PEAT DEPLETION

Photo: Not our sandcastle (maybe next year). We did a snail!

(Click on the title for a link to the Irish Peatland Coservation Council (ipcc))



MORE COMPETITION
I entered the sand castle building competition with my two lads last summer. It was all part of the festival fun of course, but I went with my big spade to shift some serious amounts of sand and create a giant sand snail. Embarrassingly enough for me, we won. To make matters worse there was a complaint from another group of children who reckoned that it was unfair to have a grown up helping to build, or sculpt as I like to call it, a sand castle. The judges had to change the rules to a grown up section and a children’s section….

Thinking about it though, I think it was a good thing that an adult won. We need more adults as well as children on the beach with our spades in hand to create sand masterpieces. Watch out. Next year, I’m coming with a J.C.B.!

PEAT
As I’m on the subject of digging things up I thought I’d talk about peat extraction. I was in Carndonagh last week to pay my car tax that helps keep the peninsulas roads in tip top condition. I then popped into the library and spotted an Enfo leaflet on peat extraction in Ireland. I remember visiting a large peat-processing factory fifteen years ago. The owner happily told us there is enough peat to last us 50 years. So we’re down to 35 years and counting! Since the 1940’s intensive methods of extraction have been used to produce the big bags of moss peat we see in the shops. This is exactly the same principle of open cast mining that is used to extract coal. Today less than 8% of the original area has been left undamaged.

In 1989 David Bellamy launched the Moss Peat Campaign in Ireland, U.K. and Northern Ireland. Its aim is to stop the use of horticultural moss peat in favour of more environmentally friendly methods. Here in Ireland, almost all of the peat used in gardens comes from raised bogs. Plants and animals unique to bog and wetlands are threatened with extinction as their habitats are depleted. Since the launch of the campaign many gardening groups and local authorities have gone peat free.

PEAT FREE ALTERNATIVES

Some garden centres stock peat free compost. John Innes is a good example. The larger D.I.Y. shops such as B+Q and Homebase stock their own range of peat free compost. The prices are slightly higher than peat based but it’s worth paying the difference. The alternatives to use are Coir compost- this is made up from old coconut shells. They were a waste product for years until their uses were exploited. (The product does travel a long way on ships to get here though, which will use a lot of fuel) Kitchen compost- your compost from the compost bin could probably supply you with all the potting compost you are likely to need each year. You could also try leaf mould. Leaves can be collected and put into dustbin liner bags. Wet the leaves and seal the bag. Leave for six months and you will have some fine compost.

By choosing alternatives to peat we can make a real difference to the future of the peat lands, its wildlife and plants.

SOIL IMPROVERS

Peat is a very poor product to use as a soil improver. It has no nutrients and you would need tonnes of it do bulk up light soil. If you want to improve the soil then use leaf mould, well-rotted animal manure or mushroom compost (This does contain a bit of peat though) As a mulch peat is pretty bad too, especially around here as it blows away in the wind. Try using bark, wood chips or co-coa shells instead.


Enfo have lots of leaflets about organic gardening and composting amongst other interesting topics. You can find the range in the libraries. The Irish Peatland conservation Council have a website giving more information about peat and its overproduction. The web site address is www.ipcc.ie, check it out, it’s very interesting.

Horticultural,environmental.

JOKES

Who says gardeners haven’t got a sense of humour? I thought it about time to find the best gardening jokes around. So I have spent the best part of a day on the Internet to collect the best jokes that are being circulated in the world of horticulture. I have only told the clean ones (this is a family paper after all), so I'm afraid the choice is a little limited. I did like the joke about a woman’s tomatoes that wouldn’t ripen, but after a lot of thought we decided it was too fruity to print! (It doesn’t get any better I’m afraid).


One cold night a man is sat by the fire watching his favourite television programme. The wind is howling and all of a sudden there is a tap, tap, tap on the door. The man thinks nothing of it and gets back to his telly. Five minutes pass and there it goes again, tap, tap, tap. So in a bit of a mood he gets up and opens the door. No one there! So he goes back and sits down. Just as before there is a little tap, tap, tap on the door. Up he gets again and opens the door. A quiet little voice shouts out “down here”, the man looks down, and at his feet is a little snail.

The man says rather sternly “WHAT DO YOU WANT?” “I’m cold and hungry, can I come in and sit by the fire and have something to eat”? Says the snail. “NO”, says the man and he lifts his foot, swings it back and takes an almighty swing and kicks the snail right over the garden wall. The man sits down and gets back to his programme.

Six months pass and the man is having his lunch when he hears a little tap, tap, tap on the front door. He thinks to himself for a while and then goes to answer the door. There at his feet is the same little snail and the man says again “What do you want”? And the snail answers back in a little forlorn voice, “What did you do that for?”

MORE

A tough looking man came to our garden gate the other day, and when he thought nobody was looking, he took it. Well I thought it best not to say anything else he might take a fence.

What’s brown and sticky…A stick.


A man went into his local shop and asked the assistant “Do you sell potato clocks”?
“Potato clocks sir? I’m not sure what you mean,” replied the assistant.
“Well” came the explanation “I’m always late for work, and my boss said I would get there before nine if I got a potato clock.

What do you call a country where people drive only pink cars…a pink carnation.

A burglar was sent to prison for robbing a stately home, but he refused to tell the guards where he’d hidden the loot. A few months later, his wife wrote to him and said, “Now that you’re in jail, there's no one to dig the back garden. I suppose I’ll have to do it myself.”
So the robber wrote back saying, “ Don’t you dare dig up the back garden, that’s where I buried the stuff from the stately home!” And he handed the letter to a warden to post. A week later he got another letter from his wife. It said, “You’ll never believe it- yesterday thirty guards came around and dug up the entire back garden!” And the robber wrote back." Now plant the potatoes!”

What’s brown and runs around the garden? …A fence.

Do you want to hear a gruesome story?
A gardener planted a seed. She watered it and cared for it very well, and soon it grew some and grew some…

What are you doing with that manure? I’m going to put it on my rhubarb. That’s a change .We have custard on ours!

And to finish off this attempt at garden humour, remember:

Old gardeners never die, they just spade away.

Send in your joke if you think you can do any better (and goodness knows it wouldn’t be hard)

Horticulture.

CARNIVEROUS PLANTS

Photo: Venus fly trap

Photo: Pitcher plant.

We went to see the little Shop of Horrors play at Scoil Mhuire last week. We have been to see quite a few plays over the years but I must say that this one was certainly one of the most enjoyable. There was so much work involved and looking at the programme I see that there were well over 100 people involved in some way -probably a lot more when you think that someone showed you to your seats and sold you a raffle ticket! The cast were terrific and were equal to anyone that has played at the An Griannan in Letterkenny! For those of you not lucky enough to have seen the performance, it is a story about a plant from outer space that eventually has a very detrimental effect on some people in a place called Skid Row, a downtrodden area in the centre of a city. The plant, called Audrey II starred in a 1960 movie and the remake in 1986 as well as in the stage play. Audrey II is described as being the product of a hybridisation between a "butterwort" and a Venus flytrap. I suppose you could say the plant was carnivorous!


CARNIVEROUS PLANTS
A plant is said to be carnivorous if it attracts, captures, and kills animal life forms. It must also digest and absorb the nutrients from the prey to qualify as a carnivorous plant, (sounds like the Audrey II to me.) Many non-carnivorous plants have also evolved to be attractive for other reasons than food. For example, flowers attract insects, birds, and other creatures including humans for pollination and to spread their seeds. Some plants (such as orchids, and water lilies) temporarily trap insect pollinators to ensure pollen transfer, then releasing them to finish the job. Some plants trap and kill insects with their sticky leaves (but do not digest the prey). All plants absorb nutrients either through their roots or leaves. However, even though these plants do some of the things that carnivorous plants do, they do not fulfil all of the criteria necessary to qualify as a carnivorous plant. Only plants that attract, capture, kill, digest, and absorb prey such as the pitcher plant, the venus fly trap and Audrey II are truly carnivorous.

In recent years people have been realising that nature is not quite so clear-cut as we would like. Some plants are not quite carnivorous, but are not quite non-carnivorous, either! For example, there are sticky plants that harbour insects on them. These insects crawl freely on the plant and eat the small creatures trapped by the sticky leaves. The predators excrete on the leaves, and the plant absorbs nutrients from it. Other plants rely on bacterial decomposition to break down the captured prey. Are these intermediate cases carnivorous? Or should they be called semi-carnivorous or sub-carnivorous? Scientists and philosophers are still pondering these questions. Meanwhile, Audrey II’s babies are slowly taking over the world!

Horticultural.

WEDDING FLOWERS

Photo:lily

I was at a fantastic wedding where my niece got married. The whole affair went very smoothly and every one that went had a great time. The children who attended had a riotous time on the croquet lawn, especially with the mallet with the head that came off when it was whacked hard. Thankfully there were no casualties.

The thing that became apparent to me on the day was that to make a function like this run smoothly without any problems is lots of planning. The day took at least six months to prepare. Everything had to be taken into consideration from the dress and the food to , of course the flowers. Some of the displays were amazing. The sheer size and variation of flowers were amazing, the scent from the flowers were very pleasant but not overpowering.

I’m more familiar with plants that grow in the garden. Some of the plants in the displays I was familiar with, especially the greenery used for fillers. S I took a trip down to see Anita at Crana florists for some help. Anita specializes in designer arrangements, wreaths, and funerals as well as weddings so I thought that this would be a good place to get some information on what’s in this year in the world of flowers.

The amount of work that goes into choosing the flowers for a wedding is daunting. Every thing, and I mean everything has to be taken into consideration, from the style of the church, where flowers could be put on the pew end, to the size of the bride, she doesn’t want to be walking down the isle with a large bouquet if her build is slight, you wouldn’t see her for flowers.. A lot of the colour co-ordination stems from the colour of the bridesmaids dresses as well. The interior of the car has to be taken into consideration; this will need complementary coloured displays. Then there are the table displays. These should be just the right size so people can still see each other when they are sat around the tables. These are usually made up as a candle arrangement and quite low to the table. At my nieces wedding the display at the center of the circular table was raised up on giant champagne glasses. These were tall enough so you could talk to people from underneath them.

The hand held posies that the bride and bridesmaids carry have to complement their dresses and of course the brides flowers should never be upstaged. The same goes for the flowers around the brides table.

One fashion that is fashionable at the moment is to have corsages; these are small displays very similar to buttonholes. These fit nicely onto the brides mother or grandmothers handbag.

The amount of flowers that are used can vary as well. Small quantities can be used to reflect a theme, and then sometimes large quantities can be used to help set it,

Then just when you think that every aspect has been thought of there’s the cake. It’s very popular now to have a pure white cake and decorate it with fresh flowers, these, of course have to complement the style and colour of the brides dress and the table arrangements and the buttonholes…. there’s such a lot to take into consideration!

TYPES OF FLOWERS

Choosing the style as I mentioned earlier is down to personal taste. It certainly helps if you get professional advice as well though because the florist can give you the benefit of their experience. Here are a few of the flowers that are popular this year.

White rose. (Rosa Tamara) these are always very popular for all the displays.

Calla Lily. (Irish Lily) you see these in local gardens. These too are a very popular white flower.

Anturium. These are very similar to the Calla Lily but the come in all colours such as lime green, pink and red.

Freesia. These are popular for all the displays. Their heady scent is lovely (unless you suffer from hay fever!)

Alstramera. These are very long lasting flowers, just what is needed for a hot summer wedding. They come in all colours like pink, rust and lemon that make them very versatile.

Gerbra. These flowers remind me of small sunflowers. Again they come in all colours with varying flower head sizes. They are very fashionable with the younger bride this year. They are complementary to the spring tulips and daffodils.

The greenery can be from almost any thick, shiny evergreen shrub or tree. Eucalyptus, holly, castor oil plant, palm leaves, ivy can all be used to good effect. There are the wispy leaves of the bear grass as well as variegated foliage that can be used too.

There is a bit of a trend at the moment for Green Weddings. In this sort of wedding the flowers are grown locally. This is a great idea but can be a bit limiting if it is a winter wedding. There is always something colourful though throughout the year and if you were serious about environmental issues you could make a dramatic splash with very little.


Horticultural.

MAIL ORDER PLANTS

Ian

I was thinking about buying some plants by mail order. I am a bit worried that when I take delivery they will be dead. How safe is it to buy plants this way?

Reply.

Although it is in the interest of the community to shop local, there is a fascination to buy plants from mail order. The choice is vast and if you shop wisely you can save yourself a few Euros too. In my experience there is little problem with having plants delivered as they are normally very well packed. If you are buying shrubs or bare root specimens, do not be too disappointed when they pop through your letterbox. They will bear little resemblance to the glossy picture you see in the magazines. You will have to grow it for a few years first!. Like all purchases, if there is a problem, you will be covered by the Sale and Supply of Goods act 1994. If items are faulty or not as described, you are entitled to return them or get your money back. In addition to this the Advertising standards Authority operates a Code, which requires all adverts to be legal, decent, honest and truthful. It also says that if you pay in advance through an advert you can return the goods within seven days and get a full refund. There is then the Traders association, which applies a code of practice to reputable companies. These companies are legally obliged to give clear accurate information about price, quality and terms of business. Because of these legalities I think that it is a pretty safe bet to buy from these companies. Personally though I like to see what I am buying first!

Horticultural.

HEALTH AND SAFETY IN THE GARDEN

This article was written a while ago when it wasn't frowned upon to have a small fire in the back garden to burn old garden waste!

A couple of weeks ago I was having great fun building a fire in the back garden. I was so engrossed in the complexities of building the ultimate inferno that I failed to look where I was going. In just a one second lack of concentration my foot went into a hole, which was no more than a couple of inches deep. The sensation was the same as walking down the street and failing to see the curb until you’ve stepped off it. Needless to say it was enough of a jolt to put my back out for a week and a half. I nearly managed to spin it out for two weeks but the sympathy from the family was wearing out fast so it was back to getting the coal in, painting the kitchen and stacking mushroom compost bags in the back garden.

Accidents such as this are all too commonplace. The garden can be a place where hidden dangers can lurk. I don’t want to put anyone off gardening, but it is always a good idea to follow a few health and safety rules.

Before you start in the garden it might be worth considering having a tetanus jab, or having a booster if one is due. Even the smallest cut can get infected. The one’s to be most wary of are the deep cuts that don’t bleed, as apparently the germs stay in the cut and aren’t washed out by the blood. It’s good practice to always wash your hands when you come in from the garden and if you have any cuts treat them with disinfectant (we use diluted tea tree oil).

Now that I am on the subject of health and safety, here are a few more suggestion for garden safety. (I’m making the list up as I go along so if I miss anything I apologise in advance)


HEALTH AND SAFETY IN THE GARDEN

When using weed killers and chemicals always follow the manufacturers instructions and wear safety clothes no matter how daft you look.

Keep all chemicals, even organic ones like nettle juice out of the reach of children.

Even if you are totally organic with your chemicals there are still dangers. If you are using fresh manures such as hay or straw wear a facemask if there is a lot of dust. If the bales are warm then there will be mould spores which wont do your lungs any good at all either.

Take care using machinery. Wear steel toecap boots and long trousers when using mowers and strimmers. Walk around the area to be cut and remove all objects like stones and children’s toys (dog poo is best removed as well before the strimmer hits it!)When using any tool, especially
power tools- be sure you understand how they work.

Make sure all tools are in good condition and cutting blades are sharp. Blunt tools can be dangerous.

Do some light duties first, or better still some limbering up exercises to avoid pulling any muscles later.

When a garden activity causes you pain. STOP. Don’t be afraid to ask for help if the job is too heavy.

Avoid staying in one position too long. Switch tasks often. I tend to have a few minutes potting plants a few minutes bending such as tending to some plants, then a few minutes stretching, picking beans etc. Then half an hours rest in a sunny spot.

Use the strongest muscles for the job. Use your legs, not your back, when using a spade or lifting things. Use the forearm and elbow, not the wrist or fingers, when using a trowel. Use the palm of your hand to push levers and tools, not your fingers. And use your strongest arm to pick up your mug of tea.

If you are working on your own in an isolated area such as woodland, let people know where you are or carry a mobile phone in case of an accident.

Here’s one that is very relevant to me. Only use a tool for what it was designed for. I have lost count of the amount of spade handles I have broken trying to get large stones out of the ground.

Don’t be an accident waiting to happen when carrying things. Carry less and make a few more trips.

This is probably for earlier on in the year when the sun is hotter, if you have sensitive skin then some protection is needed in the form of sun cream or in my case a hat to stop my bald patch getting sunburn.

Check around the garden regularly for potential hazards. Bamboo canes can be very dangerous for the eyes when they are stuck into the ground, put plant pots on top of them so you don’t catch yourself when you bend over. Never leave tools lying around, put them away in a safe place. Never leave a rake on the ground with the spikes sticking up; if you tread on them and the handle fly’s up, you’ll see stars for a week.

If you use a ride on mower go up and down the slopes rather than across them. The push mowers are usually safer if they go across the slope instead of up and down to avoid slipping. I have heard some harrowing tales of people using hover mowers on steep banks and slipping, resulting in serious injuries.

If you are considering any excavation work in the garden check for underground pipes and cables before any work is started.

Keep your body fluids up when doing any work in the garden, preferably water, to avoid dehydration. And stop regularly to admire your handy work.

Horticultural.