Gardening

 Sharif is back in the garden watering our lovely tomatoes, they have grown so much over the holidays 🍅

Fruit

 

Our strawberries and raspberries are starting to ripen in our garden this week 😋

Catering - Baking

This morning Paula from our catering group made a stunning lemon posset tart and topped it with some fresh mint from our garden. We are very lucky to have fresh herbs on the doorstep to utilise in our kitchen. 

Men's Health Week 2021 - Gardening

Gardening is good for your mental wellbeing and physical health. It is great exercise and it helps you relieve stress and be present in the moment.  Gardening can cultivate calm and resilience in any situation.  We are lucky enough to have a beautiful garden in the centre thanks to Aideen's passion for gardening.  The trainees are getting involved planting vegetables, herbs and flowers and maintain it on a daily basis during the summer months. 

Mikey and Sharif were planting flower bulbs and tomatoes yesterday in the garden.

Herbs

The herbs are starting to germinate in the garden that were planted by Alex, Katie and Mickey 

 

Gardening with Aideen - Planting

It was a beautiful day today and it was a hive of activity in the CTC garden with Aideen.  Trainees were weeding, tidying, planting bedding plants and vegetables and painting.  Thanks to the trainees for all their help today!

Planting Sunflowers

Sharif was out planting sunflowers this week 🌻

 

Gardening with Aideen - Grow your own herb garden

Today Aideen was showing Alex, Katie and Mickey how to sow seeds for growing a herb garden for the centre.  Thanks to Youthreach, Sligo and The Organic Centre in Rossinver for kindly donating a grow box with organic seeds for parsley, dill, coriander, sage and oregano. 

Gardening with Aideen - Planting Peas

Aideen and some of our trainees were tidying up our outdoor space and centre garden last week.  Alex planted some seeds starting with peas!  We can't wait to eat the produce!

Gardening with Aideen - Painting and Planting

The trainees were painting and planting flowers this week to improve our outdoor space.

 

Gardening with Aideen

It was a lovely Autumn morning today in Sligo so Aideen and Dylan were out in our garden digging up some of our harvest of organic potatoes and garlic. Delicious and well worth the wait 😋 

Gardening with Aideen - Sunflowers

This sunflower was planted by seed back in April during lockdown and finally bloomed this week 👏💛

Connect - 'Gardening and connecting with nature'

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Gardening with Aideen - Watering

Watering Tips

• Conserving water  - start out little by little conserving water.

• How to water - vegetables need varying amounts of water depending on the stage in their life,     

   the type of plant, and the texture of the soil.

• Be conscious of evaporation - water early in the morning or late at night.

• Stay on top of weeds - this means that your plant won’t have to compete for water.

• Work on your soil - when your soil is poor quality it will suffer more from too little or too much 

   water.  For more info go to www.giy.ie

Take Notice - Gardening with Aideen

Compost is organic material that can be added to soil to help plants grow. Food scraps and yard waste together currently make up about 30 percent of what we throw away, and should be composted instead.  Some good types of waste are: vegetable/fruit peels, spoiled, rotten or moldy fruit, cut grass, leaves, weeds and eggshells.  Watch this interesting little video from www.giy.ie to find out more about composting.

Be Active - Gardening with Aideen

Gardening is considered a moderate physical activity that boosts physical and mental health.  The physical activities of gardening include digging, weeding, watering, pruning, cutting the lawn etc. The best thing is that the garden is a green gym that burns calories, build muscle, de-stresses the mind and all from the advantage of your own home.  It is open air and connects you to nature.  We are very lucky to have our own CTC garden under the guidance of Aideen trainees can get involved with planting and maintaining the garden.  For more inforation on gardening and growing plants go to www.giy.ie

Red and Black Currants ready to be picked

The tomatoe seedlings are ready to be transplanted

Gardening with Aideen - Birdwatching

Why don't you get outdoors today and connect with nature 🐦
To learn some more about the birds and wildlife in you garden check out:  https://birdwatchireland.ie/irelands-birds-birdwatch-ireland/garden-birds/

Poster designed by Joey, Computer Trainee

Gardening with Aideen - Transplanting and Dealing with Slugs

Some spinach and lettuce transplanted this week into window boxes

Top tips and tricks for dealing with the villain of the garden - Slugs

Gardening with Aideen - Sunflowers

The sunflowers are growing tall, it has been 2 months since they were planted 🌻

Gardening with Aideen - Routine Jobs

For more info go to:  www.giy.ie

Some routine jobs:

• Thinning:  Thin your salad leaves (rocket and oriental greens) down so that there is a 3cm gap between seedlings, if you want to aim for two or more harvests from them.
• Leave the salad leaves alone for one large harvest.
• Thin radishes to 3cm between each seedling.
• Thin spinach to 10cm between seedlings for now.
• Harvest all the leaves you’re thinning as you go for a microgreens salad.
• Weeding: Remove weeds between rows of carrot seedlings, ideally with a hoe.
• Remove weeds within carrot rows with a more precise tool, like a hand-hoe, trowel or your own hand.
• Thin carrot seedlings as you remove weeds within the row, leaving 5cm between each one.
• Supporting:  Make sure to get supports in for your peas before they grow taller than 20cm.
• Use branches, bamboo canes or something upcycled as supports for your peas.