News - Page 15
Get ready to refill the greenhouse the moment your summer crops are spent and you can coax an extra crop of leafy veg and salads to see you right through the winter.
Refill your greenhouse
As you pick the last of your tomatoes and the aubergines and green peppers begin running out of steam, sow hardier varieties of lettuce from seed into pots or modules in the cold frame. You can also start winter baby-leaf salad mixes including oriental vegeta...
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As the sun dips lower, things get busy in the garden again. The autumn harvest needs gathering in, and late summer flowers are at their best - so gear up and get stuck in to this month’s jobs around the garden.
General tasks:
Clean the greenhouse after clearing spent tomato and cucumber plants, washing the glass thoroughly and disinfecting benches and pots.
Feed established lawns with low-nitrogen feed to en...
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Visitors to Mount Stewart in Co. Down can explore paths previously closed to the public after a £12 million restoration project opened a network of trails for the first time.
Mount Stewart
The National Trust restored the paths during a project to open up the historic Irish demesne again, as it would have been in the mid-18 th century when it was bought by the Stewart family. The three miles of reopened walking trails enjoy views over Strangford Loug...
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Keep an eye out for red spider mite especially in greenhouses, as this is just the time of year these annoying little sap-sucking pests begin to cause serious damage.
Keep an eye out for Red Spider Mite
Signs to look out for are mottled and yellowish leaves, often with little clusters of greenish specks on the undersides. A cobweb-like webbing and early leaf drop are also telltale signs. Red spider mite don’t actually turn red till...
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Ireland’s Heritage Week is here and marking 100 years of Irish heritage with a national celebration of our rich and colourful history.
Heritage Week
County Clare hosts a record 94 events during the week, which runs from August 20-28. They include lectures, field trips and workshops, all aimed at encouraging people to take an interest in their local heritage. There’s a Heritage garden Day at Irish Seed Savers in Scariff, a bat wal...
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Boost your soil with green manures as your veg beds empty out towards the end of the season and you’ll replenish the essential nutrients your plants depend on and improve the soil’s texture.
Replenish essential nutrients with Green Manures
As the early crops finish and the potatoes come out of the ground and big bare patches start popping up all over the place, just broadcast-sow green manure seed (available from our garden centr...
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Plant flowers for bats and win some fantastic wildlife gardening prizes in a new competition launched by the RHS in partnership with the Bat Conservation Trust and the Wildlife Trusts.
Create a Bat-Friendly Garden
All you have to do is plant a bat feast of insect-friendly flowers to give your local colony of bats plenty of food to enjoy, then take a photo and send it in. Among bat-attracting flowers you can plant in your garden are oxeye daisies, Ver...
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Have a go at square foot gardening and find out just how much delicious home-grown produce you can harvest from the tiniest of spaces.
Square Foot Gardening - Give it a try?
When all you’ve got to work with is a single raised bed, as little as a metre square, packing variety into your patch becomes incredibly important. Divide it up, though, and you can harvest nine or ten different vegetables.
You don’t have to stick to the minimum...
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The fine flavours of Co Armagh apples are on their way to Europe under a new deal between one of the county’s oldest apple farms and cider drinkers in Italy.
Cider Drinkers in Italy Invest in Ireland
Co Armagh boasts 5000 acres of apple orchards, more than any other part of Ireland, and is known as the ‘Orchard County’. Greg MacNeice, now the fifth generation of cider producers in his family, is a tenant farmer on National Trust land at Ardress...
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It’s all too easy to hit the gardening doldrums in August, so concentrate all your efforts on keeping the display at its peak. Here’s our list of jobs to be getting on with this month.
General tasks:
- Keep up with watering concentrating on hanging basket and container displays, plants in the greenhouse and newly-planted seedlings.
- Top up ponds in hot weather using rainwater wherever possible – tap...