Trevor's Kitchen Garden How I grow my own food and how you can too.

I had fingers crossed that the garlic harvest would be OK as in the last few weeks I had noticed orange blotches on the leaves and the term ‘rust’ describes the appearance of the  disease very well. It was time to take courage and secateurs in hand. Not wishing to spread the disease, I cut the leaves and stem of each garlic plant above ground. Carefully I put each stem in a bucket until I was just left with stumps of garlic in the ground.

The rust bucket (so to speak) I have taken indoors to dry out and then I will burn those leaves in the wood stove. Even the stove will have garlic breath that evening! Meanwhile the moment of truth. Using a small fork, I gingerly remove each freshly grown bulb of garlic. They are all looking fine and their size is about the same as the ones for sale from China in the shops. From my small patch about 6 by 3 feet, I have enough garlic for the year ahead if they store alright. Time will tell. I am now threading them by their stumpy stems so they can be hung in the shed, a la Christmas fairy lights style. Sown in October (if I recall rightly) and harvested in July, that is a fairly long growing season, c’est la vie.

Now is the time to check the results of the experiment planting just one seed potato in each potato bag all with the same soil type and conditions, to see the yield from each variety. All ready to harvest now are Orla, Charlotte, Colleen, British Queen ( but we say Rush Queen around here!) and Pink Fir Apple.

The bag in which Orla was planted was tipped over on the lawn to check the harvest. Sifting through the loose soil I picked out a dozen medium to good sized new potatoes, nothing smaller than a ‘golf ball’ size and no ‘marbles’ at all. Most of the harvest were ‘tennis ball’ sized potatoes. Something else I noticed was the worm activity and numbers where fresh seaweed had be put as a layer in the bottom of the bag. This was definitely a help I would say in feeding the roots of the plant. Watering regularly would have been critical also.

As luck would have it I was entertaining later so the new potatoes would be well sampled. Steamed with some mint, they turned out delicious and made for five good helpings from that one small seed potato. I now appreciate what I hear that eating spuds as soon after they are harvested aspossible is best. After harvest the sugar turn to starch after just a few hours which alters the flavour, so the less time in storage for new potatoes the better. Therefore, I will wait until it is time to cook before I harvest the next potato bag and see how many potatoes I get from the next variety of the one potato seed.

It is almost a year since my Green Party / Comhaontas Glas colleagues in Fingal gave me a voucher for my fifthieth birthday to install a greenhouse in ‘Trevor’s Kitchen Garden’. It took me a while to do anything about this kind and unexpected gift, what with elections, writing a book and post election trauma etc. The not so small matter of where to put a greenhouse was a critical factor too. I thought initially that I would turn my four plot rotation into a three plot rotation and put the greenhouse on the fourth plot. I am advised by my friend and organic guru Klaus Laitenberger that if growing onion family especially, they need a four year rotation atleast.

My decision was made therefore, the asparagus bed had to go along witha good chunk of the lawn. Looking back this was an obvious spot. I can watch progress from the kitchen window and it is handy to the water butt and my watering cans. It will be a huge addition to the growing capacity of the garden. It will be a (dry) dedicated place to pot up plants and sow seeds. I can also take cuttings of herbs etc to grow on there for the Balbriggan Fish and Farmers’ Market on a Friday morning in George’s Square.

Mind you it is a bit of a luxury. For a six by seven foot structure, the price would have bought me a decent sized polytunnel (, if I had had the space for such a leviathan). Well it does have automatic ventilation, the proper glass and is sturdy so I am very happy and look forward to putting in the four raised beds in the greenhouse to mirror the system outdoors, and a little pathway so I can get going with the growing. Thank you to my generous friends in the Fingal Greens and to the experts, Eoin Hurley and Graham (, my old mate from the Belle Hill Tavern days in Balbriggan of the 1980s), both from the Botanic Greenhouse Company www.botanicgreenhouses.ie for erecting  this new addition to Trevor’s Kitchen Garden.

The local Grow It Yourself Balbriggan group led by Dominica Mc Kevitt, the head gardener in Argillan Castle’s walled garden, organised a very interesting visit to the garden of Peta Taafe at Inch House near Balrothery of which I was delighted to be a part. The day was showery but the rain held off for the walk about thankfully.

Peta has a larger garden than mine. (Now there is an understatement.) In spite of growing a wide range of fruit, vegetables, herbs, ornamental shrubs and flowers, the lively dog still has a good deal of space to run around and get lost! The focus for us GIY-ers was the food production area and what stood out first was the fruit cage. A very impressive structure made from scaffolding poles which would keep out a brown bear, if they had not become extinct. Nonetheless the wily grey squirrel had got in but he did not do it a second time – the dog took care of that! Black and red currants, raspberries, strawberries etc all were growing well.

The asparagus bed had me green with envy, but it had been growing for 10 years. I not accept reluctantly that I would need a larger garden to devote the space needed for asparagus. All manner of vegetables were growing in  narrow beds following the same principles I follow of not walking on the soil in these productive areas.

The herb garden was extensive too. The edging was innovative and attractive, using up turned empty wine bottles stuck at the herb border edges. I appreciated also the huge fig tree growing up against a wall. I now know this climate I grow in will grow a good fig tree if I get a good specimen. I am on the look out for an organically grown fig tree at present. I see Irish Seed Savers may have a few to spare in the Autumn. 

My thanks to Peta and the organisers at Grow It Yourself Balbriggan for a most interesting outing.

Now that the kitchen garden at home is well planted, it is relatively straightforward to:

-  keep it watered and fed with comfrey liquid feed

- remove the odd competing slug

- check there are no caterpillar eggs on the broccolli and cabbage

-  keep excess growth cut back, harvest fruit, pick a few flowers (who is a romantic then?)

-  cut the grass and clip the hedge and shape the bay tree.

- hoe so seedling weeds do not smother the vegetables I am cultivating

No big jobs there so I was delighted to get away for the weekend to the ‘Totally Tipp’ festival celebrating local food producers in the grounds of Cloughjordan House, as well as taking part in workshops organised by Cultivate and the Eco-Village next door. ‘Selling surplus fruit and veg from the garden at your local Farmers’ Market’ and ‘The Debate Surrounding the Re – banning of Raw Milk Sales’ were the themes I was asked to address.

Admission was €8 which was good value I feel. To support Cultivate and the Eco – Village, I bought a few tickets for the raffle not expecting to win anything as usual. Lo and behold, didn’t my ticket get pulled out and the biggest hamper of organic veg ever was presented to me and Áine. In fairness, it was all fabulous, but  I was not really in the market for such a windfall. So in memory of the event, I accepted some beetroot and garlic, while Áine chose some kohlrabi and scallions. The main hamper went to the runner up in the raffle. In the end I suspect nearly everyone there went home with some delicacies from the sumptuous hamper. Now aren’t you sorry you were not there!

PS Having intact fresh beetroot is like having two vegetables in one. The leaves are delicious steamed with butter and a pinch of nutmeg, salt and pepper,  while the roots make another delicious dish boiled, skinned and served hot tossed in Glenisk natural yoghurt with chopped chives.  I look forward to having my own beetroot harvested  in a few weeks time. I hope your garden is going well for you too.

Rub off caterpillar eggs on cabbage IDEALLY BEFORE they hatch.

Cabbage white caterpillar eggs on everlasting cabbage – beware!

At long last I have got those module and pot bound seedlings into the soil ( courgette, spinach, beetroot, leek ) where they will hopefully grow on strongly so I can harvest in due course. Vigilance and a bit of time each day is needed to mind these young plants. Three ongoing tasks come to mind:

1. Water and feed: New way of watering this year but still using watering cans filled mainly from the rainwater butts. The new aspect is the sticking in the ground of a fair number of empty plastic mineral bottles with bases cut off,  close to the roots of where the fruit and veg plants are growing. I just water by filling these DIY ‘funnels’. If the water only drains away slowly, I stop watering as it indicates the soil is already moist and the additional water is excessive to requirements.

2. Picking food when it is ready: I am finding regular picking of lettuce leaves, peas, broccoli, spinach etc, keeps the plant producing more for future harvests. The raspberry crop is bst ever this year. Likewise the blackcurrant on the porridge every morning are a great harbinger of summer. Salads are now far more than lettuce leaves, as dandelion, nasturtium leaves and flowers, fennel, borage and any other handy edible leaves and flowers add flair to to the salad bowl.

3. Hoe and patrol for slugs and cabbage white butterflies: Hoeing is a handy way to prevent weeds competing with food crops, but it has another use. By disturbing the soil, the slim tracks laid by slugs and snails are demolished,  seriously setting back mollusc mobility. The drier the soil surface is the better.  Slugs need a wet walkway to sally forth in search of vulnerable veg. This is where the watering ‘funnels’ are a help in keeping the soil surface dry, as the water is delivered below the surface directly to the root area, in effect. So while slug numbers are down more than snails, I observe, I hope I have foiled the Garden Snail ( Helix aspersa ) and  the Common Garden Slug ( Arion distinctus ). It is a relief not having to kill offending molluscs and if they stay busy in the compost bin, then they will be providing a useful service as detritivores or as a type of horticultural alchemists, making a valuable compost from rejected organic bits and pieces.

Elsewhere, the heavy bursts af rain have spurred on the growth of hedges and bay tree which both need trimming. The early potatoes are in flower and each variety is possible to distinguish by the flower it produces, For example, Charlotte has a purple and yellow flower while the British Queen flower is white and yellow.

Last Saturday at  Bloom in Dublin’s Phoenix Park was a scorcher. An army of Grow It yourself (GIY) volunteers (protected by sun-block)  engaged numerous passers-by to discuss growing fruit and veg at home, keeping chickens, composting etc. There were even enough volunteers for me  and others to take a few moments out to join Victoria Mary Clarke in a spot of ‘yoga for gardeners’. Tips to strengthen back muscles were much appreciated.

Again we were back on duty as GIY volunteers on Bank Holiday Monday. Again I ventured to bring along ‘everlasting cabbage’ cuttings from that parent bush in the garden which has to be removed so as to make way for beetroot, chard and spinach. As luck would have it, President Mc Aleese and husband Dr Martin Mc Aleese, now a Senator, arrived about the same time that morning. In the middle of speaking to fellow kitchen gardeners visiting Bloom, along came the President and her entourage, army, Gardaí, CEO of An Bord Bia, Mr Aidan Cotter, Gary Graham, Manager of Bloom, a scurry of press photographers and a scribble of journalists,  etc etc etc. I had a chance to say hello to The President, Dr Martin, Aidan and other former colleagues from An Bord Bia. I thanked the President and Martin for what they had done to make the recent State visits a great success and asked them if they would like an everlasting cabbage cutting. Given previous conversations at other official events with the President,  I knew of the Mc Aleese’s interest in health, food and producing organically, and so was not surprised they accepted the cutting gladly. I was surprised and indeed chuffed to see the next day in the Irish Indo a picture of me presenting the cabbage cutting to the Presidential party, and an upbeat article about the record breaking success of Bloom.

The following Friday at Balbriggan Fish and Farmers’ Market, I displayed the picture from the Indo and a sign saying ‘Free ‘Presidential’ Cabbage Cutting with every purchase of organic produce at my Sonairte stall. Needless to say I was entirely sold out by lunchtime!

Cut plastic bottles upturned for watering.

Newly planted cabbage cuttings

Windy but dry and temperatures slightly less than normal 12 – 14 degrees C during the day. Happily the garden is well sheltered with apple tree, fruit bushes, hedge, wall and back fence all helping to create a tranquil growing area for young veg plants.

I have taken cuttings from the everlasting cabbage to plant up in the cleared legume patch from last growing season. Once these cuttings are established, I will remove/ give away/ compost the remains of last year’s cabbage to make way for the spinach, leaf beet and beetroot, which are waiting patiently in pots for planting out at this stage.

The up-turned plastic bottles minus their bases stuck in the soil beside veg plants like funnels are working well as watering focal points. The soil surface stays dry while more of the watering-can contents reach the roots. With the soil surface remaining dry, the slug mobility is reduced so less slug damage this year. Mind you I think the cold winter killed many slug eggs so hard to tell why I am enjoying , largely, slug free gardening this year.

Off to Bloom on Saturday and Monday of the Bank Holiday Weekend as a volunteer on the GIY stand. Photos and feedback in the next posting and hope to see you there over the weekend meanwhile.

Bob Shearman chairing Open Forum at Garden Organic AGM

AGM of Garden Organic near Coventry UK, 14 May 2011

Took a ferry to Holyhead and car-shared through picturesque Snowdonia to Ryton, near Coventry for a weekend conference dealing with issues of interest to any kitchen gardener. The venue was the HQ of the Henry Doubleday Research Association, know these days as ‘Garden Organic’. From the `13th – 15th May, the agenda covered issues such as growing without peat moss, the best ways to grow organically and how to qualify as a ‘master composter’. The location is a great place to visit at anytime as it has developed 32 separate gardens with diverse themes and growing conditions on 8 acres. Another 8 acres are used for organic methodology research and the remaining 8 acres is taken by offices, shop and restaurant, display areas, classrooms and a carpark etc.

Now I am home, the priority is to get my composter filled so I can free up space to transplant everlasting cabbage cuttings to this year’s brassica patch. My delay in getting around to this is a bonus for Arthur. the cat, who is taking advantage of the heat emanating from the decomposing comfrey leaves which were picked an d now lie awaiting their incorporation in the composter with the myriad of other ingredients assembled for inclusion to make the next batch of compost.

The legume patch is filling up but it is too early to say what will thrive and what might not survive. Meanwhile Pisum sativum, sold as the Irish Green Pea by Brown Envelope Seeds in Skibereen, Co Cork, needed planting out as their roots and shoots were outgrowing their seed compost filled toilet roll modules. Blue Lake, the French bean variety I bought from Sonairte, the ecology centre near Laytown, Co Meath, are today planted out but the cooler weather could be a problem for these sun loving tender beans.

If some legumes do fail, then the ‘Enorma’ variety of runner bean, bought from the Organic Centre in Co Leitrim, have just been sown in pots in the glasshouse to fill any gaps which occur in the legume patch. Meanwhile some early pea pods are ready to harvest, so guess what is on the menu for dinner tomorrow!

Little or no rain over the last four weeks has been a mixed blessing. Slugs have been unable to travel any distance as the soil is dry on the surface. Also rates of germination of seed and growth of plants are impressive. The weed seeds are germinating too, which is why my new swivel headed hoe is poised ready inside the shed door to scuff any bare soil at any opportunity.

Where I have had grass clippings available, these are used under raspberry and blackcurrant bushes to suppress weed growth and critically in this weather, prevent evaporation of moisture from the soil.

With fresh water supplies worldwide unable to meet the needs of humanity, it feels right to save dishwater and vegetable washing water in a bucket under the kitchen sink, and then use this ‘grey water’ to irrigate the kitchen garden. The apple tree, which has apples now forming, and the blossoming raspberry canes are the plants which benefit most from the bucketfuls which are thrown almost from the back door.

The younger plants of peas, broccoli, lettuce and carrots etc, are in need of a gentler watering regime. I have taken to shoving upturned PET plastic bottles with bottom discs cut off, just beside the plant or plants which cannot be allowed to dry out. I find if a hole is made first using a dibber, then the up-turned bottles are easier to secure and then fill with water from a watering can. This means the water percolates around the roots of the sun flower etc, and little or none evaporates.

These up-turned large mineral bottle are good for the garden to almost self-water if the gardener is taking a few days off in high summer. The slow percolation of water when poured into each bottle is I think better than splashing the dry soil with a watering can or a hose – but at this rate of drought a hose ban order would not be a surprise.