Rainfall and heat make for miraculous growth

URBAN FARMER:The Bloom festival will draw crowds to the Phoenix Park. It could be just the time to check out the OPW's walled garden, writes FIONNUALA FALLON

ONE empty nest, seven empty eggshells . . . but no sign of any ducklings. It seems the mallard hen that was quietly nesting in a corner of the OPW’s walled kitchen garden has cleverly dodged both this week’s Bloom crowds and the OPW gardeners, slipping out of the walled garden en famille last weekend while no-one was watching. “We didn’t see her and the ducklings leave,” says OPW gardener Meeda Downey, regretfully. “We just checked the nest on Monday morning and they’d gone.”

While the departure of the mother duck and her brood of ducklings went unnoticed, the walled garden they’ve left behind is much harder to miss. Packed to its four corners with a rich variety of fruit, herb and vegetable plants, and with a double herbaceous border that’s now in full and splendid flower, the OPW’s kitchen garden is looking rather magnificent at the moment. “It’s nice to see it all coming together,” says Brian, as he and Meeda finish preparing the last of the neatly-marshalled soil mounds for the pumpkins and courgettes.

Coming together it definitely is, as the handful of recent heavy rainfalls, combined with the sultry summer heat, have had an almost miraculous effect on the garden.

Everywhere the growth is lush and heavy, as tender young plants (peas, cabbage and calabrese, cauliflower, carrots, lettuce and spring onions, spinach, leeks, onions and celeriac, beetroot, radish, broad beans and parsnips) all jostle for position alongside sky-blue irises, sweet pea and the crumpled blossoms of pale pink opium poppies. Even the 1,200 sweet corn plants Meeda and Brian planted out last week already seem to have grown a few inches, as they suck in the summer heat and bury their roots into the soil.

There’s also plenty of food available for the thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) of young ladybird larvae that have just hatched out on the strawberry plants. “Theyre everywhere, just everywhere,” says Brian proudly. “And they’re hoovering up the greenfly”. These black-and-orange babies (they look nothing like the adults) will each need to eat up to 400 aphids before they’re ready to transform into the adult beetle, which is why the walled garden’s greenfly population is being so quickly and summarily dispatched.

Nearby, the early Orla potatoes that the gardeners planted back in mid-March are a foot up out of the ground, while the recently-sown peas and mangetout (varieties Onwards and Carouby de Maussane) have also already germinated, pushing their green shoots well above ground.

All of the freshly-planted lettuce (raised in the glasshouse in early April), seem to have doubled in size but particularly Pandero, the miniature Cos whose sweet, succulent, deep-red leaves glow brightly in the summer sunshine.

The glasshouse-raised celery and celeriac are also thriving , as are the swedes and turnips, although the bedraggled appearance of the latter are perhaps the only jarring note (a very small one, it should be added) in the garden.

Brian, eager to get a move-on, decided to raise the young plants from seed sown in the glasshouse in late April despite Meeda’s protestations that they should be sown outdoors.

“Like most root vegetables, they need to be sown in situ,” says Meeda, with a disapproving shake of her head. But Brian, keen to beat the cold spring and to get a head-start with the planting, decided otherwise. The young plants finally went into their permanent positions in the walled garden late last week and are now looking more than a little unhappy.

“They’ll be absolutely fine in a week or two, once they put on new growth,” says Brian confidently. “They just need a good watering and time to establish themselves.”

I’m not so sure the turnips would agree (at the moment, they’re hanging their leaves in disgust), for, as Meeda says, most root vegetables transplant badly and should, if possible, be sown in situ before being carefully thinned to the required spacing. Fast-

growing and quick to crop, varieties such as Snowball will be ready to harvest within six weeks of being sown, which is why successional sowing (small amounts every 3-4 weeks) is a good idea.

Another fast-growing root vegetable is the radish, which Meeda and Brian have sown next door to the turnips. The OPW gardeners are growing a fast-maturing variety called Cherry Belle, which has the scarlet skin and succulent white flesh that’s so characteristic of this popular salad vegetable. Ready to harvest in just three weeks, it’s an ideal choice for intercropping between other slower-growing vegetables such as parsnips or leeks.

A relatively undemanding crop (it likes a rich, moist but free-draining soil, while summer sowings do best in light shade), the only thing to keep in mind is its speedy growth, as forgotten plants quickly become woody and too “hot” to be of much use. The gardeners sowed their radish seed thinly and shallowly (1cm deep) in long drills just 15cm to 20cm apart. “We’ll thin the baby plants out to 3cm to 5cm apart once they’re big enough to handle,” explains Brian.

Far slower-growing is the swede (confusingly, this is the vegetable that’s commonly known in Ireland as a turnip).

Another root vegetable (and one Brian also gambled on, raising the young plants indoors), the yellow-fleshed swede takes up to half a year to grow to full size, but can be left in the ground for even longer if required. “We’re growing a variety called Marian, which has good mildew resistance,” says Meeda, as disapproving of these glasshouse-

raised plants as she is of the turnips.

“Normally, you’d station-sow them about 10cm to 12cm apart and then thin them to about twice that distance. Just like the turnips and the radishes, you have to thin the seedlings early as otherwise they’ll get too weak and spindly. All three crops dislike a dry soil, so we’ll also keep an eye on them as regards watering. Other than that, they don’t ask for much in the way of maintenance. Just keep an eye out for slugs (use Ferramol slug pellets, which are approved for organic use) and for weeds.”

In the walled garden, you’d do well to find a single weed, which is a tribute to the hard graft of the OPW gardeners and their fellow workers. But it’s been a tiring couple of weeks and Brian and Meeda are looking forward to Bloom’s aftermath and the opportunity to take things at a slower pace. “It’s been non-stop,” admits Meeda. “I’m knackered,” grins Brian.

Or as the English poet Coleridge once wryly put it, “Summer has set in with its usual severity . . .”

The OPW’s Victorian walled kitchen garden is in the grounds of the Phoenix Park Visitor Centre, beside the Phoenix Park Café and Ashtown Castle. The gardens are open daily from 10am to 4.30pm

Next week: nematodes and spraying against blight

Fionnuala Fallon is a garden designer and writer

WHAT TO: Sow, plant and do now

Sow outdoors: French beans, runner beans, beetroot, calabrese, carrots, mini cauliflowers, chicory, courgettes, cucumbers, endives, kohl rabi, komatsuna, land cress, lettuce, mibuna, mizuna, pak choi, spring onions, peas, mangetout, sugar snap, pumpkins, radish, rocket, spinach (annual perpetual), swedes, turnips, sweet corn.

Plant:Asparagus (potted, not crowns), sprouting broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbages, cauliflowers, kale, celery, celeriac, courgettes, fennel, leeks, peppers, pumpkins, sweet corn, tomatoes

Do: Continue sowing seed and pricking out/ thinning seedlings, water young seedlings plants, organise seed/ seedling swaps, continue hardening off well-established plants, weed beds, net young brassicas, cover carrot seedlings with Bionet, earth-up and spray potatoes with Dithane to protect against blight, pinch out side shoots and stake tomatoes, watch out for garden pests.