Last Post 1358 days 20 hours ago
30 September 2009 02:41:55
Autumn shadows
Hope to make a start on the Autumn seed sowing tomorrow (today!) have a few packs of seed from secret seeds that need to be sown now, its still a bit early to plant the garlic will hold off till the middle of October, there are one or two plants/shrubs in the garden that i would like to propagate and i will need to check if the time is right for that! still a bit early for root cuttings from the oriental poppies, that has been very successful for me in the past, still a good bit of tidying to be done in the garden and the shed!! tender plants to be brought in, bulbs to be planted, pots to be washed and stored, beds to be weeded, and still time to put in some more winter stock into the veg beds! pack up the seed that i have been drying and store it for next year, in fact i hope there will be enough daylight for all this!!!
29 September 2009 01:43:43
Bonsai Ficus Ginseng
Was off today, but feeling a bit under the weather with a sore throat and a head cold i stayed in bed for the morning, got up around lunch time and decided to give the garden a miss today! lazed around the house and checked out the net for info on old types of tomatoes for next years seed list! i tend to get cabin fever if i stay in the house for to long so today being my brothers anniversary we bought some flowers and went to visit his grave, today was his first anniversary and i really didn't know how i was feeling but i was really glad we went out there today, on the way back we dropped into woodies as Maggie wanted to pick up a few things, i went walking around looking at bulbs etc and found a small bonsai reduced to €9.99 and decided to buy it to cheer me up!! while waiting in the Q for the check-out i noticed 6 or 7 large bonsai for sale, i went over to have a look and could not believe the size or price!! it was a large Bonsai (Ficus Ginseng) almost 20" tall and in an oval ceramic pot 10" X 7" priced at €19.99! l had paid €15.75 including postage for a pot that size from the UK only last year! so needless to say i left back my original choice and picked out a fine specimen which i was delighted to take home with me to add to our fledgling Bonsai collection...............
27 September 2009 12:15:25
Amish paste, The second coming!
At the beginning of July i had read an article somewhere about growing tomato plants from side shoots that you would take off your vine type tomato plants as they grow through the season! i decided to try this out and in early July i took a few side shoots as you do, from the Amish Paste, these shoots were about 3 to 4 inches in length, i took 4 and placed them in a jam jar half full of water on the window sill, after about 2/3 weeks they had developed a strong root system and were potted up, that was around the end of July, now just over 8 weeks later we are rewarded with 2 decent plants (passed 2 on to a friend of ours!) they are about 5ft tall and growing! each plant has about a dozen tomatoes all slightly larger than golf ball size and about another dozen flowers on each! i will stop the plants now and let them put all their energy into producing the fruit, they will hopefully last a while longer depends on the weather! but i will take the larger fruit off each to give the rest a chance to come on, but if we get 2/3 doz golf ball size toms this late in the year from "free" plants that cant be a bad thing! something to keep in mind for next year...............
26 September 2009 02:23:17
Storing this years chilies
Have started to hang up this years crop of chilies, we are still working off last years crop and will be up to Christmas, Paul, this is how we store ours, normally about 5 or 6 threads of them hanging in the kitchen, we just take them as we need them! we use thread through the stalk of the chili ( not the chili its self!) normally about 20 to 30 chilies per thread.................
25 September 2009 01:32:35
Lemon chili seed
Have saved seed from the Lemon chili and also the Cayenne chili, both types are drying on plates at the moment, the lemon chili have only about 8 to 12 seeds per chili, where as the cayenne had about 50 to 60 seeds per chili! the tomato seed is also nearly ready to start drying, will start to wash the seed tomorrow........
24 September 2009 02:43:08
Red Onions
I managed to lift the Red onions on Tuesday evening, they were late going in and not in an ideal spot, but we managed to get a decent enough crop, have them drying at the moment, we will put them to use over the winter months! we are enjoying reading up on all the delicious recipes that have been posted in the last few days, not only interested in what you grow but also what you do with it! keep them coming folks!!!!
22 September 2009 18:18:20
Maggie's project
Spent most of the afternoon saving seed and tidying up the garden, Maggie started on the cherry tomatoes, and as i type they have been in the oven about 3 hours, i was wrong to refer to them as sun-dried, apparently they are baked and preserved!! will get Maggie to post later and put up the finer details! i am just the gardener!!!! saved seed from the cayenne and lemon chillies, have posted photos up in Seed saving album!
21 September 2009 22:20:12
Garden Pearl cherry tomatoes
Picked the last of the cherry toms today, we got about 4lb of tomato, i was hoping to mix them with some of the Amish paste and make soup, but i have been over ruled!! Maggie has come across a recipe to slowly roast them in the oven, which will preserve them, like sun dried tomatoes! looking forward to the outcome of Maggie's project, all will be reveled tomorrow afternoon! we will keep you informed........................
21 September 2009 14:54:31
Cayenne chili
Hello all, must be gremlins at work again, typed out an entry only for the browser to crash!! this only happens on long entries!!! anyway i started the harvesting of the chillies this morning, got the Cayenne done before lunch, got about 50 chillies fom the 2 plants, each chilli is between 4" to 4.5" long and quiet meaty! and there is about 15 chillies left on the plants for later use! will do the lemon chillies and the Scotch bonnet this afternoon and hang the lot this evening! Maggie has her work cut out with the cherry toms and the last of the beans, will post photos later..................
20 September 2009 10:05:25
Lanzarote 2009
What a glorious morning, thought we were still on holidays!! glad to be home in one way as the amount of work to be done in the garden and greenhouse is huge!! am back in work today and off Monday and Tuesday and it will take 2 full days to sort it all out, had a quick look around the garden and greenhouse yesterday and we have lost a few plants to lack of water, mostly in pots! must have been some warm days when we were away, anyway off to make a list of what needs doing, will post up some photos when i get a chance............
15 September 2009 13:07:17
Hello all, not much to report! weather still really warm and sunny, will enjoy it while we can!!! back home Saturday afternoon Gismo, so still a few days left to enjoy this beautiful weather!!!! have collected some seed and documented and photographed the parent plants so hope to have a few different types to swap over the dark winter months! well best be off Maggie has just arrived back from shopping, well laiden down!! by the looks of it the credit card will be suffering from riggermortus!!!!! well off now for some prawns and a cold beer! enjoy your day folks..................................................
11 September 2009 20:07:58
Well folks nothing strange to report! weather very warm but still very overcast!! dont really mind its nice to be doing nothing for a change! will dig out the camera over the weekend and get some photos taken, will do a couple of albums (i hope) and post them up when i get back, have also noticed a few seed pods on various plants when we have been out walking so a seed collecting trip is on the cards, well thats all for now!! cant say much more, dont want to rub it in!!!!!!!!!!!!!
08 September 2009 16:35:52
Helo folks, this morning has been overcast but very warm 28 with all this cloud, have spent the morning reading by the pool but have had enough of that, so decided to post a journel before going for a nice cold beer!! found a garden centre yesterday morning, very interesting looking at the plants on offer! big selection of succulents ( thaught of you Rachel!) and an even bigger selection of cacti, some amazing specimens, not well up on cacti but both the size and price were impressive, did pick up 2 packs of seed, a sweet Italian pepper (capsicum annuum) and Strawberry seed (fragaria X ananassa) the sweet pepper looks interesting as it is a long elongated type! have also puschased 4 garlic bulbs which i hope to take home and split up and try growing, the 4 bulbs should split into about 24 cloves for planting! they only cost 98 cents! so got to be worth a try!!! well off to have that cold beer! will post soon.................................
07 September 2009 10:18:31
Well after all that rain we couldnt take any more! went to the travel agent and got a last minute deal and we have ended up in Lanzarote! arrived lunch time on Saturday, weather has been great up in the late 20s warm nice breeze and blue skies!! then this morning pulled back the curtains and there it was everywhere RAIN RAIN AND MORE RAIN!!! its following us! i know it will brighten up and the sun will soon be splitting the stones, but just goes to show theres no getting away from this rain!!!! off now to get some retil therapy done for Maggie!
04 September 2009 03:43:45
Onions
Have finally dragged ourselves away from the pool!!!! (wishful thinking) hank-ed up the last of the onions tonight when i came in from work, and its got really cold!!! not ready to settle in to Autumn yet! back in work at 9 in the morning! p###ed off with the weather, think ill drop into the travel agent in the morning! fed up!!!!
03 September 2009 01:57:07
Garden make-over
With all this bad weather affecting all beds and boarders i have decided to take the lot out!!! all veg beds, boarders, cold-frame and even the greenhouse!! even the decking is going!!! in its place I've put in a spacious pool, some palms, a few loungers and invited the neighbors round!! your all welcome just bring a few cold beers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
02 September 2009 13:08:16
Saving seed
Have saved some seed from the garden already this year, mostly from perennials, the only veg seed we have saved so far was from the white Radish about 2 months ago, have started the process with the tomatoes, last night selected 2 good sized fruits each from the Amish paste and the Aurora, scooped out the pulp from each and placed it in the jam jars, filled with some water and will leave for 3 to 4 days to let the seed settle, stirring 3 to 4 times a day, good seed will sink and the bad seed will float!! after the 3/4 days the good seed will be taken out washed and dried thoroughly on paper towels and stored in the fridge till next February
01 September 2009 17:05:58
Cayenne chili
Picked the first of our Cayenne chilies today and we are delighted with the results, the two plants that we are growing have produced a great harvest of really fine specimen size chillies, the chilies are about 5 inches long and a broad meaty shape! we look forward to trying them in the kitchen, we grew chillies last year but they did not produce this early and nowhere near this size! and while we are on the subject of chillies the lemon drops have been producing a very steady crop this year! we have been picking them for nearly 8 weeks now and are delighted with them, while they are only 2/3 inches long they pack a HOT punch, the Scotch bonnet are doing well and should be ready for picking at the end of the month, photos of the chilies in our 2009 Harvest album.......
01 September 2009 01:27:11
amish paste tomato
Sharon has asked me to give her information about the tomatoes we have grown this year as regards growing and cooking so here goes AMISH PASTE..very large tom and still growing well, very vigorous and tall growing vine, we stopped them at about 6 1/2 ft, produces very large fruit with the average weight of the fruit we picked being up to a 1/4 lb each! no problems growing these plants and will do them again next year, with seed we hope to save off this years crop, we started with 3 plants and got roughly 13 lb so far and would expect another 15 to 20 lb or so from them, great to use in the kitchen as the fruits are large with solid flesh, no cavities and very little seed! these toms have been used for every thing from soups to sauces and tomato ketchup. AURORA, a small bush type plant growing about 3 1/2 ft high by about 4 ft wide and needs to be very well supported as this is a HUGE cropper! we had 5 plants that produced over 24lb of tomatoes and we could have had more if i had given the plants more support, my fault for not believing they could crop so heavy! slightly flattened, dry fleshed, with a good flavor for cooking, one of the earliest to fruit, found it really good to cook with and again used in soups and sauces. URBIKANY, another bush type, again grows the same size as the AURORA, maybe sprawls a bit more! the fruits are 2inch and round, again very early and large cropper, we had 4 plants, 2 of which are now jaded and have been composted with the other 2 still active, so far we have taken over 15lb from these plants, a duel purpose tomato that is good for cooking and also in salads, a good juicy fleshed tomato. GARDEN PEARL is the cherry tom we grow, have grown it for the past 5 or more years and found it to do really well outdoor in Ireland, we grow it in window boxes, baskets or pots, lovely sweet peppery flavor, we plan to save seed from all these toms for next year and maybe try 2 or 3 new types, so hope this is of interest to you Sharon..............