April 25^th - 30^th

What a great and productive week, The Beetroot seeds have been planet into the seed trays & are now in the green house, they have yet to sprout but im sure they will start in the next few days.

I started work on Plot 2 by removing last seasons swede & weeding the bed. I think the swede from this plot will be very “woody” at this stage as we had one a few weeks back and seemed very stringy and woody.

I managed to pick up a PH tester for the soil as I have not got one and a lot of advice websites were suggesting to make this as a good investment.

I also managed to pick up a few new seeds, One I have never heard of before.

Cucamelon, Sounds interesting? Has anyone had any experience with these…

 Also picked up some Beth Alpha Cucumber & Parsnip seeds.

During the week I was also able to help out a bumble bee that seemed to get trapped in the green house.

This little fella seemed to be exhausted so managed to mix up some honey & water and as you can see it was enjoyed very much.

I never knew bee’s had such a long tongue system WOW!

It was a real treat to see this little guy fly away after about 20 minuets of feasting.

I was also able to pick up some of the plastic ground sheet to make a start on Plot 1 and get the water system installed & covered, More on that this week if the weather is good :)

An unproductive week :)

April 24^th

Last week was quite an unproductive week; Bad weather & my birthday on the 22^nd gave way to not a lot being done at all.

However this weekend has been quite productive, with Plot 1 being finished and all 5 beds have been made and soil made ready for planting into.

This being said I still have to get the ground fabric & watering system (Drip Irrigation) set-up and working.

My Tomatoes needed thinning out and I have potted them on into bigger pots now they are bigger giving them more room and getting them set-up for main planting in the next few weeks.

Most of the Tomatoes will live in the greenhouse but id like to try some outside as well this year just to see the results.

My Lettuce is doing well and has started to sprout up, It wont be long before these will be potted on & being put into Plot 1.

I was having a look around our local Lidl and found the Drip Irrigation system, its like a “leaky” hose that just sits on the soil to water plants.

I had been looking for this for some time and finally found it !! None of the local DIY stores had it and the only place that did was a local garden centre and was looking for €39 for 15m of it, I paid €8 per 15m roll and picked up 2 rolls while it was there.

Here is a look at the rolls & a 4 way splitter for the watering system,

I also picked up a small polly tunnel for one of the beds maybe for the Lettuce not sure yet.

So today’s job is to plant the first wave of the beetroot seeds into a propagator and get them started.

15^th April 2017

Today started quite nice and sunny, By about 2pm it was raining so out with the seeds and make a start planting some seed into the propagators.

I managed to plant 20 plugs with Lettuce these should take about 10-15 days to start showing through

It also gave me chance to put the now growing Tomatoes into the green house leaving space on the sunny window sill for the Lettuce.

Plot 1

Plot number 1 is currently under way and I have measured out 5 beds to go into this area.

Last season this plot was left covered with ground sheet to prevent weeds and the like growing but it did have potatoes the season before.

Its been a challenge getting Plot 1 ready for planting, Its mostly been rainy days here over the past few weeks and trying to create & turn over beds has been a bit of a nightmare so this is still a work in progress.

As long as I get the beds done before the planting out I should be ok :)

Last season I turned an old leaking water butt into a small herb garden and sat it in front of the greenhouse & seems to be coming alive again this year. It seemed a great way to re-cycle...

Welcome to my first Blog!

Its spring (April 13th 2017) and the growing season has already begun.

I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself & and give you my background.

I live in rural Ireland on the beautiful peninsula called Inishowen in Co. Donegal.

I love technology, Computers & Ham Radio so doing gardening is somewhat of a foreign concept.

That being said, Its great to get outdoors away from the mobile phone, computers etc. and get back to nature.

My mum has grown vegetables in the garden for as long as I can remember and has always had good crops but I think this is set to slowdown now as she has a lot of Arthritis making it quite painful to garden.

I think this is my main motivation for continuing the veg garden as she loves home grown produce and so do I !!

So this will give me a great opportunity to learn something totally new & I hope you will all join me on my journey.