Dear Fellow Gardeners,
We have been so busy in the last couple of months starting our garden in Mayo – Tilled Earth. We are currently building a small walled garden which will be used for gardening courses and for growing our own food. I finally learned how to lay red bricks. My son-in-law – Warren is in charge and the project is making a lot of progress. Joanna is busy kango-ing the front of the house to bring the house back to the original beautiful stonework. We are also busy clearing the brambles from the overgrown woodland and opening up the beautiful river that flows down from the mountain alongside our land.
In the next newsletter we’ll have more photos of the project. We plan to open it in summer 2025.
Garlic and onion sets
In early October we’ll have two varieties of garlic for sale (Messidrome – softneck and Vekan – hardneck type) and the excellent autumn onion – Shakespeare.
What to do in September?
In September we often have the best weather and the harvest is even more abundant.
Broad beans and early peas are likely to be finished by now. You can either pull out the crop or cut them off at ground level to keep the nitrogen they have fixed in the ground.
You can now sow an overwintering green manure crop such as grazing rye/vetch mix or field beans (only towards the end of the month).
Sowing
The only crops you can still sow in September are the hardy winter salads. There is a large range of them available. My favourites ones are salad rocket, wild rocket, mizuna, mustard ‘Red Frills’ and ‘Green Frills’ and pak choy (Joi Choi F1), claytonia and corn salad. You can also still sow dill, coriander and chervil.
They are best multi-sown in modular cell trays about 5 to 7 seeds per cell and can be planted out 3 to 4 weeks later.
In a polytunnel or greenhouse these crops will produce until next March and the quality is generally better than if sown earlier. They seem to love the Irish winter. In a tunnel you also still sow annual spinach, perpetual spinach and chard.
If you grow them outdoors I would recommend placing a bionet cloche over the bed. This keeps the plants cleaner (from water splash) and less wind battered. They will withstand even the severest frost in Ireland.
Seeds are available on www.greenvegetableseeds.com
Planting
You can plant out lettuce, scallions, turnips, annual spinach, spring cabbage and all your winter salads. Over-wintering onion sets can be planted from now on until late October. Autumn garlic is best planted in October or November.
Harvesting
You can still harvest early carrots, beetroot, dwarf French beans, runner beans, cabbage, calabrese, cauliflower, courgettes, marrow, kohlrabi, lettuce, scallions, peas, early potatoes, radish, spinach, chard and turnips.
New vegetables to harvest this month are kale and leeks. If you haven’t harvested your onions yet it’s high time. If you have attempted to grow sweetcorn you should check the cobs now. Just lift the husk a little bit and see if the kernels have turned yellow.
If you have maincrop carrots, maincrop beetroot and potatoes for storage wait at least until the third week of September or better even later. For winter storage the skins have to be hardened and mature. All root crops can be stored in boxes with layers of sand or soil in a cool frost free shed until the following April.
Upcoming Gardening Talks, Workshops and Conferences
Date: Saturday 28th September 2024
Course: Winter Polytunnel Gardening
Venue: Mayo Abbey Organic Garden
Contact Nicola on [email protected] or 094 9365987
Date: Saturday 12th October 2024
Organic Medicinal Herb Growing Conference
Venue: Avalon House Hotel, Castlecomer, Co. Kilkenny
I have been involved in setting up the medicinal herb and vegetable garden with Core College at their new site in Castlecomer and I’m delighted to be part of their conference alongside Prof Peter Jones, Iain Tolhurst, Heiko Klee, Ronan Tormey and Leonardo Piervitali.
Places are limited for the conference and more information and booking details are in the link below.
Organic Medicinal Herb Growing Conference (corecollege.com)
Date: Tuesday 15th October 2024
Open Day at L’Arche Day Care Centre in Togher, Cork
I have been involved in this project for the last two years and we converted a large useless lawn which was mowed every week and the edges sprayed with Roundup into a beautiful large vegetable garden, herb garden, a sensory garden, an apple tunnel and the newest feature is a coffee pod. This has been tried out with staff and service users over the last month and is a massive success. The service users are now having their coffee break outdoors and the gardening team is busy maintaining the gardens. All produce is used in the kitchen where David and his team make the most delicious soups and salads.
This organic garden project was such an amazing success providing healthy food, good exercise and a lot more for mental well-being.
I’m thrilled to be there for the open day on Tuesday 15th October and do a walk and talk in the garden. Everyone is welcome.
For more information contact Meadhbh on [email protected]
Date: Monday 4th November 2024
Course: Planning your organic garden
Venue: Ballymaloe Cookery School
For more information contact Karen on [email protected]
Date: 5th and 6th November
BioFarm Conference
Venue: Fitzgerald’s Woodlands Hotel, Adare, Co. Limerick
For more information check out www.nots.ie
Happy Gardening,
Klaus and Joanna
Twitter: http://twitter.com/KLaitenberger
Instagram: #klauslaitenberger
