The importance of biodiversity and using organic and native seeds on Cape Clear with Debbie Stone

Our latest podcast looks at the importance of biodiversity, in our interview with Debbie Stone on Cape Clear.

We learn about the importance of biodiversity, using native species and seeds, as well as pesticide free crop growing.

This interview is also an excerpt from the Cape Clear radio show, and will be aired in an up coming edition after this sneak preview.

Transcript of the interview follows ->

Hi, okay, so I’m here with Debbie and we are down at the polytunnel in Cape and we’re going to talk about seeds and biodiversity, so first of all, hi thanks to be here, thank you.

First question what do you do here in the polytunnel?

Debbie : We’re growing the veg so we’re seeding and watering and feeding and maintaining and composting when they’re finished their cycle.

I’ve just walked through it, there are huge tomato plants, everything is thriving, so it clearly works.

We’re mostly using open pollinated varieties so it’s nice to see that they do so well in these circumstances you don’t need the hybrids yes.

Have you always done this?

Definitely not on this scale but Steven and I have always gardened. The first house we ever bought was from an Italian immigrant family in Peterborough, Ontario and they had a garden so extensive, there wasn’t a blade of grass in the back. We just took that as a sign okay to carry on so we started gardening then on a pretty good scale and then our second house had a big lot too, so we had a big vegetable garden there and we’re growing asparagus.

I guess we’ve done it a while. I had a couple of tomato plants when I was a teenager in my parent’s backyard. You know the back garden beside the drive and I don’t know where it came from. My parents certainly weren’t interested. I just always been interested been in watching things grow.

We live off this most of the year, so that’s great too. In the winter there will be a lot of brassicas, and we will be eating kale. Colrabi too, and we have beets that’ll carry us through the winter,and chard that will carry us through, also lettuces radicchio.

How long do your tomatoes keep going because I get the impression that these are gonna keep coming for a good while?

Yes, they’ll keep coming for a good while, though some of them will start to succumb to a bit of disease later in the season say into September, October and we just take the plants out as they fade. We’ll keep it going as long as possible.Up to December and then soon after that you can start selling new ones. That’s exactly the cycle it is quite tight, by the time you get them out, you’re getting the beds ready again for the next round.

I usually start seeding the end of January getting into February. Already here at my desk I’ve begun to put into some seeds down, so here we are in August thinking about we what should we be planting now for the next winter. I’m starting on some oriental veg right now, some Mizuna and some different oriental mustards and cabbages and bok choy. There’s a there’s an amazing wealth of species and varieties that are available out there, so it’s great.

I actually learned about a lot of these from a book it’s quite local Joy Larkin on growing oriental veg. After reading that it kind of opened up a whole new world to me. We grow Mizuna and Mabuna and it does really well.

What else have you found does well that might not be something that people would not think of?

I really like the mustard leaf variety we are growing, it’s not a hot mustard but it’s just got a nice little bite to it, and it’s a beautiful color. It’s red and looks gorgeous growing it.

You look quite organized, keeping track of what you planted and when you planted it?

Yes, we do we do, part of that is is just for my own knowledge, and part of it is being in here if others want to know. It is good to know what bed it’s going into and what your seed providence, so yes. There is a need for traceability with any food.

What tips would you give in terms of having a good mix and maybe not just buying what you buy in Lidl?

We have great resources here, we’ve got Madeleine McKeever with brown envelope seeds, just you can almost see it from here across the water there. Irish seed savers have an amazing array of ones that have been grown in Ireland for generations. In some cases we get a lot of seed from them. Most of these brassicas are oriental brassicas we get from a company called Real Seed in Wales. They have a great, extensive catalog of all sorts of veg. We’re spoiled we really are spoiled for choice here.

Why is it good to grow more than one type?

Growing more than one type of mizuna is useful because they have different characteristics. Some will be early, some will be late, some are tart ,some are sweet, some are just really pretty to look at, and there’s nothing wrong with just growing something that looks good.

Do you save much seed yourself?

We have, and we are still learning. Jean Perry at Glebe gardens is an another wealth of information about growing and seeds. I thought the tomatoes would cross-pollinate like mad and there was no point in saving seeds because we grow about 25 varieties, okay, but she was saying no that’s not true. They actually are self-fertile and so I’ve started seeing saving seeds in the tomatoes and I’m delighted with the results.

We’ve found some that do exceptionally well in the tunnel. You know, they have extremes they’ve got the heat in the summer and some damp so you want to see what grows well and we’ve actually selected seed from the best ones and kind of carried them on.

We’re delighted with some of them, we get a lot of our lettuce seeds from a company in the Pacific Northwest of the US, called wild garden seed. They have a similar climate all right similar latitude all that kind of thing and, they have mixes. and they’ll do a mix every year they call it their Morton’s secret mix each year, they put out a new one and it’s kind of a conglomeration of everything they’re working on all right, they may be named or unnamed varieties you just never know and we will always do a bed of that and just see which one of these is doing exceptionally well.

We’re not doing our own breeding or cross pollinating or anything but they were unnamed varieties and we now have one called red cape.  We’re really pleased with what we’re able to grow and try out. It is different every year, some plants are really healthy.

You don’t use pesticides and chemicals so so what do you do to stop the creatures eating everything?

Your are squishing, so a lot of squishing, but we don’t have any slugs in here. I think that has a lot to do with the gravel pathways, They’re not happy to be crossing that, so I think I’ve ever in almost 10 years of only seen one or two. We did have an issue with some grubs and that again is a matter of digging through the soil and pulling them out and squishing them.

Your soil is very light and it looks good so what do you do to keep it fertile and do you recharge the beds and if you do how do you do that?

We get ton bags of compost organic compost in, from Donegal or there’s another company, we get one about five or six one tonne boxes, made from mushrooms or horsemanure. The Donegal is made from fish remains. Fertilizer that we use is a seaweed and chicken manure and that’s what we’ll do with the lettuce beds after we’ve pulled the lettuce we’ll top it up with fertiliser again.

We’ll scatter some of that around and rake it in because there might be four or five different plantings of lettuce in the same bed over the course of the season, so you’re putting a pretty high demand on those beds. All the tomatoes and all the night shades and cucumbers and melons will that get a feed of seaweed every two weeks.

We get it from up in Bantry, a super concentrated and yeah, it’s great we have a big three hundred litre tub and we just used the watering cans. We give everything a feed every two weeks, it seems to really keep the plants healthy. We actually use dry seaweed in the trenches before we plant the tomato plants too.

If people were thinking of gardening in somewhere like Cape either outside or in a small polytunnel, what would you suggest they start with?

Anything that you really enjoy eating? I haven’t really grown much in the way of carrots because I’m less excited by them. I’m really tickled with the kohlrabi. It tastes like a very mild radish, and makes the best coleslaw going. It’ll last us all winter, it looks good, tastes good and it’s easy to grow. Brassicas in general as well. They seem to tolerate absolutely everything.

Are you as affected by the salt air, does the polytunnel protect you, or is it still a factor?

I’ve never had an issue with it in here that I can see. It’s been really good we had, we even have one exotic here, we have Cape Gooseberries growing here that just absolutely love it. They’re spectacular and they have a lovely flower. They’re beautiful, and the bees are loving it, so we’re glad to have anything that brings the bees in.

We’ve had to screen everything because blackbirds discovered that tomatoes are there very favorite meal. They destroy them absolutely. The bees get through but the birds can’t get through. The bees and hoverflies.

Why is it good to save seeds?

There are lots of reasons to save seeds. I would really recommend to anybody to do it.  We’ve got beans that are just about ready to harvest now that we grew last year. We kept them as dried beans over the winter and then we can also use the same ones to seed again. We have a couple of varieties that we’re growing specifically to dry.

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