The first little red tomatoes!

The day has come, yuppi! A few days before I'm off to Hungary for 10 days, the first tomatoes started ripening! They are on a few tumbler plants, rather sick looking (they lost all their leaves a while ago, and live in a totally unfertile windowbox we inherited...) but they are tasty!:) I'd say when I'm back from galavantimg, there'll be canning madness, as all the plants in the greenhouse will be bursting from red and yellow beauties! yuppi!
I just took a look on the garden after being away for two days, and it is amazing how much food there is! Abundance :)
Here's some pictures of the first tomatoes

Garden pests n the rest

Broccoli

The leftover tomato plants under the rosebush
Beautiful mallow
Greenhouse life: white sage in the pots, basil, chilli,squash







I was out for a hunt this morning, this time for greenflies and caterpillars. I decided to give a break to the slugs:)
This year so far has been a bit of a challenge (a very educational one, I don't mean it as a complaint, rather a collection of experiences to remember;-), at least that's what it feels like after last year's relatively easy and pest-freeish year of abundance.
It started early in the spring, with an unbelievable greenfly infestation on the propagator, setting back the basil, pepper, chilli, tomato and aubergine plants by weeks. Daily pickings of the little green monsters and litres of garlic spray.... Scary to think they could've all died... But hey, loads of tomatoes waiting to ripen, peppers and chillies flowering away and the aubergines are growing their first little flowers too!
Then an accidental overheating of the propagator.... human stupidity pest;-D
Then the cabbage root fly raised the death toll, my goodness, nail biting every morning-"I wonder how many more brassicas are wilting and need to be pulled up today"... Mad production of collars saved about half of them, thankfully, I'd really miss the broccoli, calabrese, and 2 types of cabbages. I guess the rest is gone...:(
Then the slugs, as the rain arrived. Invention of different ways of torture... Dark corners of the soul, certainly.... It is entertaining though to compare methods of slug-torture with friends, trying to decide who is more cruel...;-)
Human stupidity number 2: rather have ventilation in your greenhouse when its very humid and cool weather than keep the doors closed for heat purposes... Else, you'll end up with MOULD!!! Spores everywhere... Tomato leaves (now cut back...to reduce the spread of mould and increase ventilation), Basil (oh my sweet basil, putting my freezerless preserving experiments in danger by lack of supplies!!!)...
And then, caterpillars. On the basil!Chilli!and Pepper plants!!!!! not only on the brassicas! wow. Now that suprised me I must admit... I don't even know what to say;-)
And the return of the greenflies, well actually they never fully left, however we had the most amazing ladybird population boom around the garden:) But my precious californian white sage plants (i know, i'm trying to prove they can cope with the irish climate ha ha ha;-), they still need the regular green-monster pick...
This year's courgette boom is not happening, to my greatest suprise, but I diagnosed it as having a bad batch of seeds, at least I couldn't find the reason of lacking fertility in a richly autumn-mulched bed which spits out huge heads of cabbages and lettuces and mangetout by the bucket;-) I'm gonna be out for a hunt, marrow=greatest chutney material, I miss you!:)

Life...

Two nights ago I woke up in a bit of a panic around 3 or 4 am, it happens sometimes, wake up, panic that I can't see, hear, breathe... Lights on, earplugs out, nose blow, window open, curtains open. Lights off. Let's get back to sleep. Hm, but its very dark. Lights on. Sit up in the bed. I'm kind of uneasy. It kind of feels like as if someone is there, present. Come on, stop your stupid thoughts, of course, your housemate is in the other room...
Eventually got back to sleep, then the morning came, etc, ususal stuff. Then I set off, to town and then to rehearse. And then I get a text message. Saying our neighbour/landlord's mum died last night. We rent their old farmhouse, where their family lived for generations. The old lady - she was 91, may she rest in peace - lived there till a few years ago, when her husband died, and she moved in with one of her sons, my landlord and his family, into the house below.
Went over to the wake in the evening, and my little story by then has gone around, about the presence I felt the previous night. So my landlady asks, if I don't mind telling her which room I sleep in. So I did. And it turns out, thats the one the old lady and her husband last stayed in before moving from the house... She came for her last visit...
The wake was one of my best experiences of rural irish life, family and community. Loads of people, brothers, sisters, in-laws, cousins, aunts n uncles, etc.etc.etc., celebrating the life of a lady who's just gone. All very friendly. And then the music is about to happen. They all agree, she would love it, she loved music, her feet used to tap on the ground any time she'd hear music...

The first post ever :)

So, there you go, time to write something. I'll leave all the bla-bla out about why I decided to do this, and save myself sitting here for hours and getting bored of re-editing the text all over again. I just want to be able to easily share a few thoughts n stories n pictures when I feel like it, instead of beating myself up for not writing emails to people for years.... :) So, to start with, today the sunshine finally returned for a while and dried up the incredible muck in the garden and gave the plants a bit of a good kick:) I put in a few pics I took in the garden over the last few weeks, very tasty:)