Sorry the simple answer is no. I tried seedsavers who could not identify the apple, and suggested a place in UK it was £25 to send it and get details. The trees been her about 90 years from the rings that I counted. While I have cut it down - it was very diseased, it has started to grow again.

The apples are smallish, starting yellow and going red on the side facing the sun. Its a nice apple, a bit sharp to eat but its a late ripener so I leave some for ripening. I cook with it - very nice, make cider nice and the goats love them. The blossom is turned into the most clear almost like water honey :)

I am hoping the one I cut down will start to fruit again soon and the cuttings maybe in the next 5 years. I mainly grow it for the blossom for the honey. Hope to have about 70 of them in the field behind the house, with some elderberry, cider apples and one or two other old apple finds.

So sorry no I dont know what it is called :( though I called my cottage after the tree as when I came to see the cottage in November, I knew it was an apple tree and in the tree was a small wrens nest made of feathers, baler twine and moss, all along the branches grew ferns; so I called my place Ferntree Cottage :). Friends call the cutting Ferntree Apples :)

Over the years I have found there is no replacement for animal manure, in cultivating plants off all types, it brings the plant to the fruiting stage earlier, so that the little summer that we have is able to ripen the fruits. I have noticed that as my confidence grew I started to leave fruits to ripen more thoroughly. I kept wanting to pick things when I first started LOL.

Fruits that the shops sell are underripe and in our inexperience we try to emulate this, fruits should be left of the plant until ripe and you may loose a few while practising, try leaving them longer than you think, tomatoes should be soft and deep red.

sorry for my spellings

plastic greenhouses
 

hi folks, i was looking online at the up-coming offers in Aldi, and I think they are doing those little greenhouses next week - 20 euro or thereabouts. Check online for details if you are interested :)

Ecoprincess... in amongst your impressive job load are there any children running around the place, i chase after 3 of them and never seem to have enough time in the day to achieve any where near what you do .... what is the secret??? please


Lidl's at the moment have a wide range of reasonably priced seeds both veg and flower.. they also have kholrabi seeds which i can vouch are lovely... either boiled and mashed with butter or pan fried, they taste like across between courgettes and aubergines to me...


take care
summersun

One Son, one grandchild but neither live with me. Get the kids to help, my grandaughter loves the garden and the goats, she milks for me, when shes here, and shes only 8.

Secrets, that would be telling LOL I dont know, don't relax too much, eat well, never look upon life as work, just as pleasure; I was seriously ill a few years ago and it sort of made me realise the pleasure in life is in living it not watching the TV. I don't want to arrive at my grave in a perfectly preserved body, I want to arrive in my grave, sliding sideways off my Harley Davidson, worn out and with a smile on my face. At the funeral will be a Q of younger men missing me :) a few people coming to make sure I'm dead and a few who can't beleive I'm dead. To him up there I will say "you gave me a life and I lived it, I did some good and some bad, but I lived my life, so can I have another go?"

the muck in my garden is like clay---what shoud I put in it or can I just buy good muck from woodies? I just want to make a little area to have a try at growing whatever veg is easiest

veggie growing (manure)
 

hi to all veggie growers.
This is my first year at trying to grow veggies.I have just completed building my first raised plot.Its 9ft by 3ft.I was wondering if old musheroom compos would be ok to use as a fertilizer if it was mixed through the clay.I will probley try carrotts,onions,scallions,lettuce,strawberries and a small amount of potatoes.Im after getting so much infomation of the forum I look forward to reading every day
thanks everybody
ark

Jeana:

Is the soil very wet, if so build raised beds, one at a time make them 10 ft x 4 ft. If you want to try just one bed I suggest either Potatoes or salad crops, easy to grow good returns.

Ok, you can use mushroom compost which will give you a boost for things such as peas, bean, and fruits, you can grow good brassicas and onions too but they may flower quickly.

Manure if you live in the country and there is some horse manure offered for free on site, your own compost if you have a compost heap, or if not doing raised beds peatmoss, will help with the soil condition. Do not use sand, clay has a lot of sand in it and its a mistake to add more.

This coming autumn get some manure or use your own compost heap even if not fully matured and chopped straw from your local animal feed supplier. €3.00 a large bag - that would bed 4 goat pens 6 x 5. This will rot through out the winter and add roughage to the soil, aid drainage and lighten the soil.

In raised beds for emegency use try to every large bag of moss peat ( or potting compost whicher is the cheaper) 1 bag of farmyard manure - to be got from your garden centre. Add some hoof and horn a little fishmeal and blood and organic growmore this lot is ok for use straight away, but will be excellent soil in about 3 years. Put this on clay and the worms will work the lot through the clay and give you a really good loam soil - this is how I work. Also its weed free which goes in with my no dig policy. Nothing though works as well as animal manure.


Yep mushroom compost see above. Cover your carrotts against root fly, the rest looks sound. strawberries dont crop really well until their second year but give you some to browse on :)

veggies
 

thanks ecoprincess for that information on the soil.Do you think its to late to treat the soil with mushroom compost for the coming growing season
thanks again
ark

ecoprincess
 

thanks ecoprincess for all your advice about the soil
ark

Not at all do it as soon as possible and everything will be fine.

Anyone some advice????
 

I've planted vegetable seeds in egg cartons in shrub compost, covered them with a plastic bag, left them on the window sill in the conservatory and now some of them have white fluffy stuff on the compost.
How did that happen and what do I do with it?

Another question.
Some seeds have come up (with no mould). How and when do I transplant them to a bigger pot as they seem extremely fragile to handle. They have stems that are 11/2 inch with 2 tiny leaves on top.

I'm all very new to this and learning as I go. Got seed compost now for the next bunch.
Thanks

fruit and vegies
 

wow you all sound such a dab hand at growing your goods maybe I will come in the middle of the night and steal some for myself

The plastic should come off as soon as the seeds germinate otherwise the pants will be spindly and weak. You can cut the section of egg carton and plant the lot > This minimes shock. Remember that breaking down paper consumes nitrogen so the plants may need help to make up the loss......a liltle often is best.

My typing finger is not working today. Hope you get the idea !

Sorry, I'm not really clear on this part.Do you mean I should feed them now?
Should I plant the whole lot in a bigger pot without splitting them up.

veggies
 

for those interested ive just been in lidel and they have those mini greenhouses in this week the 3 in one is 34.99 the tent greenhouse like the one at mums is 22.99 and the plant bed is 29.99
hope this helps those interested i can post the sizes if interested ok

Yes, feed them now with a very diluted feed. As for planting them all together, it really depends on what plants they are. If tomatoes, plant them singly by cutting the egg carton into sections.

Seed compost has feed in it and that should help, once the seeds are showing take the cover off and keep them in full light so that they dont get legy and weak.

I would transplant them into potting compost so that they have all the food they need for now so long as you keep them just moist, hold carefully by the leaf. Normally I would not transplant until the first true leaf appeared on any plant.

veggies
 

thanks everybody for all the information

have you tried the pee on your tomatoes

great
 

this is a great information thread so bump

I saw this on gardensplanireland and thought it was really relevant to this site:

http://www.gardenplansireland.com/forum/about2169.html

It's the toilet roll/newspaper bit I'm talking about so scroll down!!

Lisa

I use the old toilet roll middles for starting off seeds - the whole thing, pot and plant, put directly into the soil when they're ready. The toilet roll pots will rot away - sometimes I tear them as I plant out the seedling, usually they're already broken or about ready to disintegrate.

I've read that some people put the toilet roll inners in a microwave for about a minute before they use them, this prevents fungal growth (I think). I've never done that and I've never had a problem with them.

thanks for directing us to that interesting thread - I plan on going back to that site, it looks great, full of info.

Re seed potatoes
 

Hi there
I hope you dont mind me jumping in here but im looking where to buy seed potatoes for my brother (in mayo). i live in North Dublin and am looking for enough to seed about half an acre.
Any information appreciated.
thanks.

If you go to the website above - gardenplansireland - on their forum they have names of seed suppliers in Ireland. HTH
Lisa

Growing Vegetables
 

bit late with the weekly update but its been such good weather its been outside work only.

So now your onions and Garlic should be popping their heads above the soil. In the greenhouse your beans dwarf, pole, broad should be up and in leaf, along with your squashes, melon, cucumbers, pumpkins, tomatoes, leeks, spinach, chard, cauliflowers, and I'm sure I have missed stuff out. In the garden you seed bed should be raked and sown with brassicas such as kales, sproutings, brussels, and lettuces along with other in situ salads such as scallions, mixed leave lettuces and herbs. In their appropriate place, beetroot have been sown along with perpetual spinach. I hang off with my carotts until next month and my potatoes the ground needs to be a little warmer yet maybe this weekend.

I have sown parsley and transplanted the overwinter to their new home.

The apricots have masses of flowers and the apples are just begining in the orchard, the Artiochokes - globe are beginning to waken as are the herbs. I have planted some sage, rosemary and marjoram in the greenhouse they suffer in bad summers and winters in Ireland so I decided to see how they did in the greenhouse for an all year around supply - so far so good.

I have also planted up more rhubarb, made a new aspargus bed and done a final weeding of the vegetable area before transplanting.

What I still have to do is nastertums the bees love them and I let them grow with the pole beans they look great, are edible and the last flower for the bees before they retire for winter.

Not a good year for the bees lost a couple of hives but still have a few left so will increase this year rather than aim for alots of honey - if its a good year I might have both :)

Where to get seeds???
 

Hi all just to let you know you can get seeds from irish seed savers online at www.irishseedsavers.ie they are a brilliant organisation that are saving seeds and keeping certain varieties from goin extinct, you can join for 30 - 50 euro a year (depending on your income) and will get 5 free seeds packets of your choice along with other membership extras..also if your going to buy seeds from garden centres supermarkets etc...be careful that they are not f1 which means they are genetically modified, and because of this you cannot save seeds from them so u have to keep buying them every year...which is not really sustainable!! (of course this depends on whether u want to be or not!!)

what exactly does f1 mean? Is it printed somewhere on the seed packet?

f1 = filial1 ?

Details here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F1_hybrid

yes its on the front of most packets in plain view...

Oh my God!! So it is!! I've never noticed it before. It's not on all of them but is on some. It's right under the name of the seed along with the latin name - very sneaky!!!
I'll watch out for that in the future. Pity I've most if not all of my seeds for this year bought at this stage.

Just wanted to clarify - F1 does not mean genetically modified, genetically modified is a totally different thing

Yep, on reading the wikipedia article it seems to be more about cross pollination and new or variant species. It does go on to highlight the lack of pollination and seed production etc. It seems to me that f1 / f2 on seed packets is a good indicator that the variety is not one naturally found and is a hybrid of two parent plants. I can understand why if you wanted to propogate from seed yourself or wanted only natural/native species you would avoid these type of seed, but yes definately different from what my understanding of gm is. Still, good to know about it in the first place. Thanks

wrong info
 

sorry guys for the wrong info on F1 seeds being genetically modified...but yeah my point was that you dont get to save a lot if any seed from these plants...look up terminator technology on irish seed savers about how seed companies like monsanto etc are trying to stop these plants from producing any seed at all...

I'd been telling people about this for years. It was very worrying, however as I recall it is no longer a viable project as this link dated 1999 seems to indicate.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/465222.stm
There was such uproar about the whole project which was successfulyy taken up by mainstream media that I don't think Monsanto really had any choice. Power to the People!!!
I'm a bit out of the eco warrior loop unfortunately, and let me know if I'm wrong, but I haven't heard anything about terminator genes and Monsanto recently.
Lisa

Trying to keep the tills ringing I'll bet.
So strange when the Terminator said "I'll be back", pity the same doesn't go for the seeds. :)

Im not sure i hadn't heard about it until i seen it the other day on the irish seedsavers website, hopefully your right, theres always power in numbers eh :) nothing loopy about it someones gotta stick up for our beautiful planet, im right there with ya sister!!!

saving seeds from F1's, some f1's are non seed making, some are non pollen making and they are all a commercialised cross breed. They do not breed true to like, so a parent plant say a tomatoe called shirley may have parent tomatoes called Alfred, Mary, Paul and Joe. If shirley seeds are saved they could be non viable ie not able to be fertalised and produce a plant, or they could be any mixture of the above leading to non reproducing plants, or non pollen plants, or any of the above parents.

F1 are owned by people who basically own the patent, lots are owned by monsanto, who want us not to be able to save our own seed, we will have to purchase seed, which lines their pockets.

Non F1 means you can get natural mixtures if you have two sorts of brassicas, squashes, tomatoes etc they are quite permiscuous whoand how many that they have sex with :) all sorts can come from them, some good, some bad. I save seeds where I can. some F1 I do sow but I dont encourage any breeding with them.

In the garden
 

your broad beans, spinach, chard, lettuce, parsley and anthing else that can stand a touch of frost should be planted out this week. I also have borage, forgetmenot, globe artichokes and strawberries waiting to go out.

Leeks when well up can be left outside of the greenhouse to harden up.

The pole and dwarf beens along with squashes, melons, cucumbers, tomatoes etc should be kept in the greenhouse still. You can still sow all these and leeks in the seed bed.

I have sown my peas in situe and have my seedbed brassicas, onions, coming up along with salad leaves, onion sets, garlic and shallots showing their heads.

spuds will be out this week

i will also watch the bees go around the current and berry flowers waiting for the apple, pear and cherry to blossom.