Potatoes, Seed Sowing and Technology

Another Exciting Week of Mindful Gardening in Cordressagagh

Welcome to another edition of the Mindful Gardening Newsletter.  This week in Cordressagagh it has been very wet, cold, and windy.  Given these conditions it is best if the garden and the various raised beds are left to dry out otherwise you can cause more problems than you solve.

So let me share with you what has been happening here in the place of the Briars even though all I have done in the garden each day is feed my bird friends. This includes the following: -

·       Buying potatoes and seeds.

·       Planning the vegetable garden.

·       Garden Design Plans

·       The Mindful Gardening Podcast

·       Embracing Technology.

·       Concluding with Highlights from next week’s newsletter

I will be linking the above items to more detailed information that I write at my website Mindful Gardening

I include the links otherwise this Newsletter would become an exceptionally long read.

Buying Potatoes and Seeds

First Early, Second Early and Maincrop Potatoes

I loved that this Sunday last Bee and I got to go to The Organic Centre to buy our stock of seed potatoes.  It was great to see that the place was packed out to the extent that we couldn’t get a parking space and had to park along the edge to the road that passes the center.

I worked at the Organic Centre for many years, and it was lovely to chat again to my old colleagues and to Dervla who loves to invite Bee and I to do gigs there on days when there are public events there.  I might be invited to play at the new supper event that the Organic Centre chef is presently running.

So, I bought six bags of seed potatoes.  That’s a lot but we didn’t manage to achieve self-sufficiency in this area, and I would like to do that for this year.  We bought as follows: -

·       First early – 2 bags of Home Guard

·       Second early – 2 bags of Irish Gold

·       Main crop – 2 bags of Axona

We will begin to lay these out in empty egg cartons on the many windowsills of this cottage and hope that our large ginger cat Professor Toffington doesn’t knock them unto the floor. I love him dearly, but he has the propensity to knock anything unto the floor that you have thought “Maybe I shouldn’t put that there.”

To learn more about the potato cycle and about first, second earlies and main crop potatoes then read more at this link What are First and Second Early Potatoes

Seed Sowing the Vegetable Beds

How to Easily Plan Your Garden...for Free Using Farmer's Almanac Garden Planner!

We sow all our vegetables in many raised beds other than our potatoes.  I have sowed tomatoes in our polytunnel, but this needs to have new plastic on it. Most all the vegetable seeds are sown in seventy-two module trays using the techniques I learned at the Organic Centre.

These are plastic trays that last and are available from The Organic Centre here in Ireland. 

One of the things I want to do more of in 2024 is to use companion planting and successional planting.  This will give an increased yield but also add more color and beauty to the raised beds.

To this end I discovered a garden planning software that I will have fun exploring and I will be sharing images of my different planting schemes here in this Newsletter and reporting the results.

This software is the Garden Almanac Planner available here  It cost me the princely sum of €29.95 which I think for any gardener is a great investment.  My only beef with it is that it takes ages to load but the internet here is not the fastest.

Garden Design Plans

I have what might appear to be an ambitious plan for this newsletter linked to the development of my Mindful Gardening Website.  This is to share with you outlines for different garden designs that I want to have fun designing and writing about.

This week I wrote out a list of ideas which amounted to thirty and I have the idea of wanting to create fifty so that I feature one each week for a year.  So, to give you some ideas about what is to come here are some of the garden design plans that I intend to feature.

·       The Pollinator Garden.

·       The Kitchen Garden.

·       The Monet Garden.

·       The Celtic Garden.

All these designs will list the plants that make up the garden design along with other aspects that create a sense of magic and possibility for healing and well-being.

The Mindful Gardening Podcast

I have decided that I am going to write podcast episodes by way of a series.  It is likely that each series will comprise several episodes around the same topic.  This week I decided that I would do a series on each of the following subjects: -

·       The 7 Faces of Intention.

·       The 7 Principles of Mindful Gardening.

·       The 7 Chakra Garden.

I have written and will record the first two episodes of this series on the 7 Faces of Intention based around chapters in the book The Power of Intention by Dr. Wayne Dyer. These seven faces include: -

1.       Creativity.

2.       Beauty.

3.       Kindness

4.       Love

5.       Expansion

6.       Receptivity

7.       Abundance

So, I hope that you will join me in listening to the Mindful Gardening Podcast which has as its intention to invite you to cultivate the greatness that is seeded within you for your highest good and the highest good of all. I send this podcast out each Sunday at 17:30 by the clock time here in Ireland.

Embracing Technology

Most of you will not be aware of a love that I have and that is for designing excel spreadsheets.  I discovered on Etsy that there are different excel spreadsheets that allow you to organize tasks related to your garden.

Given that it only costs €11.76 I will be buying it and I will share with you here how you can use it.  Even more than that I will be seeing if I can design one of my own to be able to offer here to subscribers of this newsletter.

Conclusion

Its cold, windy and wet here in Cordressagagh.  Still and all it’s been a full and exciting week.  Its likely that the weather will begin to warm up and there will be a lot of seed sowing.

Next week I am likely to be posting images of my planting schemes that will be entered into my new gardening plan software.  I will share with you the design that is centered around creating a Celtic Garden and I will provide you with links to more extensive information about the how and why of Mindful Gardening.

Until next week may you awake at dawn with a winged heart ready for another day of loving and another day of inner gardening from soul to soil.