Moving into summer.

Flowering cherry. 

The spring flowers are just about at the end but it has been a very good season for all the spring bulbs,

we still have some lovely tulips flowering and the last of the narcissus have just started flowering,

I think this one is a Pheasant Eye, it smells wonderful.

Now the early summer flowers are starting to bloom,

I love all the different colours.

one of the earliest seems to be the Aquilegia which look lovely next to late flowering tulips.

The forget-me-nots are also looking lovely, such a vivid blue.

Strawberries are fruiting well, we are picking around a pound a day, these are the ones in the tunnel, soon the outside plants will be producing,

I'm very pleased with the strawberry barrel, the plants are doing very well in it, far better than last years experiment with straw bale gardening which for us did not work. The asparagus is producing well for us this year,

and the outside spinach is also giving us plenty.

Potatoes in the tunnel are flowering so we will try some at the weekend by which time there will also be some

mange tout peas

I love the smell of Broad bean flowers.

and broad beans to pick.

The over wintered onions have done well and we can pull them now as needed, the main crop is outside in the veg garden,

also ready is the garlic, I do not understand why Ireland imports most if not all of it's garlic from China, it grows very well here.

Felix relaxing by the pond.

The cats have been enjoying the good weather, but Felix has complained that it been too hot for him, he also complains if it's raining, blaming us, he also complains if it's cold. The other cats just accept whatever the weather throws at them.

Waiting for supper.

The hens have also enjoyed the warmer weather and are laying too many eggs, we are awash with them so a lot of freezing has to be done, we will be pleased to have this frozen supply in the winter.

I have now packed away all my craft work for the summer, the last things I did were the decorated goose eggs, they have turned out quite well, I will return to them come the colder weather.
However I will continue with the pottery classes, they are such fun and I think I'm learning quite a lot, especially about the Vikings. Jacqui our teacher is part of the Viking re- enactment movement, she specialises in Viking pottery, it's great to learn about a people that I had little if any knowledge of.

The dark tulips are Queen of the night.

Chives, good to eat as well as very pretty.

The weather has now changed back to what we are familiar with, showers and cooler than it has been, I'm not complaining though, for me the last few days has been far too hot. I think that the sun might have affected the OH's memory, or maybe it was just a senior moment, he put the electric kettle on the gas ring, not a good idea. I was quite fond of our old kettle, it also whistled when it was boiled, it's replacement has no whistle, but it does have a bright led light to tell you when it's on, I think the whistle was of more use.

I love this orange tulip.

This one is a beauty.

First of the Papavers

Kingcups in the pond.

Sweet little pansy.

Cleaning up the tunnel.

The last few day I have spend tidying up the tunnel, the strawberry beds were overgrown, the tunnel pathways carpeted with suckers.

It's nice to see a cleaned bed.

I cleaned up each plant removed dozens of suckers and the beds were given a top dressing of good garden compost. It's a job I should have done last autumn but never got round to.

Quite a few of the plants already have blossom, so we might have a nice early crop.

We grow a lot of strawberries, we have four beds in total, three in the tunnel and one outside as we refuse to buy imported strawberries which are sold all year round, out of season mostly, and totally flavourless. Besides eating the fresh fruit I make quite a bit of strawberry jam and they also bottle well.
We decided we would increase the number of plants this year, so Simon has converted an old forty gallon barrel into a strawberry planter. This barrel will take fifty plants.

After heating the plastic ease the slots out to take the plants.

Firstly he marked out where the slots would go, four inches long and six inches apart, you then drill a hole so as to be able to get a small jigsaw blade in, cut the slots.

You then heat each slot with a heat gun and using a round fencing post open up the gap.

The perforated pipe will take green waste from the kitchen. just add a handful of worms.

You also need a perforated pipe in the centre either for watering or as a worm composter, we will use it for composting with worms which should give lots of good compost for the strawberry plants. You also need a few drainage holes close to the bottom of the barrel to stop it becoming waterlogged and a good layer of gravel. I would have liked the outside of the barrel covered with gravel for aesthetic purpose, but to get the gravel to stick you have to use a lot of PVA, so it will remain white,

by the time the strawberries have grown most of the barrel should be covered anyway.

Happy looking peach tree.

The peach tree in the tunnel is covered in blooms, the most we have ever had, unfortunately there are no bees or other pollinators around so the flowers will have to be hand pollinated. Not all these flowers will be allowed to develop, they would make too much weight for the branches to hold as we found out two years ago when we lost the top third of the tree due to excess weight. The lemon tree is also a mass of blooms, maybe it's going to be a good fruit year.

Eyes left.

Eyes right.

The wild birds are all busy sorting out partners including these beautiful swans, but I've not seen any nest building yet,

however the frogs have been busy and have laid a mass of spawn in our pond,

Lots of spawn.

as we lost Daffy duck this spawn should stand a good chance of reaching maturity and bless us with lots of little frogs,  we certainly have enough slugs for them to eat.

This polyanthus is much darker than it appears in the photo. 

Each time I walk around the garden I find something new in bloom, but I do suspect that we have lost a fair few bulbs due to all the rain we have had.

A walk in the woods.

Last week we managed to play hooky again, away from the daily work load of maintaining our life style.

This time it was a trip to the Bluebell Woods in Knockvicar. The correct name for this woodland is Derreen Woods but is always referred to as the Bluebell Woods, reputed to be the most photographed woods in the area.

Although it was midweek there were over a dozen cars parked up, all with local registrations.

A convenient natural seat.

 It was a beautiful afternoon, sunny and dry which is somewhat a miracle, this month we seemed to have rain just about every day so far.
The woodlands covers a large area which leads down to a lake. It was a carpet of blue, and the perfume was fantastic.

Ferns are beginning to unfurl.

Ferns were just coming into leaf and the forest floor is covered with Beech seedlings, enough to start a dozen new woodlands. There were also primroses which seem to be having an extended season, violets

Wild Arum.

and wild Arum was just making an appearance.

Garlic Ramsons.

It is also a good place to see wild garlic and earlier in the spring, wood anemones.
We had hoped that we might see Red Squirrels as we have in the past, this area has a good population of them, but we failed on this occasion. The only sound was that of bird song and the fresh green leafs rustling in a light breeze. It was a lovely afternoons trip, people clearly respect this woodland, they keep to the forest pathways, they do not pick the flowers and leave no litter behind them. Everyone we met was armed with a camera.

One of our lemons, so juicy and sweet. 

Despite the unseasonable weather the garden and tunnel are producing well,

Todays pickings.

dinner seems to be based around what ever is ready for picking. We are now harvesting a pound of Strawberries every other day, the rhubarb is growing like a weed and the spinach keeps on coming, along with masses of lettuce and watercress.

Polemonium, bees love this plant

The first Papaver.

The early summer flowers are just starting to bloom, soon the garden will be full of colour again, even the roses are trying to bloom.

A double flowered Campion.

Euphorbia, Fireglow.

Hardy Geranium, Mourning Widow.

An Alpine Aquilegia.

Japanese Quince. 

Calendula, this has been blooming outside all winter.

The Hubbard  chicks are now nearly four weeks old and are now outside in a safe run.

They have grown well and now weigh 1.5 lb average. When they are six weeks they will have a large ranging area and will no longer require heat at night, at the moment they still need a little heat, this is provided by a  60watt bulb in their house. Hubbard birds are a slow growing table bird, they will reach the desired weight at around eighty four days, unlike the quick grown birds which fill the supermarkets, these birds are slaughtered at less than forty days old, fed exclusively on high protein ration and never see the light of day, never mind having a chance to graze on grass. No wonder they taste of nothing, but they are cheap and that is what the supermarkets demand, the profit does not go to the farmer, they are lucky to see a return of 8cents a bird, this seems totally wrong to me when they take all the risks and if something does go wrong and they lose a flock they receive not a cent in compensation.