients on them to last the plants four weeks, so regular feeding and watering is needed. Slow release organic fertiliser can be mixed in (or scattered onto the top if you forgot when you planted them up). Water retaining gel is a good idea too. Again if you forgot to put them in, all is not lost. Simply push a topless plastic pop bottle with the bottom cut off into the basket and fill it with water every day. It is important to keep your containers and baskets well watered –even during wet days.

Home made mix

I was always proud of how well my containers and baskets looked in the summer. I used to make a mix of peat, compost, sand, osmocote and garden soil. One year I didn’t quite get it right. I had got a load of free mushroom compost from the old mushroom polytunnels in Umrican –great for the veggies I have to say. However, it was a disaster for my summer displays. The mixture wasn’t rotted down well enough and the straw leached the nitrogen from the soil. Without a decent environment the poor bedding plants succumbed to all sorts of pests and diseases. The effect was devastating and my displays were pitiful hardly filling the baskets, yellow spotty leaves and barely a bloom in sight. My reputation went downhill fast, but you live and learn. As I am writing our windowsills are covered by pots of strong, healthy tomato plants and even though each one is only in a two-litre pot, they are quickly making their way up their sticks to the ceiling. This is because of good compost, regular watering and constant feeding (three times a day at the moment) With all that constant care and dedication, it doesn’t look as though I will be going on holiday this summer.

Competition

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Closing date: August 15th 2010

Water Conservation

Yea Butt No Butt yea Butt….

“It’s nothing really, just an old wheelie bin and a downpipe”. I’m talking to Mickey Donaghay from Carry Garden Sheds in Fallask on the outskirts of Buncrana and he’s being very modest about his inventive water butt design. The idea is simple enough. When he needs water from the butt, he lowers a six-foot long pipe from the top of the bin to the floor and “gravity does the rest” Mickey says, demonstrating how the flow of water starts when the pipe gets lower. It’s so practical, why didn’t I think of that?

Water seems to be a bit scarce this year. Our natural garden watering hole is usually brimming with aquatic life at this time of year, but at the moment it’s bone dry. I have even had to use one of our washing up bowls filled with tap water for the poor tadpoles to live in. Most of them died scrambling around in the resulting mud when the last of the water drained away. Water rationing is probably not far away so collecting rainwater from the roof is the perfect alternative.

Mickey usually specialises in making garden sheds, hen houses, bird feeders and more recently, raised beds for the garden. But today, I’ve popped in to see how he is making good use of one of our natural resources- rainwater.

Reasons to make your own butt

By making your own water butt, you will benefit in a number of ways.

· You can site several water butts around the garden or allotment, so that you don't have to trek to and from one water source.

· Rainwater is free, so if you have a lot of watering to do, you want have to rely on your drinking water supply - extremely handy if you're on a water meter or the well is drying up, like our pond.

· Some plants really benefit from rainwater, as it is slightly acidic

· Making your own water butt helps the environment and can use recycled materials.

BUILDING YOUR OWN WATER BUTT

· Find a suitable container to hold the water. Mickey used an old wheelie bin, but you could use anything that is watertight that hasn’t had any toxic chemicals in it (steam clean if in doubt).

· Stand the butt on a firm base of gravel and concrete slabs, preferably slightly above the ground so you can get a watering can easily under the tap, or in Mickey’s case allowing gravity to expel the water.

· Check that the water butt has a secure, childproof lid. As well as protecting children it will also prevent debris and midge larvae from entering. If it opens like the wheelie bin, you can access water from both the top and bottom of the container.

· Select a downpipe that is not in a prominent position with plenty of room to stand a butt nearby, Mickey chose to use his on a large shed away from the house. You can always mask the butt with some willow weaving if you feel it’s unsightly.

· Cut the downpipe at the desired height and fit a diverter, you can get these from any DIY shop.

· Make sure that any water butts have an overflow pipe fitted so that any excess water will drain away from the house wall and check everything is watertight.

· That’s it, job done, all we need now is a drop of rain.

Other Options

Let’s have a look at some other interesting options to save water.

Rig up a plastic sheet over a hole in the garden, with a stone weighing it down in the middle and an old baked bean can underneath, then watch drops of condensation collect as the sun passes overhead. It has saved many a life in the desert.

Underground water storage tanks such as the one used in the gardening area of Buncrana UDC could be installed into your garden. Collecting water from the house roof could supply the toilet, washing machine and any other use besides drinking (although you can get filters for this if you wanted to be totally independent of the mains water)

Water facts

· Water is the most common compound found on Earth.
· Four fifths of the Earth’s surface is covered in water.
· 99% of the World’s water cannot be used because it is either saline or is locked up in glaciers and ice sheets.
· Most of the remaining water is present in rocks as groundwater (approx. 0.6%), while just over 0.3% is present in rivers and lakes.
· Our bones contain about 72% water, our kidneys about 82% and our blood is about 90% water.
· Each of us need an intake of about 2 litres of water per day. This water may be taken as part of our food or drink.
· A person can live about a month without food, but only about a week without water.
· A person uses about 150 litres of clean treated water per day.



Dublin City Council offer water butts for €40. Hopefully soon all local councils will follow suit.

If you are interested in contacting Mickey about a shed, bird feeder or his other wooden products you can phone him on 086 607 2194

Bloom Visit 2

Bloom in the Park visit 2010

We’re just leaving the Bloom Festival in Phoenix Park Dublin to miss the rush hour traffic on the way home. We’ve been at the event for 5 hours and in the heat of the sun we thought it best to leave before my bald patch set alight.

My lad and I took the initiative to come down from Inishowen yesterday, calling into Newgrange and Knowth in the Boyne Valley. At 5000 years old, these structures show that landscape design is certainly nothing new. People have been manipulating the land for thousands of years either for recreational use or for worshipping or for protection from marauding invaders.

We stopped over at relative’s house close to Phoenix Park, and after a lie in, we set off, all fresh faced and enthusiastic, to join the long queue of cars full of eager visitors to Ireland’s largest gardening, food and family festival.

Show Gardens

Our first port of call was the Show Garden area to get photos of the new innovative garden designs. There are twenty-two gardens this year so between us my lad and I had cameras to cover all angles. This year, I notice, Bloom is far more eco aware. There are energy saving gardens that collect your rain water and filter it back into the house. There are recycled wine bottles pushed into a lawn. The influence of energy conservation spread to Bord Bia too. They worked with the Carbon Trust to measure Bloom’s own carbon footprint this year, which included tightening up on waste management controls, reusing materials when possible and increasing the use of public transport to the event.

Forfree

One of my favourite gardens at the show is Forfree by Sophie von Maltzan. Sophie took garden design to another level. The garden provides a platform for Crann (the national tree awareness organisation) to showcase their service of distributing free native trees to schools around the country. There were four rows of trees in the design, all mulched by old cardboard to keep the weeds down. Around the perimeter were bails of used paper and packaging up to a height of about eight feet to produce a dramatic wall. It asks a few questions. Do we need so much packaging? Can waste be reused without being sent to China? I like it because it reminded me of my own garden.

Versatility

This year has seen a real increase in edible planting mixed in with more traditional ornamental arrangements. 2010 is the UN’s International Year of Biodiversity. And this theme is reflected in some of the designs. There are gardens that attract a lot of wildlife, gardens that produce food for the family and gardens that are a practical usable space for the family who with the recession are spending more time at home.

There is also an emphasis on children this year, which is highlighted by the fact that children get into the event for free. The Irish Preschool Play Association were onsite with their imaginative garden, again made from recycled materials such as straw bales, wooden structures (also making excellent use of old car tyres). Dublin zoo were also there entertaining the young ones and the children’s museum based in Sandyford supplied the education with a “Good to Grow” feature to get children interested in food sustainability.

The event is big enough to house all types of approaches to gardening. And everyone will get something different from the event. As my lad and I moved around the garden designs I concentrated on the ecological side of things. When I get home and trawl my way through the five hundred photos I will no doubt see a lot of other features I missed.

Another new addition to the event was a Lost and Forgotten Skills Marquee. Bord Bia recruited some of the top craftspeople in Ireland who demonstrated cheese making, butter churning and fish smoking as well as spinning, clay pot making and quilt making.

Seeing all that cheese made us realise we were quite hungry. Luckily there was no shortage of food stalls. The Artisan food market had over fifty producers of quality produce and they were giving free samples. Our diet for the day consisted of slithers of meat, sausages, cakes, olive dips with tiny bits of broken cream crackers, orange juice, topped off with chocolate and marshmallows, not the most balanced diet but enjoyable never the less. Bord Bia also gave hourly cooking demonstrations. Well known chefs including Neven Maguire and Donal Skehan (author of “Good Mood Food”) were preparing mouth watering wholesome dishes.

Frugal living

It is time to head on and as I negotiate my way through the local rush hour traffic, I ponder the sights and experiences of the last couple of days. On one hand there is the megalithic tomb at Newgrange, where everything was built for a practical useable purpose with natural materials. The latest trends at Bloom, too, emphasises sustainability and care for the environment.

Perhaps the gap between the Newgrange and Bloom styles is closing, and perhaps that’s a good thing.

See more images of the event HERE