Make a Rainbow...

Why Bother with the Butt?

It is always a good idea to collect rain water for the plants in your garden as it gives a degree of Independence in water terms.  They collect water that falls on the roof of your house and would otherwise go down the drain. An unexpected bonus of having a water butt came about a month ago when our water supply was cut off for a day for an unknown reason.  As it became obvious that the toilet was going to use up all out reserves in the tank in the attic we had to dip into the reserves in our butt.  We managed fine. 

Water butts are recommended as a way of taking the strain off the water supply system.  Also, the fact that you are using water in the same place as where it fell means that you are not adding to the resources used in cleaning it and pumping it around to houses.  But to me, the main benefit of collecting your own water is that there are no added chemicals like fluorine in it.  Whatever about humans, I don't think that our tomatoes need stronger teeth!

Here is our water butt.  When we got to this house there was no down spout leading into the water butt so Chris has been trying out different ways of channelling the rain water into the container.  The previous one leaked a bit at the top at so the wall got a bit damp but this latest model seems perfect.  he has used a vacuum cleaner hose(which he found dumped by the side of the road) as the connection from the gutter to the butt.  It's absolutely perfect.

As we have just had the driest April on record in many parts of the country it seems even more important to use the water butt.  A couple of hours of heavy rain with completely fill the butt and the other smaller water containers we have, so we filled up last week during one of the brief breaks in the weather and that should keep us going for about another two weeks without rain. 

The fact that we don't have an outside tap also makes the butt very handy as we don't have to go into the house for water.  Our hose seemed to keep coming off the tap in the kitchen sink and sending sprays of water everywhere.  The bottle being filled, above, is going into the greenhouse so that the water that is used on the plants there is at a nice temperature and will not give them a shock.

We also have a water collection system on the greenhouse.  It's surprising how much water can be collected from even this very small surface.  The yellow hose which was dumped near the river beside us has come in really handy for this job.  It goes under ground for about 10 feet and then drains into a large container so we have even more water collection capacity. 

So overall it's handy, we have healthier vegetables, use up less resources and will be more likely to have water for our vegies if there are water shortages later in the summer. 

Green Fly Farming

I was looking at some daisies that we planted in order to help encourage hover flies and bees into the garden the other day and noticed that there were a lot of greenfly all over the plant and particularly up around the flower buds.  I went over to inspect it's neighbour to see how many greenfly were on that one and there wasn't a single one to be found.  For a few days I though this was just a strange coincidence until I spotted an ant half way up one of the stalks of the infested plant.  "Green fly farming!" I thought.

So I spent a while watching them the other day trying to figure out exactly what they were doing with the greenfly.  I didn't see any flies being moved around but apparently the ants do place the greenfly on the plants, spreading them out nicely.  The two ants above seemed to be sucking up a sap like substance that I could see on the leaves.  This turns out to be a sweet nectar that the greenfly excrete.  The ants take this back to the nest to feed the queen and whoever else can't feed themselves. 

"Ant sky scraper farm"

Tending the livestock.

The plant right beside is completely free from greenfly.

Yesterday I saw a ladybird on top of the plant having a look around.  The friendly appearance on the plant made me think twice before ripping it or trying to wipe out the farm.   As we are constantly being warned about the declining numbers of insects and wildlife I am unsure of what to do with this farm.  Greenfly are a major food source for lady bird and hover fly larvae and at least one ladybird has already found this plant and may have already laid eggs here.  There is a whole little food chain in operation on this plant which may have more positive effects than negative.  The greenfly may be a nuisance to us and our vegetables but they are a resource to the ants, lady birds and hover fly.  These insects are eaten by other insects and animals.  How many animals are benefiting from this farm?  I haven't a clue!  But at the moment it isn't bothering me too much so I'll leave it for a while. 

I'll keep on eye on proceedings and see how things develop.  If I think the problem is spreading I will have to think again about leaving the farm alone. 

For more info on greenfly and their effects in the garden read this article...Greenfly

Why Grow Fruit in Containers?

I suppose the first question is "why grow your own fruit at all?".  Well, I answered most of that question in an earlier post on the many reasons to grow your own food...."Why bother..."  To that article I would add that fruit is particularly worth growing yourself as the stuff you buy in the shops, unless it's organic, is almost tasteless.  I have gradually been more and more disappointed by the strawberries you get in supermarkets which are bright, shiny and perfectly shaped, but without any taste. 

I've only started growing small amounts of fruit in the last couple of years but I've been encouraged to expand a bit more every spring as a result of the mouth watering raspberries and strawberries we've already had.  You don't need that much time in order to grow your fruit as the same plant will go on for between 5 and 50 years!  Once it is established there is very little you need to do except water it, add some organic fertiliser every so often and once or twice a year, prune the bushes and trees. 

Our raspberries beginning to flower...

It is generally recommended to build up your fruit collection slowly in order to calmly learn about how to look after each one.  Obviously the temptation is to go and get 20 different types because you love them all, but you may get overwhelmed at the start and loose a few plants.

Back to the question on why to grow fruit in pots.  Well, most fruits will do better if they can be planted directly into the ground however this may not be suitable for everyone.  For example if you rent your house you would probably like to take your plants with you when you move and it would be very difficult to do this unless they were in pots.  Also, if you don't actually have any "ground" or soil to plant into as a result of living in an apartment or house with a paved garden you can still plant up a few pots and get your juicy fruits all the same.

Fruits like figs, grapevines, physalis, oranges, lemons etc are regularly grown in containers so they can be moved into the greenhouse in the winter or at other times in order to ripen up the fruits if it's not warm enough outside.  Cherry trees, if kept small can be moved into the greenhouse in order to prevent birds from eating all the lovely red cherries.

Also, figs actually fruit better if their roots are restricted in a container.  And lastly the soil in each container can be tailored specifically to suit the requirements of each fruit so that the best yields can be achieved.

In general, however I have found it fairly difficult to get information on growing fruit in containers.  As yet I have found only one book that dealt just with fruits in containers but it was not very good at all.  In general there may just be a small comment here and there about container growing in a book aimed at growing fruit in the ground.  So I have gradually gathered any scraps of information that I've found and now I have enough to get started with and over the next few months I'll be writing posts about specific fruits and how to grow them.  I will also add in any things that I have learnt myself along with plenty of pictures of the plants at different stages of growth. 

Tomatoes.....

Today was the day for pricking out the tomatoes from their seed trays and potting them into little individual pots.  They were sewn in seed trays about 5 weeks ago.  They took nearly three weeks to germinate which is a little on on the slow side but it was particularly cold when they went into the cold frame.  But whenever the sun came out it heated up nicely and eventually they started to pop up all over the place.  Tomato seeds need to be between 18 and 21 degrees in order to germinate so the cold frame was invaluable.  Otherwise you could buy some kind of heating system but it doesn't seem to be necessary for sewing on a small scale.

We sewed the tomato seeds in little rows about an inch apart.  Organic potting compost was put into little trays and was watered.  Then we made very small little indents in the potting compost with our fingers about an inch apart in all directions, placed a seed in each one them and covered them with about a quarter inch of compost.

Once they reach the size of the tomato plant shown above they are ready to graduate to bigger pots. They could even have been done when a little smaller but we weren't organised enough! 

In general you pick out the strongest tomatoes as these will probably do the best in the long run.  Here are our little rejects.  We couldn't bring ourselves to kill them just yet so if anyone wants to rescue them feel free to take them :)

The best thing to do is water the seed tray before you start so the soil around the roots will stick together when being moved.  Then you just stick your fingers in around the little roots and scoop them out and put them into 3 inch pots full of potting compost which has not been watered yet.  When they are nice and snug give them plenty of water to settle them in.  Then it's back into the greenhouse with them.  Once they have about 5 pairs of leaves they can be planted into the ground.  The idea of potting them into small pots first is to make sure they build a compact, strong frame work.

As we have planted 4 different varieties of tomatoes we have put different colours stickers on each variety so we won't get them mixed up.  We didn't do this last year so it was pot luck as to what type of tomato came up where.  We'll be giving away at least half of our little seedling when they are a bit bigger as it is as easy to do twice as many and then we can spread them around to friends and family.

I'm sure there are different ways of planting tomatoes which will work fine so let me know if you have any tips to pass on.

Mmmmm, I can smell the tomatoes already......

Why Bother Growing Your Own Fruit and Veg?

There were two reasons why I decided to grow my first tomatoes three years ago.  I wanted to eat tomatoes that actually tasted like tomatoes and I wanted to save some money. 

 

Since then I have realised that there are many, many more reasons to grow your own fruit and vegetables and saving money has become the least significant one as I realise that what we harvest in our garden simply cannot be bought, anywhere.  By harvest I mean the harvest of psychological and physical health as well as the harvest of food.

We've discovered that gardening in general gives us a bit of exercise, fresh air, is stress relieving and develops patience, creativity and intuition.  We have learnt about botany, wildlife and weather patterns while watching an ant carry a green fly up a young shoot in order to farm it, or while keeping a close eye on the sun and the clouds so as to know weather to open or shut the greenhouse windows. 

But getting back to the food harvest.  A good quality, tasty and fresh selection of veg is hard to beat.  When it has been grown without the use of chemicals it's even harder, and it's impossible to beat the satisfaction you get when you bite into that ripe tomato that you have nurtured from seed right up to fruit.  It tastes like a tomato should taste!

Actual size.....more or less.

As I counted up my tomato harvest that first year it dawned on me that had I bought my 400 tomatoes in a supermarket they would have had to have been brought home on trays and in plastic bags.  They would have been illuminated with a warm, homely feeling light for a few days in the shop that was constructed just for them....and all the other food.  Some of them would be thrown away.  They would have been brought thousands of miles in trucks that were made just for them, taking up valuable road space.  They would have been packaged and sorted in warehouses, made just for them.  Some of them would have been thrown away, along with all the other waste that was produced.  And when they were growing, they and the fields that they were in, would have been heavily dosed with pesticides, herbicides, fertilisers and "pretend ripening" chemicals which would quickly find their way into the food chain and water systems etc etc ad infinitum.

The tomato that you can see above is much more than a tasty cheap tomato.  It was important enough to have it's portrait taken! 

Over the next two years as our list of fruit and veg in the garden increased I found more reasons to keep doing it.  All of our kitchen and garden waste, bar the meat, goes onto the compost heap which makes our fertiliser.  Prunings from the shrubs go to the bottom of the compost heap to improve aeration.  This cut our waste bill dramatically.   Margarine containers, plastic bottles and even lollipop sticks are finding their way into the garden in some form or another.  Less and less is being thrown out now as it becomes a resource in the garden. 

Maybe the most important thing of all is that I feel in control of the food that I eat.  We have chosen which varieties of each fruit or vegetable we want and we have chosen how it is to be grown.  We do not have to accept low quality vegetables nor do we have to accept harmful environmental practises as a trade off for cheap food. 

And the most surprising thing?  We were thrilled when the magnificent heat wave that Ireland saw last summer ended as the rain finally came, creating life and a few beautiful rainbows.

Potatoes and Manure

Yesterday we planted our first potatoes of the year!  9 seeds potatoes were carefully planted in the ground and will hopefully give us scrumptious new potatoes in three months time.  Mmmmmmm.   

Potatoes were something that I wasn't too interested in growing before as I thought, well, they're not that exciting and they're cheap.  But I relented last year and when I tasted our first ever home grown potatoes I saw the error of my ways.  I enjoyed them about as much as I enjoy a tub of Ben and Jerrie's chocolate fudge brownie ice cream!  Obviously I had never tasted the real thing before, which is why I thought they weren't very exciting.  How wrong I was. With a little butter and salt and loads of freshly ground pepper they are divine.  So without a second thought I agreed to plant a lot more potatoes this year.  We are also doing an experiment.  Can we have new potatoes all year round by planting more seed potatoes every month?  The big challenge will be to have new potatoes at Christmas.  It is apparently possible . 

So first of all we had to prepare the bed.  We dug out plenty of soil so that we could plant the potatoes nice and deep.

We started this pretty late in the day so it was beginning to get dark by the time we started to decide where to put the potatoes.  There are roughly a foot apart.  They could probably do with a little more room but they'll be fine. 

We stuck a spade into the ground and lifted up some more soil and popped in the potato, sprouts pointing up, and dropped the earth back on top of them.  Before you plant potatoes you normally sit them in the light somewhere so they can begin to sprout.  I'm not fully sure why this is done but it's called chitting.

We had already put well rotted horse manure in to it about a month ago but we needed some more so we spread on some that we had gotten from the organic farm where Chris volunteers.  By this stage it was nearly dark!

Then we put most of the soil back on top of the manure and raked it so that it was nice and level.

We'll be keeping an eye out every day for the first signs of leaves.  Once we see them we can breath a sigh of relief that we haven't done something wrong.

Raspberries

Our little raspberry canes are starting to grow leaves now and hopefully this year we will get more than 20 fruits! Two years ago we bought one raspberry cane and planted it into a large tyre.  We planted it fairly late so we were delighted with our 25 raspberried that we got from it in September.  The following year alot of new canes sprouted from the original one and so the tyre got over crowded. 

So here are some tips on growing raspberries the right way :) .  What I did not realise was that you should limit to amount of new canes that grow.  The reason for this is that having too many canes will drain the nutrients and therefore there isn't enough left for fruiting.  So although we had loads of raspberry plants we had very few fruits.

The other problem with growing them in a container is that they don't like their roots to be warm apparently.  Other fruits, like strawberries and blackcurrants do like it if their roots get warm but not raspberries. 

So this year I split up all the canes and planted them in the ground with plenty of space between them.  I did this in mid January but I should have done it in November so that their roots would have had time to establish.  But they still look really happy at the moment so I'm hopeful for our harvest this year. I put home made compost into a trench and then put the canes in about a foot apart.  Then I put a load of old horse manure on top of them.  This will gradually rot down into the soil carrying it's nutrients dow to the roots.  What I have to do from now on is to only allow a few new canes to develop.

The one good thing is that we now have 10 raspberry plants as well as the one we started with so with any luck we will be able to go out and pick more than one raspberry at a time when they fruit.

In general I find it hard enough to find good information about growing fruit.  There seems to be much more space devoted to vegetables, so I'm only slowly finding out about it all.  Maybe in 20 years I'll know something about it!

Waking Up

Our seedlings are waking up!  Out in the greenhouse there are 4 trays of lettuce and corn salad, all waiting to get a little bigger and then get planted into the ground.   

 

We sowed them about 3 weeks ago and they came up really fast.  They'll stay in the greenhouse until they are eaten!  The next batch of seedlings that we plant can probably be planted outside as it will be warm enough for them to grow with out the added heat of the greenhouse.

SOME TIPS ON SOWING SALADS...

• Sow now if you have a cold frame or greenhouse that can keep them warm once they come up.  Or sow in April if you want to plant them outside.
• Sow the seeds in modules.  These are trays which are divided up into small sections.
• Sow one seed per module.  The number of seeds that are planted in one module varies according to the seed you are planting.  Some seeds prefer to be planted with 7 or 8 friends.  Choosing the right number makes the plant stronger in the long run.

These tips are courtesy of Chris who volunteers on a nearby organic farm.  Chris is the garden expert here now  : )