Trevor Sargent cuts the ribbon at the opening of St. Teresa's N.S. vegetable garden while Principal Pat Furlong lends a hand.

I was delighted to be asked to open the very special vegetable garden in St Teresa’s National School, Balbriggan, last Friday. Principal. Mr Pat Furlong, caretaker Richard along  with Ms Ann Lee, her  pupils, and their parents pulled together to create a spectacular and very productive organic garden, complete with bug hotel and scarecrows. The full range of popular vegetables was looking good and very healthy. After the ribbon cutting and the very welcome cuppa and sandwiches, Ms Lee asked about my own patch. Before long we had a plan in place for her class to walk up the road on Monday morning to see   ”Trevor’s Kitchen Garden’.

Coincidentally, the importance of gardening for good childhood development has been in the news this week following publication of a three year study by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) in the UK. The study was commissioned by the Royal Horticultural Society, a great organization which helps  thousands of schools to establish gardens.

The NFER studied 10 schools in depth in Britain from London city to rural Yorkshire. As well as that, over 1,300 teachers were surveyed over 3 years. This research found that schools which actively use a garden in the curriculum develop ‘resiliant’, ‘ready to learn’ and ‘responsible’ children.

So to talk about gardening developing skills to ensure society has the means to feed itself in the future is but one worthwhile reason to get growing. Here and now, gardening in schools, homes and communities is key to our children becoming well-balanced, healthy, happy and all round well developed individuals. On top of this,  tilling the soil develops qualities of patience, co-operation and entrepreneurship amongst many young people, the reseach found.

Mind you, when the green-fingered pupils of St. Teresa’s National School in Balbriggan called around last Monday, it was enjoyment and adventure which was uppermost on their minds. After a glass of apple juice each, they were in fine voice to sing a few bars of ”The Garden Song’ to ‘robin watching hungrily from his perch in yonder tree’. The video clip below gives some sense of the occasion.

This being the longest day, I am set upon harvesting the patch growing onions, shallots and garlic. If garlic is best harvested on the longest day, then I am bang on! Each crop  is being lifted with the help of my garden fork. The waft of garlic aroma bodes well for flavoursome meals in the months to come. I lay out the garlic, onion and shallots on the warm dry pavements to dry off the soil so I can brush off any loose soil before hanging the produce to dry in a cool dry location.

In the middle of the empty patch after clearing young weeds I left only cosmos which will flower and keep the bees happy later in the summer. I plant 8 courgette plants in ring around the cosmos which have been well watered in. I will mulch the soil around these plants with newspaper and cover the paper with grass clippings.  The sooner the leaf cover grows the less chance weeds have to grow too. Covered soil will slow down evaporation further which means less watering needed as well. Mulching also results in less blemished and cleaner courgettes which won’t be lying on bare soil as they ripen.

The potatoes, both early (Colleen) and second early (Carlingford) have been growing away in  strong  bags. The earlies are ready so out they come.  I tip over the  grow bags to collect the lovely new potatoes. Once boxed for short term stortage,  (earlies are not as good as main crop for long term storage), I put back the compost and soil mix in each growing bag. These bags are now ready to have a pumpkin seedling planted into each bag. I must remember to keep the pumpkins well  watered as those bags can easily dry out if not watched each morning especially in this halcyon heat. You may notice me trying not to squint in the early morning sunshine during the Youtube video clip about all this posted below!

Naul was well represented as were GIYers from Skerries, Bog of the Ring, Lusk, Rush, Lucan, Donabate, Swords, Malahide, Garristown, Ballyboughal, Smithfield in Dublin City and of course Balbriggan GIY stalwarts were there too. I learned a fair few things myself from the banter during a balmy blue sky evening.

For example,  we were told garlic cloves are  best sown on the shortest day so they can be harvested on the longest day. So I look forward to celebrating the longest day by harvesting my modest garlic crop. It was suggested the Minister for Finance would appreciate a bulb or two. Supplying the Minister with garlic is the least I can do for my country!

The garden tour was also a win-win in that I had a very bushy cabbage patch which I needed to clear to make way for young beetroot and rainbow chard plants growing too big in modules. Lo and behold, the cabbage bush was stripped bare before the night was out. So over the weekend the remnants of last years brassica patch was finally transformed into a new season beetroot and rainbow chard patch. I hope my guests enjoyed cooking and tasting  this heritage variety of ‘everlasting cabbage’ which is generally not for sale in the shops.

Sadly this is but one example of fruit and vegetable varieties which used to be common but are now no longer widely available. I read that 100 years ago the USA had 100 times the varieties of edible plants available commercially compared to today. Humankind is becoming more and more dependent on fewer and fewer food species of flora or fauna. Worldwide three quarters of all food now derives from just 8 species. I read also that 98%  of all commercial seeds are controlled by just 6 companies, DuPont, Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow, Aventis and Mitsiu. At the same time, a third of all USA health spending is on diet related problem and Ireland has a history of copying US trends,

So as well as kitchen gardening being an instument of healthy community resilience, co-operation and self-reliance, there is also a important job to do in maintaining and enchancing the diversity of food species that have been developed over generations  to make communities not just wealthy but healthy too.

Photos courtesy of C.Finn: Click to view slideshow.

Once the plants grow tall and tomatoes form supports will be needed. So I tied twine from each window box close to where each plant was growing and fixed each length to a cane spanning the brackets holding the curtain rail. Just need to water and feed now to encourage healthy growth and fruiting.

The variety is Brandywine. I may have been a bit late in sowing in late April but time will tell. I’ll post up a couple of photographs when I get a chance.

However, it is time to be ‘glic’ and engage more brain than brawn. The sunflowers and tomatoes are growing taller by the day. As long as winds are light – no problem! But just as the motorist and passengers have to wear safety belts, the gardener needs also to support plants which could be flattened if winds get up.

So, out come the stored bamboo canes from the shed for another year of use. Out come the twine and scissors, also. No heavy lifting needed (thank God!), just snipping and tying of twine after pushing stakes into soft soil (using left hand only)!

Just in the nick of time too. Last night heavy rain fell and the potato haulms were fairly bowed down as a result when I left to catch the train this morning. The potatoes are sturdy enough to recover. However, had I not staked and tied the sunflowers, I’ve no doubt I’d be counting losses today.

Meanwhile, the tomatoes are tied up under glass. I see small yellow flowers beginning to form. So when the tomatoes follow the flowers  and fill out, those trusses will be already supported enough to bear the weight of the mouth-watering aromatic fruits.

Large White Cabbage Butterfly

This is the week when I bought an 8m x 6m garden net for €8.50 from Charlie Corr’s my local hardware shop. I need it to protect my cabbage patch from the alluring but potentially devastating cabbage white butterfly. Although this little creature is very soft on the eye, unfortunately it’s offspring are very hard on the cabbage.

I have posted a video on this site showing the cabbage patch and the whole back garden at the end of June with before and after shots showing 9 bamboo sticks, topped with 9 upside down empty plastic water bottles holding aloft the netting once it is tied at the centre supported by a central taller bamboo. This ‘net tent’ is held down by 8 old tent pegs around the edge.

Two species are worth remembering here. The Large White and the Small White. The Large lays its eggs in clusters on the underside of brassica leaves which are easy to detect and destroy if you spot them in time by rubbing them away with your thumb. The Small White differs by laying its minute eggs singly on the underside of brassica leaves. Trouble is, if you do not spot it in time, each resulting caterpillar begins its eating odyssey at the heart of a cabbage and only appears on the outer leaves when extensive damage has been done to the plant.

It is for these reasons that I bought and erected the net ( with a little help from my friends, thanks Lorcan and Ciaran). I still have to lift the edges to retrieve slugs and snails at night by torchlight before bedtime. However the net is still loose enough to not impede the watering can during the almost daily early morning watering routine.

How do I know they are ready to harvest? I watch out to see when the potato plants flower. When the flowers fade and wilt, the plant is finished growing and the potatoes are as ready as they will ever be to be dug up.

As these plants are in grow bags, they can simply be turned on their side and emptied out. Before I do this, I lay out old carpet on the patio on which to rummage through the soil for all the new potatoes, big and small. The small ones are set aside for boiling up whole as salad potatoes whereas the bigger ones will be served hot with butter and a sprig of mint – delish!

If I can manage to preserve the grow bags and the rich contents of soil and compost, I can plant up the same bags on the patio to grow on the courgette plants which were sown in early May in pots. The pots were left on the kitchen windowsill until germination. Then they went to the telephone box sized greenhouse to grow on. In the last week, I have put the pots outside during the day and taken them in at night, to harden the plants off in readiness for their final outdoor but sheltered and hopefully sunny patio location.

I love courgettes and it is rare to find Irish grown courgettes in the shops. In previous years, I’ve grown long green ones and yellow ones. This year I’m going for a round variety called ‘Tondo de Nizza’. The Organic Centre seed packet instructions tell me it germinates at about 20c. As the Italian name suggests, the courgette is a bit of a sun worshipper. The forecast this week in Ireland shows about 18c daytime temperatures. My courgettes may feel a bit like a Roman centurion in Chester dreaming of a sunny villa in Sicily. Nonetheless, my south facing  patio with a bit of TLC may just be enough to give me a good yield of promised ‘small round fruits with a green mottled skin and fine flavour’! If I pick the fruit regularly, I hope to be harvesting from July to September.

Last year I grew leek seeds in modules and planted out each module spaced about 6 inches (10 cm) apart. This year, my leeks are growing in a tray so I can do the traditional thing and prick them out in to holes poked in the soil and puddle them in without back filling the holes. We’ll see how they do this year compared to last year.

The spinach beet plants were sown late as I already had a crop (I thought) but in late April it quickly went to seed.  Perhaps I was a bit greedy expecting to get most of a second year out of it as it had given me dozens of delicious spinach dishes the previous year right through the winter and in the spring just gone. Also called ‘perpetual spinach’ I thought it might live up to its name. No problem, I now have the plants ready to plant for a new crop. The spinach beet was sown in modules so it is quite easy to plant out with a trowel and watering can, once the soil has been tilled, weeded and made even in readiness for the new arrivals.

Next week, I’ll be harvesting the early potatoes, variety ‘Colleen’ and planting out the courgette plants grown from seed earlier. Mr Burke’s class in Francis Street CBS National School, in the Liberties of Dublin,  were showing me and indeed cooking and tasting their harvest of ‘Colleen’ potatoes earlier today along with their beetroot. carrots, lettuce. cabbage, onions, scallions and raspberries, all grown on classroom windowsills. One of the students Patrick has brought in cauliflowers and peppers grown on the balcony of his high-rise flat. Wish I had had food growing as part of the curriculum when I was Patrick’s age. Patrick’s school are now planning to dig up a corner of the tarmac playground to create an outdoor school garden. Rath De ar an obair, a bhuachailli!

Meanwhile back at the ‘ranch’ in my own garden, the blackfly colonised the growing tips of my broad beans. Solution? A hand held mist sprayer filled with water and a drop of washing-up liquid. Find a jet setting by twisting the nozzle. A strong jet from the sprayer dislodges these black little aphids. Those I miss will hopefully be eaten by ladybirds and hover flies. This has now become an early morning  routine along with hoeing and watering.

The tomato, potato and strawberries are flowering as are broad beans. Blackcurrants, raspberries and apples are growing their fruits now also. So I am putting a dollop of comfrey feed in each watering can I fill. The comfrey leaves when cut back are covered with water in a barrel with a tap. This ‘Comfrey Tea’ once diluted is a common organic feed used to help plants when they are coming in to fruit. Don’t mind the smell, it disappears as nature takes up the goodness within a few hours I find.

Now is the time to feed and water growing plants, fruit trees especially. We need to balance the necessity for watering our plants with the need to avoid wasting water, such a precious resource. In the video you’ll see some techniques I use, including making that famous ‘comfrey tea’.