The weather continues to be good, the birds are singing and we have seen hooded crows gathering twigs for their nest building. The leaves on the trees are now just showing the fresh green of spring, and everything seems to be reinvigorated after the winters dormancy. Such a wonderful time of year with the lengthening days, all that we need is a little more energy to get all the planting done.
Our non knobbly Jerusalem Artichokes Fuseau arrived today, another pressing job as they already have shoots on them, they do appear to be different from the normal type , so maybe they will require less preparation. Each tuber is supposed to give a 4lb crop and there is 25 tubers in the box. I hope they do crop well as they are considerably more expensive than the normal type. I have often wondered why this plant should be called an Artichoke as it is no relation , but is a member of the sunflower family.
Our first hatching of chicks are now flying out of their brooder, so subject to the weather continuing as it is they will be moved to their outside quarters in the next day or so. There is a lovely new house waiting for them with a vermin proof run, although they are only five weeks old they are very well feathered and hopefully will be OK outside.
Once again, the subject of planting G.M crops in Ireland has reared it ugly head.
This time, Teagasc has applied to plant G.M blight resistant potatoes, why is anybody's guess as there are already several varieties of blight resistant potatoes available. Funded, again, by the Irish tax payer for something which is neither needed or wanted. Last year we grew Sarpo Mira, and were totally blight free, we are growing them again this year. To make matters worse, Teagase will be saturating the proposed site with Roundup, (god bless Monsanto) despite all the known effects of this chemical, and to make it even worse, as if it needed more, the site is close to Irelands second longest river, the Barrow. Will they never learn? I do wonder what corruption has gone on behind closed doors. Ireland is a G.M free state, it is a unique selling point, it should remain so.
The whole chemical farming is no different here! I believe that oil companies and the likes of the Monsantos are in bed with politicians. From the local all the way up to the federals. It just disgusts me!! I shall say no more, because it gets my hackles up!!!
ReplyDeleteLove the pictures of the flowers. It will another two months before I see blooms. All beds are under about 7 inches of snow!
As long as the revolving door is allowed to continue there will always be corruption. Just track the employment record of Taylor and see how often he has gone from Monsanto and back to the government.
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