MARKING THE TERRITORY IRISH STYLE

Consider This Column a report from your foreign correspondent in Ireland…the land of my parents and the home of two sisters. On holiday here I’ve been scrounging through the Dublin dailies looking for interesting items on gardening for the reader.

The headline in the garden page of the Irish Times brought me to a quick halt.
Chicks are Chic! According to that doughty publication the latest sounds in the back streets of Dublin are the cluck, cluck, cluck of chickens living the urban good life. Hard times require finding ways to be more self sufficient but the city’s rookie gardeners are facing a wildlife challenge. Wiley foxes are prowling the alleys searching for vulnerable chicken coops. An enterprising designer has come up with an ultra trendy coop design called an Eglu which includes four live chicks. It has captured the interest of the urban aesthete and recently won a design award. These haute couture hen houses can be purchased at Dunleary People’s Market on Sundays for the astonishing price of $600.

Mark Out Your Territory was the advice given to a poultry neophyte in Dublin who expressed concern about the presence of the cagey fox. He has been advised, by an agronomist, that if he quite literally marks his territory every evening with a stream of urine the fox will not cross the line. “That’s a brilliant idea” he responded, “but what will the neighbours say?”

Turning Shopping Bags Into Planters is a totally new concept to me but on the Emerald Isle it is considered very edgy and creates a sustainable use for all those woven plastic shopping bags we seem to accumulate. First punch a few holes in the bottom of the bag to allow for drainage, fill with compost and insert a dozen or so starter plants into the soil. Two weeks ago I filled a bright yellow sack with 12 red and yellow stalked Swiss chards. The bag was quite deep so I rolled the edges back. Now you can hang the bag on a wall hook or place it on the sun deck. My chard loves all that warmth and is already producing big leaves for use in a stir fry.

Six Years On The Beautification Committee has left me with an enhanced expectation of downtown cleanliness. So, the astonishing state of Irish streets and side walks has left me as agitated as a wet hen. They are covered in cigarette butts and gum. There is no bottle deposit refund so beer cans and pop bottles roll around in every gutter and under every hedge. A meeting with Mary White the MP for Carlow led to my pointing out that in B.C. bottle collection can be an important source of cash to people on limited incomes. She laughed heartily at the phrase “dumpster diving” and asked me to repeat it three times. I was urged to send her information on how the system was set up to create the bottle deposit act.

Back To The B.C. Scene. Bolting is what happens when plants that have been producing steadily for the past two months decide that enough is enough and push up one last flowering stalk. Save the seeds, if they are organic or heritage stock, when the head has dried out. Meanwhile, you probably have more seeds left in the packets. Replant right away, remembering to add more compost to the soil, and in no time at all the seeds will push up new sprouts and you can look forward to a fresh crop. This procedure is called succession planting. In fact you can succession plant on an ongoing rotating basis for many varieties. The excellent chart in the West Coast Seed Catalogue (found at www.westcoastseeds.com) will guide you as to the best planting months for specific veggies.