Paddy Tobin, An Irish Gardener
Our garden, gardens visited, occasional thoughts and book reviews
A Review of the Week in the Garden: Any hopes or delusions that summer might continue for a while longer, that autumn and winter might be kept at bay just a while more, have been blown away by the chilling breezes of the past two days. Working in short-sleeved shirt in the garden is suddenly … Continue reading Six on Saturday, 26/09/2020
It has been a beautiful week, a week of recovery, of new flowerings and the start of a new season. After an extraordinarily wet period, with two storms and a great amount of damage done to plants, it has been wonderful to have a week of beautiful weather and the opportunity to work again in … Continue reading Six on Saturday, 19/09/2020
Another week has passed and the air is certainly a little more chilly than we have been used to. The evenings are certainly cooler and the days are clearly shortening. It brings to mind that summer is passing and we ought to appreciate and make the most of the remainder of the season. During the … Continue reading Six on Saturday, 12/09/2020
Sunday last was one of those days; one of those days when it strikes you that, when gardening, we are on a repeating cycle, day in and day out, year in and year out. There was a touch of the Hokey Pokey about our day with one plant going in and and another coming out. … Continue reading The Ins and Outs of Gardening.
It was not an especially good week for gardening. I seem to have been occupied with other things, some garden-related but I feel I have done little hands-on gardening this week. Nonetheless, the grass was cut and edged and I made good inroads into tidying up the vegetable patch in preparation for winter. The damsons … Continue reading Six on Saturday, 05/09/2020
The morning was following its usual routine. Breakfast was over, a leisurely affair with time to browse the latest news from the various sources - morning television, The Irish Times online, Journal.ie, Breaking News, Google's latest offerings etc - and we went off in our separate directions. I go "upstairs", which people always consider odd … Continue reading Lockdown Hooch.
It was a matter of coincidence and contrivance and social conscience that brought these three together and apart but, regardless of the circumstances, they added up to an enjoyable day. Word had reached us that the Meadow Saffron was in flower in Inistioge, an annual event we look forward to and go to see each … Continue reading Fish, Saffron, And Chips!
The work of the under gardener can be varied and, as the title suggests, so it was today. It would appear - the head-gardener has told me so - that black is, well, the new black! The great and the good - the personalities, the celebrities of gardening - have recently espoused the use of … Continue reading A Black House and a Baboon’s Bum!
It has been an unpleasant week for gardening. We had hardly recovered from last week's Storm Ellen when we had Storm Francis on Tuesday of this week and, though not forecast, the damage was much greater. We had very heavy rain, with parts of the garden under water, and everywhere absolutely saturated. We had especially … Continue reading Six on Saturday: 29/08/2020
Storm Francis, blast it, has visited itself upon us today. The meteorological service had announced its arrival with an Yellow Weather Warning for rain and wind and, as we had come through Storm Ellen (Orange Warning) only last week, Francis just didn't bring any great threat or sense of foreboding with it. We had come … Continue reading Venturing Out!
