I took fellow blog readers advice and purchased some more seed potatoes.
Not the cheap ones we bought in Lidl recently. They had all been sold sadly. So we bought two 2 kg from a garden shop for 17 Euros. I nearly had an heart attack when I looked at the till receipt.
Any way I dug three trenches and planted the seed potatoes🥔 🥔.
I planted them south to north and raked soil over them.
That's another bit of the veg plot extended. Hopefully we will have some more early potatoes for tea.
I think I will plant some more onions 🌰 sets and some peas 🫛 in there next. We have them growing in the "Chitting Room" or my " Indoor Potting Shed".
Are you busy planting your vegetables at the moment?
I have been busy around home and working for someone.
I planted a home grown Griselina hedge the other day. If you remember on here I grew them from cuttings in the Autumn. It's satisfying to know you can grow your own plants for free.
A little hedge planted in front of my plastic repurposed heating oil tanks and second hand baths. The Japanese onions 🌰 and the leeks love growing in them.
I raked out an area and stone picked it to make a new lawn. We are quite short on potatoes 🥔 space so I might buy some more seed potatoes.
Newly stone picked and raked area for prospective lawn area.
Potatoes 🥔 🥔 are said to be great for breaking ground. I think us gardeners help the great digging and cultivating the potatoes.
If I do sow a lawn I will be giving myself a chore again mowing in. Although lawn seed is cheap.
What would you do extend the veg plot or reseed the lawn?
Azada apparently is Spanish for "hoe". I have mentioned this tool several times or more on here. I could not recommend a better tool for slicing off vegetation and digging and tilling with.
Indeed if you have just took on a overgrown allotment I would recommend you invest in a Azada.
We planted up six raised beds of seed potatoes and we planted six small net bags of early seed potatoes. Traditionally potatoes are planted on Saint Patrick's Day here in Ireland. We planted ours a few days let when the temperature rose to 7 degrees.
I opened two trenches and planted the chitted seed potatoes 30 centimetres apart and a foot in between the rows.
J placed the seed potatoes in the trenches and we covered them with soil and well rotted fym. We planted; "Duke of York", "British Queens" and "Homeguard". Developed during WW2 and named after the volunteer "Dad's Army" civilian army volunteers.
I will make more space for second earlies or main crop.
Hopefully I will find some more cheap seed potatoes in the discount supermarket/ garden centres and beer providers? Our Lidl hasn't got any left. I may have to buy some dearer ones from a garden centre or farm centre.
Before heading to Inch Beach we called at a carboot sale. Just for a change.😄 You never know what you will find and being part Womble and part Jackdaw we had to go and have a look. I am not a fan of decluttering and minimalism. I like to collect and why not?
This is what we bought:
Our Lady of Perpetual Help picture.
I paid 5 Euros for it and it looks quite old.
The angels Gabriel and Michael are hovering on both shoulders.
I am not much of a regular church goer these days. I do still believe in God and I do like visiting old churches and graveyards, especially when I visit England.
I hung the picture up in the bedroom and I woke to an amazing sense of calm and peace. Perhaps I will start collecting Christian pictures? I have a framed picture of Jesus in a suitcase that I must get the glass fixed and hung up again. When I do get it repaired I will post it on here for your perusal.
I also bought a Leonardo Collection cup. You can buy them new online.
It's subject is London in dear old Blighty or England even. There is the Post Office Tower, Saint Paul's Cathedral, Big Ben and a red London painted on the cup.
I like it and it reminds me of the old country and it is added to our collection:
A London Mug.
See you tomorrow. It will be a potatoes planting post.
Continuing our bank holiday trips out. We drove to Inch Beach in County Kerry on Sunday. I have featured this beach a few times over the years on here.
We arrived early afternoon and the pub on the beach was closed again. It wasn't the warmest day but at least it was dry.
Bronte sniffing and exploring the sand.
Cars were filling up the car parks and also driving on the beach.
Inch Beach was a film location for Ryan's Daughter. Other films like Faraway And Away and The Field have been filmed there.
It's a beautiful place and Bronte enjoyed her saunter on the beach and broken sea shells crackled under our feet.
We got back to our vehicle and I typed Minard Castle into Google Maps on my mobile phone and the lady with the posh English voice told us which roads to turn off when we drove through Anascaul.
Up a very very long and narrow winding road for four kilometres the route took us. We met a few cars almost head on in and there were very few pull ins.
I was pressing my invisible brakes in the passenger seat. It was like being on a tarmac roller coaster and not a journey we would like to repeat.
Eventually we reached our destination:
Minard Castle.
Minard castle information sign.
A sign for the Kerry Camino. Pilgrims and merchants use to set off from St James's Church in Dingle to walk the Camino in Spain. The Kerry Camino starts in Tralee. You get your book from the County museum and there are stamping stations all the way. I wouldn't mind doing it some time.
Private land. There were some raised vegetable beds near the big pile of fym. I hopefully will plant my early potatoes this week. Although it is cold and I may put it off. However the rain begins again on Friday.🤔
A meadow for the bees.
This was the tower scene in Ryan's Daughter if you remember?
Ireland is still a very beautiful country. Even though I reside in West Cork most of the time. I/we love County Kerry.
All these photos can be seen if you walked the Dingle Way and avoided cars.
Unfortunately there are a lot of parts of the way that you have to walk on tarmac and pass motorists.
We drove to Doneraile Park in north Cork on Saturday. Bronte was very excited about her new adventures.
It was a lovely cold and dry day and we decided to have a stroll around the grounds of a Georgian mansion landscaped in a Capability Brown kind of way.
He used sheep and cattle to mow his landscapes before the lawnmower was invented.
Some fields are still grazed by rare breed cattle and deer.
It felt like we were in a Jane Austen novel minus the long flowing dresses, tight bodices and horses and traps.
Here's some photos for your perusal:
To the manor born.
I spotted this gate to the once walled kitchen garden. The large gate was locked. I could see an orchard and lawn when I peered down the side of the gate on the hinges side.
Deer grazing.
A fawn.
Swans.
Geese.
A vista in front of the "big house." The house and hundreds of acres of land was left to the Office Of Public Works. Which I believe is the equivalent to the National Trust. The grounds are open and free to visit. There is an admission price to go on a tour of the " big house".
Seeing that's it is Saint Patrick's bank holiday weekend I thought I would play " Roisin Dubh" or "Black Rose". This is a Phil Lynott tribute night video in Dublin fifteen years ago.
Like Phil Lynott. Gary Moore is now no longer with us. I was lucky enough to see Phil Lynott and Scott Gorham and Snowy White and Brian Downey on the Renegade tour in 1981 when I was just seventeen.
I also saw Gary Moore at Milton Keynes Garden Party Rock festival in 1986.
For me "Black Rose" and "Live and Dangerous" are my two favourite Lizzy albums. Black Rose mentions famous legends of old and famous writers like Wilde and even the great George Best.
The song also includes a few famous Irish tunes like " The Mountains Of Mourne".
It's a great tribute to Philo. Enjoy and have a great Saint Patrick's Day. Slainte!
