(pt3) Three Day Weekend - Thanks St. Patrick :)

And so we come to the last day of the long weekend - the big day itself -

 

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY

I started the day off as the ultimate Northern Irish domestic goddess and baked fresh fruit soda farls for myself and my lovely hubby. I had never done it before (I know, shame on me) but I felt I really ought to something vaguely traditional. Nana used to make these and plain ones and wheaten bread etc just automatically; in fact it was hard for her to put anything into ounces for anyone, she did it all by eye :) So I took her 'recipe', plus a couple off the Internet and melded them together to make my own. I'll share it with you tomorrow xx

P.S. Unlike most St Patrick's day food stuffs you find on the net - this isn't green, it hasn't any booze in it and is actually pretty yummy.

Then with full bellies and joy in our hearts we ventured forth, plotwise, not wanting to waste any of this precious bank holiday. We we sure there would be people there today and naturally you never get as much done with all the chat, but, lo and behold, only 2 people at the far side of the field and only a few in the other fields altogether :(

St. Patrick's is the traditional day to plant your potatoes here, so.... Andrew did it the lazy way this year and good on him too, none of this double digging lark etc. Ridges and furrows are the way to go, quick as you can say 'spud' and they are planted.
We have 3 types, left to right ~
* Saxon
* Kestrel
* Pentland Javelin

This is when it really starts to feel like a new year at the plot, this is when we genuinely get excited :) Talk turns to painting the shed again and doing runs to the dump, we get giddy about crop rotations and where our permanent new plants will go. Daydream about that first ice lolly and picnics in the blazing sun...This year we have no ready access to water! Only that which falls on the roof of the community centre (between 4 fields!) and what we can get in our own water butts - I can foresee trouble ahead, but we try not to talk about that.

I was at it again with the old de-shaming of 14b...I may be slightly obsessed by now. I got rid of that damned Carex ornamental grass which had produced over 35 good babies which also needed discarded (there were more than 35 but I gave up counting and just started to go feral and rip them up, kind of like an demented lottie ninja...) aaarrrghhhh

Oh and I found a rose bush :)

Andrew planted our brand new Blackthorn hedge-lings and more Raspberry canes (Glen Ample) where I had ripped out all the dead ones.

Suddenly the rain cam in and we had to rush around gathering everything up - where did that massive cloud come from?? I guess when you have your face in the soil you don't notice the sky as much. So there aren't any good leaving photos from this day :(

But I shall give you one more - Maggie's face when she sniffed my wee dram of whiskey at the end of the day, haha..

That was one brown post! More colour next time :)
Hugs and love

But Baby it's cold outside

Is anyone else feeling the cold or is it just me? The Hubby certainly doesn't seem to really have taken it on board that it is in fact FREEZING!!! Apart from all the moaning he does in the evenings, he has blinkers on when it comes to the plots.

He had me down working away on Saturday digging over yet another finished up bed and adding manure and seaweed to it. (It's going to be a potato bed soon).  Have I mentioned before that I have an Adaza? It's fab, making working the soil much easier, I wrote about them way back here but when we where in France recently we bought one of our very own. I highly recommend it as it takes a good bit of the sore back element out of digging. Anyway once manured and mulched the bed was ridged up like the others; this seems to be really working well for us - on our clay soil the raised beds can get rather water logged but this winter, even with all the rain and snow, the water has been draining away much easier; if you haven't tried it, I recommend giving it a go.

Once that was over and I had drunk up a herbal tea to warm the cockles of my heart, we went over to 14b, to the scary part..... This half has had some work done to it but we really needed to break the back of it. The previous owner had rotivated this plot and then covered it all in very thick black plastic and left it. In turn we have ended up with some pretty decent soil and no weeds to speak of. Once the plastic was lifted the ground below is ready to go. Here we are putting a large 'permanent bed', which will be split in 2 and filled up with strawberries and squashes. These will stay in place for 3 yrs and then swap sides back and forth every 3rd yr from then on - permanently. This sort of bed and system may have a fancy name, if it does, I don't know it but you get the idea.

Of course by happenstance I got a phone call just as the harder work was about to begin (we had marked out the bed but hadn't started digging it) and Andrew suddenly really needed to speak to Bill, haha. We ended up not getting any more done there and packed up (but between you and me, I was so happy; we went and got a coffee and a biscuit instead, yippeee!). Sometimes Ecotherapy can be going to the plots, getting frozen and then rewarding yourself by leaving!

That night was my cousin's Hen Night so I needed to go out and wine, dine and party the evening away. Something I do not do and am still recovering from even though I didn't drink much alcohol at all and was on the tap water! It was a fabulous night but on Sunday I was in no state to go back to the plot and get 'stuck in', I'd only arrived back home at 3.30am. Andrew went though (crazy fool! it was so cold) and got some of the said bed dug. I slept and dreamt of dinner time - we were having lottie stew and all food is exciting at the mintue as I'm on a strict bridesmaid dress diet!! Haha.

More tomorrow ~  we were given Jerusalem Artichokes by a friend and I have to research and learn about them and then write it down here. Ate a couple last night in the stew - gorgeous.