An Organic Lifestyle (Organic Growing Pains)

A very quick post to ease myself back to blogging after a weekend celebration for the wedding!I had my camera with me but did not take any photos as there were cameras clicking all day and night.These are just a few informal ones taken during the day.We partied friday,saturday and Sunday,the happy couple have now left on a three week honeymoon to Thailand and Vietnam and we are in post wedding blues mode!Myself and Michelle dancing Walking from the car up to the hotel,Bridesmaid Gillian Michelle and myself sporting THE hat.We had a beautiful Triumph car which was the same vintage as myself!The sun shone for most of the day which was remarkable enough this summer. Eldest son Kevin and myself The bride and groom checking out the wedding cake which was made of individual cupcakes with a top tier of chocolate biscuit cake smothered in white chocolate icing.Unusual and delicious!Michelle has a glint in her eye which says 'this is mine,all mine'! Weather permitting I will be out on t...

The blog has been very quiet this week and the plot is fending for itself as we are busy preparing for a wedding! Michelle is getting married to Stephen on Saturday so gardening is taking a back seat until early next week at least.Photo is her nearest the camera marching in a St Patrick's Day parade some years ago. Michelle with her Irish dancing medals even longer ago!Everything is ready, my hat finally got sorted today so next photos will be of the wedding. I have not had much time to visit other blogs but I will get back on track next week. Rose of Tralee The famous Rose of Tralee contest is celebrating 50 years this year. Girls come from all over the world who have Irish ancestry and this year's rose is The London Rose, Charmaine To read all about the Rose contest and maybe enter for next year see here

The rain continued for most of the day and there has been severe flooding in some parts of the country.The sun did break through in the late afternoon but I had sequestered myself in the kitchen by then.I blanched off the runner beans in salted water for a few minutes and then refreshed them under cold running water to stop them from cooking any further.I ended up with 6 freezer packs with 200grms in each The beans were cooked off in small lots, here some in the pot and the next lot waiting its turn. I topped and tailed them and sliced them vertically to give them a uniform appearance. I think the 200grms is about right for defrosting for a meal. I will do this with most of the beans so we will have fresh veg during winter too. The glut of courgettes has made me look online for recipes to make them last over winter also. Scarlett the Heavenly Healer suggested Ratatouille to freeze. I looked at the BBC Goodfood website and bookmarked a few interesting recipes and found this one for Rata...

I paid a quick visit to the plot yesterday, as it was wet and windy I was just going to harvest anything that was ready to go. I came away with quite a bit, I did not attempt to dig potatoes as the ground was so wet and mucky. I took 4 of our Chioggia beetroot,3 small courgettes,broccoli,parsley and some coriander leaves and 60 more runner beans. I realised I was counting the beans about halfway through picking them so carried on doing so.They are cropping very fast and beans that were tiny a couple of days ago were now 7 or 8 ins long.I am going to blanch and freeze all of these for the winter. The first lot of leeks need earthing up again soon and the others are putting on some growth at last. We staggered the leeks this year and so far they are growing to plan. Only 2 of the celery plants are growing as I pulled out the ones gone to seed and these 2 seem to be developing white stalks as they are covered in with hay. The courgettes are slowing down production at last. Today is wet al...

These are the carrots which Kathryn grew from seed in peat pots.They are supposed to be suitable for rough ground, they do not grow with a tapered root just fill out fat and round.We did leave them in their peat pots and the carrots seem to have grown around them into the most weird shapes! Love is...carrot companions! Corkscrews! A great pair of legs and an egg timer!They tasted sweet and tasty regardless of their shape. I think kids would love to eat these funny shapes rather than the boring EU graded varieties. Margaret's Stuffed marrow recipe. Kathryn passed two of our jumbo courgettes on to Margaret,a lady who lives in West Cork.Margaret used to live in the UK and finds it impossible to buy marrows since she came here. Stuffing: Sausage meat,chopped onion,TBS Tomato puree,knob of butter,pepper Mix all together in a bowl and leave to one side. Marrow: Peel skin in stripes,cut in half,scoop out centre of marrow to make a hollow,fill hollow with sausage meat and place other half ...

....we are putting courgettes in everything?!On Sunday when I was out in the allotment, Angela my allotment neighbour was there. I told her to take away the red cabbage as she wanted as it is not now or ever going to be a favourite veg of mine.I got a phone call on Tues to say she had left a cake in the tearoom fridge for me. I knew it was her COURGETTE cake.I will get the recipe and post it soon.The cake is moist and chewy with I think either a cream cheese or yogurt based topping and is absolutely delicious!More courgette ideas on the way. After spending Sunday on the plot and taking anything that looked edible I had no intention of going out for a couple of days.It was raining heavily on Tuesday morning but when I got the call about the cake we went out.The rain had stopped but the ground was still wet, I decided to have a quick check on the plot and look at what had snuck up in a couple of days. Lots of runner beans,some of the ones I pulled on Sunday were a little tough so I am go...

I went out to the plot at 11.00am meaning to stay until lunchtime but did not leave until 4.30.Lots of cleaning up and more weeding to be done. I cut back the old raspberry canes and took about 4 branches off of the blackcurrant bush.The end of our blackcurrants and a few raspberries plus about 10 fat blueberries were the tally from the fruit bed today. The bag was laden coming home with 5 MORE courgettes,The first of our runner beans, white turnips,a head of broccoli,red cabbage and I dug some of our British Queens which look OK. The bean plants have finally taken off, lots of flowers and when I had a close up peek at them lots of beans too. A cluster of beans hiding in the foliage. Our total onion harvest.The last ones I put in are the biggest.These were ones which I had left since earlier in the year and when we had the extra space I put them in. Aoife's pumpkin is forging ahead of the competition!The ones I had hand pollinated are still on the vines and doing OK Our Brussels Sp...

I have not been out to the plot for a few days ,Gemma went up yesterday and found these two monsters lurking!I have been putting courgettes in everything for the past few days. Having 3 Italian students staying helps, one of them is a vegetarian so I am cooking up lots of veg dishes. It is a bit fraught cooking Italian dishes for the natives but so far they have went down well. I had cooked a veg lasagne one evening and these are the ingredients for a veg & pasta dish.Our own beans,carrots,courgettes,onions,I had to buy peppers and tomatoes as ours are bordering on a disaster at the moment.I cooked off all of the veg and added tinned tomatoes and passata and left to simmer. The pasta was cooked separately and added at the end to the veg sauce mix.This is how the students said to do it. ( Fuzzy Photo)Some students bring a gift to their host family,usually a bottle of wine but these students brought food which is typical of their home in Trentino in northern Italy. A big section of P...

Blogger will not allow me to upload pictures to my post! Internal error it tells me, I will try again tomorrow. Bilbo has landed in London and Matron has given him the royal tour , to see his adventures log on to Matron's blog Down on the Allotment . I will log off for now and see if Blogger recifies its internal errors.

Well it is back to work after all the excitement of Bilbo visiting, he is now on his way to matron of Down on the allotment blog, if you want to follow his adventures in London.I took my package to our local post office early on Saturday morning only to be told we in the Republic no longer have postal collections on Saturday! What a retrograde step in the middle of a recession when we should be encouraging business to our country.This and our sad record of rolling out broadband country wide puts us in the league of banana republics! Our allotment harvest is getting colourful at this time of year, some of our chiogga beetroot,more courgettes, cauliflower,potatoes, the girls pulled all of their onions to take home, and bunches of lavender. Potato Blight we thought we had escaped it but no,it struck within 2 days!The British Queens looked Ok....so far, but our late main crop of Golden Wonders were blackened. I did not have the camera with me that day to photograph them. I sprayed all of...

Bilbo brought us some much needed sunshine from Carolina!I took Sinead,Aiofe, Kevin and Bilbo on an educational tour of east Cork.Cork City is the second city of the republic and a natural harbour, which is shown on our coat of arms for the city. We celebrated our 800 years of a city charter back in 1988.It is the gateway to the west of Ireland and Kerry with an international airport and ferries to the UK and France.Cork is the largest county in Ireland and full of surprises if you leave the motorways and main roads and take the smaller roads to discover the beauty of our rugged coastline and hidden treasures. Our first stop was Blarney castle ,even though tourist numbers are down due to the recession the carpark was full and a queue had already formed to go in.The Blarney Stone is famous and has been kissed by people ranging from Sir Walter Scott to Mick Jagger! I have put links to the places we visited if any of our readers would like further information on any of them. Blarney is a...