Raised vegetable beds

The beds are now sown and duly rotated. Here's a new photo. Since I took this, I have strimmed around the beds and added some slug barrier pellets which claim to deter the feckers. The netting is to keep the white butterflies off the cabbages.

Shallots in modules

Good old Monty Don (BBC TV Gardener's World) shared a good tip for preparing shallots for their summer beds. Place the 'sets' sitting in modules filled with compost (any old stuff will do). After a week or so they will have developed huge roots. I tried this and it worked a treat. In fact I had to cut them out of the modules. They are now growing like mad under nets to stop birds uprooting them.

Polytunnel

At long last I've got my polytunnel up and running.
It was supplied by a new company in Carlow:
www.JM Polytunnels.com


At 16ft by 10ft it is huge inside and the vertical wall design makes the most of the floor and vertical space. See their website for a YouTube movie of it being built (by yours truly).


Update: April 2011. Full production going on at the polytunnel. Seeds are sown in modules, toilet roll inners etc and, once big enough, make their way to the coldframe. Once they have acclimatised to outdoor life, they go into the raised beds. Thanks to my mate Mim Scala, these beds have plentiful, well-rotted horse manure dug in (except where plants don't need it). The polytunnel is great for almost certain success in sowing seeds. Even hard-to-germinate Dwarf Green Beans have uncoiled from their toilet rolls. Some plants will be staying indoors - strawberries, peppers, chillis, courgette (just one of them). I also bought some beefsteak tomato seeds and germinated them early in my Lidl heated propagator as they were expensive. (We had them in Turkey and they are fabulous but too thin-skinned to export and probably contravene some Fourth Reich EU regulation). There is a lovely sweet smell in the tunnel from strawberry blossom. Might have to pollinate them by hand as the few bees to enter the tunnel spend all their time batting themselves senseless against the plastic. Am now supplying friends with small veg plants as I sowed too many of everything and realised I wouldn't have enough beds to put them in. Am now looking forward to Nature's bounty.

click for youtube video - building a polytunnel in Ireland

Cabbage beds

Deep beds for brassicas etc. These are at the Goresbridge Community Garden and are shown protected by mini cloches made from cutoff plastic bottles.

Fruit Trees & bushes

As our building plot ("site" in the local parlance) was long and relatively thin, we set about dividing it across it's width early on. I had seeded the whole lot with lawn seed and we maintain the near end as soccer pitch, trampoline arena and more conventional garden. However, erect a structure such as a fence and you have a new planting opportunity. We have fruit trees on the side nearest the house and fruit bushes on the far side (the wild area and vegetable growing & pond area.

Here's a photo of blossom from last week. It might be cherry or apple or pear.

Smooth Newt

Me and the kids discovered a female Smooth Newt in the garden, under a pile of large stones which were not used for a wall I built. These are the only type to occur in Ireland. We have put the newt into the wildlife (fish-free) pond, where I hope she will start a colony. Haven't seen a newt since I was a kid and we used to get them in our garden & pond in Hornchurch, Essex so I was very excited. Create the environment in a garden and nature will do the rest.

Growing Vegetables from seed

2 fantastic books to get: Joy Larkcom's comprehensive "Grow your own vegetables" and Chris Beardshaw's "How does your garden grow". The latter is almost philosophy and is beautifully produced. Not currently in print so source it from Amazon and immerse yourself in the science and wonder of plant reproduction plus anecdotes from Chris's grandfather and other soil-encrusted mentors.

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Updates: end April 2010. Spuds doing well under black plastic. Runner beans planted out and growing. Had to put nets around them both to keep chickens off. Coldframe is now bursting with veg, waiting to go in. Bought a heated propagator in LIDL for 20 euro and have a batch of tomatoes growing. The constant heat from below is the key to starting seedlings, according to numerous books I've read. The toms took only a week to sprout. Good for cuttings too, I've read, as heat from below is the key to success. Also tepid water is better than the shock of cold water.

I discovered that some growers pump CO2 into their commercial greenhouses or burn propane to give off ethylene. Both methods vastly increase growth, despite the official eco-worriers preaching the contrary.

Gardening course going well at the Goresbridge Poly(tunnel). Seriously considering getting a polytunnel from a guy in Clonmel called John Manning. As he is an engineer, they seem to be better built than most. He also uses commercial grade plastic, sourced from the factory in Crete so I'm talking myself into it. (Having seen the tunnels, I'm definitely getting one from him): http://www.gardenpolytunnels.ie/

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As the raised beds are well prepared, I have converted our small shed into a Potting Shed. I have ALDI propagators full of seedlings and white reflectors behind and above them to make use of what light there is through the one window. It faces North, so no direct sun. Temperatures still a bit cold for germination, so have moved my Prince Charles' Estate "Heritage" carrots (sown in toilet roll inners) to a polytunnel which I have the use of as part of a course I'm doing. Will then re-pot most of the seedlings and put them in the DIY coldframe to get used to the cold reality of Irish weather before sowing in the raised beds. The carrots can go straight in when the soil warms up a bit.

Note to self: Will have to fence the veg beds off from the marauding chickens which are drawn to the bare soil of the beds.

Got some "Home Guard" first early spuds going in a black plastic-covered bed and a metal drum I found. My dad was in the Home Guard so couldn't resist it. Drilled drainage holes in the drum and painted it green with ALDI water-based paint. Put a clear plastic cover over the top to help warm them up. No sign of any shoots though. You are meant to heap up soils as they grow in the drum to stop them turning green and poisonous. Not necessary for the beds under plastic. First earlies are meant to survive any blight as you eat them before blight appears in humid warm weather. We'll see...

Update: July 2010.

Spuds came up luverly! The greenery collapsed but the spuds themselves are fine.

NEW: Photo gallery of Goresbridge Community Garden: http://www.flickr.com/photos/goresbridge_gardening/