Potatoes Pt. 2

Ok so they are now planted, great adventure this is for us as we have never planted potatoes before.

1. We left the seed potatoes out in a cool light place for a few days for the shoots to appear, the instructions said about 1 inch long would be fine.
2. The next step was to fill our little grow bags with 4 inches of compost and then dampen down the soil with the watering can.
3. Place 3 seed potatoes in each grown bag with the shoots facing upward.
4. Next fill the the grow bag up to the 8 inch level covering the potatoes.
5. Water the grow bag daily but be careful not to waterlog the soil.
6. Wait for the green shoots to arrive above the soil, then when the plant reaches 10 inches above the soil keep topping up the soil a little at a time until soil reaches the top of the grow bag.
7. If frost is forecast bring the bags somewhere frost free for the duration.
8. The potatoes should be ready to harvest sometime in December. :-)

We also went into our front garden and dug up 2 little trees that our previous occupants planted and Angela is making plans to put a few flower beds.

More to follow …

Potatoes

We are going to try and grow our own potatoes for the very first time. We have some potato grow sacks that we can put the seed potatoes in and they should be ready for December touch wood. We are loving this gardening business and can't wait to sample our own produce. I have also been following my cousin Vicki's allotment exploits over in London and taking notes for future reference. Good luck with your veggies Vicki :)

No space, small garden, meh ..

We are not blessed with a large garden, and it’s made worse because of the fact that three quarters of the yard is wooden decking or paving stones, then there’s a postage stamp sized lawn leaving us just a narrow border on half of two sides of the garden to plant a few bits and pieces, but we have learned and adapted to fit it to our needs …

We got a little help from our Aunt Ailsa who stayed with us for a week this summer, she taught us so much which wasn't hard because we were clueless in the extreme. Here’s a pictorial update …

Firstly we were advised to start composting to save money and obviously be greener so we invested in this little beastie

Also we bought some canvas raised beds to make more space than we had already, winter cabbage here with lots of slug repellent …

Carrots (eventually) on the left and broccoli on the right …

We used plant pots as much as we could too, this is a bell pepper that was dying and we managed to bring back to life

A miniature greenhouse that fitted onto our decking, (which needs painting by the way), our tomatoes are housed in here

 

Not forgetting the wildlife, here’s a little bird table our friend Tommy made for us, we recycled the sunflower heads as food for the birds

And here is our worn out decking and the view from the back door

We are getting there slowly and are looking forward to developing our little space into somewhere that we will treasure :)

Tramore

We had a day out to the beach in Tramore yesterday. Angela, Erin and myself took a chance on a good weather forecast for the south coast on the Met Eireann website and promptly organised a day trip out. Years ago to get to Tramore it involved going along small twisty congested roads and getting stuck behind many a tractor with no place to overtake but no longer, we have a brand spanking new motorway (M9) and the journey was a joy to behold.

We sat on the beach in the sunshine eating beautiful fish and chips, Erin and Angela waded deep into the water which was surprisingly warm. Myself and Erin had a great kick around of Footy on the hard sand.

Great day out :)