Month: October 2009

My house is built on one third of an acre facing the sea which is about 600 meters away.. In the front a lawn sweeps down to the road with no wall or hedge in the way. At the back there are three areas….a steep bank of red sandstone clay and rock on which I have managed to establish through trial and error a variety of hardy shrubs, including Senecio, Veronica, Escallonia, Potentilla, Rock Rose, Mahonia Japonica, Cotoneaster, Privet, Olearia and many others.  Above the bank I have another  "Lawn" which is really a mown piece of field behind a beech hedge,but is very private and is where we like to sit or the children to camp. To the side of this is my vegetable and fruit plot. This is in the early stages of development as I have just recently retired but I plan to have strawberries, Gooseberries, blackcurrants, loganberries, raspberries and apples as well as peas, beans,potatoes and some brassicas. The most prominent feature of the garden is not my doing.I am lucky enough to back on to a public woodland with access and have a huge oak tree leaning over the garden and a collection of fine pine tress with a rookery….very noisy at times but great company. We built the house 15 years ago but it is only recently that I have found time to really concentrate on the garden and I am enjoying it so much.

Has anyone else received e mails from Hallmark??? I am receiving at least five a day and when I got the first one it said "You’ve received a Hallmark E-Card" I tried to open it but then I got a warning that there was a virus attached. So everyone I receive now I just delete it. Whats that all about and where did they get my e mail address?

Well today is the 1st October and there is definately a chill in the air. Just turned on the heating. No gardening will be done today even though there are lots of leaves down but I just dont feel like it….I’m tired. Just going to take it easy. Tomorrow is another day.

I was just wondering has anybody had a problem obtaining the October edition of The Irish Garden? i get mine on subscription each month, but there is no sign of the October edition, would have normally arrived over a week ago! have noticed that is not on the shelves of our local newsagent either! can anyone shed any light on this? 

Today I dug over the ground on which the peas and beans grew this year. I may put the potatoes there in the Spring.  Some of the strawberry plants are fruiting again. An indian summer indeed.

I ordered yesterday supernemos bio-insecticide from www.nemo.ie – for €20 including postage.  They arrived today.  Now that is what I call efficiency.

Tony did loads of work on the new beds today edged the two in the main garden

, transplanted all the strawberries into the new veggie bed (that he doesnt want)!!

 

cleared the ditches behind the beds , transplanted a lilac   a grass  and cut back loads. I was otherwise engaged with family!! He is now fast asleep while  I am looking at gardeners world. need to visit the garden center soon, but I might wait to plant after my holiday as it is so dry they might be dead by the time i get home

happy gardening,talk soon

Actually planted some bulbs today not the free ones but some dwarf daffs I ordered with them–am I the only person that thinks " As I’m paying the postage I might as well get something else as well"? They probably hope we will do that! The bulb planter was no use as the soil was so dry so I just had to go with the trowel. I seemed to hit stones and roots everywhere so didn’t get much done.

Bare root fruit trees €5.99 Varieties include Granny Smith Apple, Cox’s Orange Apple, Stella Cherry, Golden Delicious Apple, Victoria Plum, Bramley Cooking Apple, Doyenne du Vomice Pear, Beurre Hardy Pear, Golden Gage Plum. This offer is from Thursday 8th October.

https://www.dasoftware.com/download_files/gardeniepicturetool.zip

The link above should download it straight to your PC.

The sizing is sorted for the journal pictures in portrait, and I have added image info for files that are not jpg (camera pictures)

I should have added, this is the help file:

https://www.dasoftware.com/download_files/picture_tool_for_garden_ie.pdf

UPDATED!  UPDATED! UPDATED!   UPDATED!   UPDATED!

SEE COMMENTS FOR DETAILS

What a great month it was for gardening.

I started in my front garden and pruned all the shrubs, some like the mexican orange blosson into nice rotund shapes and others that were taking over their space I just brutally cut them back. Now I have more ground space in which to sow more plants.

I went out and bought several packets of bulbs and I also crammed a can with daffodils so well that when the girl on the checkout went to tip them into a bag they were stuck fast and then one flew out and onto the floor. I was watching to make sure the ‘fallen one’ also made it into the bag and it did.

I got a mixture of dwarf and tall daffodils. I do like the dwarf ones especially tete a tete and jetfire as they dont get blown over in the wind. I also purchased minature iris reticulata harmony and  snowdrops single. 

Thought this year I’d try a few new bulbs and got Chionodoxa Luciliae Snow Glories and  the giant Allium Purple Sensation. I will stagger the planting so as to prolong the Spring flowering period. Can’t wait to see them in flower. Love the Spring bulbs, they bring such cheer.

My front garden has still a good show of flowers. The verbena is still in flower but I have noticed the butterflies are now in short supply. The chocolate cosmos is lovely and smells divine and the geraniums loved all the dry weater.

I have chucked out the summer bedding from the window boxes and have installed a Winter favourite, cyclamen and ivy in all my window boxes, front and back. They flower all winter long and are such a good value plant in lovely colours.

I have installed some lovely large logs in my garden that a woodturning friend had spare. On top of the largest one I have a large spider plant trailing down and this plant I leave out every Winter in a corner of the garden and it dies back a bit and comes back every year better than ever.

Next week I plan to go on a well deserved holiday but will be having a look at other gardens to get new ideas for my own. 

does any one know if you can buy seed for hedging anywere such as escallionia and red robin or for that fact any seed that can be used for hedging

i have strawberry plants in pots in the garden.runners are naturally forming can i plant them in the ground or will the frost kill them.

Iwant to create a little strawberry corner thats why!

https://www.dasoftware.com/download_files/gie_photo_tool_tut.zip

This may take quite some time to download as it is over 8 MB.

You can run the SWF file directly if you have something that can play SWFs (Flash), but if you haven’t try double clicking on the html file which should then open in your default browser and start playing – well that’s the theory anyway! 🙂

It may be a bit rough round the edges. I will polish it up a bit later perhaps.

Incidentally I have found a minor problem with EXIF information from Finepix 2400 cameras, which I have fixed. The latest version shortly.

I have been thinking about the garden a lot lately, getting the wilderness sorted etc. I need to slow down a little. I also have the two beds in the driveway to tidy an replant a bit, the side gravel area to finish, the wooden arch to be made for this area, and replant the main bed in the back garden. Just not enough time. So I plan to slowly keep the wilderness cut back, take the rest in full control, and be ready for the spring. So it will be smaller steps in the short term, with a greater goal at the end. I hope.

I am going to draw out a outline sketch of my garden, I would nearly bet no one has a stranger shaped garden any where. 

 today i got alot done outside.i am moving my raised vegetable beds to the upper part of the garden.where they raised beds is at the minute the area is 70ft x 30ft.there is 12 raised beds 6ft x 4ft in that ground.i have planned to move all theses beds and build 5 chicken runs. 1 run for breeding ducks and 4 runs for diffent breeds of breeding chickens.the new vegetable area will have 7 new beds which will be 25 ft x 4 ft.i got one of the beds builded todaybetween the showers.when it rained i would head to the tunnel and there i sowed some vegetable seeds for a early spring crop. i sowed lettuce (winter density),cabbage (spring hero),broad beans(aquadulce claudia),peas (onwards) and some spring onoins.picked some beetroot and turpins.thats my lot for the day.tomarrows plans is to cull 3 table birds.2 for the freezer and 1 for tuedays dinner.

My dad came in this evening to sort out the petrol mower, nearly there. Have to say I will still use the push one where possible, its not that bad once the grass is short and I like being outdoors. He was checking my hollyhocks and robbing seeds.

Swept up all the leaves out the front from the neighbours overhanging sycamore tree. I did it last weekend as well, there must be nearly 3 black bags of them :O( thank god not too many left on the tree at this stage.

I got the pots ready to transplant the canna’s but it got dark before I got it all done, tomorrow is another day :O) 

Went to spingmount garden center today and bought a nandina, 3 berberis,  a crinidendrum a pachysandra green carpet, virburnam bod. dawn, cyclamen  and laid them ouy on the bed along with  acer palmatum ,libertia , excocordia , and the bed is actually empty, looks like I need tons more

Didnt plant them as NO RAIN  here today. Will have great fun buying more after holidays

Today my hubby begins digging out a new trench to plant yet another extension to the existing griselinia.  We bought 70 plants last autumn and I immediately took 40-50 cuttings from it to extend the new hedge, which borders the vegetable garden.  We didn’t have the money to buy enough to cover the entire area we wanted to use, so out came my trusty propogating book and off I went on yet another try it and see project!  I am amazed that in 12 months the cutting have grown from 2-3" to about 12" high strong plants, which will be re-planted today hopefully.  It is so satisfying to have grown them from existing stock!  Yeaah!!  Hopefully we will get some rain to bed them in, but am enjoying the beautiful sun shine this morning.

 

Last Tuesday or so I noticed that site was very quite, there was only one or two mails coming through to me. I then noticed that comments were been made that I should have gotten.

Straight away, I said I had changed some settings, as I want to learn more about the computer, I have been messing around quite a bit, I checked everything, all seemed ok. Sent some mail from work as a test yesterday, they did not come through.

I rang eircom last night, credit where it is due, it took nearly 40 mins, but they stuck with it. It turns out that if to many messages come from the same site, some systems can decide that they are spam and can block messages.

So as a word of warning if you have noticed a sudden drop in the number of messages coming through to you, give your server provider a call. It can be sorted out, with alittle time.

I have being reading recently on some of the journals about great bargains in the garden centres. I have bought some plants at very reasonable prices, but I have repotted them on and left them out in the garden. I have done this for two reasons, the beds wont be ready untill the wall is finished and secondly I think it is to late to plant out as there is no growth and we are entering the frost season. This is causing a problem with herself indoors.

You see she purchased two Hydrangea’s and insists on them being planted out. I say it is a waste of time as they would not get time to establish properly before the weather turns cold. I say pot them on and plant out in spring when the weather is warmer. She says plant them out now.

This is a more important decision than Lisbon treaty so weigh up all the facts before reply. Am I right and can be happy about it or am I wrong and have to eat humble pie ?

A lovely day today, bright sunshine and good temperatures, gave me the chance to get a little cleaning up done in the vegetable garden.

The courgette plants are at an end so I collected the last of them and put the plants on the compost bin. Courgette and crystallised ginger jam is planned for early this week. The mange tout are still producing a little but I think we will be relying on carrots and parsnips in the near future. 

 Our "Autumn Bliss" raspberries have been disappointing this year with a poor crop but our apples are excelling themselves and we have a bumper crop. 

More to do tomorrow. Mary 

5TH OCTOBER, sun is out beautiful morning! Tidied up the garden yesterday in between sunshine and showers ! Starting to make plans for next year have not mentioned to Graham (husband) yet dont think he has recovered yet from this years garden makeover!

Just reading through the journals and I feel left out. It was a wonderful weekend for the garden, but where was I… in work..  :-(.  It happens when the quarter end falls at a weekend. I won’t get to the garden until next weekend.  I envy those of you who have journals and photos on such a wonderful weekend. oll on next wekend.

Just dugg up plant witch was growing up threw grass  foung out it was a bulb plant.just potted strawberrys.

If my Dad was around, today was what he would have called a ”pet day” I was working on the arch/frame that I am putting at the side area, leading to the back garden. By 10 o clock, it was t shirt weather, dead calm, fresh air and my idea was coming together nicely.

Our main boundry is the old Harcourt Railway Line, now totally overgrown, but great for wildlife. Taking a break and sitting on window cill, I caught sight of a squirell sitting looking at me. For about 15 minutes he jumped from branch to branch getting closer and closer. Then quickly with a few jumps he was gone. Alot of my love of gardening and nature came from Dad.

 For some reason I felt very close to him at that moment. I think it was the love nature, and what he thaught me about working with my hands, all came together at that moment. Would love to know what he would say about the arch I am building. Will post photos in a day or so when finished. Am thinking that I might not even plant a climber on it, just let it say it’s own thing. We’ll see.

That was one pet of a day.