starting in early April. If you are interested in this course contact Kevin O'Donnell 086 3541700
New Gardening Courses starting this March and April, 2011
We will be running GYO vegetable gardening courses on
1) Saturday, the 26th March between 10am and 5pm - €50pp
2) Evening classes on the 12th 19th and 26th April between 7pm and 9pm - €50pp
Spring 2011
Preparations are underway for the 2011 growing season. It is a busy, busy time and the weather is, for the most part, being very co-operative. (Remember the cold spring in 2010!).
The new potatoes have already been planted in the polytunnel. Autumn fruiting raspberry canes have been cut back and some have been distributed to friends. Clearing away the remains of last year's crops, preparing soil, planning crop rotation is all going on.
However, it is inside the house that most of the work is going on at present as we are preparing some new and exciting gardening courses. There is a lot of paperwork involved and I begrudge the time that it is keeping me away from my garden. We will give more details about these courses in the near future.
On the 23rd of September at our last Gardening Course entitled The Vegetable Garden we put together this display of some of the produce from the garden here at Kilmaneen. Everyone was surprised (even ourselves) by the variety that we had to display.
Rhubarb is growing in abundance.
The top photo is our old, established rhubarb bed, We have divided these plants many times to give us other crops, as in the bottom photo, and also to share with friends & family. Rhubarb after first planting must be left for 2 years without picking however tempting it may be to have strong, healthy sticks of rhubarb and a longing for rhubarb tart!
Apple trees in full bloom.
Our row of apple trees is in full bloom so looking forward to a good crop in the autumn.
We have 3 eating and 3 cooking apple trees here and my favourite is the one at the end. It gives us huge green cooking apples from mid August onwards. These apples have a delicious bitter sweet flavour that is really unique.
