Peas in the Pod

Kitchen garden at Grange Primary School in Sligo - on the go for 2 years now. Called by briefly to take pics of their summer harvest for a short article I'm writing. Ended up standing behind their stall at the North Sligo Agricultural Show (after a quick break harvesting chickweed, kale, and other assorted greens from friend P's garden, which she whizzed up in her Vitamix with alaria seaweed into a fabulous green smoothie...we are all moving towards raw here, slowly but surely). It was a surreal day, and a 30 min job turned into 8 hours, but huge fun.

The pupils won Best Tray of Organic Veg and also won the '3 Peas in a Pod' comp. Such a cute name for a competition. Great to see the kids getting their hands in the soil. Sad to see all the white flour victoria sponges and sugary jams though.

Agricultural shows are an utterly bizarre but strangely wonderful part of Irish life.

Horses for courses

A demonstration of farrowing with the finest French horses, Leitrim style. It is many years since equine power on the farm was dislodged by the tractor, and whilst working the land with horses may be seen as the domain of the eccentric, organic farming is no stranger to being ahead of the times in reintroducing traditional techniques with a contemporary twist. Rising oil costs and the desire to return to more sustainable farming methods may see horses back in vogue.

Mr Cronin and his son got stuck into the main field at the Organic Centre with their Percheron mares.The full story behind the Percheron breed is unknown, only that the horses from Le Perche in France were bred with Arab stallions to create a horse of fierce reputation in the 17th Century. They became the most popular farm horse in the US in 19th C. In Ireland of course, it's always been the Irish Cob traditionally used.

Apparently in the UK and US a new rehab therapy for young offenders uses horses on the land. These bold ones learn to build up a trusting relationship with the animals; they cannot be rushed and simply will not respond to violence or inconsistent treatment. A mutually respectful bond emerges.

Tractors are often massively overpowered for smaller farming jobs – cracking the nut with the proverbial sledgehammer – particularly secondary horticulture tasks. Horses can be brought in to plough even when the ground is wet and they offer a more shallow plough so it is better for the soil. A combination of horse and tiller can also be used to prepare beds. 'Fuel' costs per horse per year consist of around 3 acres of rough ground and an acre of hay.

Spin Farming

So, June disappeared in something of a haze, although hardly a haze of indigenous sunshine. The mission to find these lavender fields produced rather more carbon emissions than a trip down local Leitrim lanes, but the pink wild roses are out in the hedgerows here, beautiful, so who needs Provence...

The article on Spin Farming made the front page of Organic Matters, I'd love to hear feedback. I won't repeat the content here, as there are almost 3000 words to wade though in the magazine/website. Wally and Roxanne are doing great things in Canada and the US, and it is cool to be the one to introduce the concept to Ireland (after a tip off from Eostre Organics in the UK). My next step is to follow it up with suggestions to the Dept of Ag here in Ireland. No time like the present.

Jim Cronin's course on commercial cut salads and herbs before I ventured to sunnier climes was, as expected, fantastic. Dense with information and tips from a man who has 34 years of experience as a market gardener, if there is anyone who can make it work, it is this man. Some of his thoughts on the day made it into my Spin article (so thankyou Jim for that). Look out for his courses at The Organic Centre and at his own (truly magical) place in Co. Clare. Meanwhile he is due to return with three of his work horses later this month (at the OC), so I will pop down to take photos of them ploughing the main field. Cynics - you know who you are! - may laugh about the idea of returning to horse power, and pull the Organic Luddite label out, but it is something to behold and I say don't knock it.

The garden has gone to rack and ruin lately, and there is only so much mileage I can get out of pretending I am letting things go to seed as an experiment. I have hot tips (direct from Mr Cronin) on what needs doing by August 10th in order to have everything you want in the garden all autumn and winter (including a promise of fresh coriander 52 weeks of the year) - I will write those up next, I promise.

Rocket Science

Wild rocket and salad rocket seeds multisown on the same day, in the same way. Planted out in the same bed, on the same day, some weeks later. Salad rocket given slightly more space (9"), wild rocket tucked in a little tighter (7").

In just one week, the salad rocket is flourishing, whilst the wild is bonsai by comparison; small but perfectly formed. Erratic watering and dramatic changes in temperature (and just general heat) make all orientals bolt quickly I find. But all is not lost - the flowers are delicious (although the excited 4 year old I tried them on this weekend did not agree) and you can still pick younger new leaves for a while. Leave to flower too long and you make extra work for next year - hundreds of tiny new seedlings appearing everytime you turn your back. Not the worst thing in the world though. Particularly if you are shoddy about spring sowings.

Both plants have a pepperiness that intensifies as the plants age. Salad rocket leaves are more tender, jucier, lighter. Wild rocket is less productive initially, but prolific once up and running, with spear-like, tougher, serrated leaves. Great to mix into a salad with other leaves and divine on its own with avocado and a splash of oil and balsamic (in a kind of retro 1990's way). Remember rocket is from the brassica family - so build into a rotation (unlike normal salad leaves, which are neutral) and give extra manure before and after to the beds that will be home to it. Both can be grown in big flower pots, and are fast growing. No excuse for not having a tub or two at the back door so drop the 'but I don't have a polytunnel' line and get growing!!

Money? GOD No. (Failing to grasp the nettle.)

Fellow growers from farming co-ops around Europe have been visiting Ireland for a whistlestop tour of the great and good things happening in organics. Invariably, that included a trip to the North West. Land of Lovely Leitrim; "Like your own personal Tibet, but with more lakes and craic, and no oppression" as novelist DBC Pierre explains to the UK's leftie-indie-arty population via yesterday's Guardian.

The sun shines, the local organic scene glows, and generally speaking the delegates seem to be enjoying a favourable impression of the work that is happening on the ground here. On one farm walk I collar an English grower who has managed 100 acres and an organic marketing co-op initiative with her partner for some 11 years . Here I think, I may find my holy grail - the secret answer to how to make a living out of organic horticulture. Excitedly I ask her what she believes to be the elusive tipping point, the scale and style at which organic growers need to operate to be commercially viable. “You mean in money terms? Oh GOD no. We barely break even. Each year we wonder is this the year when we finally decide we have to give it up. The only good thing is that we work so hard – late into the evening in the season and up at dawn - that we really don’t have time to spend money the way other people do. We do it because we love it, but it doesn’t add up. I'm afraid I am the last person to give you hope. But I definitely think you are asking the right questions, and they are the questions people don't ask”.

Another delegate suggests that we have to think in terms of making a 'livelihood', not a traditional, comparable salary. And he suggests that scaling DOWN from 100 acres (particularly when a chunk of turnover goes into renting additional land) might be one solution in her particular case. And still the tipping point escapes me.

The elephant in the room. There are such fundamental questions to be asked about who we train up to be the growers of the future, and if they really comprehend the kind of scale and committment required in order to be commercial before they start. Questions about whether the infamous issue of 'import substitution' is actually achievable or just mindless, uninformed rhetoric, trotted out by officials who mean well but have yet to grasp the nettle.

But where there are problems there are also opportunities. Opportunities to tease out and share solutions in terms of how to operate in the most efficient, productive way possible. So it was REALLY good to receive the tip only moments later about a new concept in small-scale farming currently being piloted in the US and Canada. I won't say more about it here as I am currently writing an article about it, but I think I may be one step closer to my holy grail, and positively beyond myself with excitement...(how sad is THAT!).

Barely Sprouting Broccoli

Brassica olaeracea. Sown far too late last year. Planted out too late. Planted too close together. Stunted growth, in every way. Harvesting the first shoots now as everyone's else's has just about finished cropping for the season. Better than nothing though, lessons learned, and just about as beautiful a vegetable as is possible, I think.

The rules for next season, according to Joy Larkcom:

• Sow mid to early summer in seed beds or modules
• Plant out firmly in summer AT LEAST 2FEET EACH WAY (whooops)
• Advisable to earth up and stake as they grow
• Harvest from late winter to late spring
• Pick regularly to encourage early cropping

As with all in the brassica family, a heavy feeder so lots of well-rotted manure to prep the bed first.

Do NOT overcook - steam lightly, and preferably eat raw chopped up in salads.

There's no such thing as a weed...

Whilst checking who originally coined the phrase about weeds merely being plants growing in the wrong place, I came across a website devoted to quotes about gardening with a whole page on weeds and weeding. Here are some of the ones that made me laugh out loud. For more weedy quotes, visit the site itself by clicking here.

A weed is a plant that is not only in the wrong place, but intends to stay. (Sara Stein)
Hoeing: A manual method of severing roots from stems of newly planted flowers and vegetables. (Henry Beard)
Perennials are the ones that grow like weeds, biennials are the ones that die this year instead of next and hardy annuals are the ones that never come up at all. (Katherine Whitehorn)
Give a weed an inch and it will take a yard. (Unknown)
Plant and your spouse plants with you; weed and you weed alone. (Dennis Breeze)

Seed Saving 2

Well, with the heavy GM stuff out of the way, onto the actual seed saving. Last year I let coriander and dill go to seed as an experiment. With no patience to look it up in books, a few plants were allowed to bolt, ie neglected, then neglected further until their umbelliferous heads developed what appeared to be ripe looking seeds. Further neglect still, as they were abandoned in a corner of the polytunnel, shoved into brown paper bags.

Last year I periodically shoved my hands into the bags and pinched and squeezed a few seeds to sow alongside my bought seeds. RESULT! The saved seeds actually came up faster and more vigorously than the newly bought in seeds (although the plants tended to even out after that).

Fast forward to now, after spring cleaning the polytunnel, eventually the seeds make it to the kitchen table for sorting. Seed heads crunching between finger and thumb, gently shaking until all the seeds fall. With little twigettes and branches falling too, a colander is drafted in to sort the wheat from the chaff. Why haven't I done this before? As well as deepening feelings of connection to the circle of nature (!); as well as a gesture of silent protest against the vileness of Monsanto and Co biotechnology (see suicide seeds below); this process yielded over 100g of each type of seed from just a few heads of each. Will sow alongside bought new seeds; progress report later in season.

Because I am a beancounter, here are the financials. A normal seed packet contains hardly a gramme of seeds, and costs over €2. Even a wholesale bulk packet of 100g costs upwards of €10. For field scale/more commercial growers these sums still won't add up, as the saving process is quite fiddly, and leaving crops to bolt is perhaps not the best use of space, and risks creating pre-seeded beds. But for the kitchen garden, seed saving is easy, practical, ecological, satisfying, and more high yielding than I had ever realised.

Seed Saving 1 (Terminator Technology)

For the commercial grower, the concept of seed saving is probably something of a luxury. For the kitchen gardener it is about as satisfying as it gets, bringing the full cycle full circle. It is not, however, a luxury in subsistence farming in developing countries around the world, where small scale farmers feed their families and their communities using seeds harvested from previous seasons' crops. (Indeed, it maybe something we return to in the 'developed' West/North one day - but that's another story.)

Seed saving as a hobby is one thing. Seed saving as a means to having food on the table is quite another. Farmers in poorer countries often depend on saving, sharing and swapping seeds that have been developed over generations to thrive in local soils and climates. Their harvests are more successful, they require no cash, and they can sell any surplus through local markets.

GM seeds with a 'suicide' gene have been developed by the big Biotech Boys. These seeds are created to produce just one harvest. This means that you have to come back to buy more the following season, every season. What's more, the seeds are designed to be used with chemical fertilisers and pesticides (supplied by the same Biotech company, funnily enough). With cross contamination impossible to stop, all it takes is one farmer to grow the seed, and the genes can intermingle with neighbouring farms, rendering their seeds sterile too.

Progress? The technology is not currently commercially available, in part due to the avalanche of opposition in support of rural communities in the developing world. However, knowledge of this technology is useful in conveying the sheer brutality of the GM industry to the uninitiated, and to undercut the Biotech PR machine that claims it aims to help the poorest farmers in the poorest countries.

An eloquent discussion on the politics of seed saving is worth a read in Vandana Shiva's article "The Suicide Economy of Corporate Globalisation". For the latest news on GM, visit Michael O'Callaghan's comprehensive GM Free Ireland website here. You can also find a transcript of Vandana's talk at the 2006 GM Free Ireland conference.

Mellow Yellow

Back to the here-and-now: finally managed to sow a handful of tomato seeds this week. Late as usual. If you haven't sown any yet, you should probably give up the intention and beg some transplants from a friendly neighbour. This year I will be growing yellow cherries ('Yellow Pear') for the first time, plus a new cherry red 'Chadwick' and a plum variety for cooking with. Also 2 x 77's of salads, herbs and orientals are on the go. That's 154 little modules of tender leaves ready for planting out in April. Extremely exciting, but substantial successive sowing is required if there is to be any chance of making it to market this summer. I am currently researching bulk compostable/recycleable/etc pots for transplants, please send any suggestions.

Titanic Gardening

This week that bastion of Women's-Institute-Britishness, Gardeners' Question Time on R4 addresses how and what we will be able to grow in the face of climate change. In traditionally anodine fashion, Peter Gibson and Bob Flowerdew chip in a few tips for hard times ahead. Despite having the overwhelming sensation that we are merely rearranging the deck chairs as the (melting) iceberg looms, I am all for it. What is great is - as usual - the solutions proposed are techniques commonly used in organic production. If you haven't time to listen to it, here are the headlines:

1. Protection will be key: we might get a longer growing season as temperatures hot up, but early sowing and planting could be thwarted by rogue frosts or sudden downturns. Generally we should expect the unexpected. Starting out more vegetables under cover, planting out later than usual, and use of protection through the year. (Manufacturers of polytunnels, cloches, fleeces, cold frames could be the millionaires of the future.)
2. Variety will be essential: increased randomness of what will succeed and what will fail means that the more variety we grow, the safer we will be in order to have at least some crops that survive. Mainstream mono-crop agriculture will become much riskier.
3. Hot, drier summers will be interrupted by sudden torrential floods, so moving onto raised beds will become essential to aid drainage. However, raised beds dry out more quickly, particularly in the newfound heat. Incorporating more organic matter will be vital to counterbalance this, as will saving/harvesting rainwater ('crucial' says Bob). Mulches will also help.

So, for those people/organisations/publications (I won't name names) STILL unconvinced about the viability of organic practices, let's see how you feel in 2030. You might have to concede that this particular deckchair arrangement is looking very sensible indeed, (and those GM lifeboats are riddled with even more holes).

Potato Day

It being the Year of the Potato, Junior Minister Trevor Sargent came to The Organic Centre today to talk at the annual Potato Day. There was an impromptu Q&A about GM at the end, mainly about use of oils in food service and (lack of) traceability and honest labelling. Anyway, St Patrick's Day is, of course, the best day for planting potatoes. No idea if that is tomorrow, technically, or yesterday, since Paddy's Day has been moved this year to avoid clashing with Easter Week (no, really) - it's the first time this has happened since the 1940's apparently. No photos of potatoes today, but as Melvin looked stunning on the way home, here it is, as it was then.

Green Juice

Not sure if it was better for him to have a wild and free life that was short, or a lengthier life in captivity being poked and prodded by vile children. Either way, Rabbit has not been around for a month. Neighbour-Next-Door-But-Two reckons he has met his end, and denies his rampant Jack Russell terrier has anything to do with it. What’s left of the kale leaves and a few chard and spinach greens are now finding their way into fresh veg juice. If you don’t yet have a juicer, you should put it on your list, but make sure it’s a decent one. It might cost the price of a weekend in Prague, but I guarantee you (and all your vital organs) will love and cherish it daily for years to come. If you want to make an antioxidant-packed green juice that doesn’t make you gag on first tasting, I recommend throwing in couple of apples and an inch of ginger until you can go more hardcore.

How to Make a Living Off 1 Acre

“You can’t”.

That was how the Chris Smith workshop at The Organic Centre started today. Here are the sums: 1 person must work 60 hours per week for around 8 months. This person needs a kindly spouse to put in an additional 20 hours per week around their ‘normal’ job. A WWOOFER (willing worker on organic farm) volunteer adds another 30-40 hours to the pot each week. The remaining 4 months can be managed by 1 person for around 20-30 hours per week. Et voila, a gross turnover of about €25,000 p.a.

If you are lucky enough to have a willing wife/husband/lifepartner on hand, bringing in a cash income, and working part-time for you for free, AND if you are happy to open your home to give bed and board to a student/stranger (albeit an organic one) in return for them working for free, then by my sums you can pay yourself around €7.95 (£5.30) per hour. If you have to pay for this labour, you are probably looking at €2-3 per hour left for yourself. The truth is, it’s rarely possible to pay for the extra help, and small scale organic hort seems only to work with access to free labour, and/or a second cash income for the grower.

There are non-financial benefits to being an organic grower – you get to work from home, work for yourself, work outside, be in touch with the land and the seasons, and have access to the best, freshest, healthiest, tastiest produce to put on your family's table.

BUT realistically, is it any wonder that local organic produce is in such short supply, and most people invariably buy plastic wrapped organic imported veg in supermarkets? What little there is exists only because it is heavily subsidised by the passion and determination of the growers. Relying on this does not add up. Maybe peak oil will drive inputs and transport costs up so much that conventional food prices will continue to rise, and local organic might end up being the comparatively cheaper option. Isn't there something we can be doing until then though??

Carrots and Sticks

This year the plan is to experiment with growing more commercially. If there is a hope in hell of getting me off the laptop and into the garden on a more productive basis, it is possibly to be found in the idea of threatening to a) take seedlings, salads, herbs to the local Farmers' Market this summer and autumn and b) apply to IOFGA for grown up organic certification.

It takes 2-3 years to formally obtain the right to sell produce as ‘organic’. As I've never grown any other way, it's less about converting away from ‘normal’ chemical practices and more about ensuring (through record keeping and inspection) that the food produced really has been grown to the organic standards laid down in law. It previously seemed OTT to go to the bother of getting certified for such a small, non-commercial plot (1/2 acre), but the fees are so much cheaper than I thought (under €150), and going through the certification process itself can only be useful for other work. Plus additional land can be added to the same licence at a later date.

So basically, one needs to get ones arse into gear. Less typing; more growing.

Forgiveness: giving up all hope of a better past

In the first year of growing I found it sad that all the work that goes into the kitchen garden seems to be brought to nothing at the end of the year - beds covered up, all the glory gone. Now I appreciate just how forgiving it is, the cycle of the seasons. You can let things go bedraggled and tough, forget to sow in time, be erratic with watering. You may suffer the consequences with diminished harvests. But then you can clear it all back and start again with new packets of seeds, growing plans, art pads full of rough sketches and diagrams of the rotations. Inevitably it all gets a bit more throughother as the year goes on, but just now it’s like going back to school - in a nice way - with a new pencil case, fresh notebooks and a rucksack full of good intentions.

I love this definition of forgiveness; it is from a very mellow Buddhist mentor on the fantastic Zencast resource - here you can download everything from mediation timers to talks on compassion, loving-kindness, and those well known afflictions sloth and torpor...

'What Fresh Hell Is This?'

As Dorothy Parker used to say each time the phone rang, I now find myself saying the same whenever I lift the lid off the compost bins. Having survived rats in Year 1 (do not locate bins in tight cosy corners) and forced to abandon a more open plan wooden affair (plastic: I know, I know), by Year 2 I enjoyed perfect compost from my first bin, and added a second bin. In Year 3 I got careless about the vital green-and-brown combination of material. This is the most common way people mess up their bins – (another is adding tons of lawn mowings). It's vital to have a good mix, preferably in layers, of garden and kitchen waste, (‘green’) and other matter like prunings, twigs, leaves, scrunched up waste paper ('brown') in order to create the right environment for the compost to do its thing. I've been hefting tons of green waste in and forgetting the rest. Big mistake.

These are not just slugs, these are M&S Slugs. Fat, splodgy, grey-brown, about 7” long and another 1” wide. Multiplying like rabbits inside each bin. (Bring back Rabbit, all is forgiven.) They are the stuff of nightmares. Chucking in straw and letting the bins dry out was suggested and this has been done in one. I put leaves in the other one and am avoiding using either for the moment. It’s all very well to volunteer tips to random people who ask me about their compost-sludge-hell, but I really need to follow my own advice.

Rabbit

Since the very start of the New Year an escapee has been coming most days to feast on the overwintered brassicas. Virtually the only thing left growing are a few underperforming kale and calabrese (broccoli) plants, but now Rabbit is doing the rounds nibbling everything down to the stalk.

Clearly not a bog-standard breed, the neighbours reckon he was an unwanted Christmas present released into the wild (appalling if true) or an escaped pet. Either way he is not going hungry. He has breakfast at Neighbour-Next Door’s veg patch, and makes it here for his next course around 1030am most days. To divert him away from the scarce winter greens, I am giving him organic carrots and sunflower seeds. The plan is to tame him enough to catch him and take him to an animal sanctuary for re-homing but so far he is having none of it.

Nine Bean Rows

Last years' tomato vines in the tunnel have been reduced to crunchy brown leaves with clouds of botritus (the powdery grey fungus spores you get on fruit past its sell-by). Help is on its way for the clear out – and to bring a much needed trailer load of well rotted manure. ‘If you don't have New Zealand flatworms already, you will now'. The need for manure outweighs the vileness of picking out flatworms, which are basically like small anchovies that cannibalise the good earth worms.

The bean rows – and by sheer accident there really were only nine - of last years' runners are still clinging to the bamboo poles. (The photo is tomato vines and a few french beans, the runners were outside of course). I don't actually remember eating a single one as they were a tough, leathery variety, but the flowers are always gorgeous. It looks like there is an inversely proportionate relationship between flower-gorgeousness and runnerbean-edibile-ness.

Decision to blog. Recording a year in a novice (ish) kitchen garden in the North West of Ireland. Not quite Nigel Slater's kitchen diaries (less meat, less butter) but there should be good food, enthusiastic juicing and some experimental raw recipes tried and tested (new hero atm David Wolfe) with produce straight out of the garden. Hoping to bring a little sunshine and chlorophyll to friends without gardens - especially those in Londinium. So if you're trapped in a hectic office in Kentish Town, then I can sow, plant, water, weed, harvest and eat a spring onion or two for you. And if you are also starting out on growing your own, maybe we can mutually - or virtually - support each others' sweet pea tendrils.