Rooms upstairs and greenhouse outside :-)

Its been all go on site lately. The 'dream team' re-assembled - as our wonderful helper re-appeared for a few days - and the results were wonderous .. not least the fab structure seen to the left here .. but more on that later.

First up was the plasterboard on the stud walls upstairs. The pile of plasterboards downstairs is rapidly dwindling .. which is somehow very exciting.

Now the stairs are boxed in - luckily there's light from the veluxes up top AND the window at the bottom, so it doesn't feel dark.

The veluxes look great now.

Here's the view into the study / guest room .. from the landing / library. Its fun to have the doors in place already.

Heres the current view of the veg beds from the study .. they're shaping up well.

As its been so dry, I've left the straw mulch on some of the beds that I'm not ready to plant out yet, and I've spread it over the earth paths - to stop weeds. Its a thin layer - too thin for slugs, I'm hoping. Not sure if I'd have tried it if the weather had been very wet. Its been warm and dry for 3 weeks now (the rain just came tonight).

I seem to have a 'self-seeded' Sally dog on the front straw bed...she likes the feel of it!

Here are the peas, settling in.

The broad beans are flowering well.

The garlic is enjoying the heat.

Actually, the past few days have been VERY windy - from the east / south east mainly .. so the plants have had a hard time, it was very strong, so I suspended planting activities.

Mind you, I had good distraction ... the creation of my greenhouse - from old plastic from the polytunnel and some old / mis-shaped wood.

The dream team lived up to their reputation and had this knocked out in a few well spent hours.

I'm delighted to have shelter for my tender plants, room to sow and re-pot .. and to grow on my tomatoes and peppers. Also room to shelter from showers in.

Finally, Sally got a trim, as she was wilting quite severely in the heat during the day - with her long coat. Don't you just love the bows!! (They won't last long I can tell you).

Now, while we're up North .. time to find those cats and get them down to site.

Once we're back down, is time to look at the upstairs wiring, then get the other sides of the walls plasterboarded, then tape and joint, then paint ... then maybe have a wee rest ... and potter in the garden :-)

Plants are going in and walls are going up

Here's a glimpse of the back of the van loaded with plants

(you can't even see the instruments and ducks!!). In true cat fashion, Elvie did a disappearing act when it was nearing time to go - so the cats didn't come down on this trip).

There's plants on the seats and under the seats - all did just fine, despite the hot day.

Here's a close up of some of the seedlings - ready to go.

When I got down to site, I found that Sam hadn't been idle whilst he'd been down. His creative brain had overcome the lack of grill - meet the new toaster (aka the gas fire). Thats a classic.

Another ingenious idea was born from my brain - and I suggested assembling the old polytunnel doors as a temporary cold frame / cloche - to protect the plants we'd brought down which were used to being under glass. I'm glad to say that its working really well ( and the weather is lovely and warm anyway).

Here's the vegetable garden as I found it on my return. Before I could plant anything out I had to put up some canes and re-mark my beds .. as it was all getting a bit 'organic' in shape. If I had put in wooden edges to the beds I wouldn't have had this problem, although I like having the beds just shaped out of earth, it means I can change them if I feel like it (and that I don't have to get hold of a load of timber for edging), so I'll stick with mounded beds for this year.

I marked the beds out with coloured string .. and tripped over the string a lot too - I'll get some pegs so the string is at ground level and not such a hazard. Sam was great - helping with weeding and marking out, so I could get on with the planting.

First in where the two batches of broad beans.

Here's a marked out bed - with some self seeding corn salad .. and some unwanted companions - but even the weeds look easier to deal with then its one square at a time!

Here's some peas, onions and garlic all happily out of pots and in the ground - at last.

Some beds were still mulched with straw and are being uncovered as the plants go in. I think I'll re-mulch them with a thinner layer of straw - in between big plants. It should save on weeding .. and it seems that the slugs prefer a thick layer of straw - we shall see.

I've covered the path between the two long beds in membrame, as the grass was coming through the old membrane! The bed to the right of the picture is fine, the one to the left needs a lot of work, as its very grassy. It will be a flower bed this year.

While I was out in the garden, Sam was working away inside the house.

Here he's set out the stud walls for the upstairs bathroom.

Here are the stud walls for the study / guest room (they'll open into each other so I can use it as one big study when I want to).

Here's the guest room side.

Here's the study side. If you peer out the window to the south you see the vegetable beds .. I have a feeling that could be quite a distraction for me and I'll spend as much time musing about my plants as I will doing useful work.

Soon we'll plasterboard the walls and set out the electrics. Then it'll be time to paint the walls ... I still have to source my paint .. but first there are still a few plants to plant out .. and some wayward cats to re-locate (and some - hopefully- better speed broadband to try out .. so I can blog more often). There's also the sunny weather to enjoy.

I intend to make the most of it.

Cats come first

Those of a severely energy efficient bent - please look away now Actually, they'd probably best avoid this post altogether, as for some, what I'm showing is a terrible crime.

It is - a cat flap. Not too awful, some would think, but in a highly energy efficient home it is considered to be a big compromise - but one I wholeheartedly endorse - because I LOVE my cats and I like to be able to go away overnight, or even for a weekend, knowing that they can come and go as they please.

Here is the controversial cat flap in all its glory. (There are actually two flaps - an outer and an inner flap .. I just hope the cats figure it out easily).

I guess its very clear that animals rule the roost. Thats ok by me. They give me a lot of pleasure.

Sam has been busy getting ready for the animals to come back down - this means we can work on the house more often - as we're not popping back up north all the time to tend to the cats and ducks.

Here is the new and improved poultry pen - pretty swish .. and ALMOST finished. It will have electric fencing and an automatic pop hole (just like the original), meaning that we can easily go away overnight and know that the girls are ok.

Now we're animal friendly, I get to come down to site again - AT LAST.

I daren't take pictures of all the plants waiting to come with me - there are a lot.

Thankfully, we've just got our beloved Bongo van up and running again - this will be her first big run - complete with dog, cats, ducks and plants.

I'm very excited to be getting back to the build - and our land - and our garden. Sam's done a great job down there on his own over the past few weeks, now I can give him a hand .. and get some plants in the ground.

We certainly have the weather for it right now.

Lovely and sunny Leitrim - here I come :-)

(not sure we'll fit the laptop into the van with all else - so it might be a quiet week on the blog while we're down)

Bon voyage alliums

At last, some of the plants that I've started this year have travelled down to Leitrim :-)

Today, Sam took the garlic, onion sets and leeks down with him in the car.

I still won't be down until next week - but they are hardy enough to manage until then.

Sam was down last week, working on the vents for the heat recovery system and setting up for the plumbing. He didn't take any pictures. Mind you, pictures of tubing / piping might not seem to exciting - but I'll remind him to take pics this week.

Here's what the car looked like before he went down.

Garlic and onions in the boot.

More garlic (including 2 elephant garlic) on the back seat.

Some leeks .. and some more garlic (with more unseen in the footwell) on the front passenger seat.

That should keep any vampires away for a while. I didn't mean to plant THAT much, but every time our shop bought garlic started sprouting, I just had to plant it, especially the scrawny ones that are hardly worth peeling. So, garlic is in good supply.I might add some of the tiny ones to the flower bed and keep the 'proper' ones (2 cloves of Flavor) for the vegetable bed.

There are still a lot more seedlings to be moved down. This picture is just SOME of them. I fancy sticking to my planting plan, even though I'll have more ssedlings to bring down next week. I've also purchased some more flower seeds (tagetes, poached egg plant, nigella) to sow in situ soon - to divide patches of bed and make the place colourful.

Here are some of the broad beans waiting to go down.

All we need now is to get the Bongo van cheered up and running again. Otherwise it'll be a few trips in the car, especially with ducks and cats, which could be quite a juggling act.

I'm sending the Bongo Van good energy and trusting that Sam can get it sorted when he comes back at the end of the week.

Meanwhile, I'm busy trying to source paint - and we need a LOT of paint that is benign to us and nature and also affordable - and source other materials, while I have good internet access.

I reckon we can have the phone line in soon - a good neighbor came today (impromptu) and helped Sam feel the telephone cable down the piping . Luckily it was sorted easily (he put some flexible water pipe down it and ran the cable through with it - then removed the water pipe).

We'll need to remember the rope when we lay the piping for the electric - the ESB won't touch it if you don't.

I'm really looking forward to getting the phone in, as the mobile signal is very weak and I fancy conversations that last until the end without breaking up or dropping. It will make ordering things a bit easier when we're down.

And the electricity - well - it'll be party time when we have that in - and can run the well properly and easily run gadgets, lights and things other than tools (which naturally get priority with the generator).

My fingers are crossed that the good weather will remain (or at least return by next week), so I can go re-aquatint myself with the garden whilst basking in cheery sunlight. The sunshine lately just makes everything look lovely and lush and gorgeous. Long may it continue.

Setting the scene

I thought it was time to 'set the scene' of where we are and what we're currently doing. As more people come to visit the blog - I like them having an idea of where we are in the world and what it all looks like.

So, I may as well start at the beginning.

This was our first view of the land we bought, near Carrigallen, Co. Leitim, Ireland, back in 2008.

We weren't even 100% sure at the time that this site was 'the one'.

Well, as you can guess - it was - and we bought it. Below is a map showing the land we bought - a thin strip, of 3.35 acres, including full planning permission for a house. The red section is where the building site is - with the house location marked and the blue section is our field beyond the house, which finished at the stream. The inset shows just where Carrigallen is in Ireland - the middle of the X marks the spot.

Here's a rather rough and ready site plan - showing where everything is in relation to each other. The house is set well back from the road. The main living areas face south (a must for passive solar gain .. and good for privacy too) and the land slopes downwards after the vegetable areas. The plan shows where we'll put the willow bed and possibly a second pond (so the one near the house can be for wildlife and the other one can be for the ducks - who muddy a pond up in seconds).

Here's what we saw looking up to the road from the stream, back in 2008 (the road is about 3/4 up the picture).

Here's a picture looking down from the house towards the stream (you can see the chicken house in it) taken just a couple of weeks ago. We have a lovely view of woodland in the distance from the back of the house - not another house in sight out the back - very peaceful.

Here is the wonderful and magic 'secret' stream at the bottom of our land.

This is the front of the house and the driveway.

Here's the back of the house (taken from the pond - which you can just see).

Next are the internal layout plans for the house (changes from the original ideas are marked in red - when you do it yourself there is room to change your mind as you go along - although it is a slippery slope!).

Downstairs we have a large entrance hall and on the left as you walk in (the right in this picture) we have 'working' part of the house - the music room / studio to the front (and boy do we have a lot of instruments to fill it with) and the guest bedroom to the back, which may double as a room for my holistic therapies (it gets the best sun in the house). The main living area is to the south west (bottom left of the picture) and is an open plan kitchen / dining / living room. We cook a lot and see the kitchen as the hub of the home (and the kitchen garden will be straight outside - so I can keep a close eye on my veggies). There's a wee sitting room to the north west - which is really a tv room (no tv in the kitchen), where we can chill out and watch a good film (I love a good film) or listen to music etc.

Upstairs, we have a lovely large landing which will double as a library - with bookcases and can be a space for yoga / meditation too. (This is where my chaise longue will be in my fantasies).

To the east (right) is the main bedroom which is very spacious (another potential yoga / qi gong space) .. and could even be divided into two rooms if we ever needed to in the future.

To the west (left) is the study (central hub of paperwork and 'sorting things out') which, if I have my way, will be only partly separated from the guest bedroom behind. My plan is to have a moving screen that I can use to separate the two rooms when guests stay, but open it out as one large room otherwise. Having had a separate spare room before, it can be wasted space and I love being able to spread out with my paperwork or being able to catch the last rays of sun, sitting on the sofa bed as I read / make notes.

The bathroom upstairs is an official compromise. There are no upstairs windows to the north (for energy efficiency reasons) so it has no natural light - which isn't ideal - but isn't a big deal either. We have the bath downstairs anyway, so I can have my relaxing baths in style down there.

I sometimes wish that I'd put more velux windows upstairs (one in the bedroom and one in the study) as I love the idea of having light from two sides in a room. We didn't, partly for energy efficiency reasons - (well that is at the core of the design) and partly for cost. I had even toyed with trying to steal light from the landing (by putting glass bricks or a wee window in the internal wall between the landing and study) - but I don't think it will make a lot of difference and it would look odd. I reckon now that some mirrors to reflect light from the windows will be sufficient. The rooms WILL be bright anyway - I just love LOADS of light.

Outside, we currently have the vegetable plot on the site of the old polytunnel (which we had to take down during the planning fiasco - long story - old news) .. and which I adored. The beds have been neglected for a while - but will spring into life this year.

Here's the garden plan for this year. The two beds in the foreground of the picture above are the two long beds to the left of the plan below. The long bed nearest the house will be just flowers (well, there may be a few sneaky vegetables, knowing me - very cottage garden style).

Then there's a mix of veg. This year, I decided to work in metre squares. Previously I had 4 beds together in a row that were the same rotation group. This year I've mixed it up and Iwonder if it will help to confuse pests and hinder the possibility of disease spreading. I'll find out this year, I guess.

I have a version of the plan just listing the contents of each bed, but it was MUCH more fun to draw it out like I've done below.

So, the scene is set. Next - on with the work!