Ready To Spring Into Action

We've had two sunny days in a row up here in Castlewellan - bliss.

Sally has been taking advantage of the good weather and has taken to sunbathing on the doorstep. Good move methinks.

I have been joining her as often as I can. I'm nursing myself through a cold right now (I rarely get them) and although it is cold morning and evening the warmth of the sunshine is delightful (and with all the sneezing and nose blowing I haven't really been fit for much else).

I'm glad to be on the mend, for its really time to spring into action with the house building again.

Our official letter, the one they send a month after the initial decision - giving time for people to comment etc, was apparently sent out today. That will be 'the end of it'.

The couple of days of sunshine has been a morale booster - I'm dreaming of a sunny and warm Spring and Summer, with picnic lunches on the grass and moments of caught sunshine inbetween flurries of activity and general getting on with things. (Sally will be morale officer - usually found snoozing, as below)

We'll return next week - Sam wants the letter in his hands before he starts anything!

There are stud walls upstairs to put up, taping and jointing for me to do, the reedbed changes to sort out - it won't be dull, thats for sure.

Leo, another doorstep sunbather, is head supervisor - and cats are no pushover, so the work will have to be good.

In between my snufflings and sneezings, I've had moments of pure excitement - that we'll have a home again, that we can actively make progress and be where we want to be.

Until then, fingers crossed that there will be some more sunshine for Sally to enjoy.

Of course, it wasn't only the animals soaking up the rays. I've been tending to a few plants too. Here are the broad beans that we'll bring down to Leitrim to plant out.

Here's some garlic that will come down with us too.

Here are some saladlings that I sowed late last Autumn, as a trial. Now, there isn't a lot there, but they are coming on. There's pak choi that I might use soon and I'll probably pot on the lettuces and other wee orientals.

I did a similar trial, sowing last autumn, in the glass roofed barn. These are really coming on well (even though there isn't a huge amount, its good fun to see how well they do). Again, I have a mix of orientals - pak choi and mizuna, some lettuce and corn salad.

I also started some broad beans inside the barn early in the year and I've kept them inside until now. I'm not yet sure if I'll keep them in, for a very early crop, or harden them off - so they get to experience the great outdoors. I've interplanted them with some white viola - just for fun.

Earlier in the year, I sprouted some peas, to test their viability, and I used the tips as pea shoots. I decided to stick the remaining shoots in a pot in the glass barn. I don't know if they'll grow well - as the tips have been trimmed - but I intend to find out.

Last, but not least, are the tomatoes and peppers that were started indoors. I repotted them today and I'm hoping to transfer them to the glass barn now, before they get too leggy.

Next time, I'll post some pics from our last trip to Leitrim .. and soon, that will be our main focus again - thank goodness.

Mulch, oca and cows

I haven't been posting much recently - as there just hasn't been much going on.

We're in the process of meeting the new planning regulations - so have to sort an Environmental Screening Report for the planners and further adapt our reedbed plan to meet new specifications. Once they're in the planners should be able to make their decision.

With the weather turning colder and the days shortening, we haven't been down to site as much lately. However, at the end of last month and early this month I decided to cover some of the vegetable beds for winter.

I had weeded them earlier .. and left the earth bare. Silly move. They just got weedy again. So, this time, partly with the help of a friend, we covered the beds with the weeds (pulled them and laid them on top) and then covered the bed with an old tarpaulin and some cardboard.

This way, the nutrients stay in the soil. It doesn't look pretty - but then again, I'm not there much to see it right now. Next year, if I have any 'bare' patches, I'll try using a green manure over winter instead.

In the foreground of the above picture, I've used some spare weed suppressing membrane to cover a long bed. Rain will get through, but it should warm the soil .. and loosen the grip of the unwanted grasses etc.

I've also covered the other long bed (to the left in the picture below) which is really overgrown (no picture yet - sorry) and I'll be interested to see if it suppresses the weeds and grass at all.

Nature was kind enough to provide me with some oca from the plot this year - guess I left a few tubers in the ground last year. I picked them on our last visit, when the foliage had completely been frosted. The tubers aren't very big - but they are tasty - even raw.

Funny thing with the oca is, I'd planted pink and white tubers in 2009 but only got white ones this year.

I also got a nice surprise crop of mizuna - where I'd weeded the month before, which has been sheltered from the frost by brassica seedlings that have also sprung up.

Back up at my aunts I started off a few salads in late Sept / early October. The most sluggish of these is the rocket, pictured below.

The peppers and tomatoes did really well this year (in the glass roofed barn) and we're only coming to the end of them now.

The red curly kale is still looking .. and tasting .. great. It really brightens up the garden at this time of year .. and looks great with dew drops on the leaves.

I also have some baby leaf salads on the go. These are outside in one of those 4 tier 'plastic' greenhouses.

Here are some that lettuce and orientals that I'm raising in modules. Not sure how fast they'll grow at this time of year, but I'm curious to find out.

I even have a couple of cabbages too...

.. and we've just got through the last of the container potatoes.

Back down in Leitrim we've had a mini disaster. Cows got in and have been over the lawns and the veg beds etc. We'd never got round to putting up a fence before we had to stop building and we hadn't had a problem before. They've made quite a mess really, poaching up the ground, so we'll have to go back down and put up some temporary fencing for security.

In the meantime, we're down to our last two long red sweet peppers .. might have to try stuffing them. They're delicious. Will have to grow more of them next year.