Spot the difference.

Last week we learnt the hard way that buying frozen fish is a waste of money and the plastic bag it comes in probally would have more flavour. We  sent an email to 'Donegal Catch' saying how disappointed we were in their product, needless to say, we received no reply. We can only assume  that they are so used to receiving complaints that they no longer bother to respond. This week we took the trip to our real fish man in Ballina,

Fresh cod versus frozen.

fresh cod was on offer at only twelve euro a kg, plaice at two euro a throw and hake at seventeen euro a kg. We now have replenished our stock of fish , this should last us for the next eight weeks.

Third generation.

Although this fishmonger has an overnight courier service, I still like to see what I'm buying, and it makes a nice trip out. This fish shop has been established for over fifty years and our fishmonger is the third generation of the family to run the business. I wonder how long this shop would have lasted if they didn't respond to customers feedback?
There are a few signs that spring is not too far away, bulbs are well up with flower buds on the daffodils,

one of the pulmonarias  is flowering,

Red hellebore.

White hellebore, I also spot a buttercup that needs removing.

likewise the hellebores,

An early Camellia.

there's even a brave camellia with one flower out, many more to come but way behind the first one.
Things are slowly developing in the new tunnel,

the garlic is well up,

broad beans not making too much headway, they are the same size as a couple of weeks ago.

Tiny cauliflower but they will come on.

Tiny cauliflowers have been planted into one of the beds, they look so small but should soon make headway with a few degrees of warmer weather, and increased daylight. Not that it's been cold this winter, so far it's been the warmest and driest for the past four years, although today it has done it's best to deliver a dusting of snow, as long as it stays just that, a dusting I will be quite happy. However, a few days of really cold weather would have been welcomed to kill off some of the nasty's in the soil, slugs in particular.

The apricot, it's got two chances.

The apricot tree gifted to us from a friend has been planted in the new tunnel, whether it survives or not is in the lap of the gods. It seems that we should have moved it late autumn as apricots are so early flowering the sap will already have risen, we are also a bit concerned that there was not enough root on it, still it has two chances, it lives or it dies. 

Out and about.

Organic Centre contemplation tunnel.

Now there's not quite so much to do in the garden we have been able to make a couple of trips out. The first one was to Ballina, a bustling small estuary town in Mayo.

The river Moy runs through it, and it is one of the very few places that has a wet fish shop, in fact Ballina has two of them but the second one sells things other than fish so we stick to the specialist shop. We make this trip once every month or so to stock up on good fish. Also in the area are several ruins of ancient Abbeys or Friaries.

The one we visited last week was Rosserk  Abbey, some describe it as a Friary,

I'm not too sure what the difference is, this was built around 1440 by the Joyce family, and was the home to Franciscan monks until around 1590 when it is reportedly burnt down by Sir Richard Bingham, 1st governor of Connacht under the reign of Elizabeth the 1st, no doubt trying to curry favour with the English court.

Like most of these buildings it sits in a prime location on the banks of the river Moy, it is doubtful if monks of this period ever suffered hardship given the positioning of so many of these wonderful old monuments. Good land, and plenty of fish from the river.

Possibly an old harbour?

In an adjoining field you can just make out the remains of walls which would probally have been part of the Abby, possible a small harbour, as it is a tidal river at this point. We sat and enjoyed our picnic,

watching curlews foraging for food, 

and then  were joined by a friendly Robin waiting for tit bits.

The next trip out was to the 'Organic Centre' in Rossinver Co. Leitrim for the annual Apple Day. The weather could have been better, and the service or rather lack of it in the café left a lot to be desired. After waiting almost an hour for our food order to arrive we gave up and asked for our money back. By this time we were hungry, so decided we would have a barbequed burger, the barbeque was well advertised on the web site for the Organic Centre so naturally we assumed that the burgers would be organic beef, especially at a fiver a throw, it was only when I spotted cheese slices that I asked the question! I don't care if the meat came from the local butcher and from his own cows, this is the Organic Centre, supposedly a flagship for the 'Organic Movement', I for one do not expect to be served anything other than organic food in such an establishment.

Nice pumpkins.

Tomato tunnel.

We did a tour of the tunnels,

Such lovely colours.

even these were not as good as usual, they should have been overflowing with produce at this time of year, ours is.

Lots of grapes, and they are very tasty.

 Maybe they have had a change of management or the centre is now being run by committee,  whatever, it is not as good as it was just a year ago. Very disappointing. We did however come away with two bottles of freshly pressed apple juice, which was yummy, and a large bag of organic apples. Who would has guessed that the humble apple when grown non organically is subjected  up to thirty five times spraying with fifteen different chemicals being used, and 'they' wonder why there are so many people suffering from allergies etc. just look at what is added to so called whole food.
Now that summer is over the pottery classes are back to weekly, I haven't planned my next project yet, and the next class is tomorrow, possibly playing around with different colours and effects,

Before firing.

 you never know how an item will turn out once it's been fired, the colours change completely.

after firing.

June is busting out all over.

Roses, Dianthus, Sweet Rocket, and Delphiniums. 

It's summer, and it's hot. Today the temperature is 33c- 91f in the sun, inside temperature is 23.9c-75f, this could be some sort of record for Ireland, I can't remember it being this hot in the past.

As it is so hot we have now transferred our Hubbard chicks into their garden house and run, although they are only nineteen days old and we would normally be keeping them on heat until three weeks old.

Although a little bemused they quickly set about exploring their run. Should the weather change back to what we are used to we can always run a electric cable and set up heating for them, but there is no sign of the weather changing so I doubt this will prove necessary.

Almost white.

For me outside work has come to a halt, although I have two dozen plants waiting to be planted they will have to wait until it's cooler and we have had some rain, these are plants that we ordered from a great organic nursery in Clare, we had bought six plants from them at the plant sale a couple of weeks ago at Strokestown House. When we  got home I looked up the nursery and found an Aladdin's cave of plants, they grow over six hundred different herbaceous plants, the farm is on the side of a mountain and the plants are given no protection so are well acclimatised to Irish conditions. If I had room I could have bought far more than I did, there is something for every type of soil conditions, but we have no intentions of expanding our flower beds.

Busy bee/

 The garden seems to be fairing well,

Polemonium.

the flowers gardens are a riot of colour and the first roses came into bloom on the 1st of June.

Trollius, it must have hitched a ride.

There are also a couple of plants that have appeared from nowhere! I suspect they have come in as seeds on plants that I have bought, one is Trollius, not a plant that I would have bought, but it's pretty so it can stay.

This was shown as a blue flower in the catalogue.

One disappointment is my Camassia, it was shown in the catalogue as a vibrant blue, which is why I bought it, it has turned out to be white, still pretty, but not what I had wanted or expected, had I realised it was white I would have planted it in another bed, as the bed where it is is supposed to be blues, purples and pinks, this is also where the trollies has turned up so a little rearranging come the Autumn I think.

The alliums are looking good.

 

Shame they hang their heads down, they are so pretty and the bees love them.

The veg is also fine, I suspect that all our top dressing with mulch is helping to retain the moisture in the soil, my planters and window boxes however are suffering from lack of water, we really can't spare any water from our collection system unless we get some rain, we are now collecting all our grey water and this will be used for the tubs and planters. the tunnel also is holding up well, again probally due to all the composted material we have added to the beds.

Tomato plants are all in flower

and we have our first cucumber ready, I'm sure it's much earlier than normal.
I'm still doing the pottery course once a week, I have never known three hours to go so quickly, my last couple of pieces have now been fired,

one of the mugs I made especially for Simon for his birthday, I had no intention of making two, but Jacqui says you always make two mugs in case one doesn't work out. The other item is a funky duck. I have also made a Troika inspired vase, but that has not been glazed or fired yet, I now have to think of another project to start on at the next lesson.

We detoured a little over the mountains and came across Lock Talt on our way to Ballina

This looks manmade, possibly a passage tomb.

There is one thing that I do miss about Spain, fresh fish and seafood, although we live on an Ireland it is very hard to get good fish or seafood, the stuff sold in supermarkets is not of good quality, in fact the last time we bought so called 'fresh fish' from a supermarket I ended up with an upset stomach, it was Mackerel, always a dodgy one if it's not completely fresh and shell fish is virtually unheard of in our local supermarket , the fish stalls that visit towns once weekly are little better. Our local German supermarket did have some very good King Prawns in their freezer cabinet earlier in the year, but like many things in these cheaper places they don't restock. I was desperate for some good shell fish, I guess this comes from having been brought up in a fishing town, I could easily give up meat, but fish never. So I set about tracking some seafood. Ballina in Mayo immediately sprung to mind, the town was a place that I used to deliver to and I remembered that I used to buy our fish there every week. Unfortunately Ballina is around eighty kms from us, a long way to get dinner!

You can still see the ridges from some long ago farm.
 

However, it was a nice day for a trip out and after phoning the fish merchant to check that he did have what I wanted we made the trip.

 I came away with a couple of kg of Dublin bay prawns,

a very nice looking Brill, some fresh Hake

and a large bag of fresh cockles. On chatting to the fish merchant he  informed us that he operated an overnight courier service for his fish, right throughout Ireland, at only six euro for this service, for us, it's  a no brainer. The next time we need fish and I crave my shell fish we will order on line and have it delivered. Although we quite often go mussel picking we have yet to find the cockle beds although we know that they are close to where we get the mussels. All this shell fish is for me, the other half loves fish but not shell fish, but he is still willing to gather them with me. It made for a lovely trip out across the mountains, I wish the coast was a little closer to us, never mind you can't have everything.

  
With all this fine weather the turf cutters have been busy, even up in the mountains.

The turf should be good this year with all the dry weather.

Early purple orchid.