Eco princess, that sounds fantastic and very organized. I'm following this tread with a lot of interest hoping to grow some this year.

If you don't mind me asking,how much time do you spend in the garden? I'm an absolute novice and your schedule sounds like a day job to me and I really would like to grow my own fruit and vegetables but I don't have that much time.

garden tips
 

Hi eco princess, thats great. Thanks.

plastic cover
 

Hi, it would be so great if you have a spare plastic cover, doing running repairs with duck tape is driving me up the wall. Do you by any chance have it still?
Regards
Carmel

seeds.
 

I have been growing my own vegetables for a few years now and the best seeds I have ever had is from an irish website called www.seedaholic.com It is a fantastic site with very good prices and the seeds always grow.... They come with a care sheet and really I could recomend it. The delivery service is quick and the people running it are so helpful. I hope this helps.

Time is of the essence
 

It takes me less time than going to the shops for food.

The first year it seemed to take me ages because I wasnt experienced enough to be confident that things would grow.

shortest day of the year plant your garlic.
Mid January your onions and shallots. and in the greenhouse broad beans.

Then in your seed bed start to sow brassicas and Leeks in March depending on weather - you will with experience be able to stick your finger in the earth and go to yourself yep warm enough now. GET YOUR HANDS DIRTY its essential.
Towards the middle of March end of March depending on weather and soil warmth I do beetroot, carrots, seakale, spinach, spinach beet, spring oinions, sweed and turnip in situ outside, then about a week after lettuce - which is quite hardy.

If you have a greenhouse I sow everything else in pots first. I built my greenhouse 2 years ago and its great. But I grew sucessfully and abundantly without one for 6 years. So in the greenhouse I start the beans (broad bean already been sown for an early crop), dward, runner, and peas, Sweet peppers, Celery,cucumber, marrow, courgette, melon sweetcorn tomatoes, and whatever else has taken my fancy

As soon as the early spuds are up I sow Kohl Rabi and more lettuce and salad crops even a second crop of earlies spuds which I harvest around November.

What takes the time is harvesting, preserving/freezing and storing.
get friends around, they get surplus as payment and a nice lunch/dinner.

The orchard is easy (except the wood which I have advertised for on here), mark out beds ask friends for cuttings and then stick them in the ground around March. Put them in your greenhouse over winter or in a sheltered spot and then dig up and put in situ.

In August I sow Endive, winter bunching onions, some miners lettuce and take herb cuttings

Potatoes go in on St Patricks day.

I work full time, run 3 business and 2 charities, and I also have an occational evening job, run the farm, milk, tend the bees, do my own turf and fish, and now and then I get to walk the dog, stand on a summers evening watering the garden and then in winter the freezers, bottles shelves are full of my own fruit, vegetables and honey, cheeses ripen slowly and beer bubbles by the stove and I plan the next years garden.

If it sounds like work it will be, to me its all just pleasure and happiness.

What an inspiring post! Thank you. I can't wait to get started now.

Green fingers
 

If I get a chance I will post what I'm doing on a weekly basis and you can follow track.

Where are you located - south of me you should do it a week earlier north of me a week later.

So what I will be doing in the next week 10 days is:

Put potatoes to chit and purchase onion sets. Sow onion seeds later in the year.

At the next chance get a couple of bags of seed compost from the hardware store.

Wash pots and trays for seeds. Weed veg garden/beds/plots. and put up supports for peas and beans.

Manure potatoe plot if not already done

Buy seeds if you havent done allready.

http://www.wallis-seeds.co.uk/ are my fav company very reasonably priced.

If you need cuttings of fruit bushes ask friends now.

This weekend was the weekend
 

Well Is aid I would post what I was doing in the garden to help the newbie gardeners.


When I got out into the garden for the first serious session this year:

I cleared and weeded the beds sorting leftovers for the goats, compost and kitchen.

Still in the garden for eating are Potatoes, Carrots, Spring onions, Kales and Early Purple Sprouting and Kohl Rabi.

I planted 160 onion sets, and around 20 garlic and covered them with a layer of Goat manure. The rest of the beds are ready for planting now except the ones which are still occupied by the produce above.

Every year I re-evaluate production and have decided that this year the Rhubarb is in a too damp spot so I will move it to a bed, which I now use for my cuttings, apples last year as I cut down an old tree which roots from cuttings. So I will work on this bed when the cuttings are in their next stop a larger bed in the field, for two years before planting out. The old rhubarb bed will be for more herbs, so I will keep piling composting stuff on to the bed in an attempt to raise it out of the wet, in the mean time I will pray for a good summer for the rhubarb.

The beds for the beans and peas have their stakes in, wigwams and rows.
In the greehouse I sowed 60 Broad beans, 70 dwarf beans, 30 pole beans and 10 parsley; in the heat indoors 6 peppers and 6 cucumbers. 8 Tomatoes were sown in January in the heat, but you can buy plants cheap enough anywhere in a few weeks.

I also extened my bed system in the greenhouse and took an apricot out of its pot and planted it in a bed along with thyme, rosemary cuttings to go in the garden later and some cyclemen. In hanging baskets I put ivy cuttings which I had taken last autumn these will be filled with flowers herbs and hanging tomatoes; put up the canes for the tomatoes to climb and e tied too.

I will buy, on my way home tonight, compost for the greenhouse beds which I change every 3 years to keep disease at a minimum, in the bottom of the beds Iput goat manure to keep the whole thing fed and to produce large sweet fruits.

Cropping apples on cuttings
 

Hi Ecoprincess - do you know the variety of apple that you're cropping off cuttings? Does it crop and grow well and, I guess most importantly, is it a nice apple?

Thank you Ecoprincess
 

IN STEAD OF GOAT MANURE WHAT ELSE CAN YOU USE TO GET SWEET FRUITS?

Thank you for taking the time to post all this. I really appreciate it. I'm a complete novice so practical advice is great.

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?"