Mushrooms

A quick post - just found this site on foraging for mushrooms in Ireland and I thought I would pass it on. Someday soon I have to get out on one of these walks to learn about how to forage mushrooms - I have picked some from fields in my youth, but would love to know more about which to pick, where to pick and when to pick! Please comment with any good sites on them.

One great gift idea for those of you that enjoy truffles - how about growing your own! Haven't tried this myself and have no ties with the company, but its definitely one for my wish list!
http://www.mushroomstuff.com/asp/index.asp?ObjectID=1061&Mode=0&RecordID=39&ParentID=39

Bought a grow your own mushroom kit in B&Q, just been waiting for the weather to get consistently warmer to try it out. Will let you know how I get on!

I can't wait to pick a basket like in the photo - just have to get my knowledge level up - as its a risky business should you pick the wrong mushrooms!

Blue bed

The blue bed is my root vegetable bed for this year. For me this will include carrots, parsnips, beetroot and radishes.

The parsnips are closest. I currently have 3 rows of succession sowing. I mistakenly planted on the advice of the back of the packet which I think was too early. The ones planted a month later have almost caught up. The last sowing germinated so much faster than the previous sowings.

The radishes are the next you see - two sowings - the first are growing really well - looking forward to them in the salads - must look up other recipes for them as they are such an easy to grow veg.

Next there is 2 lines of beetroot ( only one visible so far). Again I think I planted this a bit too early as April and May haven't been the best this year and are quiet cold. But still a row of healthy plants is nice to see.

At the top then I have 3 rows of carrots planted with the oldest against the top of the box. Nearly ready to start spacing them out. Good tip from the GIY website is to remove any thinned plants away from the box as you may attract the dreaded pest - the carrot root fly.

I had most of the top portion of soil sieved in this bed - not sure if I went deep enough - time will tell - I reckon I will have some forked carrots and parsnips. For next year I will have to do a lot more work prior to putting down the seeds. All of the above have been sown directly into soil.

I am doing an experiment with some extra carrot seeds. I am growing them in old toilet roll inserts filled with compost. This is supposed to help you get a better formed carrot as there are no rocks etc for them to hit while growing. Then when its planted out - the cardboard will disintegrate leaving lovely carrots - in theory anyhow - will wait and see.

Red bed

Going to do a section on each of the raised beds in my garden. As the red bed was the first one put in place, filled and planted, it was the obvious place to start.

This bed has the veg from the onion family which for me include garlic, red and white onions (funnily enough), scallions (spring onion) and leeks.

As the bed was only created and filled in Feb of this year - the garlics were a bit late being planted. I had them stored in the fridge to give them the frost kick-start.

The leeks were the last veg put into this bed - just last weekend. I had grown leeks from seed, but hadn't read up properly on the best practice for growing them, so ended up using store bought plants from B&Q.

The onions were planted early March - both the red and the white - the white took off very quickly, but the reds are now nearly catching up.

In the bed I have my scallions all sown in a line - they are in the bed about a month. Since they I watched a great video on the GIY Ireland website which gave a great suggestion on how to grown the scallions(spring onions). There are also many more excellent videos on their site on growing your own vegetables.

http://www.giyireland.com/videos/detail/spring_onions

Basically you grow ( as I have prepared here indoors for my next batch out) about 8 seeds per module in the seed tray. You do not thin them or separate them, you just plant out the whole grouping. Then when its time to pick - you pick the whole group similar as to how you would buy them in the shops. Inspired idea!

So far I haven't had any issues or work to do with this bed bar hoeing and rock picking ( was too much in a rush at the start to sieve the bed, but its definitely a job for next year!). My garlics are looking a little yellow, but I think this has been due to the bed drying out rather than rust - will wait and see.

I also grew some garlics on a flower bed between some roses and these were planted out in Nov/Early Dec. These had the dual purpose of growing garlic and also helping prevent some diseases and pests on the roses.

I have some onions and a handful of leeks growing in the soil. The onions were planted about two months after the onions in the raised bed. They are only planted about 3 weeks when this photo was taken. The leeks are at the far end in the shadow- only planted a week.