Machine Nation

Are there any talks among Green Party members of providing allotments for urban areas where people can go and rent-a-field and grow their stuff? Are there land banks owned by the councils which could be used for this type of thing? Would it take off everywhere? Are there projects people know of which have taken off?

eoinmn wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

eoinmn wrote:Anyone here have any experience with community gardens?

I'm part of a group who are looking to set one up on county council lands.

Would suggest linking with your Green councillor/s if you have one.

We're trying to get one of those too!
I'm in the local green party. We have no councillor in the county.


Yet!

eoinmn wrote:And find a bit of land that no one would object to you using? What stage are you at?

Actually, after getting our would-be Green councillor to talk to the council, a small plot of land has been identified for use as a community garden. Not quite a done deal yet though.

In the meantime, we've planted a vegtable garden in an old private estate. We're only there thanks to the kindness of the landowner though. Its not suitable as a community garden since it is out of town and on private land.

The Greens are promoting school vegetable plots too, aren't they?
One way of looking for unused land might be aerial photography.
If you go on your local authority planning GIS website of Daft.ie you will find aerial photos - you might be able to spot a little hidden corner that had been overlooked?

cactus flower wrote:The Greens are promoting school vegetable plots too, aren't they?

I believe Trevor is pushing this alright.
He sent some potato planting packs to schools or something.

cactus flower wrote:One way of looking for unused land might be aerial photography.
If you go on your local authority planning GIS website of Daft.ie you will find aerial photos - you might be able to spot a little hidden corner that had been overlooked?

Good idea.

cactus flower wrote:

That is *very* girly.

eoinmn wrote:

cactus flower wrote:The Greens are promoting school vegetable plots too, aren't they?

I believe Trevor is pushing this alright.
He sent some potato planting packs to schools or something.

cactus flower wrote:One way of looking for unused land might be aerial photography.
If you go on your local authority planning GIS website of Daft.ie you will find aerial photos - you might be able to spot a little hidden corner that had been overlooked?

Good idea.

cactus flower wrote:

That is *very* girly.

I'm a girly girl.

For those of you who are interested, Lidl have an array of plants which they'll have in stock from next week. They have cherry tomatoes, mini cucumbers, some peppers, herbs and a mushroom growing kit. I figured some of you might be interested.

Thanks TheBear - I have somewhere just right to plant some cherry tomatoes: nice and sunny.

My sunflowers are HUGE. Though something has been feasting on the ones I planted out already. There is only one of five left. I'll have to figure out what's eating Gilbert Grape before the rest of them go into the garden.

Speaking of growing stuff, one of my friends is after sending me this video about the growth in the human body which occurs at the molecular level.

cookiemonster wrote:My sunflowers are HUGE. Though something has been feasting on the ones I planted out already. There is only one of five left. I'll have to figure out what's eating Gilbert Grape before the rest of them go into the garden.

This is more than likely slugs. Look for the trails on the leaves.
If you find it is slugs, the best thing to do to get rid of them is to partialy bury a half a glass of beer near the plants. Slugs love beer and they will climb up the outside of the glass, fall over the edge into the beer and drown.
I suppose this would be some people's idea of the perfect death.

I massacred about 50 slugs in the last fortnight with my container of beer.
Sure, its a nice way to go.

AfricanDave wrote:

cookiemonster wrote:My sunflowers are HUGE. Though something has been feasting on the ones I planted out already. There is only one of five left. I'll have to figure out what's eating Gilbert Grape before the rest of them go into the garden.

This is more than likely slugs. Look for the trails on the leaves.
If you find it is slugs, the best thing to do to get rid of them is to partialy bury a half a glass of beer near the plants. Slugs love beer and they will climb up the outside of the glass, fall over the edge into the beer and drown.
I suppose this would be some people's idea of the perfect death.

Beer you say? Excellent! I did but some slug pellets but I've thought bad of using them. I might plant out a few more and give the beer idea a try.

I've planted about 80 plants in total, I've lost 5 alread. So I can afford another few losses to see if the beer thing works. If so happy days!

Cheers for that!

There is strawberry plants on sale today in Lidl.

eoinmn wrote:There is strawberry plants on sale today in Lidl.

Ours that survived The Move are flowering now. Lidl also had some cherry tomato plants with ripe fruit on them, a miracle of transportation.

We have a fierce amount of strawberry plants in the garden and they're looking very healthy (even though I forgot to water them for about two weeks) and the fruit trees are all looking good this year too, though I didn't get down to see what condition the plum trees are in. We didn't get a single plum off them last year.... stupid wasps!

905 wrote:

eoinmn wrote:There is strawberry plants on sale today in Lidl.

Ours that survived The Move are flowering now. Lidl also had some cherry tomato plants with ripe fruit on them, a miracle of transportation.

They also have plants of miniature peppers, cucumbers, and various herbs.

I can't wait until I have my very own garden to start doing proper growing.

TheBear wrote:

905 wrote:

eoinmn wrote:There is strawberry plants on sale today in Lidl.

Ours that survived The Move are flowering now. Lidl also had some cherry tomato plants with ripe fruit on them, a miracle of transportation.

They also have plants of miniature peppers, cucumbers, and various herbs.

I can't wait until I have my very own garden to start doing proper growing.

Want to come and do mine while you wait?

cookiemonster wrote:We have a fierce amount of strawberry plants in the garden and they're looking very healthy (even though I forgot to water them for about two weeks) and the fruit trees are all looking good this year too, though I didn't get down to see what condition the plum trees are in. We didn't get a single plum off them last year.... stupid wasps!

Aye, feckin wasps. I chopped down a fine plum tree last october because I didn't know how to look after it, and it deposited a plummy goo over a wide area. The plums were attacked by the vulgaris germanica before they were ripe enough to pick. Mostly green I'd say. Anyway I wanted to build a patio there on that spot. Shame really.

I did hear that a spray of water mixed with a dot of washing up liquid on the fruit will keep the wasps off. Never got to try it out though.

I don't know about the water/washing up liquid for wasps, I thought that was for greenfly (also bastards of the garden).

However, my sunflowers are doing very well and the beer seems to keep the slugs happy.

For wasps, get an almost empty jam jar (that has some jam on the sides still) and half fill it with water. They'll go in for the sweet stuff and drown (the buggers).

Sudsy water is apparently good for greenfly but better is squeezing them to death with tissue paper, as I did on the roses we had outside the front door last year. I don't like the idea of sudsy water - maybe Ecover is better than Fairy (noxious stuff) for greenfly too. I think the water has to be pretty sudsy to soak them properly, whereas the squishing is more therapeutic and more effective.

I have hung up a pheromone codling moth trap in my garden this year. It is a little green tent construction that I've hung in a tree. The poor male moths are lured to it but sadly for them their journey is not worth while. So there will be none of those little so and so's in the middle of my plums and apples this year.

Tell me about moths in apples and plums, cf. We had our first small crop of apples last year and I'm hoping for plums this year - little nubby buds there looking promising. What damage do they do?

cookiemonster wrote:I don't know about the water/washing up liquid for wasps, I thought that was for greenfly (also bastards of the garden).

However, my sunflowers are doing very well and the beer seems to keep the slugs happy.

Ladybirds are not only cute, they also eat greenyfly. If you can encourage them to nest in your garden, you should be greenfly-free.

This is a ladybird larva - what ever you do, don't kill him off as he will eat his own body weight in greenfly every five minutes.

A relevant article in the IT today.

TheBear wrote:A relevant article in the IT today.

From that:

even our scallions [are] imported from Israel

Pointless fact of the day: Scallions are named after the Israeli city of Ashkelon, and the term dates from Roman times.

Oh, how do you get ladybirds to nest in you garden?