They Taste The Same.

 According to Professor Google 22 billion Pounds is spent on bread and cereal in the UK (not forgetting England) every year.

So what do you have for your breakfast Dave?

Good question.  👍 

Well I am a real ☕️ person.  So a cafetiere (French Press) of  black (two sugars) starts my day.  Sometimes I devour half a packet of biscuits.  Recently I having been having a bowl of Bixies:

We get them from our local German garden centre and beer providers and supermarket in Bantry.

I rarely go food shopping so I don't know how much they cost compared to Weetabix?  But I honestly can not tell any difference in the breakfast cereals.

I must compare other foods to see if there are cheaper alternatives.  We paid 2.49 Euros for a pack of 36.  

Any suggestions of cheaper /similar options that you buy ?

Seconds Out. Round Two.

 I beat the cats 4 2 last night.  But something had been digging in 2 of the parsnips and carrots 🥕 barrels.

Thanks for you comments and advice yesterday about deterring cats 🐈 from the veg garden.

We bought some plastic netting from Dealz in Killarney about a month ago.  It's Ireland's equivalent to Poundland and it only cost a Euros fifty.  

I took my polytunnel scissors ✂️ and cut squares from the netting and draped them over the growing containers and placed the prickly sticks back on top and gave them a good watering.

Hopefully this will solve the cat problem?

Protecting The Parsnips And Carrot Seedlings From Cats.

 

Cats 🐈 😻 have been digging where we sowed the pregerminated parsnips and carrots 🥕  last week.

I have talked to the likes of Domino, Tigger Kitty, Midnight, Socks and Muss Muss about them not using our growing mediums for cat litter bins.

This seems to have fallen on deaf ears.  

We planted the rest of the pregerminated parsnips in more barrels and tubs that I filled and I took my loppers and cut pointy and prickly hawthorn twigs and placed them on top of the growing containers to hopefully  deter the cats.  We will see!

How do you keep cats off your vegetables and gardens?

Carboot Sale Plants Selling.

We drove over to nearby West Cork  town to a carboot sale on Sunday morning.

The online info said we could set up from nine.  I am one of those people who hate being late and we got there by eight.  Are you like me or are you always late getting anywhere,

The car boot sale wasn't supposed to start until ten.  

Little by little the world and his wife began to dribble in and I was starting to think maybe we might sell some plants?

An hour later and a few browsers conversations later and me telling folk my usual etymology of my plants to people and how to propagate and care for them.  We still hadn't sold a bean or a plant.

More of my hedging, phormiums and perennials.  Every plant there I had either propagated by cuttings or division.

Eventually  we started selling and in due course engaged in gardening conversations and I could possibly have gardening leads to weed and restore and possibly plant two gardens up.

We took 72 Euros minus the sales pitch fee and ⛽️ diesel.  If I could make that every day I would be a very happy bunny.

My plant prices were 2.50 for big perennials and 2 Euros for smaller ones.  2.50 for potted griselina and 5 Euros for phormiums.

Have you been car boot  selling lately?

Polytunnel Nettles?🤔

Polytunnel Nettles would make a good name for a Prog Rock band wouldn't it?

I saw lovely young spring nettles growing up the side of one of the raised beds  (repurposed decking planks)in the polytunnel.  

I was going to chop them up with my scissors and put them in my plastic swing bin of garden 'tea".

I noticed my Japanese onions 🌰 and some of the leeks growing and thought nettles,  Japanese onions, potato an leek 🍲 soup.

Remember my Japanese Winter  🌰 onions I planted last September in the polytunnel?   We are picking them and eating them every day.

We also picked and chopped three of the remaining big leeks and I peeled and chopped a shop bought(Lidl) potato.  Apart from the potato and the gas to cook the soup.  Our soup cost very little to make.  

Anyone else eat Spring nettles?  

It's good of Mother Nature to provide with her Spring spinach.

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The Fish Boxes, Belfast Sink, Plastic Baths, Barrels, Washing Machine Drum Allotment.

 I often say on here that you do not need to have a garden or allotment to grow your own vegetables and perennials.

All you need is something to grow them in.  Here's some of the containers I have acquired over the years living in West Cork:

Plastic Baths.  I bought them second hand and drilled drainage holes in them and filled them with fym and topsoil.

The round metal drum is from our old washing machine.  There are fish boxes I found.  Some washed up on the beaches.  You can also see barrels, plant pots and an old Belfast Sink.  Next to the pallets is a shower screen which I once made a cold frame with.

My allotments apprenticeship taught me to be resourceful and repurpose what ever I can find to grow my veggies.

Vegetable gardening need not mean you have to spend much money.  All you need is to have a look around and collect and utilise what you have got.

This is my 100th blog post of 2024.  Not bad for the middle of April.

Growing Parsnips In Big Plant Pots

 

I watched a different YouTube video about growing  parsnips the other day.  

I cut off the bottoms of some small plastic plant pots and  placed them in large planters full of compost or soil even.  I had no potting compost.

I ran the soil through my fingers and removed any stones and filled them up with fine tilthed soil.  These are living in the polytunnel for the time being

Then we sowed fifteen of the chitted parsnips I showed you on my last post.

I filled three large barrels and five big plant pots with fym and top soil outside in the veg plot.   The wife sowed thirty prechitted parsnip seeds and also carrots in the other plant pots.  Then we watered them in.

We will have an awful lot of carrots if they all grow.  Have you sowed your carrots and parsnips  yet?