So Here We Are...

... Sitting on the floor, my daughter plays with her dollies, and myself, updating the blog.

It was a strange week: my son was off school Monday and Tuesday for Saint Patrick's day, I took some days off work myself cause I was not feeling my best, yesterday and today my daughter has been kind of sick herself, my husband caught the flu... It sounds like a hospital, but I'm always grateful all our little diseases are ones we can, in the end, laugh about.

In the middle of all this, I've been working in the garden, which is starting to look like a proper vegetable garden, finally!

Here is the new look:

 This is our dog, Billa, loving the sunshine, next to the brand new raised bed I made with 6 cinder blocks. They will eventually be painted and look way better, but for the time being they serve the purpose just as they are. Tulips, and artichoke, a daisy plant and a tiny raspberry "bush" which cannot yet be seen, in the corner next to the compost bin.
Next to the compost bin used to be two absolutely useless and ugly trees, I hated them with all my heart, I could not stand them any longer... They took up a lot of space exactly where I always wanted a kitchen herbs bed. I finally managed to uproot both of them and could not be happier!!!

Here instead, I have extended the existing raised beds, moving and replacing the blocks I had from last year. Strawberries in the holesunder my home made mini tunnel I have tiny swiss chards and spinach. I still fear a late frost which would definitely kill them, so I have "invented" this small tunnel, which is made of leftover garden net and plastic from the previous polytunnel which was destroyed by a storm. I am glad I kept some pieces of that sturdy plastic, they always come in handy :)

Today is the beginning of Spring, we had a magnificent sunny day and the morning came with the gift of a spectacular solar eclipse...

 The sunrise of Spring 2015

This is the best picture I managed to get of the eclipse  I am definitely not equipped for this kind of events...

 A quick update on the windowsill: cucumbers growing fast on the left, rocket not showing up as of yet, perennial spinach just planted and more pop corn plants on the right :)

 Lavender, geranium who survived the Irish Winter, and newly arrived primulas :)

The strawberry pallet moved from its south facing spot to a west facing spot. Paint, paint, paint is needed!!!!

And More Gardening...

We had some beautiful sunny afternoons in the past few days, so the chance to transfer some plants in the garden could not be missed!

These were sunflowers, when they had just decided to pop up from the soil :) As you can see, my non conventional pot follows the golden rule: Reduce Reuse Recycle.

This is my daughter watering the spinach, the day before we could see them coming out!
The next day, she was thrilled to see all the little plants :)

These are runner beans, peas, borlotti beans and pop corn ready to be placed...

And here they are in their definite home :) Runner beans on the left, borlotti in the middle and peas on the right.
Here too, the garden net I used has been repurposed so it will help the plants in their climbing job.

I had to place these in the tunnel because the risk of frost is not behind us just yet, and last year I have learned is not something beans, and legumes in general, enjoy too much... There is still room for the tomatoes, which are still about 5 centimetres high. I have consulted my gardening advisor this morning (my mother), and she recommends to wait until they are at least twice this size before transplanting them outside.

The strawberries are all in their place, some in the vertical pallet, some in the cinder block holes, ready to make us happy again during the spring.

The pallet will get painted at some stage...

Upstairs, I have noticed last night, finally a courgette is sprouting! I can't wait to taste my home grown courgettes! Pasta with zucchini sauce is one of my favourites, and when the courgettes will be ready it's going to be the first thing on my list!!!

And this is the windowsill downstairs! 

Cacti, rocket salad, swiss chard, more pop corns and... cucumbers!!!

They are the ones on the left, next to the rocket which has not yet sprouted...

These above, instead, are the spinach, where my daughter worked her magic :)
The pot will stay in the polytunnel for a good while, so they are protected.

Gooseberry on the left and raspberry on the right :)

I am delighted so far, there's still a lot to do! I need to plant the potatoes as soon as possible but a place for them is not ready yet.

Enjoy your gardens!!!

Garden - Ready for Spring!

Yesterday, in the office, I kept thinking that, by the weekend, I should buy the cinder blocks and give the polytunnel a new "look". The project has been in my mind for a while now.

I kept thinking I would go to the builder's shop on Saturday, then, as soon as I got home, I saw the shining sun in the crispy air, and could not wait any longer.

I ran to the shop and got 12 blocks and 4 bags of topsoil.

So here they are, after I carried them from the car, to the front door, and through the sitting room... My back hurts, my arms hurt, but it's a great feeling. I've made it!

Then I told my kids I found a guest in the polytunnel, and they both came to see her.

That's our new garden pet, a little green frog, scared to death by us.

After clearing the polytunnel from weeds and rubbish,  I placed cardboard on the soil, and placed the blocks as I wanted them. I have abandoned the romantic idea of wooden raised beds, they rot and must be fixed or replaced every year.

In the left corner, I placed also a piece of garden net, shaped as a cylinder, that will aid the growth of the beans and peas. I made sure is nice and firm in the soil.

On the right, a terracotta pot that will probably house the melon plants and maybe a strawberry or two...

And there, in the green coat and lilac hat, is my little daughter, emptying the little pots into the raised bed we just built. She loved the task and she loves the frog. She kept talking about the little pots and the little frog and it was just awesome to involve her in the work. Last night, at the dinner table, she could not stop telling she had worked with Mamma in the garden and there was a little frog that kept climbing and falling... The smile on her face was the greatest reward I could possibly ask for!

The layout is not complete yet, there will be more net and more pots and I'm glad I also managed to sort the seeds I have at home, so I can plan what and where to plant.

Last night then, I dreamt of my Grandmother. She worked the land and raised cows, chicken and rabbits all her life. There was no choice for her. It was either that or starvation.

The way this kind of hard work reconnects me with where I come from it's amazing. I feel closer to my ancestors, closer to my parents than ever when I get to put my hands in the dirt.

This year we'll hopefully have a better organised garden, every year it gets better, and finding this solution with the cinder blocks it's a great achievement for me. It means I won't have to start from scratch every single Spring and we are ready to go in no time.

We will get there, slowly but surely.

Curried Beans and Potatoes

With my great satisfaction, last night I dug up our potatoes. The investment was definitely worth it: this is what I got out of only 3 not-so-good-looking potatoes I buried in March.

 There are also peas and I'm very happy about those as well. I am slowly picking them day by day and adding to the freezer bag :)


Now, last night, I was so proud of my produce I had to eat some of it. I already had soaked a handful of Borlotti beans on Saturday, so they needed to be used as well. Fine, here is what I put together last night for dinner while also knitting and watching the last bits of a movie:


Ingredients:


A handful of Borlotti beans, soaked or out of the can
3 Potatoes
Curry Powder (mine was mild)
Straight to Wok noodles (mine were Udon)
A garlic clove if you like
Water

Place all the beans and the potatoes, washed and cut in cubes, in the pan with some olive oil and the garlic clove. Sprinkle with salt and curry powder. Let fry a bit then add some water

Let cook on moderate heat for at least 30 minutes, the beans take a while to cook properly, especially the soaked ones. The ones from the can will cook way faster, so keep an eye on them to make sure they don't over cook.


Keep adding curry powder and salt to taste, this is not rocket science so it depends how you prefer it.


Once the beans and the potatoes are ready, add the noodles, let them cook according to the instructions and serve.

So fulfilling, so easy and fast and no animal proteins in sight!

Pre-Packed Thoughts

Lately we've been eating the salad leaves from our suburban garden. What a feeling to go out back in the morning, cut some salad leaves and bring them to work!


Almost everyday I'll go in my polytunnel and look at the little plants and the miracle of life happening slowly but steadily in there... 
In particular, we have a Borlotti Bean plant, who had two accidents so far: when still in the small pot inside the house, my son by accident "sat" on it. The plant was folded in two... I managed to help it up again with some Sellotape and a wooden stick. A few days later, when it was recovering from the first hit, a friend's child broke the upper part... Again, Sellotape came to the rescue... I looked at my plant a bit sad and made sure the child didn't feel bad about it. Well, I have to say it is the first bean plant to grow flowers!!! I have been rewarded already, even if those flowers for one reason or the other will not turn into beans :)


I've been thinking a lot about pre-packed things lately. Mostly because we'll celebrate my son's 5th Birthday on Sunday. Awesome! He's 5 already. I can hardly believe it. 


The Birthdays we've been so far, except for two of them, were held in these covered play grounds where there are slides and ball pools. You pay a fee per child, the children get two hours of play (among crowds of other children) then everyone from the party is gathered into a room, the food for the kids is served, the cake is cut, the goodie bags are handed out and you go home. Yes, the kids have great fun. Yes, my son the last time did not stop running and playing for two hours. But...


I hate it. I hate those places. I just have to say it. The Invitation cards are all the same, you just fill in date and time. The cakes are usually bought in the stores by the parents. There is no food for the parents. So you're stuck there with a disgusting coffee for two hours watching your kid going up and down an artificial playground which is usually kept quite cold. I thought the other day: When even a child's Birthday comes pre-packed in a sterile, assembly line-like place, you realize humanity IS doomed.


Maybe it's me. I'm too radical. Maybe. I'm an extremist. Maybe. But...


But the joy I saw in my son's eyes the other day while cutting the red paper to make his invitations... The spark in his eyes when he suggested how to make them look better... It was great. It was worth all the effort. 


His Birthday will be on an Angry Birds theme. He was very interested in the whole preparation of the goodie bags and such... I'll be cooking my butt off, and we'll spend a wonderful afternoon together, everyone will be eating and drinking juice or beer or wine and the house will fill with the kids running up and down and their laughter and I'll be the happiest person in the whole world. 


It's disgraceful that people won't even take the time anymore to prepare a cake for their own children's birthdays... I am making everything myself every year and I love it... Every year the menu is different, every year I'll find a different cake to make. I don't like baking cakes, it's something that never turns out quite the way I expect it. But the joy it brings to place those candles on it :)


I always cook from scratch. I make my own washing powder. I refuse to use bleach in the house. After work I dig in the garden in the effort to make it produce food. We eliminated TV when our son was born. We don't buy ready made food EVER. We shop as little as possible. We don't buy things we don't need. We drive the smallest possible cars as little as possible.


And I often think all we do is for nothing... All our efforts, all our hard work to make this Earth a better place is wasted because one single person will never make the difference...
But... But then I look in my son's eyes and see them lit up when he talks about his plants in the garden, and his crazy love for slugs, worms and centipedes and I see hope and that not all we do is for nothing, all we do is actually for him :)

Peas Blooming

The New Word

It's been a few days since I've posted on the blog. Well, in my defense I can say it's been a busy weekend and it was a busy week at work.


I love this space, because it's mine and mine alone.
As every mother knows, we are always sharing ourselves with our husbands and children. Whenever Mamma says: "I'll just put my feet up for two minutes", maybe while the sauce is already on the stove and you don't need to be watching it anymore, here comes the little one: "Mammy will you help me color Scooby Doo?".
The husband is nowhere to be found, or busy with his own things, so the feet-up-plan goes out the window, and you have to search for the Scooby Doo page first, which is somewhere in the pile of coloring pages printed at school and brought home (on purpose, to fulfill the moments when you wanna just put your feet up for a few minutes), and then get the pencils and then help with the coloring :) 
It doesn't matter, I am really glad to do whatever it takes to make my son happy, even if it means no time for myself anywhere in sight for the next 10 years.
I like being busy, I like working in the home, I like setting an example for my son; nothing falls from the sky, but everything comes from your hard working hands. This is what I was shown as a child and this is what I want to show my son.


Well, to come back to this post's title... I have today, learned a new word! And I love it!!! After living in an English-speaking Country for six years, I did not expect this to strike me the way it did. 
The word is Resilience. I love it! It signifies being able to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions.


We live difficult times, and I believe more difficulties are just around the corner. For all of us, regular working class people. There is a financial crisis that has spread everywhere, our wages do not depend anymore on our abilities but instead depend on a system many of us do not understand. So many persons lost their jobs in the last 4 years(23 million people in Europe are unemployed at present), and things do not seem to be getting any better. At least, the economy is not recovering. 
I believe we have finite resources on the Planet, and this means the economy cannot grow forever. Here is why the word Resilience struck me this morning: we should create, at least in our homes, which is the only space we can control ourselves, a Resilient System. Or at least, as resilient as possible.

This is what our garden looks like at the moment. This is another step I am taking towards resilience. The first step was the stockpile, which is relatively easy. This is a step forward.
Next week we will get a new polytunnel, the one we had "abandoned us" on the 4th of April, torn by a very strong wind. Now we know better, and will install the new tunnel in a different way.


The wooden boxes in the picture contain the vegetables that will not suffer any damage in the event of a frost. Far right are the carrots, then there are oilseed rapes at the back and mixed salad leaves on the front. Next to them, in the back, 4 strawberries plants and on the front, the spinach. On the left, under the plastic box, more salad leaves, parsley and, invisible in the back, 2 artichoke plants. They are my favorites. I can never find artichokes here in Ireland, I'll be soooo happy when I can just eat my own :)


The polytunnel is necessary for beans, pepper and aubergine plants. They are delicate plants and must be in a protected space. And our sitting room does look a bit like a garden centre at the moment, so the tunnel is definitely needed.


In another corner of the garden I have peas plants, those would resist anything! On Sunday I also planted 3 raspberry bushes. Well, they are more raspberries sticks at the moment, but I trust them to become bushes soon.


Saturday was my gardening day, my son was very happy to help me build the wooden boxes and then plant the seeds. He checks every morning on the germination of the seeds we have inside and reminds me to water them. He's a great little boy.


Well, all of this to say that if the worse should happen, and both of us lose our job and we only had the unemployment payments to live on, we would still make it and not go hungry for a long time. We would still be able to pay the mortgage and eat proper food for a long time. Resilience is truly a great word, and it is something that helps me feel safer. There are so many things I cannot control, so many fundamental things, like the stability of our jobs. So what I can control I want to control.


In the meantime, I cook from scratch every single day, I avoid bringing in the house processed foods and things with just too many ingredients on the label to be even considered food. I know is comfortable to shop and I do so with pleasure, but I'm always careful what's inside the nice package.


I think we need to prepare for rainy days all the time. We need to learn from our parents' and grandparents', who fed entire families with very little and just worked very hard all their lives.

Peas and Beans!

This morning, before coming into work, I have collected my peas and beans pots tray from a dear friend. She took care of them while we were away and I have to say, what a nice surprise! In just over 2 weeks, 38 pots have a plant in them. Tonight it's planting time! I can't wait!

My son and his friends in school have also started a vegetable garden with the help of one of the teachers. When he told me he was so happy, his eyes were shining!

Tonight, if the weather stays good, I will be building a small container in the garden, close to the back wall. It is a good sunny spot and I can attach a wire net to the wall where the peas and beans can be tied to, making sure all their potential develops.

We'll see!

Spring is (almost) here...

It was a nice weekend, the one just passed... We stayed home, we didn't even pop in a shop, and we were together. It's the best thing of all. Just being together.

Another achievement in my little life was that I started Apple Vinegar a few weeks ago, and yesterday, while stirring it, I could actually smell vinegar!!! It's so nice! I felt a bit like Tom Hanks in Cast Away: "I MADE FIRE!"

I'll post the pictures and the recipe very soon.

Another good thing is seeing the beans and peas germinating. I bought a tray with 40 tiny pots, filled them with last year's compost and voila'! After only one week, I can already see the first eight plants!!! I showed my son the small miracle of life happening in our kitchen, and he was so pleased. His smile makes all the difference... And I bet he feels just like me about this, because I let him water the pots on Saturday.

Hopefully we will have some good legumes to store for next winter. The beans I planted are Cannellini, the slim white ones, and Borlotti, the red spotted kind. As a child I remember helping my mother shell the Borlotti beans. It was so nice to sit on the verandah and open the beans and never know what colour they would be and just chat away about all kinds of stuff...

On my last day of sick leave from work, last week, I just took some beans from the pack of dried beans I always have in the stockpile and put them in the compost. The peas I planted were purchased for the purpose last year. And they are sprouting anyway. It's easy to do. These kind of plants do quite well in the Irish climate, and last year from just three plants I got all the peas we needed for the winter.

They are easily stored, shelled and frozen in a bag. They are better than the ones I usually buy dried and they do not need to be soaked overnight before cooking.

I can already smell Pasta with Beans!!!

I am THE optimistic one, uh?  :)