A Greenhouse?

Yup! A greenhouse!

The Hub has agreed to build me a lean-to greenhouse against his beloved shed:

Site of future greenhouse!

Materials (you may need a magnifying glass!) timber, plastic from skip, perspex.

Tidied up compost heap, courtesy of the Hub- he can't bear a mess not of his creating, and the compost heap is MY mess...

A jungle tamed!!

A nicely weeded and mulched bed- with SUCH a straight edge!

I've started off so many vegetable seeds and they have begun sprouting now so I hope he really does built the greenhouse as promised. I'm going to be the most organised vegetable grower in Ireland come Spring!!

Funny thing a friend said last week about when I told him about the proposed greenhouse: 'The Irish do love their lean-to's, they even build lean-to's onto lean-to's!' And when I thought about it, its true!!


On another note, back to work/school yesterday, although the children don't return until next Monday. I thought it would be a nice gentle ease-in but no such luck- parents wanting second-hand uniforms, phone hopping, returning messages, booking services for office machines, staff trying to get organised, builders problems, Principal catching up on paperwork...and just what does all this have to do with me I ask?

Dunno, but it sure keeps Muggins busy!

A Peculiar Week

Its been a peculiar sort of week in the Beckety Home, more like the end of the Old Year than the beginning of the New.

The older two childers left to resume their usual pursuits and the Hub returned to work, leaving Youngest and I feeling rather bereft. Middlest needed alterations to a very posh evening gown she'd bought for this weekend, which took much swearing last weekend; it was way too large in the bust, and several inches too long...with three layers to hem, the top being chiffon...Grrrr....

The garage hasn't yet managed to get the Hub's car road-worthy due to dealing with so many emergencies, and since the weather has turned bitter again, its not feasible for him to cycle, so, no car for me. (Meh! as eldest says when she feels short-changed.)
Loads of housekeeping to catch up, really exciting stuff, like laundry- I'm pretty sure that the girls came home with no clothes of their own and wore Youngest's all hols...how else to explain the amount of laundry needing to be done?

So many half-formed ideas swirling round my head waiting to be considered and designed properly, it makes for a rather split personality interaction- wise. I'm making lists though.

Youngest has, finally, received her Christmas present, better late than never! She asked for a 'Gothic' style doll and wanted it to look sad, which caused me some grief as you can see! ( sorry for the pun!!)

The Christmas Tree needs to come down today, should have been yesterday, traditionally, but the folks offered us a day out to Enniskillen so we jumped on their band-wagon and went! They needed the company, you know?! Photos next door, it was a beautiful winter's day.I really am trying to balance out family and everything else, but my head feels like there are windmills inside. Its difficult to concentrate when so many things need immediate attention...whoops, and the dog just got his paw caught in the flex of the good lamp- golly! but that was a good save missus!!

Joined the GIY site before Christmas as it consists of local growers and gardeners, and have found the most wonderful writer- Mícheál O Cadhla. His posts are awfully witty, very well written, and the humour is pure Irish. (In my next life I'll be able to write like him! Dream on, Buster!)

Despite the low temperatures (or is it because of them?) its a beautiful day today, incredible blue sky with hardly a cloud in sight, light bone-disintegrating breeze, and the frost and snow dusting is melting in the sunshine. Sunny days in Winter are so truly beautiful!
(Apologies for any odd spacing, blogger won't let me organise this post, it keeps deleting things. Ah well!)

Neglect...very sorry

I have sore neglected yez this month past, and back across the summer too. I'm sorry- it was not intentional. The summer was difficult with comings, goings, and health problems between several of us. And this month continues to be difficult as my on-going battle with Bipolar and Depression has got quite out of hand, even the Professionals are having trouble regulating it now. The medication does all sorts of odd things to me, as if I wasn't already odd enough!!

Anyhow, apart from that, I've managed to achieve a certain amount of Autumn work:

I discovered a group of neglected lavender bushes at the Hub's workplace so I very kindly (in my opinion!) pruned them all...and removed the prunings for my own use!

This is my own single plant, but I'm going to try growing more from seed to see how it goes. Lavender is one of those cure-alls which I just can not be without. And the hearts' ease? It turned up in the veg patch so I transplanted it!!
The end of the season for my French Beans- can you see how wind -burned they are? We have had early gales this Autumn and I am so not looking forward to this winter. I have to say that the crop was only moderate this year.

Tomorrow I will dig over this section of the Veg bed and plant out some of the Perpetual Spinach from the cold frame, which is coming along very healthily.

And this is a stunningly exciting photo, I know, can you contain yourselves?? Actually this week I planted 75 onion sets, and about 25 garlic sets in here and am now anxiously waiting for them to proclaim their willingness to arise and multiply!

There is one patch left in the middle where I am going to plant winter turnip seed this week.

The Swiss Chard continues to be cut for dinner and grow back again- it really is amazing stuff and I know from experience that even frost and snow don't keep it down.

I would recommend it for ready winter greens, and spring, summer and autumn too! Its good raw in salad, and its good wilted or cooked and whizzed in hot dishes, even the stalks aren't tough.

And here's my bursting cold frame- still minus its door! I'll tell you about that another time. Spinach, broad beans, black kale, purslane, hollyhocks and calendula. And a late crop of radishes with a bit of luck...
So, I have kept occupied, and with any luck we won't go hungry this winter, even if we are cut off by snow for three weeks like we were last year: THAT was a hard-learned lesson!

This 'n' that

No mean progress on the shed! The Hub used my absence wisely, apart from a fishing trip...(don't I sound just like a school marm!)...
These are the amaryllis seeds growing away quietly, its quite exciting really!

And here we have carrots, broad beans and scallions from the garden. Of course I didn't remember to plant some every fortnight so now I've a glut of scallions, and the rogue potatoes have taken over the carrots. What to do but eat the carrots, anyhow they are lovely and juicy. Wednesday was rather a washout as I slept all day, too much excitement in the big smoke, I guess. Today it rained all day (most unusual!!!) so all I could do was stand at the window watching the garden get away from me. Ho hum...

Sos has gone to stay on a friend's boat with a bunch of friends and then they have all sorts of events planned. Another friend is playing with his band on Sunday night so they are going to that. B is going to Dublin tomorrow to stay with Dilly for the long weekend. I've a funeral to play for tomorrow, a member of the congregation who was 96 and well beloved by friends and family, a life well lived. Sad, but more to be thankful for.

State of the Garden

Just look at the flowers the Hub brought me yesterday for my birthday! Aren't they lovely? The lilies aren't even open yet so in another day or so they'll be spectacular. There's alstroemaria and lisianthus in there too with the chrysanthemums and statice and gerbera and phlox. I'm so delighted! Before I show you the dodgy parts of my garden, here's the fucia. Its wild and grows along the road and here and there. You can tell I haven't had a hand in it because it's doing so well! I love it though, the flowers are so perfect. When they visited Ireland as little people the girls used to think that dandelion 'down' were flying fairies, and fucia blossoms were dancing fairies!

This is some of what is waiting to be planted out...I've been gathering cuttings and other people's throw-away plants, and bought some for the last nine years whilst waiting for a garden of my own. You can imagine moving it all from the rented house...and that's only a part!

These photos I have managed to get in the wrong order, as usual, sorry. This one below is a pointsetia I've nursed along for nearly three years. In Nairobi they grew wild and were great for sticking in to fill gaps in the hedges as they generally grew to over six foot tall, so I had to have one for here even if it only goes outside in July! Last Christmas the bracts turned red with lovely yellow flowers.

Don't know whether you can see, but the broad beans are coming along. I think I need to pinch out the tops to prevent blackfly. I'm really looking forward to eating these, my favourite vegetable!

This is -ha!ha! a flowerbed. I wanted a profusion of flowers and mixed the seeds when sowing them...BAD mistake...now I don't know which are weeds and the whole thing is a jumble. Last year I carefully sowed everything in pots and then the weather was so bad they withered before getting out into deeper soil. Perhaps I'll get right next year? Mar ya, sez you!

The strawberry plants look great but have produces exactly four strawberries. They did flower, the pots are deep enough, though I plan to plant them in the deep raised bed next year, they aren't particularly foliage wild, so I dunno. Mind you, the berries they did produce were delicious.

The broad beans got totally smushed the last fortnight, I'll know to stake them for next year. This photo was supposed to be above. Some plants have been broken off and withered so I removed them. They've collapsed onto the three french bean plants I left in that bed, and something has eated all the other beans so there won't be many french beans this year. At least the Swiss Chard is doing well, no photo as we ate it during the week, so are waiting for more! Its brilliant as we've eaten it almost to the ground at least five times this summer and back it grows! Onions, rather battered, as are the mangetout to the right of them, but didn't take photo.

Spring onions, quite a few eaten already, as are the carrots. I've also found several gratuitous tomatos in with the rogue potatoes, so we'll see how they do. Obviously the compost wasn't as composted as I thought! What hey! Its free!

Should the rhubarb be growing this vigorously at this time of year? Its 'Timperly Early' and brand new, only got it in May.

And herewith one Hub hard at work on his shed! He drilled 16 holes into the cement plinth (for which we can't afford to build a breize block shed as the planning specifies) last night, inserted the dowel rods and is waiting for the putty/glue to dry. Tonight he hopes to bolt down the base. Tuesday,he returned home clanking oddly and proceeded to extract 16 x 7" (?) bolts from his pockets! Is it any wonder his trousers wear out??

Yesterday afternoon Sos presented me with a little bar of chocolate tied up in ribbon: 'Happy Birthday Mom, and can I have the ribbon back?' Hmmm!

Dilly has been home since Monday afternoon (she was suffering withdrawal symptoms from my Georghette Heyer books), though she leaves this afternoon, and its been great. Sos and B have talked endlessly with her, but yesterday afternoon the conversation waned. Firstly they played a murderous game of 'Risk!', ignoring all the strategy cards and going for world domination. I tell you, even some terrorists could learn from these three hoodlums! When Sos had won (I really don't know how as the other two were cheating), they then started singing all the Disney songs they know, which is A LOT! That carried on for over an hour and was deafening- not very musical either!

I meant to include a progress photo on the little quilt, but that'll have to wait til tomorrow. Its not finished, but it is taking shape.

Tomorrow I'm off to London for four days with the folks, to stay with my brother. I'm really looking forward to it as we're going to two Prom Concerts, another recital, and a Show. Also a flower Market on Sunday morning, and Oxford Street. I wonder what Aer Lingus would say if I pitched up at check-in with a trolley load of plants? More to the point, what would my Dad say...

Hope you're not bored with the long post?

Of school concerts,child holiday labour,and hedgerows

It’s been a slow few days as I think I did too much last week and have been moving at a snail’s pace the last three days. Any spare minute and I’m dozing on the sofa …
This morning I put Dilly on the 7.15 am bus for Dublin with a suitcase almost the same size as herself. She met a school-friend at the station so I left them talking a mile a minute. Then I came home and cleared up the kitchen, loaded the dishwasher and clothes washer, and generally tidied away the debris of last night.
Yesterday morning at school we had our School Concert where each class sang to everyone else. There were no parents or visitors and it was a very low-key affair compared to the Christmas Carols when we sing round the Churches. The purpose of the Concert was to give the children a light hearted musical ending to the year, and also to build a little community togetherness. It was a lovely ¾ of an hour with lots of clapping and laughing.
Afterwards I had some errands in town, including having passport photos taken. I don’t know how Immigration ever sort the good guys from the bad as those ridiculous little photos make everyone look like master-criminals! I consider myself a moderately ordinary person, but from my photo I’d definitely be hauled in for questioning…I also got B a magazine with ideas for making occasional cards as I intend to put her time to good use this summer! And I am trying to find a hobby to interest her: I think everyone should have an interesting ,time consuming, and preferably useful, hobby. Am I very old-fashioned?
In the evening my parents came to supper to spend some time with Dilly before she headed back to Dublin to work for the summer. It was a lovely sunny evening and the evening light on the mountains around us was beautiful. I made curry and chapattis, the usual Kenyan Sunday dinner (despite it being Tuesday!), and, as Mum was bringing Strawberries, I made shortcake, which I for got in the oven. Mmmm, bit brown-ish black, but it tasted ok apparently. (I can’t eat anything with gluten).
The farmers around us have been cutting their silage and the fields are all golden green. The hedgerows on our lane are gorgeous too, clouds of dog daisies and celandines. The meadowsweet and cow parsley are just beginning to flower and the low-lying red robart gives a lovely pink-purple haze to the stone walls. The leaves on the trees are still green and healthy with lovely dark shard underneath. It’s a great year for foxgloves and honey -suckle too. I love summer hedgerows, well I love them at all times, but they are particularly full at present.
In the veg beds the broad beans are bursting with flowers, so there should be a good crop coming. The French beans are ever so slow, I had to go and speak sternly to them today- here we have fabulous hot sunny humid weather, perfect for growing and they are wasting the opportunity. The mange tout,lettuces, raspberries, and strawberries are doing well, apart from the one raspberry the Hub beheaded with the strimmer. Very miffed.
We’ve just seen the flooding around Gweedore on the RTE News: not one bit amusing. Roads and bridges washed out, I hope the Council soon have clean water restored, as in this hot weather it’ll be essential.
Sos is having a whale of a time in Madrid apparently, she’s managing one text in the evening, if she managed more I’d be more concerned. The friend with the sheepy quilt has two sheep done!
The Jehovah Wittness ladies were calling today, I don’t know why they return as I made it plain years ago that I’m a working member of my Church and happy to remain so, but its good to have others’ points of view and know that crisis’ of faith hit all denominations. I finished the hand quilting on my wall hanging today and started binding it before I keeled over on the sofa, it’s a shame to waste the gorgeous weather, but I’m wrecked. I’ll just make soup and bread for the Hub and B’s supper, then go out and give another pep-talk to the beans! B is watching ‘Friends’ re runs and cackling deafeningly so I need to move before I become hearing- devastated…