Author: Liz Evers

My blogging quiet of the last two months is a reflection of two things: work busyness, and the annual downturn of gardening enthusiasm, which slows as the garden’s productiveness does.

Looking back to last year, I similarly fell silent for the month of September.

Throughout that month, however, the garden continued to give us plenty of its three best growers of the year: tomatoes, spring onions and courgettes. So they’re definitely back on the list for 2019.

I’ve learned a lot this year about soil and yields, conditions and care, and what we will and won’t actually use from the garden. Next year the focus will be on potatoes, tomatoes, courgette, trying aubergines, more chilies, different bean varieties and peas, and of course the compulsory beetroots and carrots. Other things tried this year, will not make the list for 2019. And maybe a couple of experiments will creep in too, particularly lettuces, and different herbs.

The garden has been inundated with insect predators, though I’m delighted to see so many bees bumbling around.

Various species of flies are attaching themselves to things and nibbling away, and their maggot babies mining the leaf chlorophyll. Then there are little spiders, cabbage butterfly larvae/caterpillars and other moth/butterfly offspring, and a whole range of additional creepy crawlies I can’t identify helping themselves too.

It’s amazing to see so many different species finding their way into our little corner of Ballyfermot. However, their appetites are becoming a little problematic.

I’m trying to do my ‘pest’ control conservatively and all by hand (especially given scary reports of the massive depletion of insect life being recorded in our neighbouring UK, Germany and elsewhere. There don’t appear to be comparable studies underway here in Ireland, but one can assume the situation is much the same – perhaps with the exception of my garden!).

This year I haven’t been able to put netting over my brassicas because of the planting positions I chose and it’s fair to say they’re getting savaged as a consequence.

The kales seem to be favoured (though the sprout leaves are becoming more popular), and I’m checking the leaves of my broccoli plants daily to remove would-be attackers.

I’ve decided to let the insects have their way with a kale as a necessary sacrifice to draw attention away from plants that are more valuable to me.

The kale isn’t positioned on the outside of the bed, which would have been ideal if I’d planned to use them as an insect distraction.

It’s a strategy I’ve seen employed minimally. Most gardeners seem to favour a combination of netting and interplanting with distracting flowers etc.

I think though, that I may plant some sacrificial kale in a planned way in future to protect other plants (including other kale plants). But I’d definitely like a bit of netting next growing season too!

So we’ve eaten all of our first round of beetroot, are steadily making our way through the carrots, potatoes, shallots and garlic, have stripped the pea plants (hoping for more to come), and have a good supply of courgettes coming through…

What’s next?

 

With gardening and growing your own, it’s amazing how something seemingly small (like two little courgettes) can represent so much, and feel like a huge triumph.

This is my first time to grow courgettes, and I’ve been nurturing these babies from seed for months. And these are the very first that we will eat (with garden-grown peas – also a first for me).

So today is a big day.