Sambucus nigra - Black elder

Latin plant name Sambucus nigra Common plant name Black elder - Elderberry Plant type Shrub Size (meters) < 2 m Distinguishing features It is grown for the berries and the flowers that can be used for drinks (sambuca drink). The berries are edible after cooking and can be used to make jam, jelly, chutney and Pontack sauce. The fruit is a dark purple to black berry 3–5 mm diameter, produced in drooping clusters in the late autumn; they are an important food for many fruit-eating birds, notably Blackcaps. The flowers can be used to make an herbal tea as a remedy for inflammation caused by colds and fever. It has hollow stams  that can be used for stakes. The stams are opposite, not like the maple that are alternative. The shiitake mushrooms grow under the elders. It needs alcaline soils with lime and stones.

Hydrangea - Hortensia

Latin plant name Hydrangea Common plant name Hortensia Plant type Woody flowering shrub Size (meters) < 2 m Distinguishing features Hydrangea flowers are produced from early spring to late autumn; they grow in flowerheads at the ends of the stems. In many species, the flowerheads contain two types of flowers, small fertile flowers in the middle of the flowerhead, and large, sterile bract-like flowers in a ring around the edge of each flowerhead. The color is affected by the pH of the soil; going from white to black, through blue, pink, red and purple. White flowers in the most acid soils and black in the most alcalines. The coffee in the soil will turn the flowers into black. The concrete close to the plant, as it contains lime, will turn the soil into alcaline and  the flowers will be darker.

Deterring mammals without chemical

Rabbits and deer are the most annoying big pests.

If you can afford it and it's feasible to do so, putting up a fence is the only fool-proof way to keep animals out of your garden.

Other methods can be:

1. Bloodmeal: Bloodmeal is a by product of meat packing plants. It's dried and flaked blood and animals strongly dislike the smell of it. Prey animals like rabbits and deer are spooked by the smell of blood, even old dried blood. Bloodmeal is also extremely high in nitrogen and a great additive for your garden. Sprinkle it around your plants and in your garden beds. Take care, however, not to sprinkle the powder directly on the plants. The high nitrogen content can burn the leaves.
2. Introduce Strong Scents: If you have a strong aversion to spreading bloodmeal all over your yard, you can also introduce other strong scents. Deer, particularly, are not fond of really strong smells like bars of scented soap, cheap perfume, and other strong smells. 
3. Scare them offf with Water: Scarecrow sprinklers look like regular lawn sprinklers, except they have a battery-powered motion sensor. Anything that gets in the path of the sensor gets a sudden and intense blast of water. 

Slugs-free without chemicals

Slugs:

Coffee grounds are a great addition to your garden. They add nitrogen to the soil, they increase the acidity for acid loving plants, and, best of all, a wide range of creatures can't stand coffee grounds. Slugs hate coffee, cats hate coffee; it's even sometimes an effective olfactory-based repellent for picky deer.

Slugs are, in my humble opinion, the most annoying of garden pests. They're the veritable ninjas of plant destruction. Unless you're looking for them—and carefully—it's rare to see slugs at all, yet every night they descend upon your garden and chew the crap out of everything. You can deal with slugs a variety of ways depending on your adversity to killing them or merely redirecting them to your neighbor's yard.

Coffee grounds, as mentioned above, will deter slugs to a degree. Even more effective, and radically longer lasting, is copper. Slugs and snails hate copper. You can use copper in a variety of forms to keep them away. To keep slugs from crawling up into your potted plants you can put decorative copper tape around the body of the container.

You can make an effective slug trap with little more than an orange rind or a shallow container and some grape juice or beer. Save the half-rinds from citrus fruits like grape fruit and oranges and place them about your garden. Slugs will flock to the rind. Come morning you can throw the rind in the trash or put it on top of your compost pile to dry them out in the sun and mix them into your compost.

Crashed egg shells will also kill the slugs as they will get cut when licking the inside of the shell.


Some hints to get rid from slugs:

http://www.gardenplansireland.com/forum/about100.html

Courgettes

Courgettes are also called zucchini. 

In a culinary context, the courgette is treated as a vegetable, which means it is usually cooked and presented as a savory dish or accompaniment. Botanically, however, the zucchini is an immature fruit, being the swollen ovary of the zucchini flower.

Courgette is one of the easiest fruits to cultivate in temperate climates. As such, it has a reputation among home gardeners for overwhelming production. One good way to control over-abundance is to harvest the flowers, which are an expensive delicacy in markets because of the difficulty in storing and transporting them. The male flower is borne on the end of a stalk and is longer lived.

While easy to grow, courgettes, like all squash, requires plentiful bees for pollination. In areas of pollinator decline or high pesticide use, such as mosquito-spray districts, gardeners often experience fruit abortion, where the fruit begins to grow, then dries or rots. This is due to an insufficient number of pollen grains delivered to the female flower. It can be corrected by hand pollination or by increasing the bee population.

The courgettes need a neutral high rich organic soil. They need warmth and shelter so in Ireland it is a good option to plant them inside the polytunnel.

Soil pH

Different types of plants require varying degrees of soil acidity. In fact, some plants are very sensitive to soil pH.

Rhododendrons and heathers will not tolerate lime in the soil. On the other hand Clematis prefers an alkaline soil.

What does soil pH mean?

The acidity or alkalinity of the soil is measured by pH (potential Hydrogen ions).

Basically it is a measure of the amount of lime (calcium) contained in your soil, and the type of soil that you have. Generally, soils in moist climates tend to be acid and those in dry climates are alkaline. A soil with a pH lower than 7.0 is an acid soil and one with a pH higher than 7.0 is alkaline.

The soil must be adjusted to suit the plant which will occupy that area if it is not already within that plants requirement range.

Testing your soil pH

Most good garden centers will even gladly pH test a soil sample for you, or you can buy an inexpensive pH test kit at most nurseries, or hardware stores.

These test kits generally consist of a test tube, some testing solution and a color chart. You put a sample of your soil in the tube, add a few drops of test solution, shake it up and leave it for an hour or so to settle.

The solution in the tube changes color according to the pH of your soil. Compare the color of the sample with the color chart that came with the kit. Matching colors will tell you the pH of your sample. The better kits will also advisory booklets about how to interpret your result.

Adjusting your soil pH

Once you have determined the pH you can amend the soil, if needed to accommodate the plants in your garden using materials commonly available at your local garden center.

Raising the soil pH to make it more alkaline

Generally speaking, it is easier to make soils more alkaline than it is to make them more acid. Because different soil types react in different ways to the application of lime you will have to add more lime to clay soils and peaty soils than you will in sandy soils to achieve the same result.

To increase your pH by 1.0 point and make your soil more alkaline:

Add 4 ounces of hydrated lime per square yard in sandy soils

Add 8 ounces of hydrated lime per square yard in loamy soils

Add 12 ounces of hydrated lime per square yard in clay soils

Add 25 ounces of hydrated lime per square yard in peaty soils 

Correction of an overly acid soil should be considered a long term project, rather than trying to accomplish it in one year. It is better to test your soil each year and make your adjustments gradually. The addition of hardwood ash, bone meal, crushed marble, or crushed oyster shells will also help to raise the soil pH.

Lowering the soil pH to make it more acidic

If your soil needs to be more acidic, sulfur may be used to lower the pH if it is available. To reduce the soil pH by 1.0 point, mix in 1.2 oz of ground rock sulfur per square yard if the soil is sandy, or 3.6 oz per square yard for all other soils. The sulfur should be thoroughly mixed into the soil before planting. Sawdust, composted leaves, wood chips, cottonseed meal, leaf mold and especially peat moss, will lower the soil pH.