Gardener's Diary

DAY 1

Day 1- Sunday –8pm

In a bit of a grumpy mood, so Julie suggests I go away for a bit. I ask her how long I should go away for. Tells me to come back when in good mood. Might be gone some time.

Day 1 Sunday 10pm

Found great looking hostel in County Sligo called the Gyreum Ecolodge in Castlebaldwin. Looks like a spaceship built from wood and bitumen sheets. Was voted the country’s most unusual hostel. Just the ticket. Bags packed and ready to go.

DAY 2

Day 2 Monday 9am
Lads to school, dishes washed, bags thrown into the boot of car complete with pillow just in case. Kiss Julie. Off to ecolodge spaceship.

Day 2 Monday 3pm
Time on my hands. Stop off at Rossinver Organic Centre. Paid €5 to walk around garden . Great place, well worth a visit. Found Gyreum spaceship in middle of nowhere. Parked up and saw man called Brendan on roof patching up gaps. Told me I could have a 6- bed room to myself. Happy days. Asked more questions about ecolodge. It’s powered by geothermal pumps, wind turbines, has a reed bed system and eco toilets at the bottom of the garden should I decide to use them. Vegetable patch looking bare yet but showing loads of promise, just like at Rossinver.

Day 2 Monday 9 pm
Fixed TV. Owner Brendan hadn’t watched for two weeks. Thought it was broken. Pushed scart lead into the back. Can now watch Corrie in the morning. Great place, fine design with big round open plan area for gatherings, green weddings and sleeping. Welcoming hearth in the centre with seats. Rickety staircase going to library above. Big hole in floor upstairs, looks good but makes me feel a bit wobbly when I look down. Staff really friendly, feeling at home. Cook up some noodles and hot chocolate and off to one of my 6 beds for an early night.



DAY 3

Day 3 Tuesday 1pm
Long lie in. Great rest. Brendan still on the roof blocking holes. Has no problem with me hanging around looking lost. Decided to visit friends in Boyle. Warmly received. Get fed loads of healthy soup from home grown veggies. Tempted to stay the night but spaceship is calling me back.

Day 3 Tuesday 11pm
Get back to Gyreum Ecolodge. A couple have arrived, but still have the 6 beds to myself. All very friendly. Was told of a group of 15 people coming to visit for a Viking re-enactment fight on a neighbour’s field. Brendan going away tomorrow leaving them to look after the Ecolodge. Time to move on. Make cheese sandwich and plan the route for tomorrow.

DAY 4

Day 4 Wednesday 2pm
Got up late again. All quiet before the Viking warriors arrive. Decided to go to hostel in Donegal town as it’s on the way home. Don’t want to travel far. Hostel busy but room to myself. Have shower as couldn’t find the one in the spaceship. Go into Donegal town for a walk. Quite busy and bump into people I know. Too close to home.

Day 4 Wednesday 11pm
Woman that owns the hostel is a bit strange, comes into TV room and takes the remote control off me and turns volume down saying people need to sleep. No-one, but no-one takes my remote control. Woman locks up hostel complaining about latecomers, looks at me as though I should call it a night. Feel uncomfortable so creep upstairs to bed.

Day 5 Thursday 3am
Can’t sleep. Heating on all night, room like a sauna as only 7 feet by 5 feet. Open windows but traffic noise keeps me awake. Missing the spaceship.

Day 5 Thursday 7am.
Woman from hostel shouting giving early morning calls. Walk downstairs. Woman is sitting outside kitchen looking at us all wishing we would leave. Grab a banana from the fridge and duly oblige.

Day 5 Thursday 8am
Can’t get out fast enough. Strange woman with staring eyes turns cooker gas off at the bottle every time someone finishes eating and keeps looking at her watch. All my food still in kitchen. Daren’t go back in to collect it in case eyes meet. No doubt it will be in the bin by 9am. Leave the room keys on table near door to avoid seeing woman. Time to go home. I can be back for 9:30 am.

Trip worked. I’m happy. Don’t have to go far or be away from home long before realising I’m onto a good thing.

More pics from Rossinver in April

More pics from the Gyreum Ecolodge

Lawn Care

Lawn Care

Is there anyone in Ireland that has a perfect lawn? I doubt it. It would take hours to create the perfect green space without rushes, moss, thatch or weeds.

My step dad tried for years to get a grass sward in his back garden so smooth that you could play snooker on it. He would be out there everyday with his penknife taking out weed seedlings and threatening earthworms for making casts. He was very particular in general. He once took the whole car to bits because of a rogue squeaking noise coming from the dashboard. He never found the source of the noise and it took weeks to put the car back together again. He never managed the perfect lawn either. Our two female dogs made sure of that with their acidic urine.

Thankfully for our nerves, most of us make do with the lawns we have and give them an odd feed and cut the tufty bits down when we get chance. As the grass is growing quickly now, let’s have a look at some ways to keep the grass healthy without becoming too obsessed (I did cut mine twice this week though. Where’s my penknife?)

Turf or Seed?
If you are laying a new lawn, April to May is a great time to be sowing grass seed. It's best to keep off the seedlings until this first cut so you don't trample and break the baby blades of grass. By the mid summer you should have a respectable lawn.
Turf is quicker but much more expensive and requires equally good soil preparation and lots of watering to help it settle in and grow. Try to keep the footballing kids and digging dogs off for the first few weeks. If you mow keep the cutting height up on the mower.

Maintaining the lawn

Feeding
Feeding properly with an organic lawn fertiliser will make grass greener and thicker. This also helps resist weeds and moss. Overfeeding can have really negative effects on the grass though as it increases the chance of disease because of the fast growth. It could mean cutting it more often too.
Filling hollows
If your lawn has a sunken patch, repair by making an H-shaped spade cut across it with a half-moon edging tool and then peel back the two flaps of turf over the hollow. Add some topsoil, level and firm down the flaps. Fill in the gaps left by the cuts with more topsoil.
Removing weeds
Learn to tolerate a few weeds in the lawn or you will be out every day pulling them up, but if small patches or single weeds need to be removed, pull up by hand with the help of a fork. This helps to get the deeper roots of perennial weeds out.
Surviving dry weather
During long dry spells, mow less frequently, let grass grow longer and resist the urge to use summer feeds that make lots of new growth. Don’t worry if the lawn goes brown this summer, it will recover in autumn.

Worn areas
If part of the lawn is used regularly as a path, prevent it from becoming worn away by laying stepping-stones. Dig out paving-slab slices of turf and set these just beneath the surface of the lawn so a lawn mower can pass over them safely. Try to keep off the grass if there are any late frosts.

Trimming edges
Tidying lawn edges keeps the grass looking neat and prevents it from spreading into borders. After mowing, trim any grass that overhangs the edges with long-handled edging shears or a rotary trimmer.

Repairing edges
Parts of an edge that have been severely damaged are easy to repair. Use a spade to slice through the turf, cutting out a small rectangular piece from around the damaged area. Lift from the ground with the spade and turn it around, so the damaged part now faces the lawn. Press down firmly and fill the damaged area with compost. Sow grass seed over the compost and water.

Bare patches
Bare patches attract weeds, so re-sow them now. Fork the soil to break it up, then firm and level it before applying an appropriate grass seed. Cover with fleece or polythene to keep the birds off and water regularly. Another method for covering bare patches is to use a strip of lawn from a rich growing area to patch the bare area (you'll need to re-sow the area where it came from).
Coping with moss
Show me a lawn in Inishowen that doesn’t have moss in it and I will be amazed. There is a tendency to scalp the grass to get rid of the moss but this isn’t really a good idea. Close cropping weakens the grass sward and gives the moss more room to grow. Correcting the drainage is the way to go but if this isn't possible give the lawn a dose of sulphate of iron. This will burn off the unwanted moss. It can then be raked out.

Clippings
Leave grass clippings on the lawn as they rot down and release up to 30 per cent of the lawn's required nutrients. Remove the clippings from the lawn at the beginning and end of the growing season when decomposition is slow and compost them either in your bin or a separate area set aside. Mix with plenty of coarse twigs or cardboard and paper, turning occasionally to let the air in.

Compaction and thatch build up
If your soil is compacted, fork over the area and brush some sharp sand into the holes to aerate it. If there is a large area to treat you could consider going mechanical. The hire companies have tools to cope with large areas of both moss removal and the build up of thatch, (dead matter) which can restrict growth.

Wearing well

Organic chicken manure. Dual-purpose food, both for the soil and the dog.

I’m out in the garden looking at the raised beds today. These planks of wood stuck into the wet ground for the last five years are wearing extremely well. They have been moved a few times, unceremoniously thrown onto the back of trailers, but have held both themselves together and the soil inside them. We have noticed a real lack of worm activity in our soil this year; maybe they are hiding deeper as it seems pretty dry at the moment. The compost bin seem to be void of our slimy friends too, hopefully the numbers should increase soon with the warmer weather.

KEEPING THE WEEDS DOWN
I have been putting weed-suppressing webbing down on one of the beds. We were given some red onions a few weeks ago and although we said we were only going to be growing vegetables that grow upwards this year, we thought a few salad onions would be useful. I made a few small holes in the webbing then pushed the baby onions into these. The sprouting bulbs will hopefully push their way out to the light, leaving us free of weeding for the season. As they grow I am sure we can make good use of the space in between the onions by planting broccoli and kale. To clear the bed completely I pulled up some old leeks as they were tiny and aren’t doing anything as they were left too long last season before being transplanted. Still they were pretty tasty in a soup with the last of the brussel tops and a few rogue spuds that had been left in the ground over the winter. There are even see some old parsnips surviving even after the soil has been turned. I dug a few up to check them out and added them to a stew. I had to cut off quite a bit of rust though.

GETTING STUCK IN
Before putting the webbing over the onion bed I forked in loads of organic chicken pellets. Unfortunately the new dog seems to be rather fond of them and as I pushed the fabric down around the bed, she was scratching and digging the webbing up and chewing on the hard smelly nuggets. The only solution is to get the pepper out and sprinkle it everywhere. This sounds a bit cruel, but it is doing a good job stopping her sitting in the plant pots and also stopping her eating through the internet cable outside the front door. I just have to remember to sprinkle more down after it rains.

I’ve never had a dog like this one for eating things. Only last week she was leaving us deposits that contained half a roll of silver foil, which would no doubt been more uncomfortable for her as it was inconvenient for us to tidy up after her. The other day she also got through nearly a jumbo bag of guinea pig food that she had managed to push onto the floor in the garage. Not wanting to go into too much detail but we were left with messes in the kitchen that resembled Muckish, Sleeve Sneacht and Mount Errigal complete with small seeds that resembled the rocks and topped off with the remains of the silver foil to give a look of the last of the snow. Not very pleasant, especially for Julie as she was the one that cleared it up.

CLEARING THE SHED
My other job earlier today was to clear out the shed. Where on earth does all of the rubbish come? I found ten pairs of Wellingtons in sizes none of us are, old mouldy spuds, leaky fishtanks, old cardboard and everything else that hasn’t had it’s own place over the long winter. I have also been finding my precious tools scattered around the place too. I am one of those people that enjoy seeing the painted silhouette of tools on the wall like in a mechanics garage complete with a hook to hang them from. It shows you at a glance if something hasn’t been put back. I haven’t got around to doing that just yet, so when I need my secatuers, it usually takes me a while to track them down.

No one takes the credit for moving the tools around of course, so it’s obviously the new dog that’s responsible. She gets the blame for everything. There was a day over the Easter holidays when the dog managed to get one of the lad’s large chocolate eggs out of the box in the front room. It then proceeded to open the gold foil around the egg and scrunch it up into a small ball then eat all of the chocolate, leaving not a speck on the floor. I got the blame of course, but I know it’s a personal battle between us to be top dog.

April at the Organic Centre in Rossinver