Beautiful day, beautiful compost

There's plenty more tidying up to be done as you can see but if the sun
hangs around that wont be a problem

The final year at college is nearly over and I can tell you that I cant wait to get back to normality. Studying is all well and good but it prevents me from doing all the things I love, like gardening. Still, I took yesterday off and went out into the sunshine and enjoyed the garden immensely. Its been about 3 years now since we started composting and it has been a major help in the garden as well as a money saver. Compost on tap, you might say. This year we bough a new composter, same as the old one but the old one needed emptying cleaning and reviving. We emptied it yesterday and I used it all over the place. What I was most happy with is the fact that it was fabulously broken down and gave me 4 barrow loads. Enough to add to the potatoe drill, the bed where I planted the peas, improving the soil where I have planted cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli. It just seemed to go on. Granted its all been used up now as the new composter is only just up and running but I really felt that the effort with it over the past few years really paid off. It wasnt a fancy pants composter and didnt cost alot but was everything and more than I expected. Furthermore, it added to a great days gardening. Lots of the veg is very late in being put out but then that's exams for you. Better late than never and the enjoyment in the sunshine was immense. Here's to a successful veggy patch this year. Cheers!

My own Olympic champions

A little chef for pollinators

I'm always wishing the weather was better here and we do seem to get such a lot of rain. This year of course has beaten the rest with some rotten weather and I have done my fair share of complaining. However, I have heard of some real disasters regarding the garden and on farms with many people suffering complete failures of potatoes from blight as well as other problems which must be so disheartening especially if you are only starting out. Our family did small amounts, mostly because of lack of space and it being our first time but as I type this I am reminded that when we went to get garden bits and bobs at our local centre this is exactly what the lady at the counter suggested. Too many people go mad and plant so much that when things go wrong they give up altogether.

Anyway I am rambling away from what I really wanted to say. All in all I am very proud of our efforts and have had some real successes in the veg patch even though the produce was in limited supply. In fact its been so rewarding that I am definitely going to try and grow produce over the winter months to keep some snack or two on the plate. It will take some real planning as I dont know where I will get seed at this time of year in Ireland as most people seem to grow summer veg as a novelty so I need to check this out.

For anyone who is like me and wants to start out on the path to sustainability (of some degree anyway) then I must recommend the "Grow it" magazine. Forgive me for name dropping but if something works for me then I believe in passing it on and apologies if I have mentioned it before (i dont remember doing it). This magazine is a little pricey at €5.98 but with 5 packets of seeds to try each time it really works out quite well and I would have been lost without it.

Here are quite a few pictures of what has been going on in our garden over the summer months despite the bad weather and what I believe were slug conferences on many occasions!

The Squash  Patty Pan having been put out in the soil
was looking well..

..and it continued to flower ..

Result! our first squash. The slugs attacked another plant
but this one held on and is now quite big

Our cold frame was adapted to protect the strawberries form birds and it worked . We now have trailers to get more strawberries next year.

Tomatoes looking divine on the chopping board

Tomatoes looking divine on the vine

Peas, mums favourite veg to grow

Mange tout size here but we have since picked a couple of full ones

Tasty little carrots 

Fabulously delicious potatoes which have since been eaten

Something for the wildlife

The apple of my eye.

Pruned and proud 

Meet Elsie-Kate. Yes, Elsie-Kate. I'm afraid I have grown this attached to her already. I've wanted an apple tree for some time now and thought that I would have to get two for my back garden as I have been told that two is vital for pollination but then I realised that my neighbours had apple trees and started investigating. They have eating apples and I wanted the same (cooking apples not being a favorite of mine), so I ventured off to a good gardening centre and after a lot of advise and a crash course in tree care I arrived home with my prize. I had wanted to put it in a different location in the garden  as my summer bench usually sits here but needs must as this is the sunniest spot. Before long I was out with spade and trowl but as with many estates I and my young neighbour of 6 years of age, spent most of the time removing the 1000's of stones which are quite often a large portion of the new estates of Ireland's gardens. Still my own compost and some well rotted manure (neither personally belonging to me you understand!?) were added to welcome my new tree to its new resting place and so now its fingers crossed.

Anyway, the main reason I am adding this to my blog is that there are too few trees around new estates these days. I didn't realise for the first year that I was here that only the houses at the front of our estate included a cherry tree (non fruiting of course). I felt bad that we only had one tree on our plot and beautiful as it is it only blossoms for a couple of weeks every year but most of the houses had no trees at all. This is an issue I feel for the environment and us. As living, breathing human beings we need trees in order to give us oxygen. So this is one of my reasons for adding another to the small enough green areas of our planet. The other reason is home produce. So I'm slightly obsessed with it. I wont be sorry to pick a few fresh apples from my own back garden in a few years, maybe even one or two this year. Not having to go to the shop, fork out money for them and then wonder what they may have been sprayed with in order to keep them "fresh"....I'll take some of that thank you very much.

 This tree cost me €22. It didnt break the bank and if I take care of it, it will take care of me.

What is your opinion? Are there enough trees in your area giving you beautiful flowers, fragrance, produce or shade. Have you ever taken notice before and if not what do you think now?

Make your bed and plant in it

The first bed completed and netted.

So nice to have a bit of time to get out in the garden. I am taking leap forward this year and hoping to get my hand on an allotment but while I am waiting my parents and I are in the process of putting together 3 beds to grow veggies in. A kind neighbour has given us some topsoil so we have added some of our own compost that we have been making over the past year and some well rotted horse manure (thanks to another friendly neighbour) in order to pack in some nutrients. Its been back breaking stuff just trying to sort that out so that we can get planting. So far though we have potatoes and cabbage in one of the beds and this evening dad and I prepared the 2nd bed. No we wont get jobs on Gardner's World but we'll keep our fingers crossed that the effort we put in wont go to waste.

The precious cabbages protected (we hope) from invading slugs.

I wont say that it was altogether cheap as we spent a bit on netting, bamboo, tomato feed and an amount of other things but then we got the knack of being 'vernacular' (my old lecturer would be proud) by using old sticks to hold up the netting rather than using the bamboo which we wanted to keep for staking up plants as they grow and we may even see how an old net curtain might do when we need netting the next time. 

Ultimately our goal is fresh home grown and organic produce to enjoy but if nothing else we are out in the fresh air and getting plenty of exercise, not to mention spending time with the ones you love! ( I dont mean the veggies :)

Bed no 2 ready for more edible delights.

Nature carries on even when you stop.

What a gorgeous day today is as was yesterday.  We have just finished mowing the lawn and intend to have dinner soon outside. Heaven knows when the opportunity will come again. Anyway I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been cutting the grass and if you have been doing the same, where are you putting that cut grass? Hopefully you are putting it to good use by placing it in your compost heap. While you have finished working nature will carry on so that you can have a lovely compost in the future. If so, you are not paying for it to be carted away and giving compost mixture to another source for free. If you haven't got a compost bin or heap then take a look at starting one up if you have a garden. You can place peelings, grass, paper twigs and leaves into it and after a certain amount of time (depending on the type of heap you have and the amount of turning you do to it with a garden fork) then you will have lovely compost for your plants and flowers over the next year or two. If you do pay for the bin man to pick it up then chances are he is using for himself or maybe it could go towards making compost that could be sold on. I dont know for sure but I cant imagine someone isn't making good use of it. Are you paying for it (again) when you buy it from the garden centre next year? Think about it and see if you can save yourself a few pennies and when all that is done get outside and enjoy the sun and the garden with a nice cool drink. Cheers!

To get your composting mini guide click here from the Limerick County Council website.

"I love it when a plan comes together"

I'm always encouraging people to recycle and be self sufficient whenever possible....as if you hadn't noticed already! I do however put my money where my mouth is .....theoretically speaking as cash is not exactly growing on my cherry tree. So the sun came out today, for a change, and I thought it was time I started on the back garden. I have the berry bushes, herbs and other plants ready to go but they need me to dig a trench and get going. So I thought it was about time I popped over to the parents and asked for my share of compost that we have been working on over the past 2-3 years together. I wasn't sure if it would be a success or not. Would it be too wet or even have broken down at all? I dont know why I was so pessimistic as I had followed the instructions, so to speak, all along. I knew that the top half of the compost wouldn't have broken down as we continually top it up and I didn't expect too much out of it either but I was really happy with our family efforts as I was able to shovel out a very nice amount of perfect compost. There were plenty of worms in there and squirmish or not, I knew that this was a really good sign as it's these little chaps that do all of the work 

Hubble Bubble toil and trouble....

Not one of my better pictures thats for sure but what a great night we had last year for Halloween! I hadn't dressed up in years  before this but I would highly recommend it. I couldn't get the green face paint off for days!!! But its that time again when the little ones are all excited and half terrified but love it at the same time and some of us grown ups are just as bad. So why am I writing about it here in this blog? Well we can do this with the environment in mind too and so I thought I would put a few pointers out for those of you who might be interested.

Winter Warmer Mmm..

I have just made my favorite soup which really is a meal in itself. I love making this as it really is wholesome and good but what I also love about it is that there is no real waste. Because its all vegetables the only things that gets thrown away are the peelings an the other reason it's a winner is that it easy to make and I get 2 nights out of it (or one night if feeding four people). You need a blender though. So, although this is not a recipe blog, I thought I'd share this with you as not only will it make you feel good inside, it will make your Eco conscience feel warm and cosy too.
Get stuck into this winter warmer...

Back to the Nitty Gritty!

Going back to my recycling post I mentioned getting used to what you throw away and becoming aware of different items that can be recycled. Still there is something else that can be done to reduce the amount of waste that gets thrown in the bin and can be a huge help to you. Composting! "Yuk!" I hear you say? No no, it really is easy so listen up. There are plenty of things that can be composted such as grass, newspaper, egg shells, all vegetable peelings, egg cartons (although I prefer to give mine back to the market for re-use) and citrus peelings (in moderation and these I find help to keep the flies away too). Lets face it I bet there's plenty in this short list that goes into the landfill isn't there? Why not compost it and then when the summer comes you wont need to buy the expensive compost.

"It's too smelly. It encourages rats and vermin. I cant be bothered..."

 ..are some of the usual reasons I hear for not composting. Really, none of these are true as I have found out.....