Sallygardens Smallholding

Successful Strawberries

At long last I can report that there has finally been a successful crop at of strawberries at Sallygardens! This is our third season trying  and I had sworn that if we didn't get a decent return we would cut our losses and never try again. In year one we bought some plants and eagerly put them outside in a well prepared bed. Anticipation rose as a huge spray of flowers appeared promising us a big bounty. The fruit all set and we watched them daily as the white strawberries began to swell. One day we saw the first blush of pink and the next day ... they had all been demolished by slugs! Lesson learned.

The following year we bought a beautiful terracotta strawberry pot. We positioned the pot by the back door, off grass, on the footpath which did a great job in deterring the slugs. The fruit got a stage further this time, a beautiful rich red colour, but on closer inspection the strawberries were almost hollowed out by ants. We put a thick coating of vaseline around the base and upper lip of the pot and that stopped the ants in their tracks. However waiting in the wings for their opportunity were the birds who swooped in and wiped out most of the remaining fruit. Smeared in vaseline and surrounded by a cage of chicken wire the once attractive terracotta strawberry pot had become quite an eyesore.

Year three and the polytunnel was our final stab at growing our own strawberries. We planted them into a mulched bed along the southern edge of the tunnel. No slugs, ants, birds or other vermin managed to attack the young crop. Indeed we've had three massive helpings so far with full bowls for all the family. It's been such a mouth watering success that I'm going to devote three times the area to the strawberries next year.

My friend Mary has come up with a great way to grow strawberries out of harms way plus it utilises every inch of potential space to grow food. This method would be ideal in urban settings with restricted space. She has used plastic gutters against the wall of her house. The guttering contains a length of seep hose and each section slopes gently downwards to assist drainage.

Hanging Basket Tomatoes

Last year we grew eight tomato plants in the polytunnel and realised that you just can't ever have enough of them. This year we've made space for eighteen plants on the ground and having got the lust for home grown toms I decided to milk every possible available bit of space... including the air!  I'm experimenting with 'tumbling toms', a variety that's perfect for hanging baskets. There are two baskets in the polytunnel, each with three tumbling tom plants. I also have two hanging baskets beside the back door of the farmhouse and they contain sweet pea (for heady aroma), busy lizzy (because they were cheap at Lidl!), pot marigold (petals for salads), nasturium (again, salad leaves & flowers) and of course each basket also contains one 'tumbling tom'. It'll be interesting to see if the ones in the polytunnel do much better than those outdoors.

Last year we also grew several varieties but this year we only have two on the ground; Ailsa Craig and Gardeners Delight both grown from seed. There's a very good reason why these are the favourites of gardeners world wide and that reason is that the flavour is absolutely superb. So even if you live in an urban environment you can grow tomatoes in hanging baskets. They would be especially well on a south facing wall.

Raised Beds

The days this time of year are busy with sowing, planting and weeding. Growth is so sudden and prolific that it's hard to keep on top of it all and the choices for dinner expand by the day (just as time to spend cooking it diminishes!). Gone are the days of late winter when kale and chard were just beginning to fall out of favour and instead we are now spoiled for choice. Everything in the polytunnel is doing well. Melons, grape vines, strawberries, peach, mixed lettuce, chop suey greens, golden and red beetroot, broad beans, peas (pod, mange tout & sugar snap), french beans (purple & golden teepee), runner beans (Lady Di and Polestar), artichoke, chard, rocket, carrot, herbs, tomatoes, pepper, chilli, aubergine (black beauty), courgette and sweet corn are all coming along nicely. I did manage to kill off six lovely cucumber plants (paska and marketmore) by planting them out too early, the cold nights were too much for them so that's set me back a few weeks on one of my favourite vegetables.  I just couldn't help planting them even though I knew it was too early! One melon plant also copped it out of three, but luckily I've a couple of spares in a seed tray ready to take it's place. Having a few extra of each thing is a great insurance policy, then if they're not needed they come in as great birthday gifts ... just pop a selection of salads, or a couple of tomato or melon plants into a grow bag or even a hanging basket.

One thing I haven't really indulged in greatly are brassicas. We always have purple sprouting brocolli but this year I've tried my hand at a handful of cauliflowers, cabbage and calabrese. To accommodate these we've been working on a couple of new raised beds. With this extra outside space I'll also experiment with some swede, turnip and kohl rabi, parsnip and leek. Hopefully these things will mean we'll be providing ourselves with food during the winter this year too. It's all been a lot of hard work, but it's well for some ...

Wildflower Meadow

Last autumn we decided that we would try to replace part of our lawn with a wildflower meadow. Several reasons led to this decision. The garden already has plenty of lawn and keeping it mowed is a major undertaking particularly when there's so much other work to do on the smallholding. I also like the idea of reducing the area I mow due to the fuel that's consumed simply to keep nature under 'control'. So I thought, why not let nature run riot in a mass of colour that will attract plenty of wildlife and feed my bees with nectar for the hives. It will also provide a little hay for the goats as it needs cutting once a year after the flowers have set seed.

The first thing to do in order to convert an area to wildflower is to remove whatever's growing on it already. Enter pigs stage left. We put them on the front lawn for about a month when they first arrived and they did a good job turning it over. Three months later there was quite a lot of new growth grass sprouting up so we put the pigs back on the lawn, and being much bigger by then, they turned the lot over in less than two weeks. With a wildflower meadow less is more, it prefers a nutrient poor environment, which in practical terms meant any pig poo had to be removed daily and put in the compost.

The soil has laid fallow since October. It's clay and so digging it while wet is next to impossible. This week the soil has dried out quite a bit and so I've begun digging over a couple of meters a day and seeding it with a native wildflower mixture that I bought on-line. It's very hard work, perhaps it won't all get done this year!

I can't wait to see some of the widlflower seedlings begin to push through. Hopefully by the end of the summer, or perhaps next summer, I'll be able to show you the transformation from muddy slop to a meadow of flowers.

Sowing Seeds

This month is a very busy one in the garden. I am spending a lot of time in the polytunnel. I have bee sowing a lot of plants in seed trays which I leave in the polytunnel to germinate ... things like lettuce, amarynth, chop suey greens, beetroot, swiss chard and pak choi. There are a few things that I plant direct into the soil because they are tough enough to survive without the luxury accommodation of a seed tray to start off. These include radish, rocket, perpetual spinach (beet), carrot and a range of herbs. We are building a new raised bed for the brassicas which won't be ready for a while so I'm also planting cabbage, brocolli, calabrese, cauliflower, swede, turnip and brussel sprouts in seed trays.

A month ago I planted three potatoes in the polytunnel and these have already pushed up leaves. I've earthed them up ... that means I've piled some more soil over the emerging leaves to cover them which promotes production of more potatoes. You can earth up a potatoe plant two or three times. These three plants will give us an extra early treat of new potatoes, but I wouldn't plant more than that in the polytunnel as the space is needed for everything else. The rest of the spuds are to be planted outdoors in a lazy bed like last year, but with St Patricks day being the traditional day for planting potatoes we are already a week behind schedule. You see, stress can still exist outside the rat race, it just takes on different guises!

Seedlings that need special care in terms of extra warmth have been sown indoors in a heated propagator on our bedroom windowsill. The plants that need this care to survive include tomatoes, cucumber, melon, aubergine, sweet pepper and chilli. These plants all need a long growing season and so they are started off that little bit earlier than other plants. I have just potted all of  these up into individual pots.  I will keep them indoors on our hallway windowsill for another few weeks before planting in the polytunnel. The propagator is now ready to receive a new sowing of another batch of warmth loving plants, this time sweetcorn, courgette and squash seeds.

Most of the hard work is done now but the seedlings need to be watched closely for a couple of weeks in their seed trays. They are at risk of drying out so I need to check them a couple of times a day when the sun is shining. To lose all the trays now would be a huge set back, so vigilence is required to keep them safe from a variety of possible  calamities ... cats love black seed trays to sleep on, dogs run through polytunnels with glee, hens would scratch through seedbeds and devour seedlings, visiting children unknowingly 'play' with  seed trays etc etc. Its a tense time!!! Going away on an Easter break is not on the agenda, but luckily we have no desire to head off anywhere soon because what we are doing here is so rewarding.

If you are tempted to grow your own vegetables for the first time an easy way to start is to visit your garden centre where they sell seedlings that just need planting into a prepared bed. The initial cost of the plant is miniscule in comparison to the money you will save from harvesting your own crop. Its a great way to dip your toe into vegetable gardening. If you get hooked and grow from seed next year, the savings are even greater. With the way the world economy is going, the rising cost of fuel is impacting on the cost of food on the supermarket shelves and space for food crops is now competing with the growth of biofuels. There has never been a better time to start your own veg garden because as months pass the percentage of your monthly income you spend on food is going rise considerably. If I lived in the city and had a garden I'd be utilising available space to grow edible plants and would be lobbying my local TD/MP to provide allotments for those who don't. If I were designing cityscapes I'd be including fruit trees and fruit bushes instead of pure ornamentals (bravo to Drumsna in Co Leitrim who recently planted up a significant part of their roadside with a selection of apple trees). Are there any urban readers who grow their own? What space restrictions do you have, what do you grow and where? Are there urban readers who would like to grow their own but don't know where to start? Depending on the response I could begin a series of articles on this subject.

This Years Crops Make an Appearance

There have been a few new arrivals of a vegetative nature in the garden and the polytunnel. The first exciting crop of the year to harvest outdoors is the purple sprouting brocolli. I grew it from seed which is hard to believe now, as it stands a couple of feet high bearing a very impressive crop of spears. I picked the first spears last week, and naturally, they were delicious! I planted two varieties, an early and a late cropping type (approximately 12 plants in total), so we ought to have a good stretch in supply over the next four months. As long as we keep harvesting the spears before they begin to burst into delightful little yellow flowers the plants will continue to produce more and more spears.

Inside the polytunnel there are  several crops that have continued to provide our table over the winter including chard, perpetual spinach, a range of oriental salad leaves, kale and a few herbs such as parsley, savoury, rosemary and sage. But in the last couple of weeks the chives have pushed up their pointed green tips through the soil and a tray of seedlings have sprouted.

The broad beans were planted in October, and a few more have gone in  three weeks ago. They are doing well, about half a foot high now. I'll sow a small batch every three weeks until the bean bed is full. The peas too are coming on although they are so delicate and look quite vulnerable. This year I'm also trying out a couple of dwarf pea varieties (mange tout and sugar snap), they'll fit the small side beds nicely that don't have much height due to the over arching plastic.  Its all very exciting waiting for this burst of growth, which all seems so two dimensional at the moment, to literally hit the roof in a few weeks time.

Winter Life in the Polytunnel

You remember back in November I sowed some heirloom broad beans (aquadulce claudia) and peas (Feltham First)? They all germinated in the seed trays, and when they were a couple of inches tall I planted them out in the polytunnel. Growth is naturally extremely very slow this time of year, but they are coming on nicely nevertheless.

Last week I planted another tray of beans (more aquadulce but also Express) and peas (more Feltham plus Hurst Green Shaft) and I'll continue to do that now every three weeks until mid July (or roughly 60 days before your first frosts are generally expected). The 'official' word for planting a few of something every two or three weeks is 'successional' sowing. The point of it is that as each batch reaches maturity at slightly staggered times and so the harvest is stretched out over a long period rather than having a sudden glut of beans or peas all at once. This is the first year I've been organised enough to bother with the successional sowing approach so I'm interested to see what difference it makes. I hope that there is still enough of a glut to put some in the freezer for next winter.

Last years bean plants

And the pest that causes the greatest danger to these particular plants? My children! Actually the fact that they sneak in and chew pods right off the plant is what its all about and although I sometimes pretend to be a bit annoyed about it, secretly I'm delighted ... delicious fresh food for the family and children understanding where it comes from, and assuming its not all grazed before it reaches the kitchen ... how to cook it.

You don't have to live on a rural smallholding to grow peas and beans. They are ideal for a small urban garden because they climb upright and so take up minimal space. Children love to get involved with this too.  Five or six plants of each and you have a very impressive crop on your hands, its even worth it even you only have space for two plants of each. Plant the seeds mid March, (in Ireland traditionally on St Patricks day 17th, or the equinox on 21st) one seed to each cell of a seed tray. Keep indoors on a south facing window sill, watered but not soggy. They should sprout in a week or so. When a couple of inches high put them outside during the day, take indoors at night for two or three days. This is called 'hardening off', it allows the plant to acclimatize to outdoor temperatures. Then you can plant them into the soil next to a fence or tie onto poles/sticks for them to climb up. Peas have tendrils and will eventually cling, beans have none and need to be tied gently with string to their supports.

Polytunnel Planting Plan

We have both agreed on a final list of seeds that have made it through to this years polytunnel bootcamp where each plant will have the chance to perform and prove its worth. I wonder which of our selections will be the Leon or Leona of harvest 2008. This is the horticultural  version of X-Factor , or should it be F1-Factor!

Armed with 'the list' I have mapped out the polytunnel using a very basic method ... one of my average sized steps is equal to 3cm on my diagram. And so, taking into account my notes of where everything grew this season, and looking at my video clip of the tunnel in mid summer to remind myself about areas I had already forgotten, I have planned where I will plant everything. At first glance it all looks totally random, but no, there is method there, honest!

First of all I look at the aspect ie where north, south, east and west lie. Tall plants I put along the northern end of the tunnel. This is so that they will not shade out other smaller plants during the long summer days as the dawn sun first enters the tunnel from the west, then full glaze from the south, and by evening it moves around to shine from the east. By then the shading won't matter so much, the smaller plants will already have had a good day long dose.

I also take into account what plants were growing where this season and do my best to rotate so that the three plant types aren't grown in the same plot two seasons in a row, and aim to give three years before that 'group' returns to a bed (roots, brassicas and others). This gives the soil a 'rest' from the particular nutritional demands of each plant group, preventing depletion of certain nutrients and trace elements. Any good gardening book gives examples of plot rotation but this is the one on my shelf.

I also refer to my notes to see if I need to plant more or less of any crop for next season and use that information to measure out the revised plot sizes. Consider  whether you and your neighbours were sick of the sight of courgettes (probably!) or craving for more sugar snap peas?! For example last year I grew 'one step' of pea plants, this year I want to grow a little more to meat our families demands, so the bed will increase to one and a half steps wide.

If theres still room for maneuver I put plants I harvest on a daily basis, such as salad leaves and herbs, closer to the entrance. There are also parts of the tunnel that are watered overhead, others watered by seep hose, and patches within that arrangement that I've noticed that are particularly dry or wet. Again I use these features to decide where to put which plants. For example the tomatoes, peppers, chilli, aubergine and courgettes all go in seep hose zones because damp leaves for these plants leads to problems with mildew or leaf burn, whereas salad leaves, carrots and most herbs seem to enjoy the sprinkler.

Everything that is permanent has been drawn in ink ie the structure and raised beds. I have a copy of it now so next year I can just print off a blank and start again. I draw in the various crops with pencil so I can move it all around and cater for mid season changes ... I'm expecting that for some reason or another I won't be able to stick entirely to the plan ... say for example two weeks of kids with chicken pox, or a pig gets in and roots up a bed, or I just forget we have a polytunnel for a while because I get sidetracked and a tray or two of seedlings shrivel up and die, or the dog chooses to lie on the salad leaves. You may have guessed that most of these scenarios are more than mere meanderings of my imagination.

The artichokes are perennials (ie they grow year after year), as will be the planned vine. There will be flowers planted among the beds, including borage, pot and french marigold, and sweet pea. The latter is actually still flowering well in the tunnel now which is a wonderful surprise. Some new crops we intend to add this year include strawberry and melon, and Dan is very keen to have a go at asparagus ... yes he is very patient ... it takes 3 years to get a crop! I daren't grow it myself because I could just imagine how furious I'd be at some toddler who may come along on the 4th year and yank the whole lot out for fun!

Ordering Seeds for the Vegetable Garden

With another year almost completed on the vegetable garden learning curve its time to begin carrying over some of those lessons in terms of deciding what to grow next  year. With about half of the polytunnel beds dug over and treated to household compost, manure and seaweed dust its exciting to start thinking about plans for next years sowings. I've been mulling over what I want to grow again (mixed salad leaves, courgettes, herbs), what new things I'd like to try (melon, asparagus, cauliflower, parsnip, leek), what won't be grown again (baby sweetcorn, New Zealand spinach, aubergine) , and revising how much of each crop to grow where (less courgettes plants - 4 will do, more tomatos - up from 8 to 12 plants).

The last couple of evenings we have been selecting our seeds from our favourite catalogue a task we relish in! I like to browse on a paper catalogue, underlining important points to aid the final choice, and then order on-line. Each vegetable may offer a mind boggling array of varieties. I take into account the months of the season a particular vegetable is ready to harvest, so for example, when selecting purple sprouting brocolli I choose two varieties ... an early which is harvested in February and March, and a late which is ready to harvest in April and May. I also like organic and heirloom varieties,  and experimenting with different  colours and shapes eg purple  beans, ribbed courgettes, golden beetroot, round carrots.

There are a variety of places where seed can be purchased ;
Chilterns Seeds, UK - you can request a paper catalogue via their website. Enjoy their illustrations!
The Organic Centre, Ireland - all seeds organic, download the catalogue and order form 
Irish Seed Savers Association - dedicated to the location and preservation of traditional varieties of fruit and vegetables. Its possible to buy varieties originating from your local area.

Or buy from Amazon

November in the Polytunnel - Making the Bed

Sadly the tomatoes have finally come to an end. They are no longer ripening so I cut off the final crop. Those that are slightly pink I'll hang in a sunny window to hopefully ripen. Hanging a few very ripe bananas amongst them will speed up the ripening process. The release of ethylene gas from the banana and other ripening toms accelerates the process... or so the rumour goes! The toms are that still very much green I will use for my second batch of delicious char grilled green tomato chutney.

Once the tomato plants were dug up I forked through the soil, removing any weeds and breaking down  large chunks - the delights of gardening on a heavy clay soil! To each square meter I added a few spade fulls of homemade garden compost, well rotted horse manure and a hand full of seaweed powder we got from Fruit Hill Farm (suppliers of environmentally friendly house, farm and garden products here in Ireland).  These additions will replace the soil with nutrients lost to this years growth. It will also help the clay to form a more plant friendly and easily worked crumbly soil. Moisture retention will also benefit. The seaweed powder packs the soil with micronutrients and trace elements, all of which add health and vitality to the crops grown in it, and consequently into our bodies!

One hours hard work and this bed is now ready to plant up in spring. Who needs the gym when you have the delights of a polytunnel and all the reward that goes hand in hand with it.