Back online Bug free!

A bouquet for my son in law Rob who spent this afternoon cleaning viruses from my computer.These viruses usually come in on music and game sites which are used by younger people. A box pops up on the site and if they click the box out they are inadvertently opening it!If one of these pops up on any site you are on DO NOT click anywhere in the box just close the site you are on.I have Norton anti virus on this computer since I got it 2 years ago and even though it is set to run a weekly scan it did not pick it up?!Rob downloaded an anti malware thingy for me so hopefully I am clear.Thanks Rob.
The flowers are calendula which are blooming around the plot thanks to the spell of sunshine we have had lately.These were on the pea bed which I cleared. I have been out to the plot nearly every day I did not have the heart to take many photos because I did not know how long I would be off the blog.
Aoife's pumpkin broke from its stem so we have now put it into the tearoom to ripen. It is heavy but we have not weighed it yet.
Kevin wanted a 'go' at lifting it but Sinead had to help
Kevin finally has a pumpkin on his vine...the proud father!
Our harvest today. My curiosity got the better of me and I pulled the biggest of our leeks to see what was under the canopy of leaves. I was not disappointed it weighs in at 400 grms, not bad considering I was charged 4.60e a kilo for one last week.The sugar snap peas were from Micheal and the courgettes are from one plant which has started reproducing in the recent spell of warm weather.The older leaves were mildewed so I have cut them back.2 more plants have courgettes coming on as well.
One of the courgette plants which have gone into overdrive.
Some of the work done over the last few days, getting ready for next year.The bed at the back is the early potato bed, covered with barrowloads of well rotted horse manure, cardboard and weed fabric. The pots on it are our strawberry runners.The bed to the front right is the peas bed,again covered with manure and plastic.
The new raised bed in the centre has garlic in it since today.This had red cabbage in it this year. I put on bags of organic compost from our municipal composter and dug it in.
I have been reading Victor Osborne's book Diggers Diary and he says garlic does not like getting its feet wet, likes firm soil ( I tramped over the bed banging down my full 9 stone weight on it)and do not water after May when the bulbs begin to bulk up.This is our third year trying to grow garlic.The first year we put it in too late so it never developed and this year it got rust.We have had one of the wettest years on record so rust was probably unavoidable.
I bought the bulbs in the market this morning so they are organic from West Cork and I bought some french garlic in the English Market from the Olive stall. While I was in the Market I thought I should do a post about this great Cork institution soon as it was full of people buying all sorts of food and veg.The idea of manuring and covering the beds is to have them ready for Spring planting and more importantly to give these beds some feeding and rest them up for a few months as these are on our first plot and have been producing without much of a break for 3 years so I think they need some R&R.
Now for something completely different and exciting if you live in the South of Ireland.I had a Bring Back our Ferry Button on the blog for months for an online petition to restore our ferry link to the UK. This ship the Julia was bought early this year in Finland but it was too late to get it into service. Today it sailed into the harbour amid lots of fanfare and is berthed at the city docks. It will be refitted and ready to sail on the Cork to Swansea route next March.I did not take these pics, they came in an email to me, they are the work of Tony Hartigan.
I am way behind in reading your blogs but will catch up over the next few days, thanks to all of you who visited while I was incommunicado!