Label reading.

First of the Hellebores.

We try very hard to be ethical shoppers, this means we read labels, anything the slightest bit suspect goes back on the shelf, this means we buy hardly any processed food, by processed I don't mean these suspect packs of ham or sliced anything, they are not something we would ever have bought. I am referring to baked goods, such as biscuits. We do make some biscuits but it's always handy to have a pack of digestive biscuits or cream crackers on hand. Digestive biscuits would have been my preferred choice for a cheese biscuit, also for  a cheese cake base, cream crackers again go great with cheese, however, here is our problem, both of these biscuits are now made with palm oil. Knowing how harmful the palm oil plantations are, from cleared tropical forests, with the loss of so many species which haven't even been identified yet, and the loss of land to the indigenous people, who have no say in where they get moved to, forced to live in shanty towns, their way of life gone. Many become workers in these plantations, the word worker to me means someone which is paid for his/her work and is free to leave is they so wish. Not for these workers though, they are modern slaves, and receive little if any money for their work, and certainly do not receive any compensation for losing their land. For this reason we will not buy anything that contains palm oil. I have found an alternative for cheese cake base, shortbread makes an even better base, however there is no alternative for cream crackers so we will just have to try and make them ourselves. If anyone has a good cream cracker recipe perhaps you will share it.
OK, I'll stop moaning now.

Kiwi, now pruned and planted in the soil.

The new tunnel is now home to our Kiwi vines, in the older tunnel they were kept in large pots, and although they didn't die on us they were far from happy, so they have been transplanted into the fruit bed along with the fig tree which was not happy outside, there is still room for the new peach tree when it arrives.
The end bed has been planted with broad bean seeds, the theory is that these will be in flower the same time as the peach tree, thus encouraging any pollinating insects that might be around in March, saving us the job of hand pollinating the peach tree. This bed is the one destined for the Tomatoes, so by the time we have harvested the early beans it will be time to plant the tomatoes.
The last of the summer crops have now been harvested,

Possibly the last of the tomatoes and beans.

a few late tomatoes and probally the last of the French beans,

  the Calabrese is still going strong.

Just right for a warming winter stew.

The winter veg are looking good, we have plenty of carrots which hopefully we can leave in the ground, hoping that they don't get eaten by slugs, the swedes are also looking good and we have had the first of the parsnips. The celeriac has done well for us, but apparently it doesn't stand well for the winter.
About half of the new bulbs have now been planted, a lot of what remains are dwarf variety's for the rockery. The rockery has become very overgrown and has lots of weeds, I have rather neglected it this summer and let it do it's own thing, probally not a good idea, it just makes more work in the end.

Early or late? it's certainly out of season.

And chives should not be in flower in November.

As I was surveying the rockery I was surprise to find  cowslips and  chives in bloom,

plants are well muddled with the weather. there are even some Lupines' still flowering and I spotted a Clematis flowering.

Winter Jasmine, at least this is the right time.

This little rose has been flowering for six months.

And still the Albertine flowers.

Dianthus.

Hypericum, this should be well over.

There's still plenty of colour in the garden.

2700 + stiches later/

At last I have finished the tapestry I was doing, it's taken me six weeks to complete, now I have to find some suitable material to turn it into a cushion cover. I've made start on the next project, another cushion cover but this time I'm doing it in Bargello also known as Florentine stitch, it seems to be far slower to work, but maybe as I get used to the new stitch I will get faster.

   

Out and about in Autumn.

This afternoon there was this beautiful rainbow.

We need little excuse to take day trips out, especially if it's around the West Coast of Ireland. Simon's  sister was over from Canada so it was a good enough excuse to stop work in the garden and take some time out.

Walled remains of a domestic enclosure.

 One of the trips was to the Ceide fields in North Mayo.

Wall excavation.

Bog pine, carbon dated to 4thousand 3hundred years old.

Believed to be the oldest known field system in the world, the site covers around two hundred ha. and dates back  three thousand five hundred years. Each homestead was around two ha. comprising of small stoned enclosures.

View from the top of the Ceide fields.

The climate was around two degrees warmer than it is now, which made farming possible in such and exposed area.

One of the other trips was to beautiful Sligo,

taking in Mullaghmore 

and Classiebawn Castle, once owned by Lord Palmerston.

Raghly harbour.

Then on to Raghly harbour, which once was as important as Killebegs for fishing. We know all the places well but always manage to see something new, this time we spotted another castle,

Ard Tarmon Castle, not the best view.

Ard Tarmon castle was built in 1648 by the Gore family, it burnt down in the early eighteenth century so the moved just up the road to another of their properties, Lissadell.  Ard Tarmon  remained a burnt out shell until the 1980's when it was bought by a German family who have restored it to it's former glory. It is now luxury self catering apartments.
Things are now back to normal so work continues. The new tunnel is finished, there are eight raised beds, one I'm hoping will be for flower growing, and one is earmarked  for fruit.

Garlic is up.

Onions are shooting.

The garlic and onions that were planted little over a week ago are all showing growth, so are weeds!
Not much remains to be done in that tunnel, but the older one needs a good sort out, I have made a start with the strawberry plants, removing suckers and  this years leaves.
In a weeks time the Hubbard birds will be ready for slaughter.   We had been taking our birds to a processer who did a great job at a reasonable price, unfortunately he has decided he has quite enough work to do with his own birds. We know of another processor  just a few miles down the road from us  but he is charging far too much so we are  back to doing our own processing.

Plucking machine, hopefully it will make life a little easier.

Plucking a bird is quite  hard work, doing eighteen is very hard work so we have invested in a plucking machine and a Baby Burco for scalding the birds before plucking, hopefully this will make the work a little easier.
The  Autumn colours have been brilliant this year,

one of our beech trees has all different colours

and the Mahonia also has some great colour coming, it will soon be in flower,  there are lots of flower spikes waiting to burst out.

Freddie relaxing.

Up and Running.

Another beautiful sunset.

The new tunnel beds are just about completed, just two pathways to finish.

Both of the longer beds are now planted up, one with spinach and spring cabbage,

Onion and garlic bed.

the other long bed is home to forty garlics and one hundred and fifty onions, these onions should be ready by the end of May.

Lough Key Crab Apple flowering 

This month has been very mild and very dry, the garden is not sure whether it's Spring or Autumn,

we have a crab apple tree that has decided to flower again

Oct, and still Delphiniums bloom.

and we have a Delphinium in flower. The roses are still blooming, and one of the Clematis hasn't stop blooming since May  it's still got lots of buds, the  dahlias also continue to flower giving me plenty of flowers for the house.

Latest project.

With the shorter nights I have started a tapestry, this is for a cushion cover, I had intended to redo a seat of an inherited chair, but changed my mind, there is nothing wrong with the chair seat, it just need to be removed and cleaned, then put back again.
Trees are now getting lovely colour, it's a shame that once they change colour they don't hang on to the leafs for long. I love to see the Autumn colour.

Wagtails are back.

We now have lots of Wagtails around, they returned in large numbers earlier this week. Of all the birds we get visiting us Wagtails are the biggest tease to the cats, they sit just out of range and time it perfectly to jump away just at the moment a cat is going to spring, we have never seen a Wagtail caught, they are quicker than the cats.

Robbie. 1999-2016 R.I.P. Old Chap.

Earlier this week we had to say goodbye to Robbie, our seventeen year old Jack Russell. He had arthritis for several years and was also loosing his sight, he was also wetting his bed. It's never fair to keep an animal if it has lost it's dignity. He was the sweetest chap, never chased the cats or poultry, and was an excellent house dog. We will miss him he was part of out life for so long.

Still plenty of flowers for the house.

Extending the season.

With the weather being so unpredictable we decided that we would put more land under cover, there seems to be little in the way of normal weather nowadays, it can be quite disheartening to plant out seedlings or plants at what should be the correct time and then lose them due to unseasonable weather.

This was this years potato patch, ideal for the new tunnel.

The new tunnel is the same size as the other one, 18X20 ft.

Hoops all in place.

The company who supplied and installed it were very professional,

Up with the cover.

they arrived on time and on the right day, (maybe a first for Ireland) and had the whole job completed in just four hours despite there being quite a wind.

Four hours latter, the finished job.

The tunnel is a tight as a drum.
We had not got  the timbers for the raised beds as we didn't want to litter up the site with unnecessary obstructions, but as soon as they had finished yesterday we were off to get the first ten scaffold boards, today we have picked up the second load. Second-hand scaffold boards are a good way of making raised beds without spending a fortune, under cover they last very well, and even the ones in the veg garden are showing no signs of rotting after five years. The new tunnel will have seven raised beds in total, one will be for permanent planting, such as our fig tree which does not like being outside, we are also getting a second peach tree, they do very well in a tunnel. That will leave us six beds so we can have a good rotation with the first tunnel. It will be good having two uncover areas when it's raining cats and dogs outside.

Another giant cauliflower.

The veg garden is still producing well, for some reason our late cauliflowers are huge, weighing in at at least three pounds after trimming and eight inches across. The Calabrese is also still giving us lots of heads.

A three legged carrot.

Carrots always do well for us but I have no idea why this one should have produced three  forks, the bed has received no manure or compost for at least two years.

 We are getting a few Autumn raspberries but for us they don't do as well as the summer varieties. Physalis is another thing that always does well for us, the vines are now four years old and still producing well.

Red oak.

Blue berry.

My favourite shrub, Spindle, masses of berries this year.

There is now a lot of colour from the trees and bushes,

More blueberry colour.

but the flower gardens are still giving us lots of flowers for the house, so many things have giving us a second blooming.

The overflow bed, for all the herbaceous plants that need splitting. 

The O.H has also created another flower bed for me to take the overflow. I have so many plants crying out to be divided this bed will be full before I know it. I still have masses of bulbs to be planted as well, due to sciatica I haven't been able to do much in the garden, but it is slowly getting better.

Half a free range pig, butchered by Matt who did a great job. 

Having decided to not keep pigs anymore has given us a problem in obtaining good pork. Organic pork is very hard to get and in fact we are on a waiting list with the farmer who supplies us with beautiful beef, but it will be six months or more before he has any. Free range pork just does not exist in the shops, so it is a case of knowing someone who 'does pigs'. Fortunately we do know someone like this, we know the pigs were well looked after and enjoyed their outside life, we meet them a couple of times and they were happy pigs, so we managed to buy half a pig, free range, and very local, they were reared just eight miles away, we will be having local free range pork chops for dinner tonight.

Freddie likes a bird eye view.