The First Post

Well, I might as well just start this. I've been blogging for a while now on a couple of other sites, I guess what you might call safe sites as there are a lot of other things on them besides blogs. I've decided to go independent (Look, Mom, I'm all growed up now).

The one thing I can honestly say I'm passionate about is gardening. You name it, I'll grow it. Well, strictly speaking, that's not true. I don't do house plants -- mainly because I live in a little bitty house, so any spare windowsills are devoted to seedlings, and cuttings attempting to root. I'm sure if I had a mansion of a house it would be full of houseplants. But probably what I'd really have is more seedlings and cuttings attempting to root.

I'm gardening on an acre in the far west of Ireland, just about as far as you can get without actually being on the coast. I'm about 10 miles inland so we get a good blast of a westerly wind... let's see, how shall I describe it... often. And since I'm in Ireland, we get a lot of (yep, you guessed it) rain. This means loads of lovely fungal diseases and millions and millions of slugs (my arch nemesis -- well, them and scutch grass). At least we don't have to water that much outside... except when... we have a dry spell, like right now. Anyway, I have to water the polytunnel which is a burden, but it's my own fault because I refuse to put in an irrigation system. Why, you ask. Because it is so damp here at times that fungal diseases build up like nobody's business. So I like to direct my watering to exactly where it needs to go. Thus, lots of Evian bottles with their bottoms cut off, turned upside down and plunged in beside the thirsty little plants. It works well and makes feeding a doddle.

I try to grow organically and I dabble in saving my own seed. But I'm about to go medieval on the scutch grass and blast it with some Roundup or Scutchout. I should've done it when I first got here 4 years ago... but noooo. I was all starry-eyed and grow your own organic blah de blah. I'm paying for that now. In some spots in my garden it is just too dodgy to spray (because the wind never completely stops here). So when I read about running the hoe over weeds to keep on top of them... that just doesn't work with dock, scutch grass, nettles, thistles and the like -- noxious (or obnoxious, as I like to call them) perennial weeds.

So I've a polytunnel as I mentioned. I'd be lost without it. I've lots of raised vegetable beds outside, a small orchard (6 apples and 3 plums at the minute), currant and goosberry bushes. I've a bed of lots of different willow growing from cuttings. I've 4 long rows of cane fruit (really should've killed the grass and weeds here before planting, but that would just spoil the fun, wouldn't it?). What I'm missing is ornamental beds. I had one nice big bed dug over when the TGF (that's the Tall Ginger Fella, aka, my husband) informed me that the footpath around the house was being busted up and re-poured. That means a digger, and a digger in my newly dug bed... foiled again. So I've loads of lovely perennials in pots and the vine weevils chomping at the bit... and nowhere decent to plant them. But, I can worry about that tomorrow...

Reading... The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry