Sallygardens Smallholding

Grubs Up

It looks like an average meal ... or at least it does to me  ... to some people perhaps a microwave tv dinner looks like an average meal! Yeh yeh so whats so special about this particular dinner?

Absolutely everything on this plate is produced on our smallholding. The farthest any item has traveled to my plate is, ooh, a good 25meters, by foot.

Look at these runner beans. I love them! The purple beens are magical ... the flowers are purple ... the beans grow purple ... and when put in boiling water they turn green. How cool is that! The green beens are just as beautiful, with pretty red flowers. Both these things grow prolifically. We have four plants of each and thats more than enough for a family of four, plus ample surplus.

The apple sauce? We have six enormous apple trees (I just ran out in the rain to count them!) which have not fruited for the last two years. Last winter we decided to try hard pruning them, and set into the first step of a programme that will run over three years. It involved Dan climbing up about 15ft with a chainsaw and lopping off selected branches. Luckily there were no 'cutting-off-the-branch-on-which-he-was-standing' scenarios, although I can see how easy it would be for that to happen! Success, this year the trees have red globes weighing down their branches. So sauce, apple crumble and apple juice is in abundance again.

The peas, you've already heard me rant about the peas a few days ago. Then last but not least the roast ham, with crackling skin. Oh god the pork, from woodland to table, its flavour is unbelievable!

There, thats done it. Now I'm starving!

Beautiful Borage

This time of year the herb garden is bountiful. The foliage and flowers are bursting with colour and flavour, enticing the gardener to graze. Personally, I can't pass the herb garden without at least one daily munching on the feathery leaves of fennel, dill and coriander, and a mouthful of nasturtium or borage flowers. Herbs are a boost to the soul, a gift from natures pharmacy, all beautifully packaged and perfectly presented. Herbal remedies are one of my passions, in particular those available from the plants that grow wild in the Irish countryside. They have so much to offer, and the treatments, if used carefully, are so much more gentle on the system ... a pleasure to work with. Oh, and of course, they are free! Attending a course, and/or purchasing an excellent book are essential steps before embarking on a herbal voyage of discovery. Several herbs that grow on our shores are lethal, so nibbling on various unknowns is a mugs game. Even overdoing it on Borage can have serious consequences on the liver. This is the book on my kitchen shelf.

Borage is in full bloom outside our kitchen door. I didn't plant it this year, it has self seaded from last years flowers, so a very welcome surprise in the flower bed. The stems are covered in little bristley hairs which can be quite painful, but give the plant a beautiful fluffy appearance. The angelic little blue star flowers bow their humble heads, turning from blue to pink as they fade. The flowers themselves are delicious, beautiful in salads, or adorning the edge of a plate and bursting with borage oil.

Bring the beauty of these little flowers to your iced summer drinks (homemade Elderflower cordial for example). Put one flower head in each ice cube section, and fill with cooled boiled water (for a clear ice cube), place in the freezer overnight. Here I've used a mixture of borage and golden feverfew blossoms.

Exquisite.

Blighted by Blight

Plenty of damp weather is an ideal breeding ground for potato blight. Recently we have had plenty of damp weather ... and now we have blight! No real surprise. We had decided against spraying and tried the organic route. I suppose we ought to have researched exactly what the organic route might be before the blight struck, but hindsight is a great thing. Once a neighbour confirmed the diagnosis, a couple of vegetative emergency contacts gave us two options to try. Being curious, we decided to use one method on half the crop and the second method on the other to 'compare and contrast' (as they used to say in school) the results.

Not all our potatoes have been affected. Duke of York, British Queen and Cara were all badly hit. Cara showed a little resistance, but bit the dust in the end. The only potato that has stood healthy and proud as her sisters went brown, blotchy, and collapsed in a slimy heap ... were the sarpo mira. Guess which one we'll be growing next year??? Inside the polytunnel its a different story. No sign of blight in there as yet. We had planted potatoes around a thin edge bed, which would have been impossible to dig up against the plastic. Instead we threw potatoes on the ground and covered them with rotted manure ... no digging required. Once harvested we will simply mulch the bed and use it as required. I'm thinking a low lying crop ... perhaps strawberries in this mini side bed? So, back to the task at hand ....

Mother In Law, an allotment expert, gave us the first blight approach ;
Dig up the spuds, gently wash them (we used the kids paddling pool), dry them, and store in a cool dry place in paper sacks. A lot of digging ensued. The benefit of this is that the potatoes are already washed when I go to use them in the kitchen.

Option number two came from Hedgewizard in quick response to a pleading email from me ;
Remove and burn all the vegetation. Leave the spuds in the ground for three weeks, during which time the spores will have died off. On a dry sunny day (snigger!) dig up the potatoes and store them without washing, in a cool dry place, in a paper sack.

For both methods any damaged tubers must not be stored, and should be used immediately. I'll let you know what happens.

In Ireland you can't hear the word 'blight' without thinking of the Great Hunger. To gain some understanding of the dark causes of the terrible famine (no, not just blight!) you ought to take the time to  read up on Irish history. If fiction is your thing, I can recommend an excellent book which is set during the stark realities of the Irish famine, called  Star of the Sea, by Joseph O'Connor

First Bounty of New Spuds

The new potatoes are ready to harvest. The plants have been flowering the last 10 days, so we dug up a plant to investigate and the reward ... this seasons first delicious spud harvest. They are best cooked directly after digging them up, boiled lightly and served with butter. They are so sweet that even the children think they are wonderful.

This variety was a second early (British Queen). We have also planted several maincrop varieties so we should have a crop that we can continue to harvest for several months. Next month I will plant some in the polytunnel, which should ensure a harvest of new potatoes on Christmas day ... the ultimate culinary indulgence!

A Load Of ...

We took delivery of a trailor load of horse manure ...

I love these good old tractors that seem to keep on going forever. For me they are an aesthetic reminder of what country life was like when I visited it in my childhood,  school holidays were spent  rummaging around woods in County Roscommon and visiting family friends with orphan lambs in cardboard boxes keeping warm beside the range cooker and requiring bottle feeding much to the glee of  small children, including me!

You may recall the problem with this horse manure is that its mixed with a high volume of wood chip and so we will have to compost it for a couple of years. In the meantime, its covered with a polythene sheet until it goes into compost bins. Somebody has discovered that composting manure gives off a considerable amount of heat and is spending the majority of her day happily ensconsed !!! ...

Or what about coiling some pipe through it for hot water, or sinking a hot tub into it!

Forgotten Seedlings

Last year as part of my first steps into the world of growing fruit and veg, I planted four purple sprouting brocolli seeds. They grew, I forgot what they were, and I planted them out anyway. This year I was reminded what the plants were through the reward of harvesting enough beautiful purple sprouting to feed a family of four, which should continue now from April for a couple of months. Its my favourite vegetable. Needless to say that this year we will be planting quite a few more than four (oh, and being far more precise with my labelling!).

Sowing Seeds

Now the tunnel is up seed planting is progressing full steam ahead. All the window sills are full of seed trays, some are up, some are in the propagator, I've even potted up some Brandywine toms. In the seed trays are red egg and  rosa bianca aubergines, courgette 'tondo chiaro di nizza', baby sweetcorn, sweet peppers, 6 types of chilli peppers, mixed lettuces (successionally sown!), gardeners delight outdoor toms, Ailsa craig toms, 6 different types of winter and summer squash with such delightful names as Bennings Green Tint Scallop, Saffron Prolific Straightneck, Jumbo Pink Banana and True Green Hubbard and swiss chards including 'bright lights'.

If  I don't get beds ready for them all in the polytunnel on time my heart will be broken! Have I bitten off more than I can chew?

Presenting Poly Tunnel

As promised here is the polytunnel all clad in plastic.

And now there remains the small task of converting field into vegetable beds ready for sowing! We have considered quite a few options for making beds and the adding of fertiliser. We want to be as eco friendly, avoiding the use of synthetic chemicals wherever possible, and are taking particular care incase one day we might opt to head towards organic certification. There is a local free supply of spent mushroom compost, but unless its organic it can be high in commercial pesticide residues and all the other delightful cocktails that have been added.  The horse manure we got has wood chip through it, which is used for the stables bedding, so that will have to compost for a year or two before its good, otherwise the wood on the soil will actually remove nitrogen in the process of decomposition (which defeats the purpose). Apart from that, horse manure is a good source of compost, as horses don't tend to be given much in chemical treatment as would intensively farmed animals such as cows.

 

Trying to source organic grade compost is next to impossible because, as it should be,  most organic farmers keep all their manure and vegetative compost to recycle into their own land. Our soil is pretty good as it is, and during the last few years its had a horse on it for 6 months, chickens free ranging and goats on it for another good 6 months, so it ought to be fine without any additions for this year at least. The proof of that will be in the pudding come autumn! 

Polytunnel Is Up, Yippee!

Two sunny mornings ago we decided to bite the bullet and set into getting the plastic skin onto the tunnel, just the two of us! We knew that once we started we'd have to finish, it can't be left half done because the slightest breeze would relocate the lot up a tree a mile or two away! We worked against the clock and managed to eek out some fun and laughter in a potentially fraught setting, there was not one incidence of snappyness to report! The first challenge was to figure out how the huge rectangle of plastic had been folded, so that we could lay it on one side of the structure, hoist up the corners so that it would unfold as we went along. I left that particular conundrum to Dan, and once he'd sorted it out we laid it ready for hoisting. You'd be amazed how heavy that much plastic is, and particularly difficult to get a grip on and carry.

The next task was to apply the hotspot tape, a white insulating foamy tape that sticks to the metal hoops where the plastic cover would otherwise come into contact with the  metal. From what I understand the idea is to increase the life span of the plastic, by preventing overheating of these areas. Now we began to realise the challenges of having such a large, and therefore high, tunnel! Luckily Dan was either an acrobat or a monkey in a former life and swung merrily from hoop to hoop getting the tape up.

We tied a rope to the top right hand corner of the massive plastic sheet ready to hoist over.

And as I began to pull, and Dan push and facilitate the unfolding plastic up the far side of the hoop, we realised that the hotspot tape caused quite a bit of friction. Images of the plastic gliding smoothly and easily up and over the hoops faded quickly and were replaced with much heaving and sweating.

At one point I had a cunning plan to ease the sticky plastic over the hoops ... KY Jelly, a few dabs on each hoop and over she'd slide. I had second thoughts when I envisaged the required trip to the chemist in the local village 'ten tubes of KY Jelly please', pharmacist looks at me curiously so I offer further explanation 'for my tunnel'. No, we carried on as we were, using good old fashioned elbow grease instead, far less embarrassing!  And so for the final photo ... my camera ran out of battery, its charging as I type. I'm hoping for a willing neighbour or visitor to take a photo of Dan carrying me over the threshold!!! Check back later tomorrow for a photo, shes beautiful!

 

Polytunnel Progress

The polytunnel has been slowly nearing completion. We dug a trench around the periphery into which we put a land drain pipe and theres already a huge difference in drainage in the surrounding area. The hoops are all up, as are the crop bars. Now we need three variables to coincide in order to get it up and finished ; sunshine to facilitate stretching the plastic, no wind to ensure we don't inadvertently launch a very expensive kite and last but not least, a day on which willing helpers are able to visit.