With Dave Breslin of Irish Seed Savers in Co. Clare checking the Trevor’s Kitchen Garden birdtable at the SEED organic school garden in Bloom – in front of the Birdwatch Ireland stand! Note the Lumper & Blue Danube potatoes growing in bags below which are also stablising the birdtable. See you at Bloom!

at Bloom sponsored by Bord Bia and the Dept. of Agriculture should have a bird table. Birds are after all an important part of maintaining a balance of nature in any garden.

Paddy understood this to mean I would make a birdtable - so I did! The many visitors to Bloom may ensure  the organic school garden is a less than peaceful bird feeding station! However, the challenge to design and build a birdtable using mainly scrap wood found n the garden shed was very therapeutic. I hope it encourages anyone with a saw, hammer , screwdriver and some wood to have a go!

However comfrey is far more than a delivery system for kitchen garden fertility requirements. Its flowers are very popular with bees, especially bumble bees. In spite of the temptation to remove the leaves to encourage each comfrey plant to re-sprout from the ground, I held off when I saw the bee activity the other day as I was planting bedding plants in the front garden beside the comfrey bed. What the bees want, the bees get. The cutting of the comfrey can wait until the flowers are finished. The leaves will be then stuffed in a barrel. This will be topped up with water and left for a few weeks to soak and stew. A 1:10 ratio of this comfrey liquid diluted in water will then feed the fruit and vegetables as they are watered by watering cans.

One of the many bees which visit the comfrey bed. Note the proboscis mouthpiece of the bee probing the flower to reach the nectar.

Perennial ‘everlasting cabbage’ protected from the cabbage white butterfly by garden netting over a frame of canes, bottles and pegs alongside a pot of mixed lettuce.

Last year I thought I would save time netting my cabbages and just inspect the underside of my brassica plants for cabbage white butterfly eggs. They are easy enough to spot, I thought, being a bright yellow colour in clumps against the cabbage green leaves. Lack of inspection time and too many leaves to inspect meant enough eggs hatched out to render my cabbage a skeleton of stalks!

Over winter, however, my trusty everlasting cabbage plants and purple sprouting broccoli recovered and grew new leaves. Now they are big and bushy once more. To prevent the tragedy of caterpillars devouring the leaves again, I have taken protective action and the cabbage is now covered with netting to keep out the cabbage white butterfly. The broccoli has recently finished and has been removed to make way for beetroot and chard.

For less than 5 euro, I bought green garden netting. First I constructed a frame of bamboos with upturned plastic bottles on top of each cane. This prevents the netting from being ripped when it is draped over the structure all around the cabbage plants. Any leaves that were in contact with the edge of the netting, I harvested. If any leaf surface is accessible to the butterfly, she will lay. If even the slightest gap in the netting exists, she will get in to the cabbage plants also. The length of netting was first draped over the cabbage from north to south. When this was secured to the ground on each side, another length of netting was draped over the bush from east to west. Again, by threading the base of the netting through a bamboo cane on the ground, the base of the netting could be pegged at the bottom to prevent any gaps being created. Clothes pegs were then handy to close off any gaps at the corners. The pegs attached easily to the bamboo uprights. I hope the photograph makes all this reasonably clear.

The cabbage white butterfly lays eggs in May/June this year. In a normal year laying could start in April. During August / September, she lays again, so don’t be caught out in the autumn! More details in the book Trevor’s Kitchen Garden, pages 49, 110, 113, 212. I’ve seen the book in many good garden centres and bookshops recently including the Book Centre in Wexford. To check where the book is available, contact the publisher www.orpenpress.com.

The surviving colony of healthy well tempered bees housed last August as a swarm captured by John.

With some trepidation, myself and beekeeping mentor friend, John Holland, approached my two hives in our friend Carmel’s garden to see how the two hives had survived the winter. The temperature outside was about 16 degrees centigrade and the day was fine. It is generally not a good idea to open a hive for any length when the temperature is below 15c as the bees get dangerously chilled. However back in January, I had briefly lifted the lid to place flat bags of fondant on top of the frames so the bees would have some food to survive the very long winter. This was intended to supplement their own winter stores.

One hive was active, the other dead. When we opened the quiet one, the remains of a bee cluster were to be seen. The small size of the cluster suggests there were too few bees to maintain the 37 degree standard temperature of the hive, so essentially they died of the cold. They had hardly touched the fondant I have placed in the hive, so they were too weak even to feed it seems. There were many signs of chalk brood as well, so the brood box and frames will need to be sterilized so all parts are disease free before a new colony can be given a home there.

The other hive was a total contrast. It shows good signs of a young fertile queen as larvae were prolific. In fact the brood box seemed to be quite full of bees. Immediately, we put on a queen excluder and a super on top of the brood box and queen excluder. This super of frames will give the bees space to put the honey ‘up in the attic’ so to speak. This will leave more room in the brood box for the queen to lay eggs and breed more bees. Had I not put on a super, there is a risk that the lack of space might have caused swarming. There is no guarantee the bees are not thinking of swarming so each week from now on, I must make time to examine this healthy hive. If it is growing fast enough to split, then I will have an empty brood box now to house the new swarm. We live in hope!

A number of seeds which don’t like being transplanted such as radish, carrot, parsnip and potato, are sown in situ outside when the soil has warmed up to over 7 degrees centigrade atleast to ensure good germination. The majority of the seeds I have sown for this growing season begin in modules in seed trays (see pp 88 – 91 ‘Trevor’s Kitchen Garden’, www.orpenpress.com or most good bookshops).

Now the greenhouse shelves are packed with rows of seed trays labelled with date of sowing and variety of seed sown. These include 1. Tamar Mixed Lettuce – 2. Broad Bean (Vectra from Seedsavers) – 3. Runner Bean (Black Knight from Seedsavers) – 4. Mange Tout (Sugar Dwarf Pea) – 5. Purple Sprouting Broccoli – 6. Leek (Musselborough) – 7. Beetroot (Avon Early from Seedsavers) – 8. Rainbow Chard Leaf Beet – 9. Courgette (Nero di Milano from Seedsavers) – 10. Mexican Sunflower (Tithonia) – 11. Nicotiana – 12. Cosmos – 13. Viola (Tricolour) – 14. Tomato (Gardener’s Delight). I cheated with the tomato and bought an organically grown pot plant grown in Sonairte’s organic walled garden up the road in Laytown. I only need two plants so hardly worth the effort of buying a whole packet of tomato seed for the sake of growing two plants!

Some of the seeds listed are for flowers, essentially food for the bees, other pollinators,

Watering a tray sown with tiny seed using a large jar of water with a perforated lid which drizzles water so seeds are not dislodged.

hover flies etc, all of which benefit the food crops and make the whole business of kitchen gardening more attractive. Some of these flower and veg seeds are tiny. The rose head on the small watering can is clogged up at this stage. Necessity being the mother of invention, I set about creating an even and gentle watering system for these trays of tiny seeds. Multiple tiny holes in the lid of a large jar made for a very fine and even watering device. Naturally this only applies to small scale kitchen gardening, but it works for me! May the sun and rain help you garden in the weeks ahead.

For instance, the audience got involved in making paper plant pots, eating tendrils of peas growing in a large plant pot and leaves of onions also growing in a pot. The peas were sown marrowfat peas from a regular supermarket food shelf and the onions were a densely planted handful of onion sets. The leaves can be eaten as well as the onions themselves. Using plastic bottles, cardboard and tinfoil etc,  soil was analysed, earthworms were studied and seeds were sown.

If you are a teacher or are friendly with teachers, please urge them to sign up for

School garden guru, Paddy Madden, telling teachers at Lucan GIY about plant spacing.

Paddy Maddens course on ‘Living Classrooms – Using School Grounds’ from 1 – 5 July this summer at Marino Institute of Education, Griffith Avenue, Dublin 9.  Teachers should email Moya at inservice@mie.ie or phone 01 – 8057775 or Paddy 01 – 8057757. Only Marino seems to take the importance of food growing in schools seriously among the Colleges of Education which is great to see as far as it goes. However, why the blind spot in all the other  larger Colleges of Education?  I wish we had more Paddy Madden type lecturers. Ireland’s future would be a healthier place if that was the case!

With my small garden, potatoes are now growing in bags which were left inside a sliding door kitchen window, until danger of frosty nights has passed.  At that point, out they will go to grow on, flower and be harvested on the patio. The potato bags will benefit from regular watering and occasional earthing up just like potatoes in the open ground.

Meanwhile, in the 2 acre walled organic garden in Sonairte up the road in Laytown, Co. Meath, the potatoes have been planted in this year’s potato plot outdoors. Although the garden is south facing and sheltered, the Sonairte gardeners have taken precautions to protect the potato patch from frost. Fleece is a good investment in Sonairte not just for this job. Fleece, if treated carefully, can be re-used again and again, to protect against carrot root fly, cabbage white butterfly egg laying or indeed bird attacks on strawberries. Of course, cardboard, old carpet etc will protect potatoes just as good as fleece in a small area. www.sonairte.ie.

Veronica and Adrian in the Sonairte walled garden protecting the seed potatoes from ground frost. Visit the garden for free Wed – Sun each week. Volunteers also welcome. http://www.sonairte.ie

First: Clear out the greenhouse as much as possible. Remove the withered remains of last year’s annual crops if not already removed. The old cape gooseberries’ growth, runner bean and tomato stalks etc. I still have lots of flat parsley growing so the spring clean will be good news for the over-wintered parsley plants.

Second: With the help of a steady stepladder, brush away all the cobwebs and loose grim from glass and frames inside and out.

Third: Fill a bucket with warm soapy water. Find an old dish clothe or sponge and a window clearing rubber blade.

Fourth: Starting on the outside from the apex of the greenhouse roof, scrub and clean each pane of glass from top to bottom. Then do the same on the inside.

Fifth: Take a seat with a cup of tea and observe the increased light levels now in the greenhouse.

Cleaning a polytunnel is really a two person job. A rolled up old bed sheet soaked in warm soapy water is held at each end by the two person team. With this ‘sheet rope’ over the polytunnel at one end, each person in turn pulls the sheet to simulate a soapy sawing action until they reach the far end of the polytunnel. The lower parts of the polytunnel are OK to clean single-handedly with  a sponge and some warm soapy water.

Washing a greenhouse. Not good to be in a hurry, as you don’t want to fall off the stepladder through a glass roof! Keep one hand free to hold on to the frame all the time.

One week on from the greenhouse spring clean, the flat parsley, under glass, is brighter, bushier and evidently growing faster, making the bit of elbow grease and effort all the more worthwhile.

Recently in March, I planted a few more potato bags with Lumper and Colleen varieties. Hopefully in April, maybe May, the risk of frost will have passed. Once the patio is frost free, I can shift these potato planter bags outside to grow on and get an early harvest in June, before the blight season begins in earnest. When the potato plants grow taller than the rim of the bags, I will earth up each plant with that 50/50 mix of compost and soil to increase the number of tubers growing out from the stem of each plant.

After the potatoes flower, and the flowers wither, it will be time to tip out the potato plant, soil and all and retrieve the harvest. The resulting soil in which the poatoes grew will be an ideal soil to grow other container grown veg like courgettes or peas or beans or carrots or lettuce or radishes, etc. If I had more space, I would certainly be planting seed potatoes in the open garden soil later when frost has passed, in drills, or using the Aran Bed method, as well as in bags for an early crop.

Unusual organic seed varieties are still available from Sonairte, the Eco-Visitor Centre and Gardens, Laytown, Co. Meath,

Protecting the potato bags from outdoor frost by starting them off indoors. If looked after, these purpose made bags last years, but buckets or strong black plastic bags will work also.

www.sonairte.ie. If you can’t get to Laytown, then the Sonairte stand at the Dublin Food Co-Op, Newmarket, Dublin 8, on a Saturday is another place to pick up a bag or two of organic seed potatoes. They are €6 a bag or 2 bags for m€10.

The varietes available are Colleen, Toluca, Sarpo Axona, Bionica, Charlottte, Remarka, Sante, Sarpo Mira, Cara, Desiree, Robinta.