The Veg Growing Project

It has been a long time coming. I dreamt of a beautiful potager style plot of vegetables and we were going to set it up as soon as we arrived in Ireland, 2.5 years ago.
It just didn't happen. I have plenty of excuses. One of them is : where on our 3.8 ha would be suitable? We have to deal with either rock or windswept bog.
I've always had  raised beds and that's what we needed now. Unfortunately, it never happened. That is until Anna from Germany arrived to help us as a volunteer, at the beginning of May.
My friend Sophie had said to me to start small and pointed to an area in front of the house, that could do with beautifying.

Here is Anna, the only volunteer that ever asked to use the strimmer.

And strimming she did.

She was intend on giving us raised beds, Even if she had never attempted anything like this before.

With a little guidance from Bert she built them from pallets and off cuts.

What a star !  Before she moved on with her travels, she filled some of them with a layer of straw and topped that up with a decent amount of well composted cow muck. The cow muck we acquired from our lovely neighbour, Bernie.

Seeds of lettuce, carrots, spinach, radishes etc sown, Anna left...

And in came Manon, from The Netherlands

Manon filled up the rest of the raised beds with compost and made chicken wire frames to cover them up. Why ? Because the cats had already found out that these new loos were the bees knees.

We are so lucky, having such gorgeous friends like Sophie who has given us many plants to get our veggie patch started this late in the season. Courgette plants, small lettuces, kale, also strawberry plants among other things.

Our chickens have found their way out of their enclosure.

They are allowed for now, as they don't seem to do too much damage. 

It has been a short growing season and it certainly wasn't a great summer.

The variety of veg is minimal.  But it is a start.

 "Oh, hello !" This is Flappy.

Here is our present volunteer, Wen from Malaysia, weeding.

Because weeds don't need a great summer to grow profusely.

A recurring  small harvest of courgettes.

It definitely is a start.
Patricia xxx...x