Summer harvests.

The Antirrhinums look lovely against the blue of the Nepeta. 

Although the weather has been variable this year the vegetable garden is doing well, so far the only disappointment has been the asparagus, we only managed three feasts from it and then the weather changed and we had frosts in May which stopped the plants from growing, by the time we were back to normal weather we were approaching mid summer and wisdom says never to harvest asparagus after mid summers day, so we will have to remember how good the pickings were and wait for the next years  harvest.

One of the varieties of first early potato's.

The first early potatoes from the tunnel are now finished and we are onto the first earlies from the garden, they are delicious but unfortunately we never got round to putting labels on the rows as to what varieties each row is, we have done three different types of earlies this year, four if we included the Ratte potato, the seeds of which were donated to us by a friend. For anyone who likes a good potato, waxy and full of flavour this is one to try, they have a slight chestnut flavour but they are hard to find. Easier to grow than Pink Fir Apple but the same shape, but these are a white potato, not red.

Carrots do need thinning even more.

Not bad for thinning's.

The first carrots have been pulled as they needed thinning out, onions in the tunnel are ready for plaiting, the outside ones aren't far behind.

Shush, no slugs damage on the sprouts....so far!

The Brussel sprouts are also looking good, and the broad beans are also ready. We have so much Broccoli that we will have to freeze a lot, we had hoped to get away without freezing any veg this year,

Blackcurrants ready for picking.

and the Blackcurrants are ready for picking. Leeks, Swede and Parsnips are all looking good, another year of plenty.

Eight week old chicks.

Chicks that we hatched a couple of months ago are all looking good, we think that we have two Buff Orpington Pullets and just one male, and the Marans we think are five pullets and two males, they will be big enough to go into their proper runs in a couple of weeks.
The Hubbard table birds reach their 84 days on Wednesday, so time to get the freezer ready. We  also have some Muscovy ducklings just hatching five out so far, hopefully there are more to come.

A startling colour Astilbe.

The garden is still very colourful,

A delicate colour.

the Delphinium that I thought might be a lilac colour did not disappoint,

I love this lilac colour with the pale blue Delphiniums.

it's beautiful but we have had to stake them and the foxgloves, the winds have been very strong and have done some damage.

This rose grows in all the hedgerows around here, it's beautiful and highly perfumed.

All the roses are now in flower, they are way behind last year,

I love the contrast of the Albertine rose against the red prunus.

maybe they will continue longer.

Heath Spotted orchid.

This month is a good month for plant hunts,

Common Spotted orchid.

so far in the last two days we have found four different types of orchid all within in a mile or so of where we live.

Lesser Butterfly orchid.

The Lesser Butterfly orchid was one we were very pleased to find as we had not seen it in this area before.

Twayblade orchid.

Apparently Ireland has thirty different types of Orchids, we have a long way to go to see them all, I think we have identified just ten so far.

I think this willow sculpture has started growing again.

    

Perfumed Posy.

The flower  gardens are full of summer colour now, each day there seems to be something else in bloom, a lot of which I had forgotten I had planted,

A poppy with peony pretentions.

or in the case of some lovely lilac poppies that have appeared by magic, maybe they had been laying dormant for years, or maybe the fairies have been at work, however they got here they are a welcome addition, I hope they self seed.

The Delphiniums are looking truly magnificent and very regal, they are all over six feet in height, these plants were from a plant swap,

Blue with a hint of purple.

one is a lovely pale shade of blue and the one next to it promises to be a pale purple,they look lovely with the foxgloves which have also grown to over six feet,

White Foxgloves.

the foxgloves were all grown from seed including the lovely white ones.

Deep blue Delphiniums.

The dark blue Delphinium is a plant that I bought.
The Rosa rugosas are also looking lovely,

White rosa rugosa

I love the white one, again these were all grown from seed.

Yellow loosestrife on the right.

The yellow loosestrife was a gift from a friend, it's a great plant for flower arrangements.

 The Dianthus were all grown from cuttings from a friends garden,

they are just about the easiest plant to propagate this way.

I think my dream garden would be bordered by Dianthus and Lavender, I am working towards this aim!

So much scent.

The little posy is full of scented flowers straight from the garden, roses (David Austin) Dianthus and Honeysuckle, it smells heavenly.

I love this little vase.

The little vase that they stand in is a studio piece, picked up in a local charity shop for just two euro, I love it and it matches other pieces that we have, possible from the same studio which is not far from here.
The back garden is planted mainly with roses, mostly again David Austin as they specialise in old fashioned perfumed varieties,

A perfect rose.

this beautiful yellow rose came as part of a special offer from an Irish gardening catalogue, they were doing a special offer of five David Austin roses for fifty euro, but you didn't know what varieties you would receive, we weren't disappointed, and they are all well perfumed.
The vegetable garden is also full of food , we are spoilt for choice, but does it all have to come at once? Tonight it will be broad beans and calabrese, followed by yet more strawberries. these are the outside ones, we are picking 750g every other day.

Cambridge favourite.

When I bought these plants I did a bit of research to see the best type to grow in our climate, good old Cambridge Favourite came out tops, we haven't been disappointed either by flavour or the production of the plants.

Pineapple weed.

One of the hen paddocks has been taken over by Pineapple weed, Matricaria discordea, again this seed must have been laying dormant for many years, you can use it in salads or to make tea but unfortunately the hens don't seem to like it, but it is hardwearing and it defiantly gives of a strong smell of pineapples.

Arnold taking his two favourite girls for a walk.

 I suspect the fact the poultry don't seem to like it explains why Arnold our Muscovy drake decided to take two of his wives for a walk around the garden today no doubt looking for grass, Daffy and Dilly have always been his favourite girls and he is very protective of them.

Our Hungry Planet.

For a while now there has been some media coverage about food waste, but mostly the media has been more interested in trying to create an illusion that the world will be unable to feed the expected rise in world population by 2050. When I had the chance to do an online free course run by Reading University entitled 'Our Hungry Planet' I jumped at the chance, I had hoped that during the six week course I would have learned something that I was not already aware of.  The course was interesting and it was a good chance to interact with other students as well as the course lecturers, students were expected to keep a food diary and monitor their food waste, although many were like ourselves,  zero waste households, very few were actually producing any of what they ate. Most were highly dependant on Supermarkets, and that included people who live in so called underdeveloped countries, but nowhere was the blame for major food waste put fairly and squarely where it belongs and that is on the Supermarkets. From the way they treat their suppliers, expecting them to take the hit financially for foods unsold or because the supermarket had cancelled all or part of its order, to the amount of food that they dump daily, food that is still fit for consumption but nearing its sell by date, or in the case of M&S sandwiches, they will not allow their supplier to use the first two and last two slices of bread to be used in the making of these sandwiches, so the four rejected slices are dumped. This amounts to 13,000 slices of bread per day.This is a scandal.

A very good read.

A book that is well worth reading is by Tristram Stuart, simply called 'Waste', it brings the whole issue of feeding  the world into context. There is enough food currently being produced to feed the anticipated increase in world population, but the world has to stop wasting food the way it is currently.

Distance travelled, 50feet.

  Do we need to import Spinach, Mange tout peas,  Broccoli and Cauliflower in the middle of summer from Zimbabwe and Kenya? We are over run with all these crops at the moment, why are the stores not selling Irish or at least UK produce instead of importing these easily grown crops over five thousand air miles? The Mange tout peas were priced at 1.29 euros for a 200g plastic coated packet as was the Broccoli, not what I would call cheap for things that grow like weeds.

Once again at the weekend we headed for the Sligo coast, it was very windy where we live and we had expected to see big waves and a big sea, but it was calm.

We found a little cove that we had never discovered before, very pretty and sheltered, just a few old cottages which have been restored and one larger house which would need at lot of work if not rebuilding.

Maybe a tad to close to the edge now?

We were particularly intrigued by the ruin, not the usual two or three roomed cottage as was the norm, this had been quite a substantial house , with four rooms downstairs, four bedrooms and three chimneys standing on good land,

I could live with that view.

          with views to die for.
 This must have once been the home of a prosperous  family, maybe it is a little too close to the cliff edge though.

This little cove was full of surprises, a fresh water stream flowed into the sea, and three caves,

one of which had a pillar in the middle with what looks like a face,

A natural caryatid.

it appeared to be entirely natural.

We also found fossilized coral in the carboniferous lime stone rock,

these fossils date back some 350 million years,

we had not realised that this coast line is renowned for it's fossils.

Yet more fossil coral.

Again it was a lovely trip out and the little lanes that take you down to the numerous little bays are full of wild roses, honeysuckle, rosa rugosa, fuchsia bushes and oxeye daisies.

Past Heritage.

At one time Lime Kilns would have been a common sight around Ireland, now it is rare to find them, however we have found one fairly close to us, just across the boarder in Co. Mayo.

Like so many things that we find that were part of everyday life in years gone by we can find no details or date of this kiln, although some effort has been made into clearing and maintaining this one. Lime kilns in Ireland seem to date back to the 18th century when many farms would have had them both to provide fertilizer for their lands and also to whitewash the cottages. Lime was, and still is used as a mortar, it would have replaced daub, a mixture of clay and straw or animal dung, it was also a useful sterilizing agent. We are both old enough to remember outside privies being lime washed as a means of keeping them clean.

This is the second lime kiln that we have found, it is larger than the one that we had found previously,  possible it was a community one, used by people who lived in the village. It would be so nice if a few details were available at the site.

The garden is now full of colour,

Gertrude Jekyll in all her glory, perfectly formed with an amazing perfume.

the roses are, at last in bloom, although one of them is a bit of a mystery.

This particular rose came from Galicia where it grew in all the hedge rows, I took a cutting from it and it has bloomed for the last three years, running true to type and colour, this year however, it had changed colour, from a beautiful cerise to a lovely peach colour. I have never come across this before, I didn't know that a rose could change colour. It's still highly perfumed, just not the right colour, most strange!

 

Aquilegia nestles under the Rosa Rugosa, the Geums seem to wind their way through the taller plants bring a splash of bright colour,

Valerian makes a startling contrast to the Nepeta and Berberis.  

The Campion highlights the more subtle colours of Aquilegia,

Foxgloves tower above the bed.

Lupines contrast against the Bronze Fennel and more Nepeta, with the ferny leaves of Sweet Cecily,

And the Papaver poppies say 'Look at Me' not that you can miss them,

The sky blue hardy geraniums stand out against the Sweet Woodruff,

The Sweet Rocket adds a lovely perfume and the bees love it.

All these flowers give me plenty for a vase full to brighten up the cottage.