Gardening with Aideen - Broad Beans

Broad Beans are generally the first plant to produce a crop, making them one of the first new-season crops of the year.  Arguably they are not as tasty as peas or french beans, but they are very easy to grow and prolific, and they freeze well.  Broad beans are sweeter when small and in fact, you can eat the whole pod when they are 2-3cm.  Source:  www.GIY.ie

Aideen's Broad Beans were set 2 weeks ago and are growing well 

Gardening with Aideen - Seeds

Source:  www.GIY.ie

Aideen has set some of the seeds this week for the centre garden for beetroot, tomato, lettuce and salad. 

Gardening with Aideen - 12 Veg 12 Weeks

Aideen is involved with a lovely new vegetable growing project in association with GIY (Grow It Yourself).  This project is open to trainees to grow their very own vegetable garden from home.  Trainees will be sent out seeds for carrots, beetroot, salad, tomatoes etc.  You don't need a lot of space and can easily sow the seeds in a container.  There is also a 12 week tutorial to help you every step of the way.  What a lovely way to spend your days when at home and you will have some delicious veg to enjoy in the end. 😋  For more info go to www.GIY.ie

The seed packs that are going out to trainees this week

CTC Garden

Some of the lovely vegetables from our garden - carrots, parsnips, onions, peppers, tomatoes, cabbage and herbs.

Plants and Herbs

Our plants and herbs are flourishing in our garden.  We have lettuce, carrotts, beans, scallions, potatoes, spinach, strawberries, chives and sunflowers. 

Sunflowers and Strawberries

Our sunflowers and strawberries are starting to grow in the back garden!

Gardening - Planting Vegetables

On Friday we started working on our vegetable beds at the back of the centre. We planted Carrots, Onion, Potatoes, Lettuce and cabbage into our raised beds. Due to the cold weather we had to plant them a bit late this year.   Our cherry blossom tree which is out the back is in bloom. The tree starts to flower as soon as the leaves fall in autumn and blooms in spring,

CTC Garden

My name is Patrick and I am a computer trainee at Sligo CTC. As part of my An Gaisce this week I started working on tidying up on our planter beds from last year. These are located at the back of the building. They are very over-grown and need to be cut back. I enjoy getting outside and working on the garden.

Gardening

Aideen and trainees out doing some gardening on this beautiful morning in sunny Sligo!

Gardening Project - Planting

Natasha Talford from Sligo Leader gave an excellent demonstration today on planting seeds, herbs and vegetables. The trainees got actively involved in the planting and they found it enjoyable and educational.

We planted the following vegetables:

• Cabbage
• Tomatoes
• Peas
• Herbs
• Beetroot
• Spinach
• Scallions
• Mint
• Potatoes

• Lettuce
• Carrots
• Courgette
• Parsley
• Marojam
• Peruvian Mint
• Uncle John's Kale
• Sunflowers
• Broccoli

After the vegetables were planted we put dried powdered seaweed for fertilising the plants and Californian Poppie to encourage greenfly and beneficial insects so they can be pollinated. We watered the plants with liquid seaweed, it is a plant growth stimulant and good for many plants and vegetables, especially for tomatoes and potatoes. We used organic slug and snail killer so it doesn’t harm other animals such as hedgehogs and birds.  Thanks to Natasha for helping set up our garden and we will continue to maintain it throughout the summer and can't await until we eat its produce.

Trainees planting and participating in the gardening