Summer Harvest, one week on.

I grew this lovely rose from a cutting from a neighbour in Spain, it has a lovely perfume.

                    The season is moving on far too quickly,

First two pounds of blackcurrants.

the blackcurrants are earlier than last year although it wont be so big a harvest ,  that's fine, as we  have 20lb of currants still in the freezer,

It might be raining but the fruit still gets picked.

however they will still be picked and processed into jam or blackcurrant cordial.

The rhubarb is still producing new good stems, they are also picked and then frozen for pies during the dark winter days. Strawberries we just eat as they come, only if I get a glut do I make jam with them. What is nicer than  strawberries, fresh from the garden with a good helping of cream?

First of the raspberries.

The raspberries are cropping well this year, we are now picking 1.5lb a day, some we eat on the day, the rest I freeze, lovely in the middle of winter, just the smell  brings back summer.

Crème Brulee with a difference,  strawberry, raspberry and blackcurrant topping.

The broad beans are also doing very well this year, planted out as small plants in February we will have plenty to freeze, the Runner beans have started climbing and producing flower but nowhere near as many as last year, the  French beans are slower however, they really do prefer more warmth, but the garden peas are fine.

The Hubbard birds.

The table birds that we had have now gone for processing, normally we would do this ourselves, however the prospect of slaughtering and plucking twenty birds was a bit daunting and I had heard of someone who had set up a small 'on farm' enterprise where he can slaughter and process birds for other people.

'The Friendly Farmer' has a smallish Free Range enterprise where he farms chickens, ducks and turkeys, he sells his produce in Farmers markets and selected restaurants.

 Having decided what he was going to farm he found that the processing of birds for sale was likely to create a problem so he did the sensible thing, he opened up his own processing unit with the help of a grant from the Galway enterprise scheme. There are so few small processing units around so we consider ourselves lucky that there is one not too far away and who will do the whole job at a very reasonable price. We will pick up the birds tomorrow all cleaned and ready for the freezer.

Isn't he beautiful? He keeps the poultry safe.

He seems to have a very good setup, and we loved his predator protection, three huge Pyrenean Mountain dogs, they live in the field with the birds! From a distance they looked like small ponies. Apparently he has not lost a bird to foxes, nor to the dogs, so his method seems to work.

Battered Delphiniums.

We have had strong winds again in the last few days although it has been mild, but the wind did a fair bit of damage to our lovely Delphiniums even though we thought they were well staked.

Lots of buds to open on this one.

Last Christmas we were given two Orchids by friends,

Back in bloom again.

I have never been very successful with Orchids, however taking advice from another friend these two plants have now come back into bloom. So, many thanks to Richard who told me how to care for Orchids.

View from the kitchen window.

Too much of everything.

A stately swan on Lough Arrow.

At the moment it seems like we have just too much of everything in the garden, we can't keep up with the veg and we have promised ourselves that we will not freeze any veg this year, we have already broken this promise by freezing cauliflowers, but we will not put anymore in the freezer. We should have plenty of winter veg and veg is always best fresh. I just don't know what we will do with it all, maybe feed it to the pigs, all of our friends grow their own and we would not really have enough  to supply a veg shop, and given how much is thrown away by the shops I don't think that is a good idea.
Current glut is Mange tout peas,

The glut has started.

courgettes, broad beans, perpetual spinach and Swiss chard, soon it will be Runner beans, French beans and Sweet corn and cucumbers. It looks as though we will have a good crop of tomatoes, they are easy to deal with if there are too many by bottling or making tomato puree.
The strawberries have now just about finished but it might be possible to get a second flush in the autumn if I clean up the plants now and give them a liquid feed,

7 lb. of gooseberries.

we had a nice crop of Gooseberries, first time ever for us,

Nail clippers are great for topping and tailing.

and we are looking forward to the Redcurrants which will be made into redcurrant jelly.

Plenty of raspberries.

The raspberries are really giving us a good harvest, some we eat fresh and the rest get frozen to be enjoyed in the winter with homemade yoghurt. The rhubarb keeps coming, we have been picking it since the beginning of March.
The word Blackcurrant is now a dirty word as far as I'm concerned, so far I have toped and tailed forty five pounds of them with another fifteen pounds waiting to be done and still a few on the bushes. Jam has been made, many jars have been filled and processed, the rest have been bagged up and frozen. We are just hoping that we have enough room to store two pigs, who are fast coming up to their slaughter weight, and a dozen chickens. We certainly will not be picking any Blackberries this year, we don't need them and we have no space for them, I'm sure the wild birds will enjoy them.

Elder flower cordial, such a pretty colour, tastes great as well.

A couple of weeks ago we were given some red Elder flowers by a friend, this we made into elderflower cordial, it looks so lovely and is delicious.

Calendula and lavender flowers for  healing ointments.

I have also made some Calendula ointment, handy to have in the kitchen to treat burns or for any cuts.
As we have a helper with us at the moment we have taken him out a couple of times to see beautiful Co. Sligo,

                                     taking in our favourite Priory at Ballindoon on the shores of Lough Arrow

                                                              and a trip to the coast.

A builders armchair.

He seems to be enjoying himself and finds time to relax with Tommy the cat and Tess the golden Lab. 

Beautiful Co. Sligo.

Summer Solstice.

Sweet Rocket.

Where has the year gone, already we are at the halfway mark, the longest day is past. The garden is looking very colourful and the air is filled with the perfume of roses.

Somehow we have managed to collect  at least twenty six different varieties of roses, many of these I have done from cuttings.

Albertine Rose

We often spot old roses growing around  deserted farms and cottages, we normally have a pair of secateurs in the car so if we see a nice rose we can take a couple of cuttings from it, now is the ideal time to take half ripe cuttings from roses, dianthus, and clematis. I'm sure there are plenty of other plants as well that do at this time of year, but these are the ones that we go for.
The soft fruit is doing well, we have already picked some blackcurrants and gooseberries, lightly cooked together to be served over

Crema  Catalana, this is more or less the same a Crème Brulee, which is a posh way of saying egg custard. What ever you call it is  delicious, especially served with summer fruits. It is so nice having your own fruit and veg,

Fresh from the garden.

it cant come any fresher than tonight's meal and only the milk was not home produced coming from a farm just twenty miles away. Not a plastic container in sight, even the milk comes in glass bottles which are returned to be reused.

Pippa and Poppy.

The donkeys are enjoying the fresh grass growth and the sunshine, they had their six monthly pedicure last week, although they always feel better afterwards this is not something that they enjoy having done although Paddy the German farrier is great with them.
Over a decade ago Ireland became the first European country to introduce the plastic bag tax, this was supposed to cut down on the use of plastic. It has failed, OK, so you have to pay for plastic bags, and most people now have shopping bags, but this is a futile exercise given that almost all fruit and veg from a super market comes in plastic containers.
 We have two shops, one a fruit and veg shop and one supermarket that give us their green waste for the pigs, and we are very grateful for it but the plastic that comes with it is astounding. We always separate our waste, we have very little, one black plastic bin liner takes us six weeks to fill, since collecting green waste for the pigs we have a sack full every week. 
It is twenty one years since we last had pigs, once a week we collected green waste from an importer, there was no plastic in sight.
 Given the amount of fruit and veg that we get each week from our two shops clearly the use of containers or plastic wrapped fruit and veg is not to save on wasting food, so I wonder what purpose it does serve.

We are now holding our breath that the weather forecast might be correct, we need rain! Again!!
 Unfortunately we have to replant some of the veg crops, purple sprouting broccoli, spinach, turnips and swede, our young male rabbits managed to escape and had a feast, but there is little point in replanting until we can be sure of some rain, promised for Wednesday, I wonder if it will come.