Tag: Home and Garden

All Posts Garden Talks and Events with Peter Donegan

Another Grow Your Own Gardening Course

Post author By Peter Donegan
Post date April 9, 2010
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NEXT CLASS: tomorrow saturday April 17th 9.30am – 3.30pm

***if you are stuck for directions to Ballyboughal and then to my house you can contact me on [vodafone prefix and then add….]6594688

I did the grow your own gardening course about 2/3 weeks ago now…. It wasn’t until I was out recently at an event and I was beig asked was I doing another as the wife would love to do it…. Then a neighbour popped by…. he’d love to too…. then online I got it…

So the response from the last/ first class was good. The demand for a second one seems to be there…. that’s also good. It’s now simply a case of can I get the numbers to make a day of it….? That bit is up to you.

Who is the Garden Class for:

those who wish to be green but not a full time farmer.
those with an apartment balcony or you that simply just wish to grow a bit on a space about that size
For those who work 24/7 and watch tv but are willing to do a bit

Whats the day like:

real coffee & homemade buns on arrival @ 9.30am – with an intro chat amongst the group
then outdoors until around around 12.30
homemade lunchin the kitchen until around 1.15
back out until about 3pm and finish with a fresh cuppa/some homemade biccies and a chat.
to take place in Ballyboughal [it’s near Swords/ North Dublin ]

Other info:

Places are limited to a maximum of 10 people.
Cost is €60 per person
I supply everything you need. You get to to bring it home with you.
laughing is encouraged
original post on the garden class here

Louise’s post really does summarise it very well

Wanna come along ?

Pop your name[s] in the comment box below.
email me info[at]doneganlandscaping[dot]com
phone me on [vodafone prefix and then] 6594688

Tags FAQs Help and Tutorials, garden, garden course, gardening, grow your own, home, Home and Garden, how to, Kids Gardening, one day class, outdoors, personal, peter donegan, shopping, tutorials, tutors

All Posts Garden Talks and Events with Peter Donegan

The Grow Your Own Gardening Class

Post author By Peter Donegan
Post date March 29, 2010
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It was a weekend ago that I decided to do the grow your own gardening course. And whilst the weather turned good I had to wait ’til now to do my synopsis of it.

How did it go…?

Louise did a review under the title dirty fingernails
and Jason reviewed it under the title some gardeners know how plants think

The attendees in this case were 75% [approximate] apartment dwellers/ balcony owners. the other 25% only wished to garden that same amount of space [unless Nick came up with a great idea 😉 ]. Of course, if everyone had allotments/ waned to garden a larger space – parsley *and parsnip would have been covered. In this case a logic decision to skip most of the root crops was taken…. think rotovator and balcony!

I covered all that I intended and felt was needed from sowing seeds – what, which and why to watering. Onto potatoes, onions, sets growing in window boxes and to plants in a small space such as herbs and the pruning, growing and selecting of so that they could be kept there. I could beat on but Louise really does summise it very well.

From an alternate perspective. Did the €60 cover charge multiplied by 7 people make it worth my while to do so. No. Not on your nelly. The reason why? We did demonstrations and all of the products [one each of everything] used were taken away. I knew to make money, how I should do it and a comment on the garden blog confirms that. That and the twitter message. No offence Geoff mate 😉

Try it yourself. Go into a garden centre, pick up some seed potatoes, onion sets, 2/3 window boxes, some pots, compost and seeds and see how much it costs…. growing your own can be cheap… when you know how 😉 If I’m to talk however on garden design with zero overheads…. Ye know yourself. Moving on….

The flip side of that however is something very different. Did I enjoy it ? More than you realise. I really am so pleased that such a nice group of people collated so I could talk about something I love so much.

I know that doesn’t pay the bills. It doesn’t even cover the time spent baking and collecting the products we did use. And yes if I wish to do it again and again I need to refine. But then I knew that already. It was always to be a trial. A way of noting and timing. Perfecting one could say. Perfecting for those those who do attend.

Now I’m just wondering if there’s another 9 or 10 people who’d be interested…. While I brew on that… I’ll go water my own seeds.

note: it was Jason’s idea that I did this in the first place. Thanks mate. I also borrowed some of his images for this post.

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straw grass…?

I get loads of these…. some one liners…. some emails. Some without pictures But I try my best and quite enjoy answering them being honest 🙂

Email in on Saturday from Melanie. 😉

Hi Peter,

Thanks for this, myself and Alex are full of enthusiasm for the garden at the moment but neither of us have much of a clue 😉

Alex was out doing a bit of a tidy up this morning and he noticed that we have climbers planted around our wall (they were planted just before we bought the house so no idea what they are), and now there seems to be loads of what looks like straw around the bottom of them all. We’ve no idea where it’s come from, and are a bit worried it might be a sign of mice. I don’t know if you can shed any light on it, but I thought I’d run it by you in case you’ve seen it before. I’ve attached 2 photos.

Thanks,

I responded with the following via twitter [it was saturday…. i was watching Ireland get beat by Scotland at rugby. It was easier 😉 ]

I gave the following answers in 2 messages of less than 140 charachters:

hmmm. the plant is pyracantha. produces fruits and little white flowers – really cool and great for nature but thorny 🙂

the dead grass is just that. may have been sprayed a while ago…. or not. just mow over it. not straw. all looks healthy

Problem solved.

As I said when asked about watering seeds…. maybe a simple answer to someone with horticultural qualification….? but then you probably don’t read this blog 😉

Other comments:

Yes you should no matter how silly ! 🙂

maybe do a monthly online publication on issuu

You should use them for a column in a magazine / newspaper, like a gardening problem page.

Tags advice, ask, flower, garden, grass, home, Home and Garden, People, Business, plant, pyracantha, seed, shopping, straw

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Donabate Allotments

I was talking to Trevor Sargeant at another gig. Trying to find a time that suited us both to meet we settled on meeting at the allotments in Donabate on Saturday morning. However which way it happened we missed each other.

I took a walk around anyway and I have to say I was very impressed with the enthusiasm that was literally brimming out there…. phenomenal 😉

Some were just getting started, others had just short of set up home there…. I’m looking forward to heading back in a few months time to see the transformation form what at the moment is just the beginning of what I can only say is something amazing.

…

Tags allotments, donabate, dublin, gardens, GIY, green, GYO, Home and Garden, My Ireland, Recreation and Sports, trevor sargeant, turvey

All Posts Garden Talks and Events with Peter Donegan

Gardening…. It’s Kids Stuff

Post author By Peter Donegan
Post date March 9, 2010
No Comments on Gardening…. It’s Kids Stuff

You may remember I was asked to do a gardening class at the La Leche League of Ireland annual conference. On Saturday 6th March I travelled to Maynooth Co. Kildare to do just that.

I know I’ll be doing a gardening course soon, but, there are some obvious major differences in the populus breakdown of those attending on March 20th.

Most can drive cars. Legally. On a motorway. At speeds of up to 75km per hour. Some will shave and in general I will assume most have their house not in a tree.The class mates on this occasion where very much the opposite. 😉

If I did have a plan…. it went straight out the window within the first 10 seconds. The general idea was to grow some seeds. To get the hands dirty. To do so inside and to have some fun with gardening in mind.

In a previous class the children had decorated old glass jars and these were used instead of pots. Compost was felt and softened, hardened and softened again. It was stuffed into jars and emptied. The seeds were opened and compared; the large broad bean seed versus the speckle of dust like lettuce seed. Funnily enough, most of the boys chose the big broad bean while the girls chose chives. So much more practical and logic they decided.

All in all and in just under 2 hours the class was completed. Some asked for extra advice on how to care for theirs… others already knew. My only fault, in hindsight, was the fact that I was an Arsenal fan and that didn’t go down so well with the boys…

The jars were sealed up ready for some to take their seeds on a long journey to their new home. Either or it was gardening and it was great fun. I just hope they enjoyed it as much as I did. 🙂